Month: September 2023

September 23 retrospective

Hey everybody,
Well, what a month it has been. I’ve been in a bit of a hobby slump for the month of September, despite it traditionally being one of my more productive times of year. I think what seems to have been one of the factors at play is some level of fatigue, from painting up the Aeldari army over the course of August. I have had a couple of games of 40k, one of which was the largest I’ve ever played, at 3000 points, and I just can’t seem to get my head around the cover and ruins rules. This is most likely a topic for another post, but I think I have been feeling distinctly less-than enthused, and so for the last two weeks I have pretty much stepped back from doing anything with miniatures.

I have been reading Black Library books, and have been playing a couple of games of remote MTG Commander with the Warhammer 40,000 decks, which has been good, but I’m trying to wait it out until I’m actually wanting to come back to the hobby side of everything, rather than forcing it.

However, I did get to paint up some Necron Warriors just before the massive game, and have all but finished the Canoptek Reanimator, so I have done some painting during September! What was supposed to be my festival of 40k has not come to pass, however. 

Instead, I’ve been playing all manner of other games from the archives, and have had a massive re-appreciation for my collection of living card games from Fantasy Flight.

The LCGs from Fantasy Flight have long been among my most favourite games, one of the big reasons being the non-collectible nature of them. However, keeping up with so many of them proved to be exhausting in its own way, and so I did begin to dip out of them around the time things were somewhat stalling for Netrunner and Star Wars, only keeping up with Lord of the Rings because of the co-op/solo aspect.

However, pretty much all these things are now “dead”, and so the market for them has declined quite a bit. Speaking for myself, though, I have seen a real resurgence in interest for each of them, and especially Legend of the Five Rings, which has quickly taken me over. It’s usually hyperbolic to say that people eat and sleep a game, but I have literally not been sleeping because my mind has been thinking about L5R. I have become obsessed in a matter of weeks! It pretty much completely passed me by when it came out, due to the amount of stuff I had going on in my personal life at the time. The game officially ended two years ago, but fortunately, there seems to still be a decent amount of product available right now, with many of the dynasty packs available for pretty good prices. I managed to pick up the entire first cycle for £20, but the others range from about £5 to £15 (which is the RRP anyway). So that does feel pretty good, and I’m not having to quickly try to gobble up what I can, when I can.

I have also fallen back in love with Lord of the Rings, after thinking over how I have been approaching that game for the last few years. I’ve had the same 6-7 decks set up, despite the fact I was still buying the new stuff as it was releasing – I had effectively made the game “dead” for myself because I wasn’t engaging with the new packs, even though I kept buying them! Now, of course, I’m glad I did, because I have a complete game to play and enjoy quite nicely. I have disassembled all of those decks, though, and built a pair of decks that are designed to work together in two-handed solo mode, meaning I can be much more consistent with how I am playing.

Finally, I have discovered the full delights of Project Nisei for Android Netrunner. When that game went away in 2018, the community stepped in to continue the game with fan-made content, and while I don’t really understand the legality of it all, it seems a legitimate thing that people are just printing out decks to play this game with. FFG no longer have the licence to make it, and last year Wizards filed for abandonment of the copyright, so it seems to be fair game? I don’t know. However, I have now got files with the entirety of the game’s run under FFG ready to get printed and then I can see about rekindling those gaming dreams! Long time readers of the blog will know I’ve been waxing lyrical about this game for a while already (even longer-time readers may remember the days when I was playing in store championships…) It’ll definitely be good to try to get back into this one, I think.

So September has pretty much been all about the card games, with a lot of games being had between everything. In terms of my 10×10 gaming challenge, I find it interesting that we are now three-quarters of the way through 2023, and I have actually hit 75% of the 10 games being played! So I do remain right on the mark, in terms of those numbers. However, I don’t honestly see myself completing it all by year’s end, as I have been really struggling to get in the mood lately to play some of them. I suppose we’ll see, though!

More thoughts on LCGs

Hey everybody,
I recently wrote a little bit about getting into the Legend of the Five Rings LCG, which is one of the competitive living card games from Fantasy Flight that has been dormant now for around 2 years, and I have a bit of a confession to make. I also bought the first cycle of Dynasty packs for the game. The main reason for doing this was that I could get all six packs for £20, which is a £70 saving from the retail price, but also I did like the idea of having a big injection of cards for the game to deckbuild with from the off.

Doing so, and going through the cards upon arrival to see what I had etc, it got me thinking about a couple of things that I like about these games, and so I thought I’d come here today and ramble on about this for a bit!

