Well, I've had the core set for over a year now but never had this clarified in the rule book. I searched this forum for a while and couldn't find what I was looking for, so I decided to make an account and ask, no matter how stupid the question is.

How many cards can a player have on a field? I think it's eight from what I've seen, but it's never been specifically stated.

Oh, and, now that I think about it, I want to make sure that locations are in fact located on the field as well.

Thanks for any answers.

You can have as many cards as you'd like on the field. However you can only have one House card and one plot revealed at a time. Otherwise, you can have as many locations, characters, and attachments in play that you can afford to marshall, ambush, etc.

I should note that you can only have control one card type of unique card at any given time. So if you had Joffrey Baratheon, a unique character, in play, you would not be able to play another copy of any card with the title "Joffrey Baratheon." Note, if your opponent controls a card named "Joffrey Baratheon" that doesn't prevent you from playing/controlling a card named "Joffrey Baratheon."

Contrary to unique cards, you can control as many non-unique cards as you'd like (although there is the deck restriction of running no more than 3 copies of any card). For example, you can run multiple scouting vessels at once as it is a non-unique location.

There is no restriction on the number of cards than can be in the Shadows.

Hope that covers everything.

Also, technically there is no "field." Cards are considered to be "in play" when on the "field." So yes, locations are considered to be in play or what you are referring to as "in field."

It's important to make the distinction because you may consider cards in the Shadows to be on the "field" but they aren't. Cards in the Shadows aren't considered to be in play, they are considered to be in the Shadows. Putting cards into the Shadows is also not considered putting that card in play. It's instead considered to be put in the Shadows. Only when you take a card out of the Shadows are you putting that card in play.

You can look at this this way. There are two "field" states (there is no such thing, it's just to make things clearer):

1) In Play - Characters, locations, attachments, and events.

2) Shadows - Cards in the Shadows.

I'm not sure if revealed plots, House cards, and agendas are considered to be in play, but it's nothing for you to be concerned about.

FATMOUSE said:

House cards are considered "in play." Agendas and plots are not.

Thank you all for your replies. I'm only playing with the core set, not the expansions, so I don't have to worry about Shadows. Does anybody have any suggestions for a good expansion set?

For your first expansion, I'd recommend either the A Time of Ravens cycle or the King's Landing Edition cycle. I'm not sure if you were planning on buying all six Chapter Packs from an expansion at once or just getting a few, but if you're only getting a few, I'd start at the beginning and go forward (especially with the ravens cycle as you really need those first two packs to make the rest of the Chapter Packs work). For deciding between Ravens and King's Landing, you just have to make a choice of what you'd rather add to your games between the Seasons mechanic (Summer/Winter) from Ravens and the Shadows mechanic from King's Landing. A Clash of Arms is another full expansion, but I'd not recommend it as the first thing you get to add to the Core Set as it does not have quite the same feel as the later expansions more geared towards the LCG. I'd hold off on the Defenders of the North cycle for now. A lot of the cards in that cycle deal with the Night's Watch and Wildlings, and right now there's not quite enough support for those themes (but there should be once we get some more Chapter Packs).

I wouldn't blanently ignore the Clash of Arms cycle altogether. There are some good cards in there such as the Fury plots and the "To Be..." events. If you really want to pick and choose which chapter packs your going to buy, check out www.tzumainn.com/agot , here you will find listings of the cards in the chapter packs to help with your choices, as well as deck lists and helpful articles pertaining to deck building.