Game of Thrones Board Game

[Captain Victarion Greyjoy]

They start terribly. They have no knights(Making their one house card useless) and are going to lose King's Landing first turn unless the Tyrell player is an idiot.

You can play perfectly with Tyrell youwill and take King's Landing in the first turn even if Lannister knows how to put orders and other players raids some of youre supports.Since Tyrell has a good starting position and have the best position in all the traks , you won't have any friends unless they want you to win . You can force and take Kings Landing but you also will have problems if a Greyjoy tries to take Highgarden in the first two rounds. And Martells have only one important neighbour that's Tyrell...so it's not a good ideea to start an make an enemy like Lannister from the start since you are suroudet by possible enemies .Not to mention Baratheon...

[Slurktan]

You can play perfectly with Tyrell youwill and take King's Landing in the first turn even if Lannister knows how to put orders and other players raids some of youre supports.Since Tyrell has a good starting position and have the best position in all the traks , you won't have any friends unless they want you to win . You can force and take Kings Landing but you also will have problems if a Greyjoy tries to take Highgarden in the first two rounds. And Martells have only one important neighbour that's Tyrell...so it's not a good ideea to start an make an enemy like Lannister from the start since you are suroudet by possible enemies .Not to mention Baratheon...

Greyjoys will have to take two turns to take Highgarden and they have to attack it both turns (due to the Margaery card) killing any real potential they have for winning the game and expanding. If the Greyjoys do this then it's because all the other houses are teaming against you as Tyrell and you aren't going to win regardless. It's a really dumb move for the Greyjoys.

[bringerofhope]

Just played a 3-player game with two non-readers and had a blast. Starks and Baratheons tied after 10 rounds with 5 castles/strongholds. Baratheon had the Throne so they won. Lannisters got squeezed in the middle with no power or supply.

Such a fun game. Didn't use the optional cards for combat, but probably will next time.

[DaveSumm]

Just played a 3-player game with two non-readers and had a blast. Starks and Baratheons tied after 10 rounds with 5 castles/strongholds. Baratheon had the Throne so they won. Lannisters got squeezed in the middle with no power or supply.

Such a fun game. Didn't use the optional cards for combat, but probably will next time.

You know that the throne is the last thing to decide ties, after supply, power tokens etc? I forget the exact order but throne is definitely last.

And I've taken to introducing ToB cards in turn 6, so you get a more secure footing to position your troops early, then less stability for the important later battles.

[GallowsKnight]

Played two four player games last night with my girlfriend, plus a mate and his girlfriend. So alliances were pretty obvious.

We had problems with the initial set up with four players (i.e. Baratheon having free reign in the south). So for the next game we blocked pyke, sunspear, starfall, salty shore and yronwood. Added the Tyrells instead of Greyjoys. That worked very elegantly.

I was Baratheon and had been taking a pounding from Tyrell, (Stark/Girlfriend and I had got screwed with supply at a few points). He managed to Loras Tyrell an army into my men in the Reach and then Kingslanding.

It looked like Lannister was going to win in round 10 with 5 castles. Then I got my full hand back however, Stannis Baratheon (plus 1 because of the Iron Throne being lost) with a siege engine from Dragonstone and three ships +1 in blackwater bay, a knight and a foot in Cracklaw supporting and I took Kingslanding back effortlessly. 16 CS to 8 (four knights). They used Olenna Tyrell to drop me to 12 (removing blackwater bay).

Then with two knights +4 in the Blackwater I pushed into Harrenhal (support +3 by Cracklaw) against Lannister who had a CS of 8 and the Valyrian blade. I played Davos (+1 with Stannis discarded) and they played Jaime Lannister (+2). So we were equal 10 points each. They'd win on a tie.

We drew tides of battle cards. To my astonishment I drew the +3. Lannister tried twice but only got +1 and a 0.

With 13 points I took Harrenhal and won the game with five castles.

While I usually hate luck based outcomes this was amazing as we were all on our seats to see who won the game (and by proxy for our partners). Davos's fingerbones for the win!

Also the Olenna Tyrell would have won the game for Lannister had the Cracklaw support been removed rather than the Blackwater. Stark had almost taken Seagard earlier (and would have pushed me into the lead) but had the tides of battles rule against them then.

An intense and fun game.