Thing number one that I like about living card games, and specifically the competitive LCGs, is the churn of new cards that allows you to change up your deck from month to month (or, as was the case with this particular cycle for L5R, week to week). Of course, I’ve bought them in one go, so I don’t really get that, but it reminded me of the times when I’d get a new Netrunner pack, or a new Warhammer Invasion pack, and would be checking through the cards to see how they would impact on my current deck(s). This isn’t something that you really get with the cooperative LCGs, as they tend to tell a story (Arkham Horror, Lord of the Rings), or are a complete entity unto themselves (Marvel Champions). With these Dynasty packs (or battle packs, chapter packs, asylum packs, data packs…) you might only get 2 cards (in triplicate) for your chosen faction, and so part of the fun comes from whether you want to try those in your deck. But then there’s the fact you can see how the faction you usually play against could change, if they have those new cards as well. Or you might get an idea for a new faction deck based on the new cards… It definitely kept things fresh, and I loved it.

Thing number two is more of how these cycles appear to be designed. With pretty much all of the competitive LCGs, you can see a clear path for the way the game grew out from the core set, as each cycle builds on the initial box. Something that struck me particularly with L5R, and put me in mind of Netrunner’s growth, is how the initial cycle doesn’t really deviate that much from the core tenets of the game. It’s more options, that serve to complement how your chosen faction is already working, and nothing really breaks the game. 

With L5R, we see there are new card types which are represented by traits, not rules per se, and a theme emerges from having cards with those traits. And that’s pretty much as far as it goes for the first cycle. It’s just more cards to play with. 

I think this could possibly be said to be due to the fact that the core set is usually a taster experience for the game, and it’s interesting to see how this evolved over time with FFG. Core sets differed widely in how they distributed cards, so Netrunner had cards with one, two or three copies, whereas L5R has a single copy of everything. The first cycle for Netrunner was therefore a proportionately bigger injection of cards into the pool, whereas L5R served to supplement the core set, adding about half as much again new cards. I have no real idea if this was the actual idea behind the design, but it feels like the first cycle is in general an extension of the core set and the game’s core principles.  

However, new rules will eventually creep in, and Netrunner actually did this in the second cycle, with the Double keyword. It basically meant you need to spend twice as many clicks to play a Double card, naturally enough, but you’d get a fairly powerful effect. It changes the game slightly, but it isn’t anything that you’re going to need to reference a rules sheet for now that I’ve given you that explanation. The game still plays very much as you know it does, and you get broadly a lot more cards to add into the pool to play with.

The danger with these sorts of things is how further expansions tend to deviate from what the game fundamentally is, and rules are broken that can sometimes lead to you getting a very different experience. Plenty of games have lost sight of the original game experience, and later cycles for games like Netrunner introduced cards that allowed you to do things so far removed from what the core principles used to be, unfortunately.

However, I would always argue that a living card game is at its best when it only has those first two cycles to play with – and of course, the core set. There seems to be something really quite delightful about playing with a small card pool, and I think this is something that perhaps these sorts of games didn’t really understand at first. Netrunner eventually introduced rotation with something like six full cycles, and four deluxe expansions of content in circulation. A Game of Thrones had the ungodly amount of six deluxe expansions and twelve cycles of six packs each, and never had a rotation, so aside from the odd card on the banned or restricted list, everything was legal to play. No wonder these things could be difficult to get into!

My own journey with L5R is very likely going to be limited, due to the amount of cards left out there in the wild. The core set I have was used, and incomplete, but I have a second on the way that I believe is complete. I have the first cycle, as I said, so there are definitely a few options open to me for playing this game. I think I’m going to try to get a few more packs in the fullness of time, as well, because I have fallen utterly in love with L5R, and despite it being a “dead” game, I am really looking forward to playing it for years to come!

Legend of the Five Rings: the card game

Hey everybody,
As I mentioned in a recent blog, I have decided to get into the Legend of the Five Rings LCG from Fantasy Flight, a game first published in 2017 and which officially ended in 2021. During that time, the game went through five cycles and three deluxe expansions, as well as a series of clan packs which enhanced the options for each of the seven clans that are featured in the game (though those packs aren’t a cycle, per se). The game came out at a time when FFG had been making Living Card Games for a number of years, and so they began to experiment a little bit with their stable. For L5R, we had the first two cycles come out in six weeks each, rather than the traditional six months, which was sold as a decision to enlarge the card pool prior to the first organised play events for the game. L5R is a reimplementation of a long-standing CCG, however, and I think part of that decision may have been to tempt new players in from the older game by giving them a wider selection of cards than the usual game, because it was trying to appeal to a slightly more specific demographic.

It’s also interesting that they chose to not expand with traditional deluxe boxes that feature one clan, or a pair of clans in opposition, as we have seen for factions within previous card games. Rather, the clans get a larger pack (somewhat akin to the scenario packs for Marvel Champions in terms of card numbers) which came out on a random schedule, while the deluxe expansions (here called “premium sets” – a throwback to the CCG, maybe?) were much more themed.

