I bought the Core Set when it first came out, and have been playing intermittently with just the default decks for a few months. Something of a group for play has started up among my friends, so I'm starting to play more regularly, and I'm seeking some advice on how to get the game to "click" for me. Although I've played a good number of games, I don't really have much of an understanding of when to attack, when to hold back for defense, which challenges to focus on, etc... In particular, I tend to get trounced by Stark as soon as a few high strength Deadly cards hit the table, and was wondering if there's some way to counterpreventwork around him killing all my characters in the military challenge.

Dsarvess said:

Maybe you misunderstood the rules about deadly, it just kills one DEFENDING charater after the challege resolves (even if he attacks with 3 deadly characters) and there has to be someone defending to be killed. So if there are no defendig character noone dies. In military challenges if you know you wont be able to defend it anyway just use one weak character for defence and when you have to kill someone for claim kill that charater, then because the ONLY DEFENDING character was killed for claim you dont have to kill anyone else for deadly. Btw each of the Houses has some save against killing, so in Bara just put out your Lightbringer and leave the military unopposed save the charater with Lightbringer and retrurn some favors The only thing where Deadly hurts more in in INT or POW challeges since if you defend, some of your guys die iven if they dont have to. So be carefull about that, but you can still oppose with some self saving chars like Viserys to dont give your oppo free powers.

In our meta Stark has almost never won with just CoreSet since he has a lot of Military icons and Deadly but that is about it. Intrigue challenge is almost alway free and power should not be that hard too. It is not hard to calculate what can you benefit from. It is easy math. Eg. in first plot let your oppo go free power challenge since he has nothing to take and then take it back, easy and efficient.

Ahhh. Yes, we have been doing deadly wrong. We've been doing it where the defender is killed by deadly before determining success or failure of the plot, not after. That would make it somewhat easier to deal with. Thanks!

Egads! Yes that would definitely change things a lot. Deadly is pretty much the last thing that happens in challenge resolution outside of responses to winning/losing a challenge, and like Rozy said no matter how many deadly characters he has in the challenge, only one of your defenders needs to die from it if you have less deadly in the challenge. Claim is always settled first.

If you are playing Lannister kneel out his biggest strongest guys and just tear into him with intrigue challenges. No cards in his hand makes it a lot harder to play the game and stark has crap all for draw in the Core Set.

If you are playing Targ, use your tricons, stealth, and own deadly to hammer at him.

If you are playing Bara Lightbringer is you best friend against military challenges and Stannis and Robert are your best way of gaining power, far faster than anything Stark can muster.

I tend to play Targaryen, so you're saying I should try beating him out in the other two challenges so that I can win before he kills all of my characters? Or am I misinterpreting what you're saying? Don't get me wrong, although I've had this game for a while, it's not been played that much, so I have a very rudementary understanding of the most basic terms and strategies.

That is precisely what I'm saying Targaryen has 7 characters with the intrigue icon (5 of those are actually tricons). Stark has 2. Targ has 16 characters with power icons. Stark has 13 (one of which can only defend). When you compare the strength of characters for both icons between the houses Targ is just a bit better. Targ has 2 Deadly characters and 5 Stealth compared to Stark's 4 Deadly and 0 Stealth (though Arya can steal Stealth and Ghost a neutral in Stark's Core Set deck has stealth also).

As long as you concentrate on intrigue and power challenges you should be able to outlast Stark's military rush, which is severely blunted if you can get Maester Aemon in play (who can be selected as claim and then knelt to save himself since he is a Night's Watch) with Stark having only two 2 claim plots and only one claim raising event.

Okay. I think I kind of get it now. The only things that I'm left wondering are: When should I go first when I win initiative? Is there some sort of general idea I should keep in mind about when it's advantageous and not? And, how much should I commit to attack? To defense? To Dominance? Are there some things I ought to keep in mind, or are they more just, "Look at what's in play, and try to figure out what's most advantageous?"

There is no hard fast rule, but I'll explain my thinking when playing Core Set Targ. Not saying you should do what I do, just saying if you understand it, you can reach your own decisions and know why you are doing one or the other.

On going first -
If I'm going to ram a deadly challenge or play some sort of challenge phase voodoo I like to go first. It forces my opponent to react to me and constantly worry about what I'm going to do. His planning starts being reactive rather than active which lets me dictate the pace and direction of the game. The more skilled my opponent the less likely this is going to rattle him or force him to change from his plans, but against newer players they can fall into analysis paralysis.

On going second -
If I have ambush cards or negative attachments I want to play on his characters I want to go second. He is planning on what he is going to play and how that will affect his challenges and when I lay down a Poisoned Wine or Flame Kissed it forces him to reevaluate everything and that breeds mistakes. The more variables I can give him and the further off his game I can throw him the better it is for me.

On the attack -
Against Stark always be leery of overcommiting to the military attack when he has two standing Stark characters, nothing worse than attacking with enough force to ram through the challenege to suddenly find yourself with no attacking force due to Lethal Counterattack. As a general rule you need to figure out what is the primary purpose of any given attack. Sometimes I will attack not to win, but to force my opponent to kneel a minimum amount of strength. If he doesn't and I get the win plus unopposed. Be careful when doing this when he has renown in play though. Usually when I'm going first I want to send feints his way, especially during military, because I know to beat my 2 STR weenie and not kill someone, he must commit a 3 STR character who could be coming through with little I could do to stop it. In Targ vs. Stark I would win the Intrigue with little effort, and plan on winning the power challenge.

