I just started playing last week with my family and we are only using the Core set so far. We are trying to learn how to play from watching youtube videos and reading the forums because we do not have anyone to teach us or even a local shop to play at.

We have several questions about specific cards that are not covered in the FAQ or errata lists.

1. When using Robb Stark and you win the military challenge do you choose and kill one of the losing players characters even if that character did not participate in the challenge? Just to be sure, you choose after your opponent chooses who dies from the challenge right?

2. When my opponent has Viserys or Ser Davos in play can they always choose him if I win a military challenge? This seems over powered because he always returns to their hand and is played again next turn.

3. When using a card like Strong Belwas can I choose to save a character that was chosen as the killed character because of a military challenge?

4. If I have a location like Great Hall can I kneel it to make a Baratheon character cost 0?

5. When playing Lion's Will can I pay 4 gold to kneel two characters?

6. If I have Lightbringer attached to a character can I kneel it instead of killing the attached character for a lost military challenge. This seems over powered as well.

Welcome! Let us know what questions you have. We're always happy to help.

Be warned, though, that some of us have been playing for a long time, and when you ask a question, we might also answer a bunch of extra questions you didn't ask or bring up card-specific exceptions that you haven't seen yet. So if there are times when we come across as a college calculus professor making algebra waaaay too complicated because we know what's ahead of you, please forgive.

1. When using Robb Stark and you win the military challenge do you choose and kill one of the losing players characters even if that character did not participate in the challenge? Just to be sure, you choose after your opponent chooses who dies from the challenge right?

Correct. Since Robb says to choose a character, without limiting that to a "participating character" or a "kneeling character" or something like that, you can choose absolutely any character controlled by that losing player.

You are also correct about claim effects coming first. As a general rule, settling claim (killing a character for military, discarding a card for intrigue, or stealing power for power) will ALWAYS happen before any "response" effect to winning/losing/resolving the challenge can be used.

2. When my opponent has Viserys or Ser Davos in play can they always choose him if I win a military challenge? This seems over powered because he always returns to their hand and is played again next turn.

That is true. They can choose him to die for military claim, take them back into hand, play him again next round, and do it all over again. It is powerful, but it isn't as over-powered as it seems at first glance. For one, they have to keep PAYING for them, which means they are not paying for other things that get them closer to winning themselves. But yes, when playing with just the Core Set, that can get pretty annoying to play against.

3. When using a card like Strong Belwas can I choose to save a character that was chosen as the killed character because of a military challenge?

Yes. When a character says "save from being killed," they can save the character from any kill effect, even military claim. (The exception, of course, is if the kill effect specifically says "cannot be saved".)

4. If I have a location like Great Hall can I kneel it to make a Baratheon character cost 0?

Yes. There is no "minimum cost" for characters, locations, etc. If you have enough reducers to lower the cost to "free," awesome!

5. When playing Lion's Will can I pay 4 gold to kneel two characters?

No. When you trigger an effect, you can only do what it written. You cannot assume variables or flexibility where there is none. So "pay 2 gold to choose and kneel a character" doesn't give you any room to increase or decrease the number of gold or the number of characters knelt. If you had two copies of the event in your hand, you could play both copies, one after the other, so that it worked out to "pay 4 to kneel 2," but you cannot arbitrarily multiply the single event card by 2.

6. If I have Lightbringer attached to a character can I kneel it instead of killing the attached character for a lost military challenge. This seems over powered as well.

Yes. This is just like the question about Strong Belwas. It is strong, but again, not as overpowered as you might think at first glance. For one thing, people will pile up the kills on that one character until it is gone. For another, think some of the "discard an attachment" effects that are in the Targaryen deck. True, when playing in with just the Core set, it can be annoying, though.

Thanks for the help. You will probably be hearing from me again when we get more cards and run into more situations. This is a great game that does not get enough credit.

One thing it to me a long time to get when I first started was to learn to read the text on the card

It sounds obvious but there is a tendency to enhance, restrict or otherwise translate the text

We...we...we...we

~God help us, now he has taken up the royal "we"! Well, if anybody can pull it off, it's certainly ktom!

Court of the imperial Majesty?

Some advice for a new player with the core set as well.

Cards like Davos and Viserys that return to hand when killed are subsequently vulnerable to intrigue challenges snatching them out of the players hand and putting them straight into the discard pile.

As there are no orders to the challenges (so you could do them in any order) sometimes its a question of what way is best to do your challenges (does that stark player have 2 standing characters that look like they may be fueling a lethal counter attack? Intrigue first and try and discard it!).

And all the decks in the core set have at least one horrible card that seems OP or makes somethign unkillable (nymeria in stark, lannisport brother in lannister, lightbringer in bara and viserys in targ). That's just the nature of the limited decks. If you expand your card pool this will become less of an issue for you over time

I hit on a couple of cards tonight as well.

With cards like Valar Morghulis when it says "kill all characters in play" does that mean every single character or just your opponent's characters?

Some cards like Condemned by the Realm (another plot card) say that you are to choose an opponent who then must choose and kill a character they do not control. Does this mean that the opponent can pick any character in play, even one of yours? This card would be nonsense in a two player game if this true.

Lastly we have a neutral card called Maester Aemon who displays no challenge icons at all but does display a strength number. His text reads that you may kneel him to save a Night Watch character from being killed. Since this can be accomplished without the use of the strength (which it is not implied at all that it should be used for this action) what is the strength used for? My thoughts were leaning towards a wildcard that could lend 2 STR to any challenge?

Read the cards as literally as possible.

Valar Morghulis means "ALL" characters, no matter who controls them.

Yes, Condemned means he can kill one of your characters - usually not a good idea to use that plot in Joust.

Maester Aemon's STR counts in Dominance Phase (if he is Standing). There are also cards that can give characters Icons and enable them to participate in challenges.

re Maester Aemon - there are also cards that discard or kill people when their strength is zero, so a bit of strength always helps

Other game mechanics allow you to give characters icons

The core set is only the start of the game, with expansion and chapter packs there's a whole new world of cards, so some things which seem odd now become far more meaningful and normal later on

As such, again, do not try to read anything into the cards other than what you see and read on them

Thanks all