I searched and I'm still confused.

Plot card gives me +4 gold. Location gives me +1 gold.

I have 5 gold in my gold pool.

Tywin gets 2 gold put on his character. So if I have a card that costs 7 gold, can I marshall it or does Tywins gold have to be spent on its own.

Also, the rules state choose a House card and an Agenda. In my base set, I have no Agenda cards. Normal, I presume?

Also, it would never make any sense to NOT defend a Military challenge right? Because if you're going to lose undefended or defended, you still have to kill a character.

Also thought I'd mention I played a game with a friend last night and pulled out a first turn Tywin. I won the game with 15 power tokens while my opponent ( two player game ) had just one.

Tywin's gold can be spent as if it was in your gold pool. It isn't taxed, either, so spend your plot card's gold before you move on to the 2 gold that Tywin draws. I find that getting him out early and keeping him alive is a great way to win with the starter Lanni deck, as you can end up with huge amounts of gold, and he's useful at everything.

You might not want to defend a military challenge because a) the attacker has more deadly than you and a defender will be killed as well as the standard military claim, b) your only MIL icon character may also have another Icon that you want to use later in the round (let them claim an undefended power that you can then steal with a power challenge in your challenges phase, for instance), or c) you're afraid of some event card or response the opponent may play/trigger when you defend.

There are more situations than that, of course, but as you get into it you'll find a time when defending a challenge isn't the best course of action.

Welcome, hope you are enjoying the game!

Edit: *already all answered by Starblayde*

Good answers, much clearer now. Thanks a lot!

What it comes down to is that if the character you are going to kill if you lose the military challenge has a military icon, you may as well defend. But if you are going to kill some other character than the one you defend with, it might not be in your best interest to defend.

Starblayde said:

This is actually a good example of why you should defend. If the attacker has more deadly than you, and you are willing to kill the defending character as claim, it makes absolute sense to defend with just the one character, then choose that defending character as claim. Since the only available participating character is already killed, deadly will have no effect on you.

the1andonlime said:

Wait, Deadly is done after the claim? Been playing that one wrong then! Deadly is suddenly... less deadly than my meta had thought.

First of all, the challenge has to resolve. Then, the player that wins take if it has been without defenders. After that, he/she sattisfied the claim. Then, deadly, renown, vengeful and others activated. Finally, responses related with the challenges start.

drizzit5 said:

Your order is a little off here. The correct order of "stuff" when a challenge resolves is:

1. Determine winner
2. Settle claim effects
3. Award power if the challenge was unopposed
4. Characters collect power for Renown
5. Passive effects to anything in 1-4 (including keywords like Deadly, Vigilant, and Vengeful)
6. Responses to anything in 1-5

It is that last part ("Responses to anything in 1-5") that most people mess up. They want to do passives and Responses to winning/losing the challenge between 1 and 2, etc. But the above list is the way it actually works.

Starblayde said:

Still a little unclear on how Tywin's gold works. OK, you can spend it like it's in your gold pool. But is it in your gold pool, or can you just spend it as though it were? Does it count toward dominance? Can other players use it as though it were in the gold pool?

Let's say I'm Targ, and I win a challenge with Core Set Dany attacking alone. I can now take all the gold from the losing player's gold pool. Does that include what Tywin's hoarding?

The text on Tywin is:

"You may spend gold tokens on Tywin Lannister as if they are in your gold pool."

So let's break that down:

- "You may spend..." When reading a card that says something like that, starting with the word "you," who does it apply to? When the word "you" or "your" appears on a card, the effect only applies to the controller of the card. "Characters you control get +1 STR" means characters controlled by the controller of that card. "You may initiate an additional INT challenge this round" means that the controller of the card can initiate the additional challenges. So this would mean that only Tywin's controller can spend the gold tokens that are on him.

- "...as if they are in your gold pool." When reading a phrase that says "as if," that thing is not actually true, you just pretend it is for a limited purpose. If you decide to have a party in April "as if" it were Halloween, people might wear costumes to the party, but you're going to get a lot of weird looks if you go around the neighborhood Trick-or-Treating. So, for the limited purpose of spending gold, you pretend the gold on Tywin is in your gold pool. For any other purpose (counting Dominance STR, Taxation. Dany's ability, figuring out Littlefinger's STR, etc.), it is not in your gold pool.

How about for "Calm Over Westeros"? "A player must give an opponent one gold token from his or her gold pool." Is "giving" tantamount to "spending", or does the gold need to be in the House's actual gold pool to play an event?

"Giving" gold for Calm Over Westeros is indeed considered "spending" the gold. You can use the gold on Tywin for this purpose.

Huh. I figured the language was picked for a reason, even though it certianly "feels" like "spending". Thanks again, sir!

Huh. I figured the language was picked for a reason, even though it certianly "feels" like "spending". Thanks again, sir!

To be fair, Tobyajason, I've been playing this game a long time and am considered a 'rules lawyer' (though I'm no real authority like Ktom), and I'd have ruled that the other way. I like to think that means like it's not a stupid question!

It's a completely legitimate question. FFG just ruled that "give gold from your gold pool" is considered to be "paying" gold from your gold pool. The wording also appears on the Bara attachment "Motley," if I'm not mistaken.

The wording wasn't chosen for a specific reason. It's there because Calm Over Westeros is a modified reprint of a CCG card - from before there was such a thing as a gold pool. The original plot had you "give" power, not gold. They simply substituted the word "gold" for "power" when they invented the gold pool for the LCG and put the card in the Core Set, not thinking about the larger nuances of the thing.