At first I was a bit worried about this game - I did NOT want to get into a CCG like Magic again. We went down that road in the past and it is not one we want to revisit - just too much of a money sink. What a LCG does is offer you all of the cards in one box for about $30-$50. When the release a new expansion you get all the new cards (usually about 40 cards) for around $12. This setup works great for me as you get all of the cards for a pretty cheap price. It also allows deck building and draft format play.
Several of The Hogs were over at my place and we were in the mood for some boardgames. We played a few rounds of Pandemic (finally won one!) and then we decided to try some Warhammer Incursion.
I had read through the rules beforehand but was still a bit shakey so it was a bit of a slow start. The premice is pretty simple - each player has a capital. Each capital is split into three sections - battlefield, quest, and kindom. Each of these three zones controls a part of the game. Your goal is to set fire to two of your opponents zones.
The neatest part of the game is how these three zones function. For each 'power' - basically the cards attack value - in a zone you get better at each part of the game. For every power in your quest zone you draw a card, in your kindom card you get extra resources (what you use to play or summon cards), and the cards in your battlefield allow you to attack your opponents zones.
This really plays out in a cool way on the field. You can put all your cards in your battlefield to try and wipe your opponent out quick, but if your opponent spends a few rounds increasing his resources and the amount of cards he draws they can run away from you before you put them out.
Each of the four races plays really differently. The Dwarves are stout and defensive, the Orks favor assault, the Empire seems to be able to increase the toughness of the zones easily, and Chaos excels at crippling and debuffing your forces.
In the game we played I was Dwarves, Jester played Empire, Monkey had the Orks, and Sweet E sallied forth with Chaos.
The first few turns were spent testing out each others defenses and building up or zones. It became apparent that Monkey was going to be the agitator with the Orks since all of his cards dealt with attacking. Sweet E declared a Holy War on the Empire and Jester started rallying his troops and defenses in response. I tried to quietly sit by and build up the defenses of the Orks.
A few turns went by and Jester realized he had made a mistake. He put a card into play that forced him to take the top card off of his library and play it face down in one of his zones. Doing this makes that zone harder to kill, but it can eat through your deck fairly fast. He also had a few cards in his quest zone so he was drawing several cards a turn. One of the way you lose the game is by running out of cards - Jester knew his time was short and would have to act fast.
While this was going on Sweet E pummeled his forces trying to take him out eve faster. Monkey started attacking both Chaos and the Dwarves while continuing to build up his offensive might and I kept to my guns and started bringing out some tough units to defend with.
Jester was the first player out followed by Sweet E - his relentless assault left him open for a joint attack by the Orks and Dwarves. This left the two ancient enemies to duke it out - Dwarves vs. Orks.
My efforts building up my defences paid off as I was able to weather attack after attack but in the end the Orks were able to narrowly secure a victory by buring my second zone.
We had a good time playing this game and I am alreay looking forward to picking up the first expansion - The Skavenblight Threat! This game is definitely worth picking up if you enjoy CCGs and don't want to break the bank.