European Availability - I know that several distributors in Europe have ordered Spellbook packs and those packs shipped earlier this week. I am still learning about overseas transit time, but they are on their way. Incidentally they should get there about the same time as Action Markers and the Forcemaster Vs Warlord expansion.
Well, that's good news. Hopefully I'll see them for sale at least by the end of February so I can blow my imminent birthday cash on them
Just hope they're easier to get than the base set was...
Future Expansions - This will probably start a lengthy post all its own, but here are our thoughts. Right now a lot of people (along with some of us at AW) like the idea of individual spellbooks to match each Mage. But a lot of people aren't fans of the idea that you might one day have a bookshelf filled with unique spellbooks. I know. I know. I twisted that last sentence.
Anyhow, our guiding philosophy is to give you high quality product at the best value we can find. In keeping with that, it is more cost effective to include the books with the expansions instead of selling them separately. This means you'd spend more money buying an Expansion w/o spellbooks + separate spellbook pack than if they just came with the Expansion.
Bottom line is that the debate rages on here at AW. Odds are good that the next expansion after Forcemaster Vs Warlord will contain spellbooks, but it isn't written in stone yet.
Hope this helps a little.
Glad to hear you're ghaving the conversation if nothing else. That is exactly my worry too btw - having a shelf lined with them. Currently, I'm more than happy to get more books, unique to a specific mage, but right now, I have 2 books, so it's hardly a concern. Talk to me again in 8 spell books time and I suspect I'll feel differently.
Also, already I have found myself favouring some mages over another, which has led me to make different builds with the same caster. By selling the books separately, I may well pick up a duplicate of cetain ones. If they're only available in the expansions, I would suggest that's less likely to happen (especially if you're trying to make the card distribution as user friendly as possible so we'll only
need one copy of the expansion).
Just my two cents....