L5R was the last competitive LCG that Fantasy Flight produced – at least, at the time I’m writing this blog! They have since moved to the CCG model for games like Star Wars Unlimited, which makes me wonder if FFG have abandoned their brainchild altogether, which is a bit of a shame. One of the things that I used to love about the old games like Warhammer Invasion, and Android Netrunner, was getting a new pack and altering up my deck to test out the new cards; this isn’t the same with games like Arkham Horror or Marvel Champions, and I think is perhaps part of what has got me into this game. Even though the game is dead, with no new content coming out, there is an element of chasing card packs, which will then offer new deckbuilding options as and when I get them. 

My buddy Tony is a big fan of the world of Rokugan (he is really into Japanese culture, for real), and so he has the game though has never played it. So I definitely have an outlet for playing there as well. Part of me hopes that I can still find some games out in the wild, as well, but that might be a more long-term project to work on.

As mentioned before, there are seven clans that are fighting for dominance in the pseudo-Japanese world of Rokugan. Each clan has a distinct personality and playstyle, and I think the overall feel of this side of the game is similar to A Game of Thrones, in the way that gameplay isn’t simply a military brawl, but the battle exists on a couple of fronts. I have to say this up front: the game feels like nothing I have ever played before, and I think it is absolutely incredible as a result.

The players have five province cards arranged in front of them face-down, with the left-most province having the clan Stronghold placed on top. The other four are populated by cards from the Dynasty deck, one of two decks you need to build for the game. This deck is almost entirely made up of character cards. Your hand comes from the conflict deck, on the right.

L5R

The game round is structured over five phases. To begin, the Dynasty phase allows you to collect fate and then play cards from your provinces. Next, you draw cards based on an “honour bid”, whereby you select a number on your dial to represent how many cards you wish to draw from your conflict deck. If you bid over your opponent, however, you have to give your opponent the difference in honour from your pool (if the numbers are tied, no honour is exchanged). You then draw the cards.

The conflict phase is the meat of the game. Each player can declare two conflicts, one military and one political. These conflicts are against one of the provinces controlled by the opposing player. They also choose one of the five rings of earth, air, water, fire or void, which will have a benefit based on whether the challenge is successful. To resolve a conflict, a player declares any number of attackers from their home zone, and pushes them forward. The defending player can then declare defenders, and then strengths of each participating fighter are compared to determine the victor. It’s all very straightforward, but of course this is also where you can play cards from your hand, so you can play events or attachments, or even flash in new characters to take part. 

The object of the game, of course, is to break three provinces that your opponent controls, which will allow you to then break your opponent’s stronghold for the win. If the conflict is successful and the total attack strength is equal to or greater than the province’s strength, then the province is broken. Broken provinces can still have dynasty cards played into them, but they don’t contribute their effects for the rest of the game.

Regardless of whether the province was broken or not, if the conflict was successful the attacking player can choose to resolve the effect of the ring being used – such as drawing cards (for earth) or readying characters (for water). Interestingly, unclaimed rings can accumulate fate tokens, so in later turns you can gain bonus income from going for one of these rings, which can be helpful if you need the cash.

Even more interestingly, once all of the conflicts have been resolved, all characters are discarded from play, unless they had any fate tokens placed on them when they were initially played. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a game like this before, where your guys are literally only out for a single round unless you invest in keeping them out longer.

The final phase is a bit of cleanup, where all the claimed rings go back in the central reserve, and characters are readied, etc. Then you proceed to the next round, and you go again!

I think this is one of those games that is almost deceptively simple, when you have the basic structure laid out in front of you. Don’t get me wrong, even that basic structure has got a lot going on, but there is somehow a lot to take account of when you have the cards in your hand, and you’re trying to figure out what to do with them. I mentioned the win condition of breaking strongholds via breaking provinces, but there is also the chance that you can reduce your opponent to 0 honour somehow, which will allow you to win – or that you can get to 25 honour as well. These multiple paths to victory, as well as the multiple moving parts of each of the challenges, and so forth – there’s just a lot going on, so there is plenty of meat on these here bones!

One of the most important factors for me, however, is that this is the type of game that I think can be played where you don’t need to rush. One of my few gripes about the Star Wars LCG is how you’ve got that 12-turn clock where, if you’re playing as the Light Side, you simply have to be on the offensive right from the start, and you cannot afford to take much time to build up your board. There’s probably no turn that you can have off from the game, whereas the Dark Side can just sit back and do nothing, to a large degree, letting the dial tick up. It obviously pays to blow up objectives and to keep the Balance of the Force, but in theory you just need to wait.

Quite a few LCGs have that sort of feel to them, as well. Netrunner puts the Runner on the offensive as you can’t let the Corp build up their servers and ICE; Conquest sees the first planet disappear each round, regardless of whether anybody won it or not. I think it’s nice to have some kind of clock, as we’ve all seen the sorts of durdling around that can happen in a game like Arkham Horror (2nd edition) where the game could potentially take all night to play – which can be a good thing, but can also be bad – but I don’t like to feel like I’m being rushed, as well. I think, if you and your opponent are both of a mindset where you’re going to play the best game you can, but you’re not rushing to beat the other person into the ground, then L5R is the perfect game.

