Hello all,

I just started playing today with my GoT starter set. Me and dad encountered a few questions that didn't have specific answers in the rule book.

I played House Stark, he House Lannister.

1. Lurkers at Harrenhal initiates a power challenge. Can I use Arya Stark's ability to remove Stealth from Lurkers, or does she need to initiate her "Any Phase:" ability before the opponent's power challenge is declared?

2. What is the difference between the discard pile and dead pile. When and what cards are placed in the different piles and how?

3. Does Taxation affect Tywin Lannister's 2 gold income he generates that gets placed on his card, separate from the gold pool?

4. With both Jon Snow and Ghost in play, can I use Ghost's ability to save Jon Snow if I lose a military challenge and chose Jon Snow as my casualty?

5. I'm attacked by Tywin Lannister via a military challenge. I defend with Jon Snow who has "Ice" attached to him. At what point can I activate "Ice's" ability to discard it and kill another participating character? Can I use it before the challenge resolves, thus killing Tywin before he wins the military challenge allowing me to save a character of mine from death? Or am I only ability to use it after resolution, in which case I lose the challenge, kill one of my own characters, than sacrifice Ice to kill Tywin?

Thanks!!

Cigar said:

Welcome! Be sure to download and read FAQ. You can find it at support page.

Cigar said:

As you can see in FAQ, challenge goes like this:

-declaring challenge type and attackers

-player actions (you should use Arya's ability here)

-stealth and declaring defenders

-player actions

-resolution

Of course you can also use her ability before the challenge if you wish.

Cigar said:

Killed characters go to dead pile. In any other case characters and other type cards go to discard pile. You should reread rulebook.

Cigar said:

No.

Cigar said:

Yes. Note that you choose Jon as casualty first, and then you can save him.

Cigar said:

Just like in Arya's case - see above - you should use it in one of the two action windows. (Since it requires participating character it will be the second one). Once you get to resolving challenge, it's too late to play any actions.

One of these days, I'll get Rogue30 to fill in reasons instead of simply answering "yes" or "no."

Rogue30 said:

Rogue30 said:

Rogue30 said:

ktom said:

One of these days, I'll get Rogue30 to fill in reasons instead of simply answering "yes" or "no."

But you will be bored then Besides you do it better.

Thank you both for your time in writing detailed answers to my questions.

Turns out we didn't make any mistakes and played properly! I just wanted to make sure, because even though we assumed these things to be true, we wanted to make sure. Never a good idea to learn the wrong way!

This is the first card game I've played that involves two separate discard piles. With that said I just wanted one final clarification involving both of them:

Are characters the only "type" of card that will ever be in the "dead" pile? Or will an attachment (which is attached to a card that was killed via a military challenge) also go into the "dead" pile, or will it go separately into the "discard" pile?

Regarding save effects. That being our first game played, we felt that we were using Jon Snow improperly because it seemed like such a powerful ability in conjunction with Ghost. However we forgot that some plot cards are able to claim 2 deaths and there's always "Deadly" to further add casualties. I guess that combination is just really potent early game and in the right circumstances.

One final question. During our first game we encountered those House-specific locations that increase income AND provide influence. These particular cards had the ability to "attach" to your house card if you wanted. What exactly is the advantage to this and why would you want to? Does attaching this location to your house card now classify the card as both a "location" and "attachment?"

Thanks guys so much! Great help!

Cigar said:

By default only killed character cards go to the dead pile. Their attachments (and even unused duplicates in rare situations) go to the discard pile. You shouldn't worry. Any exceptions will be specified on a card. See for example deathbound keyword (e.g. Forever Burning).

Cigar said:

Yes.

Joke. This is often asked by beginners, you can find answer here

Cigar said:

There are some effects and card combinations that can put events, attachments and locations into the dead pile (the "Deathbound" keyword, for example), but it is pretty unusual for something other than a character to be in your dead pile.

Cigar said:

Seems that ktom broke forum and link doesn't work, so here it is, his explanation:

"When you attach the location to your House card, it counts as an attachment, not a location. So if you are worried about people playing cards like Condemned by the Council, Pyromancer's Apprentice or Fleeing to the Wall, you are better off playing it as an attachment in order to protect it from all those anti-location effects. Of course, if you are playing against a Targaryen opponent, with all of their anti-attachment effects, you're probably safer playing it as a location."

Once again I am appreciative of your prompt and thorough responses.

While thumbing through the rule book again I noticed the entry on duplicates. It appears that when you have a duplicate attached to a character, and you sacrifice that duplicate to save the character the duplicate is only discarded and not "killed." So really that makes the whole dead pile much more clear to me. The main card that is hitting that sucker is a character and only when he's killed, or if there's a card with "deathbound" on it.

Here's another question I just thought of (I'm sorry that they keep popping up...) If a character's strength reaches "0" is it killed off?

Me and dad played another one and came across an interesting scenario. He had a strength 3 character out. I played poison wine on it, giving his strength -2. I then had that one dragon in play that allows you to pay 2 gold and give a character -1 strength. Poison wine states that if the character's strength reaches 0 it's killed. So then I was wondering if it's only killed off as a result of poison wine's affect making it 0 (i.e. placing it on a strength 2 char.) or if I could take advantage of that clause at the end of it's description and kill off his strength 3 hero with my dragon performing a coup de grace.

So in summation... does a character get killed off if it's strength reaches 0? And if not... does it get killed off in the blood win/dragon combo I mentioned?

Thanks a million!

Cigar said:

In general, a character is not killed if its STR reaches 0. You would need an effect that actually says it.

But you only need 1 effect that says the character is killed at 0, no matter how many effects it takes to actually lower the STR that far, provided that "kill at 0" effect is still valid.

In your scenario, Poisoned Wine does not have a "kill at 0" part to the effect (maybe you are thinking of Flame-Kissed?), but the Dragon does.

All this comes down to the fact that when you are putting multiple lasting effects on a character or other card, the order doesn't matter. You add up all the applicable lasting effects and just apply the result.