Helping a Lannister

By Mykel The Vile, in 1. AGoT General Discussion

I've bought Lords of Winter Exp. My Lad has bought Kings of the Storm Exp. My Brother is playing as the Lannisters and really wanted Mountains of the Moon pack as he wants to get some clansmen in there.

Question is, bearing in mind we both have our House expansion packs, is the Mountains of the Moon as good as any Lannister chapter pack for him to start with ?

Thanks

M

Cripes, just realised this is in the wrong thread section. Sorry.

That question is fine here. The chapter packs from the King's Landing cycle are best in terms of competitiveness for Lannister. That said, if he's going for a fun deck and likes the clansmen, let him go for it.

Trouble is I've now seen the cards in the two expansion sets weve ordered via the db website and some look exceedingly country strong.

We may have to wait until he has his Lannister expansion to use them or I fear the in-game arguements will be endless.

Cheers

M

If you're just playing casually amongst yourselves, there are some ridiculously powerful Lannister cards from the CCG era which you might be able to use until Lions of the Rock comes out. I understand that the common ones can often be picked up cheaply online, and whilst they're not tournament legal, the mechanics should work together fine.

I don't know if you have multiple core sets, but the best thing you could do for Lanni is to get another core set (or 2). The core set has a ton of great Lanni cards, so this will also expand everyone's card pool and give Lanni more options for customizing. Individual packs I'd recommend are Mountains of the Moon and Dreadfort Betrayal (if he wants to play clansman), Battle of Ruby Ford for Castellan of the Rock and Devious Intentions, and Return of the Others for Lannisport Councilman. Lanni is best with shadows (from King's Landing), but it requires more investment to get it working well (you'd also want Kings of the Sea for Kingdom of Shadow), so that's often not viable for casual or new players.

Mighty Jim said:

If you're just playing casually amongst yourselves, there are some ridiculously powerful Lannister cards from the CCG era which you might be able to use until Lions of the Rock comes out. I understand that the common ones can often be picked up cheaply online, and whilst they're not tournament legal, the mechanics should work together fine.

That's a scandalous lie from Jim.

I won that melee game fair and square. It had nothing to do with other people letting me run a 60-card deck made out of busted CCG era Lannister commons (+ a few uncommon uniques) for a bit of a laugh.

Joking aside, people are quite right in saying that you can build a great Lannister Shadows deck with the King's Landing packs, or a strong Lannister Clansmen deck with the Brotherhood packs (though Clansmen don't necessarily 'feel' very Lannistery, as they're all about aggro/rush rather than control/containment tactics).

On the other hand, a selectively purchased set of 60 - 100 CCG commons should cost you peanuts, and would essentially work as a DIY 'Lions of the Rock' box that would let Lannister compete at the same level as Stark/Baratheon until December rolls around.

Let me know if you'd like to see a copy of the decklist that I used the other week. Some of the ex-CCG types here would probably be willing to sell you the cards (or similar) for a few dollars, and it's more than a match for anything you could make from LoW/KotS (or the Brotherhood cycle, for that matter, one of the decks at the table last weekend was my Clansmen deck which I'd loaned to another player).

Thanks chaps.

Yes I think he would be interested in seeing those Lanni decks, can he use CCG cards until Lannister Expansion comes out. I think we would be interested in that as it means we can use our expansions in the game.

If you have any CCG to sell Lonewanderer that would help to even out the game for him that would be great mate.

Are the CCG the same size and type as the LCG ?

Thanks chaps.

M

No worries, decklist is:

Plots:
On Raven's Wings
Building Orders
For Love of Duty
Breaking and Entering
Royal Funeral
Secrets and Lies
Winter Storm

Characters:
Cersei Lannister (Iron Throne Ed) U x1
Joffrey Baratheon (Five Kings Ed) U x1
Bronn (Westeros Ed) U x1
Ser Armory Lorch (Crown of Suns) R x1
Ser Meryn Trant (Tourney of Swords) U x1
Reek (House of Thorns) U x1
Ser Gregor Clegane (Westeros Ed) R x1
The Tickler (Ice & Fire) U x1
Tyrion Lannister (Ice & Fire) U x1
Tommen Baratheon (Winter Ed) U x1
Grand Maester Pycelle (Flight of Dragons) U x1
Ser Ilyn Pane (Iron Throne Promo) P x1
Ser Jaime Lannister (Winter Ed) U x1
Knight of Flowers (House of Thorns) U x1
Doubting Septa (Iron Throne) U x3
Golden Tooth Guard (Iron Throne Ed) C x3
Tywin's Elite (Five Kings Ed) C x2
Gold Cloaks (Westeros Ed) C x3
Highgarden Reinforcements (Winter Ed) C x2
Tribes of the Vale (House of Talons) C x3
Spider's Whisperer (Westeros Ed) C x2
Lannisport Moneylender (Ice & Fire) C x2
Ser Gregor's Band (Five Kings Ed) C x1
Bronn's Hireling (Song of Night) C x3
The Halfman's Horde (Song of Night) C x2
Red Cloaks (Five Kings Ed) C x1

