Hi all, new to the game and I've got a couple of noob questions to pose:

• Old Red Priest , when killed, has the effect of "choose and kneel a standing location you control, if able" . Is this ever useful to the player who controlled the priest? Is it ever particularly bad? I don't see what the point of this effect is beyond a minor inconvenience.
• When is winning the initiative and then choosing to go second the better course of action? I can see that it might have some slight benefit when trying to win the dominance phase, but would there be other good reasons?
• Am I right in thinking that the benefit of Infamy is to prevent power challenges from taking tokens from your house card? Do characters with power tokens ever gain any benefit from those power tokens? When a character with power tokens is killed, do his power tokens go back to the Throne Room (i.e. rather than being transferred to the house)?

Apologies in advance if those questions are covered in the core rules or the FAQ.

Laban Shrewsbury said:

Its a way to justify his cost (1 gold for a tricon) there is no real benefit, and you are right that it is mostly a minor inconvenience.

Laban Shrewsbury said:

It depends a lot on the game situation. A general rule of thumb is that you want to go second against a control deck as it takes options away from any of its marshalling phase actions. Also, if you running power rush you might want to go second and let an unopposed challenge thorugh so that you have power to take form the hosue card.

Laban Shrewsbury said:

You are right in the main benefit. Some of the older versions of characters with infamy got some really good benefits as did some locations when power was on them. There aren't really any in LCG though. It does go bakc to the Pool (Throne Room) and not to the house card.

#2 - Lars does give one of the primary benefits of going second - against a control deck that does a lot of things to you in the Marshaling phase (think of all those Lannister characters that kneel opponent's characters when they come into play), going second helps slow down the control. Conversely, if you ARE playing one of those control-type decks, you might want to go second so that you can get at their best characters, not just the best characters they've played so far this phase, in Marshaling. Another good example of when it might be good to go second is if you are playing a Summer or Winter deck (which you may not have encountered yet if you haven't picked up any of the Time for Ravens "chapter" expansion packs), especially against someone playing the opposite season. The person who goes last in Marshaling has the most control over which season it is.

There may be certain times when going second helps in Challenges, too. It all comes down to who you want to stick with the "what do I hold back for defense" decision. But as a good rule of thumb, I'd say that when a player needs to control the challenge phase, they usually want to go first. But if a player needs to control (or not be controlled in) the Marshaling phase, they often want to go second.

Thanks for those replies. That troublesome priest is still causing problems:

• Let's say that I have Old Red Priest out, plus Aegon's Garden and (a standing) Street of Sisters . The other player is the first player and the actve player. It's the Marshalling phase. The other player kneels Ser Ilyn Payne and decides to kill the priest. Could I somehow kneel Aegon's Garden (it's a standing location after all)? If so, when I become the active player do I still claim a gold for Aegon's Garden now that it's knelt? If I can't kneel the garden then I must kneel Street of Sisters, but would its kneeling effect still apply when I become the active player, or does it only apply during the original action window?

why do you think there would be something stopping you from kneeling Aegon's Garden? As you say it is a location that is standing, therfore valid for Old Red Priest. He does not say kneel the more useful location to keep standing and there is no restriction on him other then location.

If a location has a +1 gold icon on it, its standing or kneeling status has no affect nor concern on its ability to produce +1 gold.

Also, if you only had the street of sisters and old red priest out as your only 2 STR or lower character after your opponent plays Ser Ilyn Payne you can trigger Street of Sisters to lower the cost of the next character you play with a power icon (it would 'wait' until you do so) before your opponent triggers Payne on Old Red Priest. Thereby 'avoiding' the drawbakc of Old Red Priest.

Laban Shrewsbury said:

Lars answers most of your questions (there's no reason you couldn't kneel Aegon's Garden since it meets all the requirements - an almost unbelievable thing since it doesn't matter if the Garden itself is standing or kneeling - and how to rig the timing with the Street). He seems to miss answering an unasked bit in this last question. There are a couple of clarifications this question implies:

- An "action window" is self contained for each action a player (or the game) initiates. They are pretty quick because each action takes place in its own window. Passive effects (like the ORP) and Response take place as part of the action window for the thing that activates them. So technically, the Old Red Priest's passive ability takes place (passively) as part of the action window for whatever killed it. So if the kneeling effect only applied "during the original action window," the location would almost stand immediately after being kneeled. That, obviously, isn't what's going on.

- The "kneel a location" effect is no different than something like Enemy Informer saying "kneel a character." That kneeling is permanent, at least until some other effect stands the character. Unless an effect actually specifies how long it lasts (like "until the end of the phase" or "while participating in a challenge"), it is permanent. Or at least "permanent" until some other effect hits it.

So, if you don't take advantage of the timing trick Lars points out, the Street will be knelt until something specifically stands it again - like the Standing phase.

ktom said:

Apologies for my imprecise language. The "effect" I was referring to was the reduction in cost of the next power character. But there's nothing on the card which says that the cost reduction isn't still available when I become the active (marshalling) player. In fact it explicitly says "this phase" so it must remain available until the end of the marshalling phase, right?

Ok, that seems pretty clear. I think my whole confusion comes from expecting there to be some 'deeper meaning' to the priest's ability, or perhaps the older CCG (which I have zero familiarity with) had a card which was influenced by standing locations. I'll just kneel a land and move on for the time being .

Thanks for your answers guys, the help isgreatly appreciated!

Laban Shrewsbury said:

Sorry. The way it was phrased in the original post, I thought the "it" referred to the ORP, not the Street.

You are correct that the effect of the Street lasts from the time you kneel it until the time you play your next character with a power icon (or the end of the phase, whichever comes first). Keep in mind that the Street would be knelt to reduce the cost in 1 action window, and playing the character will always happen in an entirely different action window, so the reducing must last, right?

Laban Shrewsbury said:

I think my whole confusion comes from expecting there to be some 'deeper meaning' to the priest's ability, or perhaps the older CCG (which I have zero familiarity with) had a card which was influenced by standing locations. I'll just kneel a land and move on for the time being .

I get what you're saying. The kneel is obviously supposed to be a drawback, but it really isn't much of one at all in practice. As long as you've got an Aegon's Garden in play, it's pretty much meaningless altogether since you have at least one location that doesn't care if it is standing or kneeling - and will almost never be knelt by anything else. Historically, there have been a fair number of locations that you had to kneel in order to get their effect and there was a time in the CCG's evolution where players were not using many straight gold boosts like Aegon's Garden, so the ORP's kneeling thing could be more significant. But not really.

There isn't anything deeper to it - it's more of a quirk than a drawback.