Hi everyone, after being a GoT fan for about 15 years, I've finally taken the plunge into the LCG world yesterday afternoon with a purchase of the core set. I've watched the video tutorials, gone through the rulebook, and explored a couple of games with my friends (a 2v2 joust and then a 4 player melee).

My first question is about kneeling - when you attack or defend a challenge with a character, do their attachments kneel with them, or do they stay upright for you to kneel it later (for instance in the case of cards such as Lightbringer or Nymeria, to save the character from dying).

The second is turning over plot cards - some of these give options to support or attack your opponents, but this is done before any Titles are selected. Do the text effects (such as pick a player and you both draw 3 cards, or can't commit a certain type of challenge against each other) take effect immediately before the player relationships are selected, or afterwards?

Thanks for any help in these matters - seems like a lovely game, but a bit too much intrigue to jump into a 4 player melee straight away!

Ciao and welcome ;-)

1-when you kneel a character to attack/defend/trigger a character ability the attachment doesn't kneel with him.So, for example, you attack with eddard and nymeria attached. Opponent kneel 2 chars playing lethal counterattack and killing all attacking characters. You can kneel Nymeria to save him.

2-I haven's understood well your second question :-) Anyway When revealed effects of plot cards resolve immediately after players reveal the plot. In the order decided by the initiative winner.

Gualdo said:

In a Melee game where the Titles are being used, choosing Titles effectively becomes another framework event in the window where plots are revealed. (That comment was for more experienced players who are used to some of the technical jargon involved with the advanced timing structure.) This means that Titles are usually chosen after initiative is counted and the First Player determined, but before the passive effects created by the "When revealed..." text of the plot cards is resolved.

Gualdo said:

Thank-you, and thanks for the answer - it almost felt wrong when that happened, but nice to see it was correct.

ktom said:

Ahh, that does make more sense, as the player relationships for the round are decided first, before you go helping and hindering people. I've browsed here enough to have seen 'windows' and flow charts and such, but not really getting into any detail of them. So:

Reveal Plot Cards > Select Titles > 'When Revealed...' text takes effect

Thanks for the clarification (and the more questions it'll bring, hehe)!

ktom said:

There so needs to be a set of framework charts for Melee. ~sigh

Starblayde said:

ktom said:

Of course, so the titles can be selected in the right order.

OK, so I played a few Joust rounds of solitaire play (as much as you can in such an intrigue-filled game) last night just to go through how each House plays in the Core Set, and a couple of extra queries came up while I was going through those matches. I've had a browse through the relevant parts of the rule book and have attempted to decipher the FAQs, but here's how I came to find some questions:

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Stark flattened Lannister in 6 turns (despite not being able to defend a single Intrigue challenge), and if it had gone one more, a Stark-played Valar Morghulis could have turned the tide by killing off the dominant Stark characters.

Baratheon destroyed Targaryen with Knights in about 3 turns, so I see now what they mean by 'rush'.

Stark again thrashed Baratheon in a 'final', that military option with power backup is lethal if you get the characters out quickly.

In a 'loser' round, Lannister dominated Targaryen, who couldn't draw a decent character for love nor money. Tywin showed me how awesome lots of gold could be, while the likes of Shae, Lannisport Brothel and Ser Illyn Payne showed what Lanni Kneel can do, if they get enough time to use it.

-

As for my questions, based on the above:

1) Can non-unique resource-generating locations (e.g. Stark's Greet Keep) have multiple copies in play, each giving the +1 Gold?

2) Can non-unique locations (and other cards) have duplicates, or is this just for unique cards?

3) Do you have to defend a challenge if you can? (e.g. An STR4 military character with Deadly and Claim 1 from the plot card issues a military challenge as their 3rd challenge. The defender has an STR3 military-icon character standing, and no other ST bonuses apply. If the defender responded to the challenge, they'd lose a character to the claim, and Deadly would kill the defender. If they don't respond, any of the defender's characters is killed from the claim, Deadly can't apply, and a power is given to the attacker for an undefended challenge. Is this correct?)

4) Additional to the situation in 3), can the defender respond, kill the defending character with the plot's claim value, and then 'Deadly' is wasted, as there are no more defenders involved?

5) Is there a limit to how many Characters and Locations you can have in play? I'm aware there's no hand limit, but in the 4th game Lannister having 9 characters and 7 locations out at once was impossible to counter from a character-light position.

Thanks in advance, this is a very helpful forum!

1) Yes. You can have multiples of any non-unique card out, be it character, location or attachment. That's why they're not unique.

2) Again, the rules outlined for unique cards in the core set rules apply to all types of cards. Non-unique cards cannot be duped.

3) You don't have do defend, even if you could. Your example summary is correct.

4) Yes. Claim is settled before "deadly" is resolved. So you can kill your defending character for the military claim, leaving no defending character in play to die because of "deadly."

5) The rules don't impose a limit. Generally, if it's not in the rules or on a card, it doesn't exist. There's no need to make things up

Excellent, thanks for confirming all my suspicions. The amount of Lannister characters/locations actually exceeded my table space (and the video tutorial allocates exactly 8 spaces for those cards), which is what made me think to ask!

Bought Princes of the Sand today, too, so a 5th deck to add into the mix.

You mean "Princes of the Sun"

And yeah, many new players get confused by the introductory video with regards to a cards-on-table limit, but there is none. So revel in your hordes of characters as long as you can, until somebody plays Valar Morghulis

Saturnine said:

Sand/Sun/Whatever, lol. Way, way, waaaaay to many 'X of the Y' expansions for this game!