[King Tyrion I]

A friend told me not to play Lannister in the beginning.

Any thoughts on that?

[DaveSumm]

A friend told me not to play Lannister in the beginning.

Any thoughts on that?

If it's three player, Lannister are great. Four player, and you've suddenly got Greyjoy on your case. You'll then be left with heading south and trying to take Highgarden/Oldtown/Dorne, which is probably what Baratheon will be doing down the east coast as well. I think Baratheon have an easier time of this so they're the favourites in four player, you'll have to make sure Stark do their bit and make tracks down the east coast. So basically if it's four player, it's not enough to just head south because Baratheon will probably win, so you'll have to try and take Riverrun and maybe Harrenhal, and try and hold The Reach. Riverrun and Harrenhal are tricky because Greyjoy pretty much have no options but to take these in-land castles, so they'll be going in full force.

But I'd probably still take Lannister in four player over Greyjoy, who are squashed in between you and Stark. In five player, Tyrell are the raw deal IMO and six is generally pretty even. With four, you could always try one of the mods; swap Greyjoy for Tyrell is a popular one, or I've been meaning to try Stark/Baratheon/Martell/Lannister, but this would involve blocking some of the Riverlands because this would massively favour Lannister.

[King Tyrion I]

Thanks, Dave.

That helped me. Really.

[DaveSumm]

Thanks, Dave.

That helped me. Really.

No problem. I could talk about this game all day. :)

I've been meaning to try Stark/Baratheon/Martell/Lannister, but this would involve blocking some of the Riverlands because this would massively favour Lannister.

Or maybe not as massively as I thought. I've looked at the board and determined which castles would very likely go to each house and which would be contested between two or more houses. Each house generally has three castles that they could bank on in a game (assuming we block Pyke ala the three player game), and to the right I've noted the borderline castles which they'd contest:

Lannister:

Lannisport Harrenhal (F)

Riverrun Flint's Finger (E)

Highgarden Seagard (F)

Oldtown (F)

Martell:

Sunspear Storm's End (E)

Yronwood The Reach (NF)

Starfall Oldtown (NF)

Baratheon:

Dragonstone Storm's End (E)

King's Landing The Eyrie (E)

Cracklaw Point The Reach (F)

Harrenhal (NF)

Stark:

Winterfell The Eyrie (E)

White Harbour Flint's Finger (E)

Moat Cailin Seagard (NF)

The letter in brackets indicates whether they're the favourite to take that castle (closer to it = favourite, same number of moves = even, further away = not favourite), so I suppose Lannister are still probably the favourite in this respect. Though it's worth remembering that it'd be difficult to commit to taking all of these contested castles. The other thing is that all three of Lannister's bankers are strongholds, so to make it slightly fairer I'd probably downgrade Riverrun to a castle.

I think this setup is fairer than the prescribed four player, it's less obvious what tactic each house will take because they have contested castles in all directions (as I noted in the last post, Baratheon and Lannister have no choice but to head south and take advantage of the open land with Greyjoy as the fourth player), and of course the big reason I did all this; you can spread the chairs out around the table instead of wedging them in together on the west coast. Nice.

[ashayatara]

This is one of my all-time favorite games. I expanded on the work of the fan-made Feast for Crows expansion that makes it a 9 player game, adding Tully, Arryn, and Targaryen. Printing out the board was a large expense, but it looks great hanging on a wall between games! You have to acquire more pieces as well, and paint them, but that was pretty fun, too. The expansion was out of date, so my boyfriend and I updated the cards a bit. We have actually changed them somewhat since this incarnation, but as we have a few more tweaks we want to work out (it is hard to playtest a 9 player game, we have ended up playing 2 houses each, 4 players, cutting out one house, a few times), I did not see a point in redoing the albums for a few card changes, but I think I will be doing so pretty soon.

Thought I'd see if anyone here has played the 9 player variant.

Also, while I'm here, I got the new ADWD cards, boy was I pissed when I saw the House Bolton cards with the direwolf and 'House Stark' written upon their starting setup card. I was looking forward to a new deck with the flayed man!