Events:
Veins of Gold (Ice & Fire) U x1
Queen Cersei's Command (Song of Twilight) C x3
Contempt for the Weak (Reign of Kings) U x3

Locations:
Royal Gardens (Valyrian Ed) U x3
Royal Barracks (Valyrian Ed) U x2
Royal Pavillion (Valyrian Ed) U x1
Tywin's Manse (Winter Ed) U x1
Western Fiefdoms (Core Set) x1
Fallow Fields (Iron Throne Ed) C x3
Queen Cersei's Chambers (Core Set) x1
Western Hamlet (Five Kings Ed) x3
Lannisport Treasury (Flight of Dragons) C x2
Lannisport Archives (Song of Twilight) U x1
Perfectly Respectable Inn (Tourney of Swords) U x1
Castamere (Five Kings Ed) x2
Casterly Rock (Valyrian Ed) R x1
Olenna's Study (House of Thorns) U x1

Attachments:
Prisoner of War (Five Kings Ed) C x2
Vat of Wildfire (Five Kinds Ed) C x1
A Way with Words (Reign of Kings) C x3
Heavy Taxes (Throne of Blades) R x2
Mad With Power (Song of Night) C x2



In my experience, all of the above cards are pretty **** good, but the Deck's MVP's (i.e. cards I'd counsel you to seek out) are:

Not Commons:
Cersei Lannister; who basically reads "autowin intrigue challenges, unopposed, when on the attack. Boom."
Olenna's Study; it's bizarre and symmetrical... but it lets you win games if you're prepared to take advantage of it
Ser Armory Lorch (who I now realise is a rare) who has insane evasion and makes unopposed challenge wins easy.
Ser Meryn Trant; whose ability essentially raises the claim of intrigue challenges against your opponents by 1 (so they savage each others' hands on your behalf).
Ser Ilyn Pane (a promo, I have no idea how I own him) who is so perversely broken that I find it hard to understand why he was ever printed.

Commons:
Golden Tooth Guard; who is a Golden Tooth Mine with legs (and who still costs only 2 gold), which is self-evidently brilliant.
Tywin's Elite; a tricon army that gives Lannister the ability to rush to the win by surprise (it grabs 3 power if it dies during Challenges, which is really handy for the 'no renown' house; and which lets you go from 'non threatening' to 'whoah! Lannister just won out of nowhere' in multiplayer games remarkably often)
Highgarden Reinforcements; a kind of watered down Viper's Bannermen, but for Lannister. It's big, deadly and draws cards. Solid.
Tribes of the Vale; who neatly patch up Lannister's usual military weakness (2 gold for 6 power + it's a Clansman = Sold)
Red Cloaks; 3 gold, 3 strength, mil+pow icons, and they don't kneel to attack or defend (because you will put 1 power on them asap) is incredible. They're like Bringers of Law who've grown a set.
A Way with Words: This card is completely ridiculous . 0 gold, then you get stealth and "doesn't kneel to attack or defend in Intrigue challenges". It's strong on its own (even little critters like Bronn's Hireling are dangerous with it), but it can turn decent unique characters into monsters (Iron Throne Cersei + this is bonkers ). Also, it combos with Olenna's Study to close games quickly. (If you can't find a copy for sale, the Crown of Suns common "Littlefinger's Advice" does a very similar job)
Queen Cersei's Command: It's a universal 'kneel any character' event (Distraction seems useless by comparison) that also blasts attachments and strips power from Renown characters. The 'drawback' is that you can only do it once per round.



Anyway, that's a whole lot more text than I sat down to write.

I didn't actually play AGOT during the CCG days, so I don't have much stuff to trade (I just picked up an old collection in an auction). However, if you're based in the UK then I'd be happy to send you an envelope with a handful of Lannister goodness inside (I'm happy to send Cersei Lannister and Olenna's Study your way; the combination of those two, plus Way with Words if you can find it, is so much fun that somebody else has to enjoy it). The CCG Cards are basically identical to the LCG ones (but with black borders, not white) so they'll shuffle right into your existing deck.

Fantastic write up mate, Im looking forward to going to work tonight and perusing through the list and checking via database. Fantastic.

I'd love to buy those Lanni cards that you mentioned you have.
Will ask about, regarding that " way with words " maybe someone on here has it and is willing to sell.

My Email is [email protected]

Just drop me a line when you can to sort things out. I have paypal.

Its funny, but the Lannisters have done really well in the jousts so far within our group, but the melees has been awful for them.

Much appreciated LW

Cheers

M