Going Off on a Tangent: A Game of Thrones LCG

 
So I've ran out of things V:tES for a while (yes, my vid of the ACC is months overdue, but I'm still learning the video edit software, so please bear with me), and will now talk about something that I've gotten into recently: the A Game of Thrones LCG by Fantasy Flight Games.

So Stephen went and got the game and have been itching to try it out. After setting up the pieces in the box, we had the following 4 players:

• Bann (playing House Baratheon)
• Stephen (playing House Targaryen)
• Darren (playing House Stark)
• Me (playing House Lannister)

This is the first game for me, and none of the other players have had more that a couple of games under their belts, so we were fairly noob at the game.

The first thing that happens in the game is the setup phase, where we all get 5 gold to spend on buying things prior to the actual start of the game. None of us got particularly good cards (or had some but had no idea what we were doing), and so setup was fairly unimpressive.

First round, I played a plot that made everyone's plot cards generate 0 gold. I thought that was a good move, which would have gotten me ahead, since I got a handful of stuff that cost nothing to play and either generated gold for me or gave me discounts on more stuff. Then Stephen went ahead and blew up my gold producing attachment (after telling me that attachments are particularly hard to get rid of *shakes fist*).

None of us were really sure what we were doing, so we sort of poked at each other just to see what would happen. I figured my strategy would be to keep a low profile by redirecting attention to everyone else. It kind of worked all the way up to right at the end.

Two and a half hours later, I convinced Stephen to pick himself as the first player for that round (winning initiative lets you pick who goes first) by telling him that he would have to go first or risk having Bann or I steal the win (first person to 15 power) from under him. I figured that that would allow me a shot at victory before Bann took his turn, which was quite important, given how close we all were (well, except Darren, but he caught some fairly tough breaks after a frighteningly opening few rounds).

Stephen decided to play it safe, since he was fairly confident that as long as he took a few shots at Bann, he could drag the game to the next round, where he might have a better chance. He smacked Bann around for a little and decided to call it a day.

Darren then took a few cheap power and took to defending in preparation for the next round.

Then my turn came around. We all calculated that my maximum power production was going to land me 1 short of the required 15 (I needed 5 more) and so I was not too much of a threat. Little did they know that I was hiding an event card (which could be played at any time) that could allow me to kneel a character and grab the last power I needed. I just had to plan my turn properly. I started with an innocent looking military challenge at Stephen, who decided that it was not worth his effort to block it. Darren had the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard title, which allowed him to redirect any unopposed (i.e. unblocked) military challenge to himself, but chose not to, netting me 1 power for an unopposed challenge (4 power to go). I then took a cheap intrigue shot at Darren, using stealth to get past his only legal defender, netting me 1 more power for the unopposed challenge (3 power to go). Next, I attempted a power challenge against Stephen who could not oppose it in any significant way. I forgot to read the card text on one of Darren's characters (i.e. minions) and he used its ability to get in my way.

And I made the biggest mistake of the game.

I completely forgot that I had a claim of 2 that turn (which means I would have been able to steal 2 power from Stephen if I was successful), so I used that event I had in hand to kneel (i.e. tap) Darren's offending character, giving him the power I would later need to win the game. Stephen then decided to oppose my challenge, depriving me of the one extra power to win the game.

Bann that powered a power challenge through me defenses to win the game.

*****

House Targaryen has a lot of big characters for reasonable cheap prices, but still takes a while to get its engine going. Late in the game, it takes a lot of effort to take down its characters, but it suffers from a limited ability to put significant number of characters in play at any one time.

House Lannister has a lot of tricks, but need a bit of planning to push for the win. It has a good mix of card and gold generating effects that help pay for stuff, but it lacks any truly impressive characters.

House Stark is out-and-out military. Smack the crap out of your opponents and stroll in for the power. The starter does run into a lot of problems with incomplete combos (no full playset of each combo) which greatly hampers its ability to rule the end game.

House Baratheon is also fairly tricksy. However, it requires influence to power most of its tricks and also runs into the problem of having too many of its power sitting with its characters instead of with the player (power on characters are lost together with the character).

All in all, I quite like the game, even if it takes a little long to play. Looking forwards to try it again, now that Stephen has done some deck tweaking.

Maybe I'll get a set myself *wink, wink*