L5R

Indeed, it’s not so much a game as it is an experience, as you get to play around in Rokugan and really forget about everything else. I mentioned earlier the hope that I could possibly get some games in local stores or something, which perhaps isn’t conducive to this type of game, but even so, I am choosing to be positive about this game. It has taken me by surprise, if I’m being honest, just how much I have fallen in love with this game, and I am extremely impressed with it overall.

Game Day: Lord of the Rings

Hey everybody,
Yesterday I had an excellent time with Lord of the Rings LCG, getting in two games in my ongoing journey through the Mirkwood cycle. I have talked recently about the changes that I have made to my decks, getting rid of all the others and then almost completely overhauling two of them, with the aim of getting two decks that function well with each other, but let’s just quickly go over that again.

Deck one has got the original, core set Aragorn, along with Dúnhere and Glorfindel, so is very much spirit-focused as it tries to get a lot of cancel and threat-reduction effects. Deck two has Legolas, Elladan and Argalad, and is predominantly aggressive but with some lore healing effects in the mix. Argalad was a new addition as well, I have never heard of him or played with him before – he is an original hero created for the Dreamchaser cycle of the game back in 2015.

I have to say, this change has been absolutely amazing, and I have really enjoyed playing with these decks over the last couple of weeks. Having dual-sphere decks is such an improvement in terms of consistency, as opposed to trying to make everything work in tri-sphere decks. They also complement each other really well, predominantly deck two helping out deck one with attachments like Spear of the Mark to give Dúnhere +2 attack when attacking into the staging area, and Asfaloth for Glorfindel to place progress on locations. Of course, Deck one has Unexpected Courage, Favour of the Lady and Light of Valinor that all have benefits for the companion deck, and also Elrohir is in that deck to bolster his twin, but the important thing is how they are able to work together really quite beautifully.

Lord of the Rings

I played A Journey to Rhosgobel for the first time in a long time, and really enjoyed it, despite the evil nature of some of those treachery cards coming out of the encounter deck. I’d forgotten just how bad it could be, if I’m honest! However, for the first time ever, I was able to find all four Athelas plants in the encounter deck, so when it came time to finally flip to the third stage, I was able to win quickly because Wilyador was healed for the full amount. Splendid!

Lord of the Rings
Lord of the Rings

Next up is a personal favourite, The Hills of Emyn Muil. This one gets a lot of flack in the community for being so boring, but I really like it for the sense of exploration it affords. All you’re trying to do is explore all the Emyn Muil locations in play, and get to 20 victory points while doing so. However, the amount of treachery cards that deal damage to exhausted characters, or remove progress and return locations to the staging area, plus the amount of locations I was turning over, meant that I actually got to 30 VP before I was able to clear the staging area and claim a victory!

Lord of the Rings

The decks aren’t super powerful, I don’t think. They still use predominantly core set and early game cards, with just a few from later in the game’s history peppered in there to add some interest and whatnot. I think it’s interesting to play these scenarios with the sort of decks I used to play all the time, but the difference now being I have a pair of them. For years, I was playing “true solo” without really knowing what that meant, so it was a struggle as I tried to cover all my bases from a single deck, and I think this is partly what had prompted me to sour a little on the game as it went along. But the game is playtested in alpha for 2 players, so everything is designed with the assumption that you have two decks out, and in particular, that between those two decks you have all four spheres present. Seeing it now, with all of the tricks available to me, it makes so much more sense, and I can’t tell you just how happy I am to be playing this game again like this!

Two scenarios to go, though, then I’ll be dismantling these decks in favour of my next build. I’m intending to play through the Dwarrowdelf cycle, so that means dwarves. I’m sure that many of the staple cards will make it through, of course, but the amount of cards that are specific to these heroes will likely mean the decks will look very difficult when it comes time to delve too deep…

40k short story three-fer!

Time to catch up on some reviews, methinks…

The Torturer’s Tale

This is a short story by Gav Thorpe from 2001, I believe, that essentially gives the history of the Drukhari, as Vect talks to an imprisoned slave. We get an overview of the old Eldar pleasure cults, and the birth of Slaanesh, which prompted many of the dark kin to seek refuge in the Webway after their cousins had already fled in their Craftworlds. It’s a bit odd, because it’s dressed up as an interview with a prisoner, but it seems really to just be a vehicle for an info-dump about the history of the dark kin. It’s not to say that it wasn’t enjoyable, of course, I just felt like it was a bit… well, pointless.

However, it does make me think about how the lore sections of codexes could be presented, with stories such as these, rather than bland text.

