Romance of the Nine Empires

So, I've been playing a few games of Romance of the Nine Empires, a new LCG from Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG).  If you haven't heard about this, or haven't tried it, you should definitely take a look.

At the moment, the game consists solely of the core set (the "15th Anniversary Edition"), but there's plans for an expansion early next year, as far as I can tell, and I imagine if the game does well, we'll see more expansions.

For those confused by the mention of the 15th Anniversary Edition, I'll mention only that it's a reference to a movie (The Gamers: Hands of Fate), and that this really is the first edition of the actual game.  You're not missing anything, you haven't missed anything, the game is complete as is.

So, what is this game?

It's basically a re-implemented, slightly simpler, and re-themed form of Legend of the Burning Sands (LBS), a CCG that AEG put out back in the late 90s. The CCG ended up getting pretty good reviews, and was moderately popular, but CCGs as a whole basically started slowing down a little after this time, so LBS ended up disappearing.

The game currently has five factions (although I guess the first expansion will release the other four), each with different playing styles, and one nice thing about the R9E box- it comes with a complete playset of every card in the game.  That's a nice change from the FFG Core Sets, where you'll need to buy 2-3 copies of the Core Set to have a complete playset.

I won't bore you with too much details about the game (yet), but it will be a game I cover on here from time to time, since I've had a lot of fun playing it, and I'm eager to see where it goes.  I do, however, recommend checking it out if you're into LCGs.

Warhammer: Invasion no longer Living

Well, the news is out: FFG is no longer making new content for Warhammer: Invasion.

I find this to be very sad news, obviously.  Although I play W:I less than any other LCG I own (I've played exactly one game of it in 2013, despite my best efforts), I really felt like it was a strong, thematic system, with a lot of room for growth, if FFG wished it.

Apparently FFG decided not to bother, however.  It never seemed to do very well in the US (I hear that the tournaments in Poland are pretty successful though), and heck, maybe they wanted to free developers up to work on a new LCG (I can hope, at least).

With that said, I hate to see any LCG go down without a fight.  I'd like there to be some coverage of Warhammer: Invasion, even if there is no new official content.

So!  I'm going to try, over the next year, to come out with some fan made cards.  I can't guarantee how successful me doing so will be, but I think it'll be fun to give it a chance.  I'll throw together some new cards from time to time, post them on the site, and see how it works out, at least.  It's going to take me a bit to start off, since I'm not really an expert at imaging software, but I would expect at least something from me early 2014.

So, for my first set, I'm thinking of either trying to create a Bretonnian themed expansion or starting with one of the Black Library novels and creating a small expansion based off that.  I have ideas for new mechanics as well, but those may take me a bit to really work out fully.

If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I'd love to hear them as well :)

Thanks!