I can't believe you think spawn points aren't that good.... There's only one I think is overall 'poor', the others are excellent.

New expansion sounds great, and I'm really interested in the alternate mages too.  However, for those that were requesting the alternate gendered mages, I do wonder if this will appease them.  Sure, they have the opposite gender now, but what if the ability is not what they want for 'their' book etc?

Just a random musing really, but I am left wondering whether there should have been just male/female versions of each mage, AND alternate versions too... Thoughts?

*Sidenote: I couldn't give two hoots about this, just for the record

Luck plays a much smaller factor in winning games compared to a typical "CCG" where your hand is randomly drawn.

I don't agree - it plays at least as much in my experience. Obviously, as Mage Wars is still in it's infacy, it's difficult to tell whether the same players consistantly win their games, but there's a reason the same ccg players won theirs....
Fact is, I have both won and lost games (lost more than won too) purely because of terrible dice on my behalf or amazing on my opponents (often both at the same time, which makes a massive difference....).

Like I said, I'm not saying randomness in a game is bad, far from it - but I like to be able to mitigate randmoness where possible...

Wow - I find myself agreeing with sIKE so much I even used the 'hardly ever used' Thank You button....

The game is great, it really is, but sometimes the randomness is SO apparent it makes me want to pull my hair out. The infamous game where I layered 5 armour, and my opponent scored only critical hits from then on - through about 30 attack dice, and many other stories where the rolls played a MASSIVE roll in things.

In fact, if there was one change I could make to this game, it would be to change the dice to D8s, and adding another blank and another 1 damage. It doesn't sit well with me that you're just as likely to crit as you are to do normal damage....

But I digress Lots of randomness here is my feeling. Not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes, it will make you think that a deity is actively picking on you

My games are bordering on 30-60 mins more and more....

Mine too.  I've found only Priestess and Forcemaster tend to make games longer, as they both seem to have combat/damage avoidance abilities that naturally lengthen a game.

To make games shorter, my advice is to focus - concentrate on killing your opponent.  Sure, that Cheetah Speed on him might look cool, but is it really worth taking an action to dispel?  The more I play, the more I realise the game is about making as efficient use of your actions as possible.  I VERY rarely attack a creature if I have the option to attack an opponent directly, for example.  Getting distracted is what tends to lengthen games, not the game itself.

Just my experience.

So the expansion should never be something you need to buy in order to win.

*Need* we may not, but there are those of us that will buy pretty much anything released whether we need it or not!    Stupid compulsions....

As for amount of expansions, I'm sort of torn here actually.  In the one hand, I agree with the OP.  However, if expansions are without spell books and duplicate cards from previous sets (i.e. just new mages and/or spells), then I don't object to a few of these coming out.

But don't go crazy guys...  

There are several players in the Bedfordshire area, and I have another friend in Winchester. We are around

Yes, they are out of stock currently too. I was told they're expecting a new lot imminently.
However, I was also told shipping to the UK for the spell books could be around the $95 mark.... I don't want them that much.