Any official event will likely require that you use official cards, and obviously we would like for you to help support the continued development of the game with your purchases.

That being said, we can't exactly dictate how you play the game at home.

Edited by user Wednesday, March 23, 2016 2:20:31 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Yeah, playing at home I can understand.... But those of us that already have massive amounts of tanks from BF would prefer that we can purchase cards individually rather than buying boxes of tanks we already own in spades.

Now I know I can always sell these tanks to other FoW players, but it just seems like more work to me /shrug

For the record: I am more than willing to support this game!

Edited by user Wednesday, March 23, 2016 2:43:48 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I plan on getting 2 starter sets for the cards/tokens, but my question was more geared to the expansions....

Having to buy 4 panzer IVs when I have 25 currently will make my wife question my sanity and hobby budget..

What the wife doesn't know won't hurt her, having to hide my copy of Girls und Panzer

If GF9 expects to keep the players it already has, it needs to support them, not the other way around. Games Workshop just released the 8th edition of Warhammer 40k, The rules are such a radical departure from their previous systems that it made all the previous army books useless. So, they ALSO published all the unit updates and unit data sheets at the same time. Every unit. Every army. You have everything you need to play with the models you already have. Sure, they're also including data sheets in the new model sets as well, but you don't need to repurchase everything just to get the datasheets. Until GF9 and Flames of War wise up and do the same thing, I won't be playing their new games and neither will anyone else I play with as we all have had the same reaction to buying the 4th edition book only to find out we can't actually play it.

On a personal note I like to play with all original "equipment" or "made for intent" (as in substitute models/upgrades/crew/decals from other companies but in correct scale and purpose (a Sherman is not a good tiger substitute). No proxies, no copies.

However I too know that I'm pretty uptight about this and would say before you cant play at all, or your friends cant play/someone just wants to try out, I do recommend making make-shift cards temporarily and see if the game is worth supporting for you. From experience I can tell you its just so much nicer to hold the real deal in your hand than a handwritten scrap paper or a faded out wiggly copied card... From an opponents point of view, i have very little interest playing against a handwritten, paper-copy unit of legobrick-tank-proxis being pushed around on a white table cloth and stacks of books as buildings.

In any case it is important to have a card for every tank on the field - one way or another - as any upgrades should be place next to their respective tank, and if all tanks have the same upgrade, still have them separated, as a tank may use/discard said upgrade while another still has it. Individual cards also help you keep your tanks apart when marking damage and laying down/applying critical cards.

PS: on a side note, as i heard many people struggling keeping their tanks apart, i found it to be a fun and GREAT looking alternative to personalize your tanks. I play mostly Germans and have every single tank given a number of an actual hero in the game (their ace-tanks: easy example Panther 424 / Barkmann), thus when fielding 2 panthers and a stug, they are super easy to keep apart as they have not random numbers/decals on them but actually represent the cards I'm currently playing/or at least clear distinctions.
this could easily be different things, different colored tank, different markings, crew popping out or not etc. it adds a lot of story telling to any game imo.

I can see why some people would want a set of tank cards to allow them to use their existing models and extend the range of tanks involved but I can't see it ever happening because it makes no commercial sense for GF9 to do this.

They can either sell you a pack of cards as a one-off or they can sell you cards and models together. The former effectively means that their income stream ceases. The latter ensures the life of the game from their business point of view for as long as they can slowly release new models. It's a no-brainer really.

So, gf9, if you're saying you absolutely won't ever make card-only releases to expand your collection,I suppose that leaves the door open for some industrious third party to release unrelated, unlicensed stat cards for folks' favorite tanks for a marginal fee, printed on quality card stock, with values that just so happen to parallel the official tanks cards? Purely hypothetical question, of course. I certainly don't condone some brilliant individual seizing such a lucrative opportunity and providing the fan base what they've demanded from the beginning, and making a pretty penny to boot.

New assets, a slightly different layout and format, and printing seems like such a small price to pay as I Google search online printing services for unrelated reasons.

But I suppose no means no. What is a nerd to do?

When I first looked into this game I was kind of bummed that they did not just have a deck of cards for the current Units I already had. Truth is; for me it has never ended up being a really big deal. Partly because since I bought 2 of the starter sets I ended up with pretty much all the cards needed to play a pretty decent sized game, not to mention you kind of need the crit cards etc. anyways. Plus the models themselves are priced economically enough that it gives me an excuse to buy more kits to have thematic sets just for skirmishes.

Personally; I am not a big fan of third party cards. Especially of the variant variety. Especially in the early stages of a games development. I find they sometimes end up causing issues in the game.

Not sure that Axis & Allies is a relevant or good argument for third party cards. Mostly because they did make the official cards available as downloads and there was a lot more than just tanks in that game. Also most third party variants for that game were free and even so not everyone could ever agree on which ones were okay to use so there was never a standard set of third party variant cards.
But most importantly the cards were not the reason that game may never have reached its full potential.

well, selling cards alone would actually make perfect sense from a business point of view. At the moment gf9 is aiming at its own fan base only, selling tanks and cards ONLY to them, as veteran FOW, BA, K47, A&A etc players have often hundreds of models already in stock and wont start buying cards with tanks they don't need, as it seems like a huge waste of money to anyone...

printing cards is the easiest way to make money in the tabletop scene, hands down. making models is expensive, as you need proper design, 3D model, fitting for grids, molding, sample runs, hugely expensive big scale perma-molds and a factory to make these specialized products. Cards of nearly any quality and quantity can literally be made by 1 person with Photoshop skill at any copy shop around the world - more so if you work for gf9 and contract a printer to produce 100.000 cards of anything everywhere, you will pay ~ $0.2-0.8 per page (large, heavy stock proppers as in book printing eg) on that amount and each will carry an easy 100+ cards to auto cut. now sell 10 packs of those at 3-4 dollars, and people will buy them all over, making a margin bigger than selling liquor at a downtown New York bar...

/// rather to say: NOT printing card-sets/expansions/blisters by themselves makes ABSOLUTELY no sense, neither from a fan-base/hobby support side, nor from a fiscal perspective.

/// Pokémon, Yugioh, MTG and many other games rely solely on card printing and are/have banked on it like crazy! paper is SO cheap, SO easy to distribute in vast amounts and its SO easy to make basically unlimited new designs (even if you don't even have a model for them yet), just to grow and grow the hobby.