[L5R LCG] Imperial cycle has releases faster than One Punch Man fight scenes.

Farangu

FFG is releasing a L5R LCG core set this year.

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the upcoming release of the Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game Core Set. Originally released in 1995 as a collectible card game, Legend of the Five Rings has since thrived with its unique setting, engaging gameplay, and enthusiastic player base. Now players new and old alike can experience Rokugan like never before in the Living Card Game® format.

Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game is a player-influenced LCG® that sees two players take on the role of one of the seven Great Clans of Rokugan, vying for military and political control of the land while maintaining Rokugan society’s strict code of honor.

Pre-release at Gencon, and a full Q4 release of the Coreset.

VIDEOS:

https://youtu.be/Qh0VTaVgUVw

https://youtu.be/oiMwrJVQBe0

Can they make Netrunner lightning strike again? Or are there too many LCG's out and about for this to compete?

cckerberos

Can they make Netrunner lightning strike again?

They certainly have the advantage of already having a fairly large and passionate fan base to build off of this time.

Cerberus

I'm going to give it a shot! I played the CCG for a year in my teens and loved the theme. The art looks amazing!

PMAvers

If I had to guess, it'll be in the early part of Q4 too since it has to be out in time for FFG Worlds.

I needed anime to post.

Important Note: Though only one core set is needed to both build decks and play games of Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game, competitive players may wish to purchase additional copies of the core set to gain more copies of individual cards. Some cards will require two core sets to collect a full playset of three cards, while others will require three core sets.

FUCK

Farangu

Unfortunate, but not surprising

OptimusZed

Gotsta monefy the product somehow, I guess.

PMAvers

I love the Phoenix Province card. It's literally the most Phoenix thing ever.

To paraphrase my brother, "You came for war? Sit down, we're having TEA INSTEAD!"

admanb

cckerberos wrote: »

Can they make Netrunner lightning strike again?

They certainly have the advantage of already having a fairly large and passionate fan base to build off of this time.

With the flip side being that they had to make a lot more changes to this one then they did to Netrunner.

cckerberos

admanb wrote: »

cckerberos wrote: »

Can they make Netrunner lightning strike again?

They certainly have the advantage of already having a fairly large and passionate fan base to build off of this time.

With the flip side being that they had to make a lot more changes to this one then they did to Netrunner.

I don't know that I'd say they "had to". They've obviously chosen to make an entirely new game and slap the IP on it, but I think they could've created a modernized version of the existing rule set and still had it be successful.

PMAvers

AMA's going on right now.

Pulling out info that I see.

Cav doesn't do anything by itself, but cards can key off it.

In regards to dueling,

Dueling involves a challenge between two characters based on those character's stats (military or political). Each player will make a bid on their honor dial to add to their participant's stat. This works just like the bid in the draw phase: the higher bidder gives honor equal to the difference to the lower bidder. The character with the higher total stat at the end wins, with consequences determined by the card that started the duel. -ED

In regards to things they wanted to preserve from the old version:

We were very much trying to preserve the heart of the game's experience. The basic layout of the table, the interaction of attacking the opponent's provinces, multiple paths to victory, a sense that how you play the game (honor & dishonor) is just as important as to whether or not you are victorious in any given conflict, and a setting that combine military battle, court intrigue, and magic, were all integral to the game's vision. Additionally, building a game that was interactive and shared with the fans was identified as one of the defining elements of the L5R experience, and we have some exciting new features planned there... -NF

In regards to the generic personalities:

Each Clan has a mix of both non-unique and unique, named characters. Unique characters tend to have more specialized, and/or Clan-defining abilities while non-unique characters provide the foundation upon which to build consistent decks.
Investing fate into higher-cost characters tends to provide more of a return over the course of a game. Also, lower-costed characters can be more vulnerable to certain card removal effects. -ED and NF

In regards to game length and Fate generation,

Most games should last about 3-6 turns, with the possibility for shorter or longer games depending on the match up, the draw, and the strategies each player pursues.
Besides the strongholds, there are a few other ways in the game that players can acquire additional fate, but you will have to work for it a little! -NF

In regards to deck sizes, card counts, and "any card types we havn't seen yet":

Each deck has 40 minimum and 45 maximum cards.
Up to 3 copies of a card can be included in your decks.
Yes. Its a suprise! Keep looking for those preview articles! -BA

The ring icons on the province cards seem to be tied to deck-building, and that they'll be talking about that later in a preview article.

Imperial Favor's still around, also going to be talked about later.

This is one of the central strategic aspects of playing the game. Investing a fate on an expensive character offers far more return than investing that same fate on a cheap character, and each additional fate can leverage the impact of that character. Balancing this against the risks you mentioned lies at the heart of the game. We also took some of these concerns into account at the ability design level. For example, some effects that can only target characters with no fate on them (so that fate can in some contexts be used to protect characters), and also some effects that can only target less expensive characters.

There are some things about the "influence" mechanic that will be revealed in the days ahead, but the whole story is not yet known. Faction identity is an important aspect of this setting, and there are aspects to the mixing system that will maintain each clan's core identity. -NF

cckerberos

With all the other major changes they've made, it's a little disappointing to see that they haven't purged the setting of the pseudo-Japanese that plagued it.

Athenor

Team Covenant has an interview up with the designers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC_IZqqcxxI

Lord Palington

When do we get ratlings?

Also, put me down for three sets please.

Darkewolfe

Still thinking kind of hard about going to gencon just for this.

admanb

Darkewolfe wrote: »

Still thinking kind of hard about going to gencon just for this.

A trip to gencon is almost as expensive as buying into an FFG LCG.

BA-BOOM.

But really, everything I've heard about gencon sounds like it's still pretty damn fun despite its size.

Athenor

I have been planning to go to this gencon since the 2015 announcement.

Edit: Oh wow! Near the end of that video, Nate mentions that the player-driven changes will extend to the mechanics of the game, not just the story!

Darkewolfe

Depends on what they mean by mechanics. I mean, if the story changes a Clan to favor combat more than politics, whereas they were balanced before, that'd be a mechanical change but pretty in line with what was kind of going on before.

Farangu

I do like that they set it near the end of the Hantei though

Backstory got pretty hairy towards the more recent timeline

cckerberos

Are you talking about the moves towards Onyx Edition? Or before that?

It'll be interesting to see if and how they address what I've always seen as an inherent conflict in the setting's basic nature: they want to have seven samurai clans which war against each other *and* an all-powerful Emperor who everyone obeys. This problem is why for most of the old game's history the Emperor was either missing/dead or came across as utterly incompetent.

PMAvers

Such emotion from a single oogily boogily...

EDIT: Kami, this is a deep cut.

Athenor

An Imgur gallery has been helpfully put together of all the card previews we have seen.

http://imgur.com/a/9tama


Provinces:



"Way Of" Cards - Feeds into clan playstyle:



Dynasty Deck cards (I believe):



Conflight Deck cards:



Various other cards, Honor/Dueling dial, Fate and Honor Tokens, Earth Political Ring token, Water Military Ring token:



Crane Stronghold:



Lion Stronghold:



Underhanded Scorpion tactics...



Honorable Unicorn rider (no really, +1 honor/dishonor):



Unmoving Crab:



Lion cannon fodder:



Silly Dragon Monks...



Typical game layout, with Destiny and Stronghold to the left, Provinces in the middle, and Conflict to the right:

cckerberos

Athenor wrote: »

Dragon.. Duelist? The hell?

?

Dueling's always been a really big thing for the Dragon.

Athenor

cckerberos wrote: »

Athenor wrote: »

Dragon.. Duelist? The hell?

?

Dueling's always been a really big thing for the Dragon.

I know, it's a big thing for almost everyone, I'm just making a joke as a casual unicorn player.

OptimusZed

They've got the only dueling school that the Crane can't dismiss out of hand. Kakita and Mirumoto wrote competing dueling treatises.

Athenor

OptimusZed wrote: »

They've got the only dueling school that the Crane can't dismiss out of hand. Kakita and Mirumoto wrote competing dueling treatises.

Okay, okay! I forgot! Damnit..

I shall now commit seppuku.

