Mighty Jim said:

It seems to me that there would be ample buyers of such a cards only core set expansion, to bring up copies of all 3 players cards to 3, for any and all of the current LCGS?

Perhaps though if the only alternative is for players to buy multiple copies of the (more expensive) core set, the lack of such an expansion isn't totally surprising...

There was only a few cards I wanted 3 of in AGoT, I just bought them in singles on ebay. One of the players on the AGoT board bought extra core sets and sold them as singles on ebay.

As for LotR, I think with the difference in game play and style it will be less of an issue. And sharing with friends who also own a core set would make it even easier since the game is cooperative either they will be using the extra card you wanted/needed to have or they can lend it to you for that game.

Yer, the point being though if FFG have ruled that for tournament decks a maximum of 3 cards of any particular card can be in the deck, there should really be a realitvely simple and cost effective way for people to get 3 of each card that doesn't involve them buying multiple copies of core sets ending up with unneccessary duplicates, borrowing from friends etc.

They really improved this with the LCG format, compared to the CCG format (and even the LCG format was improved with later expansion packs always being duplicates of 3, rather than the set up of some of the earlier epxansino for CoC, for instance), and they have got their expansion packs just right now so that there is "no waste" but they still haven't come up with a practical way for players to get 3 cards from the core set without waste (or the need to sell waste on e-bay).

I can see that the game can be enjoyed without having 3 duplicates of cards from the core set and some playersm ay not even see the need, but the option should be there, surely?

Maybe using the new print on demand service they started with Death Angel.

Toqtamish said:

Yer, problem with that is that FFG have already stated that due to the potential for differing PoD services providing slightly different colour palettes they are likely to only use PoD on games where the PoD cards won't need shuffling in with non-PoD cards, so not how much they will be using the PoD services for their LCGs?

As with an extra core set of LotR the buyer is genuinely getting cards that are pointless (the duplicate quest cards) perhaps FFG will consider a card only core set expansion for LotR where they haven't for their previous LCGs.

While we are on that point has it been made clear what you do for 3 or 4 players or why you need a second core set? presumably its just for the extra threat trackers and tokens primarily...you aren't supposed to use the duplicate encounters cards in the 2nd core set for a 3 or 4 player game, right?

Again, it seems there is a fair amount of waste just to play with 4 players, officially.

I'm sure you can support 4 players with 1 core set, especially once you have an expansion or two... just need a way to track threat for those extra two players...

Extra core set would be due to the fact that there is not enough cards in one core set to make four  full size decks. Only four 30 card decks. And of course the threat markers but nothing a set of d10 dice can't fix for that.

Yer, thats what i figured...so in theory 4 players could play with one core set and the first cycle of expansions as that would then provide enough cards there or there abouts

Yeah depending on how many new player cards in each after 4 or 5 packs should be good to build up to 50 for each of the 4 decks.

supposedly 3X9 new players cards in each adventure deck... now to me that would suggest 2 for each sphere and 1 neutral card in each adventure deck ,but I'll guess we see

I have been wondering about some of the issues discussed in here, too.

1) If I want to play three copy of any card at a later point in the game cycle, and the core set doesn't provide three copies it might be a little bit annoying.

2) Do the adventure packs provide 3 copies of each card? That would actually be fair-square, since I only need to buy each chapter pack once.

As for 1) I think the most player friendly option would be a PoD method that allowed us to directly purchase the singles we need. For FFG maybe a "complementary core set expansion" type of product would be good. Just providing the cards necessary to have set of 3s of all the core set cards.

Buying multiple core sets seems such a waste though...multiple quest and hero cards don't seem very useful. Still I can understand the collector's to wish to own all cards in sets of 3 no matter what ;-)

Personally I will start with one core and should I really want some of the cards in sets of 3 I will try to trade or - as a last resort - buy another core set. Similar to collectors I want to OWN cards that I use in my decks, but I don't need full sets of cards I am not going to use.

Starting with one core is perfectly fine. I only own two of the GoT as I play it competitively and wanted extras of the cards. Honestly I see with LotR there will be less of a need to get the extra one.

All expansions for all LCG's are 3 per card. With LotR will likely not get 3 of each hero or quest in the packs. It used to be different and was 1 copy of 10 cards and 3 copies of 10 cards for 40 per pack but all LCG's changed at the start of 2010 to 3 of all cards for 60 per pack. So yes one adventure pack is all you will need.

 I pre-ordered 2 core sets.

I plan on making 4x 50 card decks With a Major (2 characters )  & Minor Sphere  (1 character)

~Leadership/Lore

~Lore/Spirit

~Spirit/Tactics

~Tactics/Leadership

Without experience with the game I will probably add the cheaper cards from the minor sphere.

Once we have some games under our belt I think 4 experienced players could probably have some fun actually sitting down and agreeing on the design and focus of their decks.

 Since you only really need multiple copies of the Hero deck, extra core sets will have a LOT of useless cards: the extra mission cards, the extra heroes, the extra "shadow" cards. Ebay seems like the best way to go here. 

I like TroyMK1's idea about the 2 heroes from the "main" sphere one from a "minor" sphere. I'll almost certainly use that idea, after I give the basic (30 cards, one sphere) game a try. I'm thinking Legolas, Gimli,Eowyn; my favorites from the books. 

I also like the idea of a 4 player game, one sphere each. I'd hate to be the Lore player, though. I'm not a big fan of the Lore characters so far. 

DrNate said:

I'd play Lore!  :-D  It's the sphere that currently seems like it'll best mesh with my play style.  

Sisyphus said:

Is your play style in any way related to your forum nick ?