Rise

This slightly longer story, by Ben Counter, follows Skanis as he wakes up on the haemonculus slab with a fresh pair of Scourge wings attached to his back. He makes his way through the city of Commorragh, clashing with kabal lords and mandrake hunting packs as he attempts to scale to the top of a spire, from whence he can soar like he has always dreamed of doing. However, no sooner does he get in the air than he is attacked by a flock of razorwings. His wings destroyed, he falls back to the surface, for his corpse to be picked over by the same haemonculus.

A fun little short, it’s definitely in that same sort of trap as a lot of 40k short fiction, which offers us a “slice of life” style look at some particular aspect of the lore without really giving us anything of note. There are so many like this, though, I wish 40k could follow the example of some of the Star Wars short stories that exist from the mid-2000s, which give us some really decent action that ties in really nicely to the overall narrative. I suppose with 40k, the narrative is so spare anyway that things can be hung on it without creating any kind of impact.

Severed

Part of the 40k novella series, Severed is a story of Vargard Obyron and his master, the Nemesor Zahndrekh, as they prosecute a war against an old crownworld on behalf of Imotekh the Stormlord. Initially, I wasn’t a fan of this one, because the Necrons had personalities like ordinary folks, and Zahndrekh in particular is written like some kind of bluff old English general from the Boer War or something. It took me a while to get into because I couldn’t help thinking, “this isn’t how Necrons are supposed to act”. However, once I had pretty much let that wash over me and let the story take hold, so to speak, it wasn’t all that bad.

The crownworld of Doaht is attacked by Zahndrekh and his fellow nemesor, Setekh, who understands Zahndrekh has gone mad and so attempts to manipulate Obyron into killing his master to claim the leadership of the Gidrim Necrons. Zahndrekh has led battles against Orks and Space Marines on behalf of Imotekh in the past, thinking they are other dynasties that need to be brought to heel, however the sight of actual Necrons, in robotic bodies, seems to unsettle him too much. Just when Obyron begins to think Setekh might be right, however, Zahndrekh recovers himself and leads a covert strike to the heart of the Doaht crownworld’s autonomic systems, however Setekh is also able to follow them, and a fight ensues. Obyron has the ability to increase his strength and power, however it comes at the expense of losing a little bit of his sense of self. In the ultimate act of sacrifice, therefore, he is able to destroy Setekh by essentially frying his brain, wiping out a lot of his knowledge of who he is, and why he serves Zahndrekh. 

It actually becomes a really interesting story along the way, but as with many things like this, it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Obyron knows what happened during the biotransference and all the rest of it, but why does he have these very robotic abilities? Are they common to all vargards? He woke a long time before the rest of his tombworld, so understands their workings to a degree, but did he upgrade himself during this time? He seems to have come through the great sleep pretty much intact of mind, so why aren’t more Necrons like him? The number of sane Necron overlords and other rulers seems vanishingly small in the stories we’ve had so far, so I would love to see more stories where the Necrons are written as being better – though I guess they could be too powerful, given their advanced technology, so need this madness to stop them taking over the galaxy.

My only other criticism is why the cover features a generic Lychguard, and not Obyron himself. For reference, that is Obyron, in the foreground, above. But maybe that’s just me being a picky Necron fan. Otherwise, it was a solid 3 stars.

A new game!

All this recent talk of living card games has prompted me to investigate the only LCG I didn’t play, Legend of the Five Rings. In doing so, I’ve become enamoured, and so have picked up a set. The only problem is, it isn’t really the core set. Despite being sold as “new”, it was clearly in used condition, not coming with all the cards. That said, it does have full play sets of cards for three of the seven clans, so it’s quite useful in its way!

I’m very excited to have this, even though it’s now a dead game and all. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all works, and I’m sure there will be plenty more posts to come as I do so!!

Star Wars LCG reflections

Hey everybody,
I’ve had a bit of a flurry of activity lately with the old Star Wars LCG, and even though I’ve essentially been playing games against myself in order to get my head around the rules again, it has been just so lovely to be back in this world of the card game. It’s one of my all-time favourite games, and yet I haven’t played it anywhere near as often as I would have liked due to the fact it never really took off in my local area. Having pretty much a complete collection now, it’s nice to be able to dip into it almost like a board game, and build decks to see “what would happen” and the like.

The other day, I talked about how much I love this game, and yet how every time I have played it has been a case of rushing through things to do as much objective damage as possible. As part of my quest to “get better” at my understanding of the game, then, I was doing a bit of youtube research and came across a 5-hour livestream from 2020 by Team Covenant, where Zach and Steve were playing these kinds of older games during the lockdowns. Zach was one of the top-rated players of the game, I believe, and remember seeing his name attached to Star Wars whenever the organised play events were being talked about.

