I have the game and I'm already planning to get a new expansion but I don't have a clue on what the expansions deliver, new game mechanics etc.. What should Expansion I would buy first and Why?

It depends on what you are looking for, really. If I were to make a suggestion, then I would say both. That said, then let me give you a more detailed advice.

The clash of kings expansion adds a number of new optional rules for the game, you can choose to use one or more of these rules, they are pretty well balanced so adding some rules in one game and others in another game is a wonderful option to make the game feel fresh to play every time. There is one of the optional rules that really deliver something important to the base game. In the base game, the ships are very powerful, because if you first move them into a sea zone, then other players cannot add ships into the same zone. This means that you can end up dominating the sea without any of your opponents being able to do much about it. Dominating the seas makes it possible not only to support your land units in areas adjacant to the sea, but also to launch invasions from the sea against your enemies. The clash of kings expansion adds the possibility to add harbors to the game, these harbors are linked to given land zones and now it is possible to add new naval units into the harbors, instead of the adjacant sea zone. This is a great improvement, because now you can break another players presence in a sea zone by mustering your own ships in a harbor and attacking him by moving your fleet out of the harbor into the sea zone he dominates. The clash of kings expansion also adds a lot of other optional rules that are very cool additions to the game, like fortresses, and siege engines, as well as some special order tokens that can make the movements on the board a bit more dynamic. The expansion does of course also offer the possibility to add a sixth player to the game.

The storm of swords expansion adds a completely new map and some improved rules of play. For instance the ships are gone, and now you can cross water instead at specific points on the game board. Crossing rivers now also requires that the rivers arent flooded, so you need to be careful that you suddently don't have an army being isolated from support or retreat because of the weather. One of the very nice new additions to the rule is the present of three other houses and outlaws. These are represented as decks of cards that you can draw to gain support from these groups. This feature adds a bit more of the jucy stuff from the books, because it is possible to turn one of these minor houses away from supporting your enemy and make them support you instead. The benefit can be anything from troops, to leaders and special abilities. Leaders is a very nice new improvement as well. The leaders now follow your armies and add bonuses. First of all they add a strength bonus, second they can be triggered by the order tokens, for instance some leaders can be triggered by the raid order, and perform a march at that point, before other armies can march. Other leaders get triggered by the consolidate power orders, allowing them to launch an attack after everyone else have moved. This feature adds the possibility for some entirely new backstabbing strategies. Holding cells, or prisons if you will, have also been added to the game, which is a very nice feature as well, as it makes leaders more interesting to play with, and links well to the plot known from the books. Tactic cards have also been added, they also open up for some new and exciting strategic possibilities. A lot of these rules can also be applied with success to the base game, again with the result of allowing you to enjoy new sides of the game every time.

The reason why A Game of Thrones is my absolute favorite game of all times, besides the wonderful basic rules of course, is the fact that there are so many optional rules you can add to the game. It really spice up the game and almost makes it feel like you are playing a new game every time.

Now it is you who'll have to make a difficult choice.. my advice still stand, however.. Buy both expansions.

It depends on the number of people you play the game with.

If you usually play with 4 people, then A Storm of Swords is, imo, a far better choice.

If you usually play with 5, or want to add a sixth, then go with A Clash of Kings.

In my experience, I found Storm of Swords the most interesting expansion. I would suggest Clash of Kings only if you're really willing to play with 5 other persons (6 totally)

Joram said:

I'd echo this recommendation. aCoK adds the 6th player plus a handful of new mechanics that you can mix and match as needed. Also adds the 6th player stuff to go with just the base game so you can play only the base game with 6.

aSoS adds a new game, along with a new set of mix and match mechanics. Really depends what you want.

Well Clash of Kings expands the base game to 6 players,introduces some new units

& includes a map overlay(for the 6th house).You also get Ports.

Storm of Swords is a bit more of a game by itself.Again as others have noted it also

depends on how many players you have.

OD

As I had the same question, I've read throug the posts and thanks to this thread I will buy the Storm of Swords expansion, as I play normally with 3 - 4 Players.

A Clash of Kings offers (for the 5 player board):

