So I played AGoT for the first time over the weekend and it was pretty fun although I admit that I was quickly vanquished. I think my main issue was that I was never able to accumulate enough gold to put any cards into play and those that did make it were quickly killed off in military challenges. I was playing the core deck of House Lannister vs. House Stark. Am I wrong or does it seem difficult when you only receive 3 or 4 lets say from your plot card? What am I missing?

cards like lannisport weaponsmith , Lord Eddard's Chambers , Street of Steel , Aegon's Garden , gatehouse , and Eastern Fiefdom .

Yes, if you only rely on your plot cards for your income, you will find yourself low on funds. Be sure to use locations and other cards such as Lars referenced to supplement your income. There are cards that reduce the cost to put other cards in play as well as cards that produce gold outright.

If you're playing with the core set decks as is, then gold can be an issue. Once you begin tailoring your decks to your personal playstyle, you can play as many as 3 of each card (unless there are card restrictions on the cards...for example, Street of Steel says "limit one per deck). That means you can add more locations to your deck to make sure have enough out early that gold isn't a problem.

Great guys, that's pretty much where my head was. Would you also recommend putting more lower value cards in play at start or do you think it makes more sense to play a few high value cards? Does it make more sense to issue challenges with more than one card or is that something taken on a case by case basis.

A lot will depend on the actual game situation, EZ. Having said that, in general it's best to drop as many cards during setup as you can, because this will create card advantage for you. This would mean needing lower cost cards in your deck to make it more likely to be able to drop more than a couple cards. Of course, you have to weigh the risks as well. If you play five characters for example and your opponent only one or none, they may decide to valar morghulis you on the first plot and if you have no other characters in hand or don't draw anymore, you could be in trouble.

You will always have to consider the opponent and situation, but hope I gave you something to think about.

You sure did AS. I think a lot will come with experience and knowing your opponent. I did seem to have a dearth of cards down, however, so getting some more in play will help a lot. Now all I have to do is find some people to play with .

Eddard Zstark said:

That is something that will probably be taken more on a case-by-case basis. It comes down, largely, to what you have on the board and how much you want to win the challenge.

One of the bigger issues - and arts - of the game is how aggressively you defend, especially as the second player. Many new players feel the need to defend every challenge, even if they can't win. And there certainly are times when you want to defend even if you can't win so as to avoid giving your opponent the bonus power for the unopposed challenge or to lower the amount of STR they win by. But there are other times where kneeling the defender puts more of a world of hurt on you than your opponent getting one more power does. Knowing when to defend, and by how much, or when it might be a good idea to let your opponent win a challenge even if you could win it on defense, is a lot of the art of the game's Challenge phase.