by Aristarch
It really depends on what you want out of it.Unfortunately, I do not feel that AEG did a very good job at making this an introductory set. For better or worse, L5R has one of the more convoluted rules sets in the CCG world, and there was not enough thought put into avoiding complex timing problems in this set. The four decks do not interact very well, either, as AEG decided to fix them around being focused on different ‘tracks’ scoring–wise. That gives the new player some variety, but it actually discourages certain types of interaction, other than attempting to negatively impact the player who appears to be ahead. (Constructed games of WoH develop in far more interesting manners; I'm not a fan of the format, but I have watched a number of games out of curiosity, trying to see if there is something I've missed.)
The scoring and tile systems the game uses were not based around making this a compelling stand–alone, either. It was to provide a base of "multiplayer–only" cards and so forth for a try at a competitive L5R multiplayer format.
I came back to L5R last year after about three years away; I bought WoH right away, both for the cards for the current arc that are only available in it, but I also hoped it would be a fun & friendly way to introduce friends to the game. One of my continual complaints about AEG is their failure to find ways to get new players except via player–evangelism; friends of mine joke about how often you can be at GenCon/whatever and hear, ‘L5R? Is that still around?’ A set like WoH could have been a good chance.
In some ways, it's a hard call for AEG. They did introductory sets before, and they usually contained purposefully–altered versions of cards. That caused confusion, but it mostly worked. However, the rules were simpler in other ways at that time as well: Setup was simpler, you did not have to keep track of whether or not an ability had been used, etc. They also weren't trying to simultaneously introduce a whole new way of playing the game. WoH seems mostly to have been made for experienced players; which is fine, but a box set like this could have been a chance to suck people in (FFG has shown how that can work; LotR and AGoT work fantastically as stand–alones, which can bring people into the larger game).
You can still try it if you want—I am sure there are those who would heartily disagree with me—because the odds are that you can at least get back the cost in singles sales. :soblue: