Magic the Gathering and other CCG's and boardgames discussion

[Der_Lex]

I used to play Warhammer Fantasy a lot, but Games Workshop's business strategy is absolutely terrible towards veteran players. With the release of the past two editions, they've made my main army, a magic-based Tzeentch mortal/daemon Chaos army, absolutely unplayable: seventh edition no longer allowed the classical hybrid mortal/daemon armies for Chaos, instead splitting the army into two separate army lists, and nerfed the Mark of Tzeentch (a special ability all my units had) into something utterly useless (I would've understood a small nerf, but not that), and then 8th nerfed magic in general. I still have a (fully unpainted) Empire army as well that's playable, but having my almost painted army rendered useless in two years time was a big slap in the face. Their PR is pretty horrible as well... they actually had to close down their official forums because of what a cesspool they had become, and all the good commenters and even the devs had fled to specific fan forums.

As for CCG's, I've dabbled in Jyhad/Vampire (which I liked at the time, to be honest), and the Star Wars and Star Trek CCG's, and actively collected/played Shadowfist, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Wheel of Time. The latter is still my favorite CCG of all time, and the only game that I actively played tournaments for (I was reigning Dutch champ when Precedence went under), and I was involved in developing fan-made expansions for a bit after the last official set, but those kind of things never last long.

As for Magic, I'm actually pretty excited about the new Innistrad set, both because of the Ravenloft-eque horror theme and because Richard Garfield's actually involved in the design again.

have a cousin who was an artist for Magic. Jeff Menges. He does some fantastic work

Just looked him up in the Gatherer and he made a lot of 'the classics', especially for black. Shame he hasn't done any work for Wizards for a while.

[Ledgo2]

I wonder if he has. I myself find some of the new editions of Magic as little more down hill compared to the earlier sets. I'm not a fan of Planewalkers or how they're really pressing them (In my own opinion). Though I still find good cards in each edition they print that I can manage to use.

I haven't actually played Warhammer tabletop yet. My uncle has a few orc armies, and I was thinking of buying the Vampire set and making an undead army, however, I have no clue where to even start with any of it.

[Der_Lex]

If you want to start out with Warhammer, the easiest way is picking up the general rulebook, the army book for the army you wish to play. After reading the rulebook and army book, you should have some idea on how to build an army (I'd start out with a 1500 point army at first, which is a decent amount of troops, and something you can easily expand upon later) and what models you'll need to build it. Most armies also have 'batallion boxes' which give you a certain amount of basic troops at a slightly discounted price, which can be helpful when starting out too.

From my own experience with Vampire Counts, I can say that your army will mostly consist of hordes and hordes of skeletons and zombies, which are pretty crap stat-wise, but all cause fear (which can often win you a battle without a single blow being struck because the opposing units panic and flee, morale plays a huge role in Warhammer Fantasy) and can be reanimated by your hero character(s) if you start taking losses. Your cheap, crappy main troops are backed up by some of the most hard-ass (but expensive, point-wise) rare units and hero/lord characters in the entire game. Vampire Blood Knights are some of the scariest heavy cavalry troops out there, and a bit of a must have in any VC army. The main thing you need to be careful of when playing is that your general doesn't get killed: since it's his magic holding the animated horde together, your troops will slowly start to fall apart if he bites the dust.

[afterstasis]

VC was my main Warhammer army. They were loads of fun to play and paint.

[Ledgo2]

Mine as well rename this the Table Top & CCG Game thread.

The hobby store I go to has, last time I checked, over 3000+(Probably exagerating) zombies and skeletons, four different counts and I don't even recall any Blood Knights, if I recognized them at all. Overall, for someone getting into the game, is VC a reccomended army to try?

[Der_Lex]

I'll rename the thread if you'd like and don't mind the broader scope.

VC is fine as a starter army. Most armies are, to be honest, except for arguably Tomb Kings (an Egyptian-style undead army that requires a lot of synergy between units to work well and has a steep learning curve).

If you actually intend to play rather than collect, the most important thing to ask yourself is what kind of play style seems like fun to you: do you want a large horde-style army with lots of cheap units or a smaller army of elite units, do you want to focus on brute force, magic, long range combat, outmaneuvering your enemy or a little bit of everything, etc.
I'm mentioning this because of my own experience with the game: although I absolutely love GW's Chaos mortal models, I absolutely hate the way standard Chaos mortal armies play, and that's why I'm so upset about the rules changes that made my own hybrid army impossible, because it was the only way to break the Chaos mold of 'try to get into melee and win the game that way before getting shot to pieces on your slow approach'. I'm now stuck with about half a mortal army and a fraction of a daemon army that I'll never use again because mortals are no fun and daemons are expensive and require a lot of self-made miniatures to represent units (not every unit in the army book has an actual model, which requires you do do home-made conversions of bits and pieces of existing mini's).

