Greetings, forum people -I have a (hopefully) simple question for you.  My apologies if it has been answered elsewhere... my last 40 minutes or so of trawling through these forums has been unfruitful.

Here goes: how many games are we talking about here?  I know the original Elemental: War of Magic had some issues, Stardock promised "two free expansions" to original buyers, etc.  Now with FE and FE:LH in the marketplace, it looks like there are two different games, though language like "standalone expansion" is used.

Basically, am I missing anything if I buy only FE:LH and its DLC?  Are these two different (yet quite similar) games?  Which one (or both) should I buy, and why?  It seems like both games have active development - are they on different trees, or are they getting the same patches?  Is the gameplay diverging or converging?  Are the differences subtle or obvious?  (OK, maybe that was more than one simple question, but hopefully you can see what I mean.)

I loved the original idea of E:WoM, but saw the bad reviews and decided to sit things out until Stardock fixed things.  It seems like the time has come, but I need to understand what to buy before I spend any $$.