Buying Guide – The Basics

The Warhammer 40,000: Conquest Living Card Game by Fantasy Flight Games was released at Gencon in 2014. Since its release the game has seen its card pool grow continuously and the community has developed along with it. While this is exciting, it means that the game may be more daunting and expensive to enter. This buying guide will introduce prospective players to the Living Card Game model, explain what comes in different products, and give suggestions about what products will give players a good selection to get started with.

The LCG Model

For players new to the Living Card Game model created by Fantasy Flight Games the selection of available product can be somewhat confusing. This is the model used for most of their card games, including Android: Netrunner, Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, A Game of Thrones, and more. Product is generally released as set packs of cards with no randomness involved. As a result players collect more like a board game with expansions than a Trading Card Game.  If you know what you are getting in a pack then there is no “chase” and no need for an expensive secondary market.

The base card pool in the Warhammer 40,000: Conquest LCG is available in the Core Set. This box includes enough cards for two players to play a game, all the tokens and components you will need, a Learn to Play Guide, and a Rules Reference Guide. There is only one copy of most of the cards provided in the core set, with a small selection of cards that come with two copies.

After owning a core set the most common way to expand your card pool are War Packs. These are packs of 60 cards, most often a warlord and the 8 accompanying cards of their signature squad along with three copies of 17 different cards. These are grouped in cycles of 6 packs that follow a number of shared mechanics or narrative themes, and release one pack at a time over the course of 6 to 8 months.

Finally, players can also expand their collection with Deluxe Expansions. These are less frequent releases, usually only one or two a year, and include 155 cards along with inserts detailing any new rules and any additional tokens or components you may need for those rules and abilities. At this point it is hard to tell what will be in these but it seems that each will predominantly be cards for a single faction.

How Many Core Sets?

So now that you know how the LCG model works for the Conquest LCG you’re probably wondering what you need to get started. Well, this mostly depends on what kind of experience you are looking for. If you just want a fun game to play casually I would recommend just starting with a single core set. The selection of cards available offers really simple deck building and is enough to sit down and have an enjoyable board game experience with a friend. I would really suggest players start here is they are unsure about collecting the game. It is a great game, but you don’t need every expansion to have a great experience.

For a player who is more certain that they want to play this game in a more dedicated manner, I would suggest starting with two core sets. The core set is  excellent to crack open and get started right away, but unfortunately it provides only basic deck building options. If you’ve played other card games then you will know that the more copies of a given card you have in your deck the more consistent your play experience will be. Unfortunately there is only a single copy of most cards in the box, meaning a second core set is required to get creative or begin to compete with players with larger collections.

Finally, for someone who is interested in jumping right into competitive play, then 3 core sets is strongly recommended. A lot of the strongest cards in the game come in the core set and for complete deck building options a third box is needed.

After the Core Set

Now that you know how many core sets you are going to get, how can you expand your collection to start building new and interesting decks? Well that depends. Are you interested in playing a certain faction? Do you want a bit of everything? If you are looking for some variety I will give you a few suggestions below, but I would also encourage you to peruse the cards in each pack at ConquestDB or CardGameDB. If you’re interested in a specific faction I would suggest you check out my other articles for each specific faction as they become available on this site.

Decree of Ruin (Planetfall cycle)

The first War Pack of the Planetfall cycle, this pack offers a number of new mechanics that add more interest to your game! It includes two versatile and interesting warlords to expand your options and great cards for almost every faction. This pack has the added bonus of a lore insert which is the first installment of a six part story narrating the events of the cycle. This pack is also the latest pack at the time of writing, so it offers the opportunity to enjoy the experience of following along as new packs are released.

Zogworts Curse (Warlord cycle)

This War Pack comes with the Ork warlord Old Zogwort, a strange but straight forward warlord. He is very fun and doesn’t require any cards in particular to work well. You also get three great common Astra Militarum cards that are great for use in Militarum, Space Marines, and Orks. Tau, Chaos, and Dark Eldar also get some staples for use in their respective factions. Review

 The Scourge (Warlord cycle)

The second War Pack of the Conquest LCG’s first cycle of expansions, The Scourge introduced a second Chaos warlord in the way of Ku’gath Plaguefather. This curious warlord opens a whole new playstyle, different anything else we have. Along with the powerful new warlord the War pack includes several key cards for Orks, along with some major options for Astra Militarum, Tau and Dark Eldar. Review