Night's Watch Preview
So not only does this look really promising, but so does the first expansion pack they released today. I've been very excited to play as the Night's Watch and was hoping they would have an interesting theme and I really like their subverting of the other person's challenges. Cards like For The Watch (from the chapter pack preview https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/6/16/taking-the-black/) seem incredibly powerful and really build on that theme, but even more I like how thematic it is. It makes sense that it's going to be hard (almost fruitless) for the other Houses to move against the Watch.
The Builders, Stewards, and Rangers are great and I like the fact that they are immediately building off of those keywords with the ability to draw what you're missing. However, the clear weakness of the Night's Watch is they get wrecked if they lose unopposed challenges. So they need to be the jack-of-all-trades during each game, which (again) is thematic, but always seems dangerous in card games.
I dont' have enough experience with the game, but they feel like the late-game power that is going to be very difficult to stop once they've gotten rolling and will simply sit there, gathering power, winning dominance, using The Wall, and shrugging of challenges.
Overall, as someone who was really excited to play as the Night's Watch, I love how they're building them up. Interesting theme, will require thought in deck-building, already have their own keywords, very nice.
Point of order: Steward , Builder , and Ranger are Traits, not keywords.
How good Night's Watch will be seems to depend on other Faction's ability to force unoppsed challenges. In first edition this was mostly a greyjoy speciality, but with something like kneel or icon control +stealth other houses should be able to get unopposed challenges through. I am not yet sold on the viability of a purely defensive deck.
How good Night's Watch will be seems to depend on other Faction's ability to force unoppsed challenges. In first edition this was mostly a greyjoy speciality, but with something like kneel or icon control +stealth other houses should be able to get unopposed challenges through. I am not yet sold on the viability of a purely defensive deck.
There was a brief time in 1st ed that Stark defense was playable