It was fascinating to listen to the two of these guys talk about the game, particularly its history and development, but also talking about high-level play. One of the things that makes Star Wars LCG so interesting is the amount of hidden information but, for a good player who knows the card pool well, seeing an objective set will let you know five cards in your opponent’s deck; when you see the three objectives and then they play cards not from those sets, you can potentially “see” half of your opponent’s deck on the first turn. This becomes super important when it comes to the bluffing aspect of edge battles, when you need to work out if there’s a possibility that they may be holding a Twist of Fate to re-start that edge battle.

I found it really interesting though, when they were talking about how abstract the game is, and whether that was a reason for its ultimate failure to catch on. Despite the support it had from FFG during the first few years of its life, unfortunately it never seemed to be a top-tier game that you’d see as often as Netrunner. I think I had originally thought this was to do with the negativity that came from the objective-based deckbuilding mechanic, but I do also remember a lot of comments comparing it to the beloved CCG from Decipher.

However, the fact that this game is really quite bizarre, and does take some time to “click”, is possibly one of the reasons why it didn’t do so well. Zach sums it up in the video by saying it’s a card gamer’s game, and not necessarily a Star Wars fan’s game, or even a more general gamer’s game. Combat especially is weird, because you’re not really dealing damage per se – Luke Skywalker has the ability to deal two damage to a unit and one damage to an objective (two if the Jedi won the edge battle), but trying to figure out what that means when you talk about Luke going against an objective, and not directly fighting Vader, can lead to a certain degree of dissonance.

Star Wars LCG

Personally, I had never really considered it before. I knew it to be a bit weird, don’t get me wrong, but I have always quickly got into the idea of the Light Side using x or y character to attack a specific objective, and the Dark Side having to defend the objective. Obviously, that’s where rules like Targeted Strike come in, as you can use some characters to specifically target other characters, but the game is representative of the struggle between the Light and the Dark, and you use characters to represent that struggle in the abstract. 

What I find really fascinating is how this seems to be a hold-over from the older, co-op design of the card game, where you could declare that characters were working in the shadows or whatever. It’s not that Luke is really taking a swing with his lightsaber at the Executor, but rather that he’s using his tactical skill to sabotage it in some way, like when he throws a thermal detonator into an AT-AT. Other Star Wars games have often struggled with this as well, and I think the TCG from Wizards was probably the most straightforward by making the game an area-control thing with those Arenas.

I thought it was really interesting to note how the Hoth cycle was also designed for the co-op version of the game, and the delays around this coming were mainly due to the re-design for the head to head version. It makes sense, when you think the cycle tries to tell the story of the Imperials landing, and the Rebels mounting their defence before then fleeing. That would have made more sense if it was a narrative cycle along the lines of Lord of the Rings, which I suppose is the closest analogue for the time. But the fan backlash from not being able to play as the Dark Side seems to have been the biggest problem that caused this re-design for head to head, and so caused issues with delays etc.

One of the reasons why I’ve been wanting to play this game again in its correct form is to re-familiarise myself with the mechanics before I attempt some of the solo variants for the game that exist. I’ve actually noticed that there are youtube videos that showcase at least one of these solo variants, as well, so hopefully going forward I can investigate them some more and play a better version of the game than me trying to bluff myself!

I do love this game, though, and it is really sad that I never got to play it more back in the day.

Living Card Games, thinking back

Hey everybody,
I seem to have taken a surprising pivot this month, as I have been exploring more of my gaming past by reflecting a lot on the living card games from Fantasy Flight. FFG only publish two such games now, Marvel Champions and Arkham Horror, although Lord of the Rings is in a bit of a weird spot because they’re also reprinting that so it’s still sorta on the books, but it hasn’t had any new content for years.

Marvel Champions

Back in the day, though, I think I was all about FFG’s card games. I think it all started with A Game of Thrones LCG, which they had originally published as a trading card game. This and Call of Cthulhu were both altered to the living card game model way back in 2008. It wasn’t long after they started with Warhammer Invasion, and these older games originally followed a path whereby they would have monthly packs of set cards (no more blind-buy boosters), but they still kept some form of rarity/collectible format, with packs having full playsets of most cards, but only one copy of some other cards. I think Cthulhu and Thrones had two full cycles of this, whereas Warhammer only had one. Later, FFG would go on to re-publish the Thrones cards as 60 card packs, whereas Cthulhu only had a print-on-demand version.

FFG really shook the format up in 2011 with Lord of the Rings, which was a co-operative LCG. Each monthly pack came with some player cards, but offered a new scenario for you to go up against. It was wild, and it was really the game that cemented my love of card games over board games at this time, I think. I began to sink heavily into these things.