On defense -
If I can't stop the Stark player's Millitary there is no reason to defend it, let it through, give him the free unopoosed power, and then steal it the next turn with a strong Power challenge. Oppose the power challenge when doing so will not limit your ability to respond with an attack or win dominance. Intrigue should never be an issue for you.

On Dominance -
I never worry about trying to win dominance. Either the win is there with little investment or it isn't. Usually the hardest I worry about this is when my attacking second or defending a challenge would mean my opponent would gain dominance and I wouldn't gain any power out of the kneeling. Then sometimes I have to ask myself, do I want a power or do I want to strip that card he has been hanging on to from his hand? If you can manage to win Dominance several times in a row in addition to winning unopposed Intrigue challenges and winnning some Power challenges, you can start racking up power quickly, don't overlook the chance to win it, but I wouldn't invest a lot of time and energy in forcing the win.

Dsarvess said:

To a large extent, yes. You need to be flexible and make a lot of these decisions based on the current situation and your board position. Essentially, these are tactical decisions, not strategic ones. No matter how you build your deck or what you want to concentrate on generally, there are some things you just have to learn to "read" as the game plays out.

That said, here are some general things to keep in mind:

- Winning initiative does not mean you HAVE to go first. It means you choose who goes first. There are times, especially in Melee (multiplayer) games, where you want to win initiative not so you CAN go first (because going first in Melee often makes you the target for everyone else's challenges), but so that you can choose where you are in the turn rotation.

- In general, people want to go first, especially as the game goes on, because they get the first chance to punch through the win. Or, if they are behind, to steal power or force them to kneel out their characters to delay their win.

- However, if you are playing against Lannister, and even some Targ decks, that are heavy on control strategies, you may prefer to go second. Reason being, there are a fair number of attachments, "after you play from your hand" effects and so on that are used to take out your characters. If you are going second, there is much less of a chance that these sorts of control decks will kneel, kill, or otherwise neuter what YOU play during the Marshaling phase. (Simply put, remember that the First Player goes first in Marshaling, too. If they are likely to have a bunch of Marshaling-based control effects, it might be advisable not to go first.)

- How much you commit to attack and defense will depend on how well you can weather the loss of a challenge. In my experience, this is one of the hardest things for new players to get the hang of. They hate losing challenges, so they commit hard to defense, leaving nothing for attack. Ultimately, it is very rare that you can defend your way to victory in this game. So if your opponent is coming at you with an intrigue challenge and you have 3 cards in your hand, ask yourself how much you really need those cards right now. It might be better to sacrifice a card (or take the 1-in-3 chance that your opponent will pull the one card you REALLY want) and leave your own intrigue characters standing to attack - and hopefully pull something important from him. On the other hand, if all 3 of those cards are crucial to your strategy, it is better to commit heavy to defending those three cards.

- There is a real "one step backwards, two steps forward" flow to this game. For instance, letting a power challenge go unopposed, especially one you can't win anyway, in the first round or two ensures that there is power for you to steal in your OWN power challenge.

- You are on the right track in your implication of thinking of Dominance almost as a fourth challenge. How much you try to win it (essentially taking your characters out of the other 3 challenges in order to do so) will depend again on board position, but more importantly on "net power gain." Let's say that you are the second player and the only challenge you have left is a power challenge. You have one character standing, your opponent has none. In this case, it is probably better do the power challenge and get 2 power (1 for claim, 1 for unopposed) without anyone winning dominance than to leave your character standing and win 1 power for Dominance. Similarly, if you have a 2STR power character and your opponent has a 4STR power character (and so they'd win Dominance anyway), it's probably better to attack. The end result will either be you getting 2 power (claim/unopposed) and your opponent getting 1 (Dominance) - which is like "none" since it replaces the one you took for claim BTW, or neither of you getting any power (he wins on defense, but there is no one standing for Dominance, either).

From some of those examples, you can see that decisions regarding what you are asking will often be much more tactical than strategic. Still, the general principles are that there is little point in defending a challenge you can't win anyway with anything beyond the minimum needed to oppose it. Even then, it might be better to let it go unopposed and have the character available for other challenges or Dominance, depending on your opponent's total power levels. Winning on defense doesn't get you closer to winning; it only preserves your present position - so think about how much you need to win on defense before depriving yourself of an attack (sometimes it is good to do so, other times it is not). Dominance is something of a 4th challenge, but it is usually better to concentrate more on winning the regular challenges than on winning Dominance - unless you or your opponent are dealing with a lot of Dominance-based effects.

Thanks very, very for the help. That gives me a much better idea of what sort of thought goes into the various decisions.

What you commit to attack, defense and Dominance is really something you learn for yourself. There are a lot of personal preferences and trends to it. There is some general logic to it, but ultimately, how you approach the game you are currently playing is how YOU approach it.