ST PREM/LE is a great pin in a small lineup. Why? Cause it has everything - short ball times, long ball times, flow, speed, scoring strategies, story capturing, Immersive light show, fun, excitement, depth, and a warp Ramp.

Regardless of what people say, the game is not grinding but it can be played that way and what I mean is if you tackle the game with the same strategy every game, it'll feel a bit repetitious. But that's what's great about ST - tons of different strategies and ways to tackle the game.

I have an IMVE on the way to compliment my STLE so I really can't answer the OP question quite yet except to get both! Lol. but for a small lineup - I'd go ST for the depth, and diversity that gives it a replay ability factor. IM & ACDC are kick your ass games - it would be nice to have a pin that rewards you on good play without any cheap drains like those other 2.

That said; I should mention, my STLE has gone to bat against some top pins in my pin rotation and has outlasted them all (ACDC, MET, LOTR). And of those top matches, ACDC was my least favorite to compliment ST - don't really know exactly why. So for that reason, you may want to go IMVE.

...It got knocked the F*** out by STLE

...it went here, there and back again

Seriously, I had my outlanes wide open, pitch at 6.9, balls at 2, no EB memory, and was still killing it. FOTR MB is prob the best MB in all of pinball, but I owned LOTR for 6 years prior to this last purchase; it's just time to put this one to rest until the day I can own and afford 12+ pins.

Keefer is my favorite programmer; but I just have not been able to get into that pin. I actually played a few games on location last night. Granted it was a location pin, but I still felt very 'meh' about the gameplay, sounds, and stop n go style. I'm sure there's a spectacular Classic Keefer style depth to be experienced on it, but I haven't been able to get myself past the first couple layers of the surface to dig deeper.

Shorter than ACDC, yes! Tougher? I'd say no - it has an easy to understand russet which is shallow but effective. ACDC is super deep, immersive and has a lot going on so it's tough to follow all that's happening with the fast gameplay.

Wife and I decided it was time to go back to having threesomes! ....uh pinball threesome that is. She wanted ironman, I wanted TWD. Our anniversary is in a few weeks so what better way to celebrate than having a threesome!

Ended up choosing the premium. The walker bombs and expanded ruleset ultimately was the deciding factor. No one really could convince me to go pro in that one thread I had going. The most convincing posts in that thread came from pro owners who wished they went premium.