Mikey CTS

I'm pretty excited for this myself. I used to play L5R pretty competitively back in college. The scene in my town was pretty hardcore. My handle on this board comes from the handle I used on the Scorpion and Mantis clan boards.

The mechanical changes are interesting to me. The game used to be slower when I left in Lotus Edition. 3-6 to turns a game seems whiplash fast compared to the old tournament standard. I like that they are decoupling economy from Holdings. Thank god they are fixing Calavry, too; that trait was broken. It's interesting that there are no more individual turns and instead players bid for initiative during the action phase. That coupled with the economy changes may help with the steamrolling issues the CCG had. Pretty clever.

PMAvers

It might seem like not a lot of turns, but I think there's probably going to be a lot less "dead" turns. Especially since it seems that there's going to be a lot less focus on holdings as your economy base, since it seems like the Stronghold is supposed to be the majority of your income, so you'll probably be seeing more personalities in your provinces popping up.

Also having a Dynasty phase before attacks probably will keep the action up, so you can fight with guys you just brought into play.

admanb

All of FFG's LCGs have a very strong emphasis on removing draw-go turns from the game. Conquest is the most extreme example, where it was literally impossible for a game to last more than seven turns, but in general their games emphasize concentrated action.

Darkewolfe

Shorter games also makes for a much better league/tournament environment.

Athenor

They are still saying 45-70 minutes for a play estimate even with 6 turns, so who knows. Plus we've got at least one playstyle focused heavily on defense.

Then again, the ephemeral nature of the game may push things faster too.

admanb

I wouldn't say they're "fast" in the sense of time per game, but fast in the sense of concentrated action. The aforementioned Conquest still has 40-60 minute games, despite its built in stopping point.

cckerberos

Yeah, I was really surprised to see that estimated turn time, given that game length was one of the perennial complaints about the CCG.

PMAvers

Yeah, going to time in tournaments was a massive problem back in the day. Especially since games could stall out easily as both players just kept building up and not wanting to actually attack each other because if it went south you'd lose your entire army and whoops now you're hosed because you're going to lose all your provinces in one go. And there really was never a good "tie-breaker" to determine a winner when things went to time. If they can get it down to closing out a game faster? That's a massive buff.

admanb

Heh. Yeah no FFG game is going to get out the door with a problem like that. They're not flawless designers but one thing they definitely know how to do is get people to engage with the fuckin' conflict mechanics.

cckerberos

Mikey CTS wrote: »

Thank god they are fixing Calavry, too; that trait was broken.

They nerfed it (and Naval) pretty hard back in the last arc of the CCG.

I'm a little sad that they've ditched the multiple "simultaneous" battles aspect. I really thought that gave the game a great tactical element. Without that, I don't know how they're going to make Cavalry seem like a non-generic keyword.

cckerberos

admanb wrote: »

They're not flawless designers but one thing they definitely know how to do is get people to engage with the fuckin' conflict mechanics.

The issue with the CCG wasn't that people didn't want to get into conflict.

Mikey CTS

Going to time was a huge issue back in the day. It become unofficial tournament etiquette that to not concede once you were definitely losing was incredibly rude and more than a little spiteful. Want to lose friends and get a bad rep with the player-base? Refuse to concede when you're losing.

Athenor

cckerberos wrote: »

Mikey CTS wrote: »

Thank god they are fixing Calavry, too; that trait was broken.

They nerfed it (and Naval) pretty hard back in the last arc of the CCG.

I'm a little sad that they've ditched the multiple "simultaneous" battles aspect. I really thought that gave the game a great tactical element. Without that, I don't know how they're going to make Cavalry seem like a non-generic keyword.

I highly suspect the cavalry keyword will play with some of those other affects so that you can change the province the ring is assigned to. It's very.. telling that each player may only declare a military and political conflict each turn, meaning there will be a total of 4 conflicts. It.. fits that the actual target of the conflict would be mutable; why else have tokens to designate it?

Darkewolfe

I sort of suspect the fact that your characters will die after a couple turns no matter what due to fate counters will encourage you to fling them into battles more often.

PMAvers

I swear, the people who were the worst about that (not conceding so you got blackmailed into giving them a win otherwise you get a tie) always seemed to be freaking Scorpion players.