Hi folks,

last night I played the House Tully deck presented in the LoW Expansion against the Knights of the Realm deck, a greyjoy deck and the basic Martell deck. I thought it would be a good idea to use the Knights of the hollow hill agenda with my deck and replaced all income locations by locations that lower costs.

Still my deck wouldn't run, Bara swiftly attacked my locations and characters (he had Salla and 5 Knights after setup and first Marshalling) Greyjoy played Baras pet just swiping up after him and me and Martell stood against that. ( We didn't use the multiplayer titles because one player was new to the game.)

In the end Martell won. I had 3 locations 4 characters and zero power.

Now what would you say was that failure just because of the circumstances or should I leave out the agenda next time (Although I decided to play my Lannister deck against the Knights of the realm next time anyway, because I think that deck should be vulnerable to an intrigue and clansmen focused Lanni deck.

Would be grateful for advice...

That's odd. I'm not sure how to play it in multi-player. In 1v1, I've found that the best way to play it is in a Greyjoy saves deck - one that can withstand many of the early hits that you'll take due to not having a setup phase. If GJ can withstand those initial kills, then it has a good chance to be able to power for the win (in my opinion). Honestly, this is the only deck I've ever gotten to work consistently well with the KotHH agenda, but I'm sure there are others.

I'd suggest playing with the titles next time. Multiplayer without the titles makes it way too easy IMO for 1 player to get beat down.

I've got a Greyjoy and Targ deck that make good use out of KotHH and a friend loves it in a Martell deck. I considered it with a Tully deck once but decided that for it the setup phase and extra cards you get to dig though in your deck are more important.

I agree that you need to be using the titles...
I've been building decks with KotHH since I first got my hands on it, some of them have worked very well and some were epic fails. What I have learned from lots of experimentation is that you can't just throw the agenda into a deck and remove the gold locations and hope for the best; you need to actually build the deck around the agenda, keeping in mind at all times that you have no setup. You can end up really far behind and never really recover from the lack of setup... think of it like this:
KotHH gives you +2 gold per turn but gets rid of your setup (we'll ignore the extra influence for now although for a Targ player with lots of ambush it is almost like getting +4 gold instead). Setup is worth five gold, and often it allows you to put down a gold producing location at 0 cost. So on round 1 you are already 3-4 gold behind your opponent who has drawn at least 2 additional cards and may have also played something in setup that provides draw. It will probably take you a few rounds to catch up, and if you get hit with a first turn Fear of Winter, you are really far behind. What KotHH really does is allow you to play useful low gold plots right off the bat (and at any time) and get a few extra gold to work with, or play a high gold plot for a lot of gold to dump your whole hand right away. Either way, you need to establish some sort of board control early, and your plot selection is probably even more important than in a deck not running KotHH.

Skowza said:

This is extremely important. Especally in Multiplayer you definately need to take into account in your plots that you will be without characters first turn. A great plot to start with is either Marched to the Wall or Condemned by the Realm. Both of these plots have the potential to give you back some of the initial board position you give up in playing KotHH.

Thanks for the good ideas/considerations/advice...I'll think about that.

Condemned by the Realm is one of my favorites to start with in melee too. Drunken Allegations might not be bad, and Relentless Persecution could work. In joust I often like to start with Retaliation! or Take Them By Surprise for the huge gold pile, or City of Lies - 5 gold and 2 cards into Shadows for free does a lot to help you get back into the game. I think the forthcoming "search your deck for a Maester..." plot will be really nice too.

I definitely agree about the titles - for me, they make multiplayer playable at all. I don't think it's the worst game without them, but it's just way more interesting and fun.

I never thought of the first turn Retaliation in multi. That's brilliant.

Retaliation is almost an auto-include in every deck I build at this point... 4 gold and 2 claim is just too good, and in melee you can just pick the player before you to go first. Even if you aren't using KotHH, its 8 initiative - Bay of Ice anyone?

Yeah - agree with skowza here. and particularly about Retaliation. Thsi is becoming almost an every deck Plot for me.

More than half the time - you WANT to be Marshalling second.

Darksbane said:

What about leading with Valar Morghulis and wipe out everyone's setup?

mason240 said:

I think in most cases, it's not worth it. You're already behind, so a low-gold 0-claim plot does not really help you get into the game.

It dioes if they flop four or five - and a couple of those are threat characters. I'll Valar on one all the time out of Hollow Hill if my opponent gives me the opening.

Saturnine said:

Remember even with zero claim if you win a challange you still claim for unopposed (if it was unopposed) (renown if you have it) and in multiplayer if you are the opposed player you get that bonus too. So even with claim zero you get three power

My favorite move when playing with KotHH is play Forgotten Plans 1st plot - that will stop the obvious Fear of Winter, and in most of my decks with the agenda they can handle it (granted, I've tried the agenda out of Targ-burn, Greyjoy-saves-a-lot and Martell-i-lose-but-i-win-hehehe)...