My current CCg/LCG obsessions

Again, not a CCG player at all, and only have LCG experience with W:I, but it's an awesome structure. Honestly, in the core box you get four armies with more than enough cards to play the game forever. I like to learn the cards in the decks to help with decision making. It becomes kind of euro-like, and this sense I say that in a good way. We've added more cards from a few expansions, but i don't feel like they're necessary.

For me, the game feels complete with the core set. Anything else is just for the hardcore only.

Yeah, I figure that WH:I is popular because it's a very good stepping stone between boardgames (even euros) and a full on CCG. I can respect that. It's really not meant for me though.

Man, you guys are making me want to get ALL these games (though L5R is at the bottom of the list despite its unique theme).

I don't really have much CCG experience other than Pokemon, and later Magic cards. I relate to Magic cards a lot better because it just feels like if you're going to go full blown nerd - don't try and make it cool so the kids will like it.

There's a meme based on a Talisman games night video my friend and I came up with called "Roll with the troll" - where a guy rolls for his Troll character. It evolved as an in-joke between me and my mate when somebody goes full out nerd - you are either rolling with the troll, or get referred to as a professional troll-roller. My friend regards Magic: The Gathering as for "troll rollers" because they don't care what other people think of them.

I have eight 60 card decks for my Magic cards, all boxed and sleeved. There is one deck that I have which is not 60 cards yet which I have to box and sleeve though. I find even though Magic: The Gathering is expensive to play in a tournament it's barely expensive at all if you want to play casual matches like I do.

The fact I have extra decks to play with makes my friends more willing to play with me once they get past the aforementioned "Troll-roller" meme of fantasy genre games being really nerdy and dorky.

Also, thanks for the heads up on WARS, Aarontu, sounds like it clears up a lot of the problems I had with SWCCG. I think I saw that starter deck and booster box deal and it's still $20. Tempting.

Stormcow wrote:

Warhammer: Invasion, I didn't like so much. There's a lot of heads-down resource management going on, and takes the spotlight from actually going out and interacting with your opponent's cards. Combat works out very simply - I find it lacking in tension because it often just boils down to numerical attrition. The three-zone combat system works out poorly here, since the attacker will often just choose to attack the least defended region - I find that it just reduced the tension instead of adding to it. Having said that, playing out of a single core set is quite reasonable, although you do have to distribute the neutral cards between the four factions somehow.

Well said. It's something that I've been picking up on but hadn't yet fully come around to identifying. I'm not sure if it's entirely inherent to the game though or if it's just due to certain decks and/or relatively inexperienced play styles. For example, I think a corruption based Chaos deck would probably be pretty interactive - I just haven't got to use one yet. It's been mostly just aggressive attack decks, where, yeah, I go after their least defended zone.


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One CCG that deserves some love is Battletech. In it's day (late 90's) it was my favourite game. It's very Magic-ish, but with giant robots instead of elves and faeries. The main difference is that it is just so much more combat-oriented than Magic (which is already pretty combat oriented). In a way, it is a weakness of the game, as it wasn't quite as rich strategically - but when it comes down to it, isn't the best part of any game the fighting?

Johnny wrote:

when it comes down to it, isn't the best part of any game the fighting?

Yes, yes it is.

Johnny wrote:

One CCG that deserves some love is Battletech. In it's day (late 90's) it was my favourite game. It's very Magic-ish, but with giant robots instead of elves and faeries. The main difference is that it is just so much more combat-oriented than Magic (which is already pretty combat oriented). In a way, it is a weakness of the game, as it wasn't quite as rich strategically - but when it comes down to it, isn't the best part of any game the fighting?

Yeah, I recently got a chance to play this and found it very enjoyable.

I tried the Battletech CCG back when it first game out. There were quite a few good CCGs at the time, and I knew that this one was designed by Richard Garfield, so I was expecting a great game. Instead, it seemed like Garfield had run low on ideas, and had assembled a hodgepodge of borrowed ideas from his three other CCGs: Magic, Jyhad and Netrunner. I remember sitting down and playing the game, but nothing else. It didn't suck, but it wasn't at all memorable. As far as I know, Garfield hasn't designed any CCGs since Battletech.

Shellhead wrote:

I tried the Battletech CCG back when it first game out. There were quite a few good CCGs at the time, and I knew that this one was designed by Richard Garfield, so I was expecting a great game. Instead, it seemed like Garfield had run low on ideas, and had assembled a hodgepodge of borrowed ideas from his three other CCGs: Magic, Jyhad and Netrunner. I remember sitting down and playing the game, but nothing else. It didn't suck, but it wasn't at all memorable. As far as I know, Garfield hasn't designed any CCGs since Battletech.

Gotta agree with you, it seemed very derivative, unlike those first three games of his which are all wildly different from each other.

Sadly, I believe Battletech wasn't his last CCG: he also designed a supposedly terrible Star Wars CCG.

dragonstout wrote:

Sadly, I believe Battletech wasn't his last CCG: he also designed a supposedly terrible Star Wars CCG.

Correct, the Star Wars TCG was his last published CCG design. As to it's quality I've heard both good and bad about it, but I haven't played it myself (yet).

I liked it quite a bit, for what that's worth. I'm still a bit surprised it wasn't a complete home run for Wizards, since all of the pieces seemed to be in place (popular license, name-brand designer, smooth gameplay).

Like all CCGs, it got a bit goofy near the end. Every set introduced at least two new mechanics, and the cards often reflected a "one-upsmanship" approach; i.e., a particular set just had to be wilder and crazier than the previous set.

I pretty much stopped playing after the A New Hope set. At that point, I really thought it was a solid, fun game that was edging too close to having too much chrome.