[Dilettante Gamer]

I just posted links to an interesting campaign version using this game plus Battles of Westeros to fight the actual battles over on my blog. I want to give it a try with my gaming group as both of these are great games.

http://dilettantegamer.blogspot.com/

[GallowsKnight]

I'm playing with an idea for a future game with the ADWD cards, the game plays as normal but once the player expends their hand they start using the ADWD cards.

Edit:

Another idea we had was that each player builds a deck at the start of the game from the two sets of cards. The only restriction is that players must have the 1x4, 1x3, 2x2, 2x1, 1x0 cards and no two cards of the same character can be held.

It leads to some insanely OP hands. Stark could for example have:

4 Ned Stark - Two swords

3 Ramsay Bolton - 3 sword +1 CS if reek is in your hand

2 Roose Bolton - classic return a hand ability

2 GreatJon Umber - One sword

1 Brynden Tully - take no casualities from combat

1 Walder Frey - Players supporting another player attacking you actually support you

0 Reek - bring Ramsay back to your hand, Reek as well if you lose.

It's nuts.

[DaveSumm]

If you're like me and don't keep an eye out for news on the board game, you may not know about the Feast for Crows expansion, I only just found out about it. It's a four player set up which addresses the imbalance in the base game by swapping Greyjoy for Arryn, and completely changes the objective of the game. It's no longer territorial acquisition, there are seperate objectives for each house, some public, some private. For instance Arryn's public objective is to hold the Eyrie whilst having more power tokens than any other house. There's also a whole new Westeros deck. It looks really good, I can't wait to get it.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4151

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/964121/a-tiny-little-expansion-with-a-whole-lot-of-game

[GallowsKnight]

If you're like me and don't keep an eye out for news on the board game, you may not know about the Feast for Crows expansion, I only just found out about it. It's a four player set up which addresses the imbalance in the base game by swapping Greyjoy for Arryn, and completely changes the objective of the game. It's no longer territorial acquisition, there are seperate objectives for each house, some public, some private. For instance Arryn's public objective is to hold the Eyrie whilst having more power tokens than any other house. There's also a whole new Westeros deck. It looks really good, I can't wait to get it.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4151

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/964121/a-tiny-little-expansion-with-a-whole-lot-of-game

I played a round a few weeks ago. It's a lot faster. Because even if people gang up on a player, they still keep all the victory points they've accrued. I won as Stark. Had some lucky naval and twins based objective though,

I love the Arryn cards. Like the ADWD Martells it really feels built around a theme/strategy rather than random abilities.

[Asha Greyjoy:Feminist Icon]

Who wants to make this game into an iphone/ android app? eh. EH? ill pay up to 5$. It doesnt even have to be good/work just have the words ASOIAF and in the app store

I have become obsessed with just the idea of playing...was gifted the 2nd edition but have only been able to assemble 3-4 players for at least the next 6 weeks. And I assume that playing less than 5-6 is basically pointless. And so I yearn. (And hate all the folks at our ONE local game shop who are apparently too damn into their Warhammer setup to even give over table space on a fucking THURSDAY. I mean, seriously …)

And so as I wait I have started wondering why an online version of this game doesn't already exist. I mean, how hard could the actual development be? (I honestly don't know.) I kinda want to figure this out somehow but am being, perhaps illogically, dissuaded from trying something out because it doesn't exist.

That is...I now assume it's a copyright thing? Which just makes me wonder how lightly I could make cosmetic changes to skirt CR on this (e.g. Stark=Stork or some shit). Somehow I would assume CR extends into at least some aspects of mechanics...otherwise, again, surely someone would have just thrown out some "The Gambit of SuperChairs!" APK by now.

I want though.

[DaveSumm]

I wouldn't say less than five is pointless at all. I had a great three player the other day. It's true that the game comes in to its own with more players, alliances and scheming and what not, but I still love any number of players. There are some imbalances with low numbers, but with a little tweaking you can even it up. With three player, just pretend that the Pyke neutral force token extends to Ironmans Bay, as Flints Finger and Seagard are crucial fault lines between Stark and Lannister. Lannister having sea support for those makes them massive favourites I would say. Four player, you have either the aFfC expansion which sounds good, or at the moment I play Stark/Baratheon/Martell/Lannister. Again, block Ironmans Bay and you'll probably need to scrap the 'first to seven rule' because there's a lot of land to be had on that board, but other than that I've found it to be pretty even.

And yes I would love an app or something to play this.