I just played my first game last week. Loved it. I played House Stark. One of my friends played House Lannister. He played a card called "Ser Ilyn Payne" which states, Marshalling: Kneel Ser Ilyn Payne to choose and kill a character with STR 2 or lower. Does that apply to the printed STR on the cards only?There was a card I played called "Winterfell Castle" which states, Each of your "Wolf" characters gets +1 STR. So does that mean he couldn't kill any of the characters I had in play with a Printed 2 STR because their STR with the bonus is now 3?

Also, how long does an average game take?

Do most Expansions have extra Plot cards? We really liked this mechanic and wanted to have a variety of plot cards to choose from when we build our plot deck.

Any favorites or must buy expansions?

Thanks in advance for any replies and help.

Captainsacrifice said:

1. If it refers to printed strength, it will explicitly say so. So Ilyn Payne can only kill a character who's current strength is 2. This works both ways; it means that a Str 3 character who's str is lowered to 2 can then be targetted by him.

2. Depends greatly on how familiar the players are with the rules and cards. Early on, Joust (2 player) games can take 2+ hrs, and 4 player games can take far longer than that. As you get more familiar with it, Joust games usually take <1hr, and 4 player games between 1-2.

3. Expansions do have additional plot cards. To see which have ones you might be interested in, check out a site like www.agotcards.org/card

4. Depends on your house preferences. The typically recommendation is to buy 2 Core Sets, to allow you some flexibility in building your decks without introducing too many new cards or mechanics (but, say, allow you to run duplicates of important cards), and then to buy the deluxe expansion themed towards the house you want to play (eg. Stark "Lords of Winter", which includes 3 copies of 55 mostly stark cards). After that, start buying chapter packs based on the specific cards you want.

Thanks for helping me out. That's what I figured about the STR rule, but wanted to clarify. I guess we will all need to play more and figure out which houses we like more and then buy a bunch of expansions. I probably will get a second core set. Good advice on that. Again much appreciated.

One thing to note is that the Stark expansion, Lords of Winter, is quite difficult to find these days. It's on FFG docket to get reprinted, but there's no ETA, so sadly if Stark is the direction you absolutely want to pursue right now, you'll likely have a hard time getting that set.

As for plots, as another newbie I can say that seeking out strong plot cards seems to have done a lot to help my decks so far. Though the Core Set has its share of good plots and a handful of absolutely necessities, there are also a lot of stinkers, and being able to play a strong or useful plot every round is so much more satisfying than having to play Planning Ahead because it's all you have left.

Generally speaking, after the first chapter cycle A Clash of Arms, most chapter packs contain a single plot card. The newer cycles, Brotherhood without Banners and Gates of the CItadel, will have three copies of that plot, while the older packs will have only a single copy. (The Defenders of the North and the King's Landing cycle will be reprinted soon, going up to three copies of each card.) The major exception to this is the pack Ancient Enemies, which contains 1 copy of six house-specific cards (Fury of the Wolf, Fury of the Stag, etc etc), all of which are very strong.

The Deluxe Expansions each contain 3 copies of seven different plot cards. There's usually a house specific plot among the 7, but the other six are usually pretty usable by every house. So even if the expansion is for a house you're not focusing on, the plots might make it worthwhile.