One major gripe I have with the Targaryens in the game is the selection of characters: I just can't relate to all the strange names, all the guys and girls that - in the books - tried to betray Dany (or did so succesfully), but are supposed to be backbones of the Targaryen strength in the game. And with the events in Dance with Dragons that becomes even clearer: I don't think the Meereenese should be Targaryen faction (and the Yunkai'i even less so), but neutral.

On the other hand I would really like to see some of the supporters of the Targaryens in Westeros: Why not make a house Darry subtheme (with Willem Darry as a great card that saves nobles, or something like that), why not turn to the memories-sections in the books and give us Old Owen Merryweather, young Jon Connington, a few Tragaryen Kingsguards, a Targaryen Varys, and maybe even Mad King Aerys. I'd like cards of this recent period of history much better than legends like Balerion the Black and Daemon Blackfyre.

Maybe we'll get a Targaryen Golden Company now...

How ironic is it that the new Varys from Tale of Champions is a house Lannister card? I hope we'll see Targ Varys somewhere down the line.

I agree with the overall sentiment, but I also see how difficult it is for FFG to create a Targ character base only from character who support them, seeing as there's so few of them. Obviously, with Dance with Dragons, there's a few more options (though there's still mostly dubious allies and traitors), and I'm sure we'll see some of those in the future, though likely not until after the Tale of Champions cycle. Some more cards that are based on some Targ history would be great. I'm still waiting for Meraxes and Vhagar. I would love a new Rhaegar as well - I hope we'll get one in Tale of Champions.

Saturnine said:

I guess it´s okay since Varys seems to be supporting Cersei... . Cersei is probably used by him as the no.1 guaarante to start a war between Highgarden and Dorne supported by the Golden Company, but still he´s supporting Cersei in some way. ;-)

I think the overrepresentation of the ally trait on the Mereen and Yunkish Targaryen charachters shows clearly their true nature. On the other hand at least the free cities seem to be supporting the mother of dragons more than any other great house in Westeros so i think it´s fine to have them in house Targaryen.

I would also like to see a Targaryen set with Aegon/ Young Griff, Jon Connington, Homeless Harry Strickland and the Golden company. Also the other sellsword companies like the Windblown, the Second Sons should be representated. I would like to have them with a sort of game text to have players bid for their servcies in every marshalling or dominance phase with gold or influence. Or probably they should have a game text like Walder Frey.

I´m thinking about something like this:

**The Second Sons

Neutral

Cost: 2 gold

M/ P ; Strength: 5

army.

Deadly, Renown.

Dominance: Place x gold tokens on the Secons son to take control of them. X is double the number of gold tokens already placed

on them (Minimum of 2). Any player may trigger this ability.

Discard 2 gold tokens from the Second Sons during the Standing phase.

I agree with your overall sentiment as well, Rubicon. It’s just a reality that the Targaryen cards were rolled out in sprig of 2003 – two and half years before Feast and seven before dance. To gee Daenerys a playable base of cards – you sort of had to use all those people (most of whom she had defeated or conquered at the end of Storm) as the basis of her House.

Saturnine makes a great point about the crippling Ally trait – that shows how tenuous their nature is and leaves them vulnerable to targeted trait hate.

That being said: going forward I think we now have a good base of Westeros based characters (Black Balaq, Black Balaq, Black Balaq!!) we can use to expand Targs capabilities as a House. The stuff in eh eats can pretty much be given a rest – and I always did like using characters like Xaros, Pree, the Blue Lipped Mage and maegi as sort of “alternate history” themes. What if Dany had accepted XXD’s help? Or won over the warlocks? Stuff like that. I have to do the same sort of rationalization when I have Tyrells or Renly in a deck with Stannis. Its one of the limitations of the game.

FFG has screwed up Targ a lot from a 'nedly' standpoint almost right from the beginning. I totally agree that a large number of Targ characters in the game are really enemies. The "Quartheen' characters, Pyat Pree, and there should really be as many or more nuetral dothraki characters as Targ dothraki. Even before Dance, there were enough unique characters to give to Targ. Her handmaidens and Qaro have never had cards, and Illyrio really should have been Targ. I'm also on board with a Targ version of Varys, though nuetral is fine too for spoiler purposes.

Rubinon said:

I've long been on board with that. In my fantasy land where there the 9 Great Houses each have a faction in the game - I would have made a few 'House Darry' characters that were dual house Tully-Targ (and likely either Celtigar or Velyarion - one of the Narrow Sea houses- would have been Bara-Targ). Just a few dual-house cards like this would have made the 9 factions doable without too much dilution/ample # of new cards for each House each set.