Android Netrunner

2012 brought us Android Netrunner and Star Wars, then 2014 replaced Warhammer Invasion with Warhammer 40,000 Conquest. Call of Cthulhu ended production in 2015, while Game of Thrones moved to a second edition at this time. Arkham Horror became the second co-op LCG in 2016, then Legend of the Five Rings moved to FFG and their LCG format in 2017. However, things also began to wind down around this time, starting with Conquest. Star Wars ended production in 2018, as did Netrunner, while Legend of the Five Rings hung on until 2021. In the meantime, Marvel Champions was launched as the third co-op LCG in 2019, and while Game of Thrones hasn’t officially ended, as far as I can tell, no new content has come out for it for the last four years.

Lord of the Rings

All of that history goes to show what a wild time the 2010s were for gamers, with so many games coming out and ending within the decade! During this time, of course, these games were getting serious support, with huge organised play events and world championship tournaments being held at GenCon and the like. I never got into that side of things, really, though I did play in a Netrunner and a Conquest tournament, back in the day!

One of the things I’ve found that I miss a lot recently is getting new packs monthly, and changing up my decks as a result. This was probably most readily apparent with the competitive LCGs, as things would shift monthly for me. I can remember buying battle packs for Warhammer Invasion as they’d come out, and getting to play an ever-changing deck as a result. New packs and deluxe expansions would come out for Netrunner, and would shift how I would play the game – sometimes making me want to explore whole different factions. It was such a vibrant time to be gaming!

It’s sad to see games like Star Wars and Netrunner die, I think the latter in particular took the fanbase by surprise. Netrunner was originally produced by Wizards of the Coast back in the 90s, and was designed by the illustrious Richard Garfield (of Magic fame), and even though that game had come and gone, it had a huge fanbase at the time so when the game was re-themed into the Android universe, it became a huge hit. I think it was also the first real break-out game FFG had; their others were big, of course, but with Netrunner I think a lot of TCG players came into the camp, and certainly the core set was sold out about as much as it was available, especially in the first year.

Star Wars LCG

Apart from Legend of the Five Rings, I played all of these games. They were all pretty different, so it’s difficult to say that I preferred one over another. When I think back to those crazy days, though, I suppose I was least excited by Call of Cthulhu and Game of Thrones, as I felt like I never really played them enough to really get into the tactics and strategy of it all. I played Cthulhu 9 times, and Thrones 16 times, according to my stats on boardgamegeek, and while I think I wanted to like them both, they were competing with much better games for me. 

In contrast, I’ve played Warhammer Invasion 69 times, and I do think that, out of all of the 1v1 games I was playing at this time, it’s the one that I would have said was my favourite. I don’t get the chance to play games with Tony anywhere near as much since we both moved away, but when we had the opportunity last year to get a games day arranged, I think it’s telling that Warhammer Invasion was top of my priority list to get played!

Warhammer: Invasion

Warhammer 40,000 Conquest is a very interesting beast, and I have really enjoyed getting to play it again recently – even though I have been playing the game against myself in an effort to understand the rules and the flow of the game. It resembles Cthulhu a lot, in that you’re fighting for control of a central row of cards, but the theme and flavour of the 40k universe is beautifully done. It’s something that never really took off, though, and part of me wonders if that might have been due to the fact that it was competing with a lot of other great games that were out at this time.

I’ve also been playing a lot of Star Wars with myself to try to recapture the feel of the game, though of course it’s not the same! I’ve talked about this game so much here on the blog, and will continue to do so as I just love it so much. Star Wars and Conquest both have solo variants that I want to try out soon, hence playing them against myself first to remember the core rules.

Android Netrunner

But Netrunner. Oh, man, Netrunner. What a game! I think it’s quite clear, really, that FFG had bottled lightning with this game. The original idea of the game was refined into the LCG, and the setting was a glorious rehash of a lot of classic cyberpunk ideas… As far as card games go, I think it’s in a class of its own. In many respects, it beats out Magic for me as being the greatest card game. Of course, Magic has the massive pedigree and everything, and remains something of the pinnacle of 1v1 design. But when you compare it with Netrunner, Magic can feel quite bland. Even playing something like Azorius Control doesn’t have the same kind of mind-games that Netrunner has.

I think Netrunner is always going to be one of those games that I keep up on that pedestal. Star Wars is not too far behind it, I have to say – probably tied with Warhammer Invasion, really. Then we’ve got the others, Conquest, Thrones and Cthulhu. 

So much about gaming in general depends on your group, and having resorted to playing casual games at the local game store in order to pick up some Conquest and Star Wars, I can say wholeheartedly that I much prefer the closed environment of Netrunner with Tony – he’s an incredible player, and I hate and love playing him because of it! I played Netrunner a total of 31 times, and definitely lost more than I won, but every time it was a great experience, regardless of victory.

Warhammer 40,000 Conquest

It’s a shame, then, that Tony never really got into Star Wars. I really wish that there had been that same feeling for Netrunner as for Star Wars – they are both asymmetric games, and they both have a very different feel to the normal sort of card games that were out at the time. It’s just so annoying that one didn’t do as well as the other, when all was said and done!

