If I understand correctly, if I buy a core set and all the 'chapters', I have all the cards in the collection?  Or is it just one copy of each card in the core sets?  New to Game of Thrones so this will all be new to me.  How many core sets and chapters are out?  I guess the core set is the best way to start?

Yes, the CoreSet is the best thing to start with. There is only one coreset but some people wants to have it more times so they can have 3 copies of all cards. In this game every deck can have up to 3 copies of a cards with the same name. Each of the CP contains 10 "normal" cards each 3 times, and 10 "rare" cards each by one copy. So if you would need some of the "rare" cards more time in your deck you would have to buy that CP more times, but there is no need to to buy everything 3 times. Just look on the following website where you can find the list of all available CP and cards in it, then you can decide, what do oyu want to buy. But I reommend a CoreSet (even more than one copy if you have a money for that) and then it varies wit hthe CP, depending what HOuse do you want to play.

www.tzumainn.com/agot

So how the chapters allow other houses to be played?

I believe I read there's six houses and the core comes with four.

You are right there are only 4 Houses in the CoreSet. So that make the other 2 Houses (Greyjoy and Martell) hard to play. They are in CPs as other Houses but they are missing some basic resources and big name characters that wuld be in the CoreSet. So it is kind od hard to build decks with those 2 Houses. Hopefuly we will see some expansion "CoreSet" in the future for those Houses, but nobody knows yet.

But what I meant with the CPs was that if you like for example Stark and you want to play only stark as your main House and spend a lot of money to build a very powerfull deck. You would buy different CPs in different numbers then if you would want to play Lannister for example. Some times in the CP there is more Stark cards in the next one is more Baratheon card etc. Just look on the page I posted above.

I wouldn't say Martell and Greyjoy are hard to play, just that at present they have less in-house cards to work with, putting them at a handicap. It can be overcome -- I am running a Martell LCG only deck, and it has about a 50-60% win rate. Last night I even played a 3-player melee with one guy playing a "standard" Targ deck, and pulled out a win on turn 7. Yes, it is easier to build decks for the four houses in the Core Set, but Martell and Greyjoy can be played, and rather well at times. The addition of Mance Rayder and several other key cards in the last few chapter packs has allowed them to be somewhat competetive, tough you have to run alot of neutrals and some stuff out of house.

JerusalemJones said:

Well, I think that might be the difference, particularly for some of the die-hard GJ and Martell players of old. You certainly can build decks with the GJ and Martell House cards in the LCG environment. They even work pretty well (I had a similar experience to JJs Martell deck with my new Greyjoy LCG-only deck at our last play session; everyone was surprised - especially me). But they do tend to be kinda "grey" with the neutrals you need to run and there aren't as many identifiable "names" from the books. So while you certainly can build and play the Houses, I can see where those Houses just aren't as satisfying, particularly for the GRRM fans (i.e., "Neds") among us.

Being a fairly new player myself id recomend buying 203 coppies of the core set. Youll find that there are alot of very good cards in it, especially for stark and lanister. Getting 2-3 Jaimes, Eddards, Tywins, and Robbs are very useful. The place i play at plays a legacy type deal, and its always interesting to play against the expierenced players with the LCG stuff, as most havent taken a indepth look at it.

Vinter said:

That is gotta be pretty expansive. But if you can spare few thousand dollars

Rozy said:

:P Hehe

I picked up one core set.  I'm still learning the rules.  I won't be buying any just yet but is there a way to find out what chapter pack has what?

Thanks in advance.

The best way to check what cards are in is here: www.tzumainn.com/agot/cards/ and if you like to see the pictures you can go here: www.boardgamegeek.com/images/thing/39953 , where is also listed the number of cards in each CP (three times or once).