Hi all, Been looking at this game for a while and finally got 3 mates round to play it.

We all enjoyed it - however, there were lots of rule queries which I couldn't find answers to. Some of them here.

1. A lot of the cards have tiny house icons on, but I couldnt actually find anything in the rulebook to say anything about them. Eg: Eastern Fiefdoms: Kneel to lower the cost of the next * card by 1. The * is a mini-dragon, so I assumed this meant a house targaryen card. Whilst this may seem obvious, there is nothing I could find to say this is what it meant - have I missed something in the rules? If it is just for House Targaryen cards, then it couldnt be used to lower the cost of Magister Illyrio

2. Response. The rules say "may", so they are all optional?

3. Influence in the Lannister and Baratheon decks seemed a bit pointless.

4. The location cards which say they can be played as attachments to your house card. Are they still locations? Why would you want to do this?

5. Lannister plot was in play which meant noble characters could not be killed. Stark had Catelyn and Jon Snow in play and loses a military challenge. They have to kill Jon? They cant take the wound on Catelyn and it be ignored?

6. Shae. If someone declares an attack and then kneels their characters, can I interrupt, ask them to take that back and kneel the character with Shae first?

Thanks all

1. You are dead right on this one. Dragon is targaryen, stag is baratheon etc. Since Illyrio is neutral, you would only be able to use cards that reduce the cost on neutral cards, or things like street of sisters/steel etc.

2. Responses are optional, yes.

3. Influence is better in some decks than others, but not completely useless in those two. There are neutral events that have influence costs etc.

4. No, if you play those as attachments, they are no longer locations. The benefit to this is for when your opponent has more location control than attachment control.

5. Catelyn is not a valid target to be marked for death if she is a noble character, so yes, You would have to kill Jon.

6. There is a step in between declaring challenges and declaring attackers. It would go something like this:

Player 1: I declare a power challenge against you

Player 2: I will kneel shae to kneel your character

Player 1: Well, that sucks.

Once you allow them to move on to declaring attackers, and they begin to kneel people, its too late to use shae. If your opponent says "Power challenge with Robert coming at you" then you can request they move back and delcare the steps one at a time.

Hope this helps.

Fieras

Fieras said:

Two comments:

On item 4 attachments to the house there are also cards that look at how many attachments the house has.

On item 6 you'll want to check out the flowcharts in the FAQ. These flowcharts are not in the current rulebook, but I think they used to be.

... and for friendly games, I usually allow players to do take-backs as much as they want ... we even tend to go as far as pointing out what mistakes our friends make. In that way, we learn from seeing our mistakes.

Fieras said:

I think he is talking about the Core Set decks. Baratheon has Renly and Selyse who make use of influence, but I think he is correct that it has no use in the Lannister deck.

Fieras said:

No, there is not.

Between step 1"Active Player declares challenge type and opponent" and step 2 "Active player kneels attacking characters" you cannot play actions (Shae).

Note, that there is always time to play Shae before attacking player declare any attacks.

Fieras said:

Just to reiterate what Rogue30 said, this answer is entirely incorrect. There is absolutely no opportunity to do anything between declaring the type of challenge and declaring/kneeling the attacking characters. They are two steps within the same process and cannot be interrupted by any player action card currently in print. "Power challenge with Robert coming at you" is actually the correct way to do it.

Shae cannot be used on a character between the time a player says "I'm going to do a power challenge" and "with Robert." If you don't want your opponent to have the option to attack with a particular character in a particular type of challenge, you have to anticipate which character would be best for Shae to kneel and remove that option before they ever get around to declaring the actual challenge.

Just another thought on #6....

For your first games, I agree with Stormtower that it is good to allow take-backs as everyone is still learning the timing structure. However, related to Rogue30 and ktom's posts, I just want to point out that there is actually a degree of strategy involved in using cards like Shae during Challenges or Distraction during Marshalling.

Each player action segment ends once all players pass. If your opponent takes an action, and then you pass because you think your opponent will take another action, the segment will end if your opponent passes. I have seen newer players gloss over this with cards like Distraction. If the opponent is going second, they will say something like "let me know when you are done marshalling things" and then after that they will play Distraction on one of their opponent's characters.

The real timing structure though is that after each time that their opponent marshals something they are passing by asking "do you have anything else?" When the opponent finally says "no," the Marshalling phase should end immediately without another chance for Distraction to be played (Distraction player passes by asking "anything else;" Marshalling player passes back by saying "no"). Really players with Distraction should be asking themselves, "do I need to kneel that now, or is it better to save it for a potentially bigger threat?" Meanwhile, the player marshalling characters can be thinking something like, "do I need to Marshall another character, or would it be better to end the Marshalling phase right now before my opponent could play some other effect?"

So there is some real strategy to the way timing system works. I just say that since, although a lot of take-backs are straight-up technical play issues (like forgetting to draw a card with Tommen during Marshalling), that's not always the case.

Hi all,

Thanks for the responses. I am however a little confused still. I now know that there is no window of opportunity between someone saying "I'm challenging you", and declaring which ones to use as attackers.

So - therefore, saying "I'm making an military challenge against you with Robb Stark and Ghost" is actually the correct wording.

The question is: Is there no opportunity for the player with Shae to use her ability BEFORE the challenge is declared. This is not a question of allowing a takeback, this is one player jumping the gun by doing something before another player is allowed to do something.

So - in the above example, I have Shae. If there is no window of opportunity, does this mean I need to use her ability in the Marshalling Phase?

Paul Grogan said:

Her ability is " challenges ", so why do you thought about Marshalling?

After challenges phase begins, there is a "player action window". Both players can do something before any challenge can happen.

After both players pass, first player can initiate his first challenge.

So, generally, you can do some action (" challenges " or " any phase ") a) before challenge, b) after attackers are kneeled, c) after defenders are kneeled, d) after challenge. Look at flowcharts in FAQ and everything will be clear.

Paul Grogan said:

As Rogue30 says, there is an opportunity for you to do things before challenges are declared. You can use Shae before the challenge is initiated and if someone jumps the gun, you should be able to say "I wasn't ready to move on yet." The game technically does not allow the challenge to be initiated until all players have had a chance to "do stuff." However, note that there is a big difference between:

Scenario #1:
First Player - Challenge Phase begins. I do a military challenge against you with Robb and Ghost.
Opponent - Wait, Before your challenge I get to do stuff. I want to use Shae to kneel Robb so you can't attack with him.

and

Scenario #2:
First Player - Challenge Phase begins. Do you want to do anything before I declare challenges?
Opponent - No.
First Player - Then I do a military challenge against you with Rob and Ghost.
Opponent - Wait. Before your challenge I get to do stuff. I want to use Shae to kneel Robb so you can't attack with him.

In Scenario #1, the First Player jumped the gun and the opponent should get to use Shae. In Scenario #2, the First Player made an honest attempt and the opponent should have to live with "forgetting" to use Shae. Most players have adopted the "Do you want to do anything before I declare challenges" etiquette of Scenario #2 just to make sure this kind of confusion doesn't happen.