• a new unit: the siege tower: 4 on the offense but 0 defense. When properly used it can be a great addition to the game, but mostly it is just produced to spent those musterpoints resulting in a ping-pong game where people take a city and then cannot defend it because of the 0 defense. I played a dozen games with this variant and our gaming group eventually decided it didn't make the game better.
• Fortifications: things you build with a consolidate order that give +1 defense and attacking cavalry is just has 1 combat value a piece. Those are rarely used since there already is a lack of orders at the start of the game and because it is pretty difficult to have non-raided consolidates at the battle front. I have seen them used very well, and they do add to the game but to a much lesser extend than the changes of aSoS.
• New house cards: Of course a matter of opinion, but I like the aSoS cards better, and the aCoK cards can no longer be used if you later use the leader option from AsoS.
  The housecards of aCoK are pretty difficult with a lot of "I copy your card" "I copy a card in anyonce graveyard" and such. Makes it way harder to choose cards since people want to see all players discarded cards and such before making a choice. And rightly so, it ain't a game of luck after all.
• Ports. Those are a must have for balance on the board, especially against greyjoy. If you don't own this expansion just go to boardgamegeek to check where the ports are and print them on some paper. 8 pieces of cardboard ain't worth €40,-
• One time orders. Those offer a way to handle a very bad draw of the muster/supply cards and thus add much to the game. There are also one time orders specifically for each house, and those are nice. Too bad they cannot be combined with aSoS.

A Storm of Swords offers (for the 5 player board):

• A wildling deck, so the event is not always the same. Nice touch, no more.
• 3 new westeros decks. Those are very good in my opinion. The shuffle this deck cards are removed for a bit more certainty, and this is offset with 2 to 3 cards in each deck where the holder of 1 of the tokens can decide what is going to happen: In deck one can the holder of the iron throne decide to muster, supply or nothing at all. Deck two has Clash of Kings/Game of Thrones/Nothing at all (raven decides), deck three has No Defense/No +1 March / Nothing at all (Valerian steel decides).
  This gives more import to the tokens which makes bidding even more important and can also make for some very nice bribes (I like the diplomatic part of the game)
• An easy to use set of house card decks (see my complaints about the aCoK set) that offers more choice and depth than the original house cards. Compliments for the designers, it is clear they listened to the feed back about the previous two sets.
• Tactic Cards. An other element of choice: you pick one face down while placing orders and they help you in a certain way during that turn, after which you can choose it again next turn a pick a new tactic. Well named card, since tactics is exaclty what it adds. You can check those in the online rules of aSoS if I am not mistaken (unavailable at the moment, so I cannot check or link).
• And finally leaders, the best addition to the game in my opinion.
  One of the things this game suffers from is ill luck with the westeros cards. That is already partly reduced with the Choice Cards in the new decks, but an issue still remains: You are completely screwed if you have 0 star orders, and a clash of kings just does not come. The problem is not the lack of a +1 order, but the lack of a third march order at all which can leave someone completely bogged down and nothing they can do about it.
  March orders offer a way to use raid or consolidate orders as marches, as well as strengthen your bad march orders when there are leaders present. Everyone has 2 leaders, and on what order they trigger is house dependant (and invariable).
  The posibility of marches in the 2 non-march fases gives a load of depth to the game that really made it worth playing again for me. Combined with the fact that no one can be bogged down with just 2 marches per turn this option makes the game for me.

So, in short:

I believe aSoS gives both the best house cards, the good option of Tactic Cards and the perfect option of Leaders so this is my obvious choice. Make sure to add ports in some way to the board if you play on the normal board since this is a balance failure of the original game tha can destroy the fun for players of Stark and Lannister in particular.

aCoK offers one time orders and ports, of which the former is need and the first one is nice since it diminishes the results of chance in the first deck.

And finally: If someone always stands aside because your player group has a size of six my complete argumentation is invalid, since no one should have to stand a side with a great game like this. Make for the 6 player game (aCoK) and come here again when your financial situation allows you to buy another game or expansion.

Same goes a bit for 4 players, since a 5 player game without greyjoy lacks something. For 3 players the question is more difficult since there are a couple of very interesting options on the six-player board where each player controls 2 houses.

If you have any questions left, just ask them and I ll try to answer them.

My 2 main factors for buying expansions (now i have both) were:

1) If people are having a problem playing lannister (red) you should get clash of kings as the ports add an option to gain back sea area if greyjoy does that dreaded first-turn smash over lannister ships.

2) If you just can't gather enough people for a 5-person game (the best option by far) you should get storm of swords as it gives you a new updated game for less players.

Yes, there are other MAJOR additions that are awesome but the additions are great in both expansions.

This is a big help. I have been looking at grabbing some of these as well.

Thanks for the breakdown. My wife is a big fan of the books and has been wondering about this game (and I've been looking for Christmas ideas ). We usually only have 3 or 4 players available, though. Is there anything in these expansions that really help 3-player? I'm getting the impression from here and BGG that the game doesn't have much go with only 3.

I find the ports from CoK are a must if you play with the base game. Also, there are so many additional rules that every gaming group can find something they like.

Agree. Ports are a must-have balancer.

You can just use the rules from the online game, and substitute something circle-like for the components.

Have the books finished? Because the ASoS 4-player game contains a few spoilers...

Referee said:

The Fourth book is published, A Feast for Crows, and at the end it says he's working on book five.

BenStark said:

And at George's rate of output,I could be dead before he finishes

OD