On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoy playing Empire with its versatility and awesome (if highly unpredictable) artillery units. It's just that I'm a bit daunted to start painting it all.

So if you want to play, it's important to check out which army suits you play style-wise as well as aesthetically before committing to it and investing in a lot of expensive mini's.
You can find a lot of info online, but I'd also be happy to write up a brief run-down of all the armies here, if you want (unless you're already dead set on the VC, of course).

[Ledgo2]

Go for it! Discussions are awesome.

I am not dead set on VC's. The guy there ("That Warhammer guy", as they put it) actually reccomended me to start empire. However, at the steep prices they had I thought I would start in an army I use to. In a lot of RTS enviorments I am comfortable in Zerg like armies, using a lot of manuevering and use of meat shield units to work the elite or strategic units. I have been meaning to look into getting a general rule book from my uncle to even see if it's interesting. I also learned he has an army of rat men, which look pretty cool.

The downfall of this game to be seems the money you need to invest. And I totally agree on painting. I've been debating ordering some units that are already painted because I am awful at it. Though my uncle does some pretty cool stuff with his batallions. His orcs are missing teeth, he even made some miss an arm and stuff. I can totally see where you make your army unique.

[Apples]

I had such a great experience with Magic in high school and college over 5 years.

Used to collect sets, had complete sets of everything from Unlimited through the Mercadian Block. Power 9, Arabian Knights, Legends (the best set card for card, IMHO), all sorts of rare/promo stuff and so on. Worked summer jobs and scoured Ebay for years to pay for it all.

As much fun as I had, it all ended pretty badly though. Disagreed with almost everything WOTC did in the "modern" age of magic... dumbing down the game rules, foil chase chase, obsoleting old cards from tournaments, the rapid release cycle of sets, bad card choices for the "standard" block, etc.

All of that was potentially tolerable, but it was in the climate of the midwest here, which was (and still is) anti-fantasy, anti-gaming, anti-fun. So here I was, sitting on (today's value) $20,000 to $25,000 in cards, with literally no one to play them with. The few card shops and tournaments in the area dried up, mostly because players couldn't keep up with buying new sets.

(Side note: Online Magic was still a couple years away, and even then, I'm not sure I would have agreed to re-buy cards in digital form)


In the end, sold all of the most valuable goodies, used the money to put myself through college. I still have an entire closet of mid and low grade cards, most of them "vintage" by now. They await the day I have kids of my own or find some like-minded group who enjoys them, although I expect that won't happen for some time.

[I_Love_You]

Most of my friends play, so I ended up playing too. It's nice though, I've spent almost nothing (maybe $100), and my two EDH decks are still incredibly good (UW Grand Arbiter and RUG Riku of Two Reflections). I only actually play EDH, since I don't play competitively or anything. Since I don't see the Magic playing friends too often, I don't invest much in the game... and I do have a tendency to spend too much money so I don't want to do that.

[Ledgo2]

I can see where that would get you, Apples. Thankfully I still have a good player base in my area. Most are newer set players, though I never seem to have any problems playing them. Thankfully I used MtG Apprentice and dueled it out with a few other people I found on the internet before I constructed these decks. While the physical decks haven't been played heavily, the blueprints to the deck have been subject to weeks of testing before I settled on something. Looking through my documents, I can find around 6 different versions of my rats deck, and about 11 of my Ancient Ooze.

I have maybe 5 people in my town I can play. My work place can up my count to 7, I know 3 more people in the town over who play, as well as their connections, and I have done a few pick up games at the hobby shop. Overall, I have 10-13 people I can contact if I ever want to do a game. I've been very tempted to form a weekly play, as my dad had done, a wizard war circle. The only issue would probably be the gas to play. Overall I've probably invested $300 or so into my cards, my most expensive investment being Platinum Angels. However, overall, the largested purchase I've made was a rare card for my brothers Megrim, Cao Cao Lord of Wei. The rarity and the use of the card makes it a gem in a lot of circles.

All circles I play work by Ice Age era rules. Best way to describe it. All mechanics work as they were intended to work in old Magic. The only twist we have is when you have an empty hand at draw phase, you draw four. Other than that, we do Upkeep-Draw-Whatever-Attack. Whatever pretty much being your play phase, I enjoy an open flow of gameplay as opposed to strict.