The White Book S6E7- 219

Got to agree with Will that LOTR is doing very well - and there seem to be a fair few hints that it was their second-best LCG (after Netrunner) for sales.

Tom: I haven't gotten to that bit, but I can guess what it's about .

Good point about the Star Wars IP, makes sense now why they are producing Star Wars merch as fast as they can and are not worried about cannibalizing existing player bases from their other games. (just speculation but a darn good point)

Nights Watch will be good but not right now. Great review again

LotR's has a huge following and I would not doubt that the casual fan is driving sales in that game not the competitive players.

and no I will not let this go  

#bringbackdangerzone

Good podcast as always.  

Disney doesn't own Hasbro, not sure where that idea came from.

Star Wars makes me sad, I really liked the LCG but it just doesn't seem to be catching on.  Maybe they also made too many other SW based games at the same time.

My apologies on the Disney/Hasbro thing. I must have conflated articles like this in my memory.

I'm in the middle of the podcast, but I will say, if FFG looses the Star Wars licence, they are going to be in a bad bad place. X-Wing is their money maker. If memory serves, when the Asmode buyout happened, reports were that the mini's line was the most profitable thing about the company, and that is basically X-Wing (I'll look for a source after I get off work). 

Awesome cast fellas.

I don't think LOTR is going anywhere any time soon. It has something that none of the others do, cooperative. That alone could keep it going. But there are more and more LOTR fans playing and new people joining. Caleb and Matt are awesome and going strong.

I was curious about something: and i hate typing b/c i don't want this to sound different than its meant. Do you guys play with the cards a bunch before you review them or just review them in theory using your knowledge and experience from 1.0?

I was just thinking that in this and LOTR sometimes you see a card and your like "thats going to be amazing" or "sucks", but when put into practice it becomes the opposite. I played NW fealty quite a bit early and lost like once in like 10+ goes. Now maybe I was playing newer players and such, but I thought the defense deck of NW works really well. I was getting almost always 3 power a turn with Wall and a Mormont swing back for power. Add Iron Throne and Feast of Crows and its good power gain. Course maybe this was early crafting of decks, but I just think, all you have to do is not lose UO challenges. Military is Aemon, INT is Raven draw, and then try to stuff the PW with Mormont and/or Castle Black with Benjen. Then if you get close they don't do Mil b/c Benjen will win it. Its slow, but has seemed to work. And really the only stealth is GJ so not too hard to not lose UO even knowing you may not attack back. Just have to hold them off. Just haven't found Wall and Mormont that hard to get going. Set up "wall" with the cheap guys and maybe a roseroad or kingsroad, drop Mormont turn 1. I'm not saying they are the best faction or even close to it, i just thought they are better than they got. I remember chatting with Staton when he was doing all of the streaming early and telling him how much i love "Meager", but he wasn't sold on it, but the more he used it the more he liked it, and saw how good it is(imho). And of course Mormont isn't as good without the Wall, but thats what building season is for. You guys are way more experienced than me, so I'm sure i'm just being silly, just figured i'd drop my 5 cents.

banner stark to NW and Ed blocks a bunch and Sansa adds an extra PW a round

builder guy is cool out of faction to stand back up Highgarden or draw locations like Mander to do twice, then reinforcements back in. not game breaking by any means, but fun.

I've never listened to an audible book that had more than one reader.

Aaron, mic is sooooo much better.

awesome cast

With such a small card pool are there any hidden plans. With everything costing gold, and the ability to know each card in each faction, you can see what someone "could" do. But i guess your talking about the threat of something? and NW doesn't really have that?

There are always hidden plays and threats in Thrones. As long as you have a hand and they dont know what's in your hand, you can bluff. If I have a 2 card hand and 2 gold and overcommit to mil, you have to try to overdefend or risk losing your big guy. That kind of threat IS the meta right now.

This sort of buffing (also known as Glazering) is going to be central to the game up through the first box and second cycle. Until we get a redundancy of game altering effects and we can actually surprise our opponent Thrones will be a game of chicken. 

Kidohearts, while your opinion is well taken I have to agree with the assessment of the 'cast. The Old Bear is too much of a tempo hit. He's expensive and much much too conditional (not lose ANY challenge) to be more than a win more card. Actually, TOB suffers from a lot of what defense did as a theme in 1.0 - too often not efficient enough to be an effective strategy. FFG avoided this with a lot of the NW cards in the core but, sadly, not in its seven coster.

Aw, Glazering used to be being lazy and getting other people to do stuff for me.  I like this definition too.