Starting over in Middle Earth

As the Autumn well and truly asserts itself here, I’ve already been reminiscing about my 40k love, but recently I’ve noticed that I’m really getting back into card games. Pretty much since the bank holiday, I’ve been leaning perhaps more towards board and card games than 40k, but over the last week in particular, I’ve become heavily interested in the living card games from Fantasy Flight once more.

Last week happened to be my 12th anniversary playing Lord of the Rings LCG, though, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the original game that got me into all this once again. I have been off-and-on playing this game for about two years now, with a small rotation of about 6-7 decks that I haven’t really altered for at least a year. There was an element of stagnation there, I think, which in turn wasn’t really inspiring me to play the game very often. With a 50-card deck, there is a degree of random that will mean you’ll never get the exact same cards game after game, but I’ve seen these decks to know what I’m in for.

It’s odd, isn’t it – having these decks set up and ready for convenience, in the hope that I would play more often, has worked against me!

As I said in that last post, then, I’ve disassembled all of my decks, but the two that I had played the last game with, Elladan and Aragorn, I have adjusted to work better (?) together.

I think I talked about this last time, too: based on years of playing this game with a single deck, I’ve become pretty much conditioned to build and play tri-sphere decks. However, I’ve been playing two-handed solo and, despite an initial attempt, I’ve not previously made any move to switch things to dual sphere. Until now!!

Doing this has come with its own hassle, though. Even though these decks are intended to be played together, there were some cards that just wouldn’t work in the new configuration. However, I’ve also taken the opportunity to make some changes, trying to switch some things up and trying to generally make them feel different.

As it stands right now, I’m really excited by this, and I’m looking forward to getting more games in with these new old decks soon! My plan is to play the Mirkwood cycle before Christmas, then I want to completely change the decks before I play my next games. I’m particularly interested in trying out some more Hobbit builds, and maybe trying to get some fellowship-feel with a greater variety of character types. We shall see, anyway!!

12 Years with Lord of the Rings!

Hey everybody,
Today marks 12 years since I first played Lord of the Rings LCG, and I couldn’t let that occasion slide without breaking out some decks and once more going through A Passage through Mirkwood! This was a great experience – I was using some of my favourite heroes in decks that are pretty much “good stuff” tried-and-tested, but even so, it wasn’t a walk in the park. I thought it was very interesting how the training scenario for the game can still prove to be difficult if you don’t have the willpower to break a location lock, and so on. Legolas proved to be key, as usual, by killing enemies no matter who they were engaging, and a couple of early Unexpected Courage plays allowed me to get double duty out of Faramir and Aragorn. That last was potentially a mis-play, given how he can pay to ready anyway, but I did prefer the flexibility overall. A turn one Light of Valinor on Glorfindel was the absolute dream, and a later Light draw played on Elladan made sure I was able to quest pretty consistently well.

It wasn’t difficult, and it wasn’t easy – it was a good experience, all told, and has put me in such a good mood for more games with Lord of the Rings LCG now! I think I’m going to do my best to play through the Mirkwood cycle by the end of the year, anyway. 

Lord of the Rings is a great game, and for many years I considered it my all-time favourite game. I think this is because I have had so many amazing games, using my favourite cards to build decks that were enjoyable and narrative to play through. I came unstuck when The Watcher in the Water came out, however, and while I never lost interest (continuing to collect everything for the game), I found myself playing less and less, especially of the newer cycles. I think I’ve played the Mirkwood cycle about a dozen times now, yet I still have at least two later cycles that I have never even attempted once for the game.

I think, though, that part of the issue for me was that I kept my decks set up. Something that could take on The Dead Marshes without too much trouble was not up to the task of The Dunland Trap, and so I continued to play the Mirkwood and Dwarrowdelf cycles without really exploring more of what the game has to offer. In recent years, I have tried to change this, getting pretty far with both the Angmar Awakened and Vengeance of Mordor cycles, but I haven’t really been all that excited to play. Considering I had put the game on my 10×10 challenge, and had made it to 10 plays in April, I think I was very much playing it to get my numbers up, and not because I wanted to do so.

However, I have been thinking quite a bit about cracking open my decks once again, and playing the first scenario once more has definitely put me in the mood once again for checking out this amazing game!

I’ve thought quite a bit about last year’s post, about house rules for this game, and I had been pondering something recently when I was thinking about all of the co-op LCGs, the annoying need to get a resource match for cards. I talked about this last year as well, in my deckbuilding post.

However, I have now decided to be a bit radical, and after that 12th anniversary celebration game, I have disassembled all of my decks, and have decided to start again. Two decks for two-handed play, but dual-sphere. I think this will allow for greater consistency, but having them built to pair together should mean they still play well. I’ve tried to re-arrange a couple of my tri-sphere decks into dual-sphere, but it never seemed to work. Going from the ground up should give me a better chance, though, I’m thinking, so we shall see!