Alright so my wife and I purchased the AGoT Starter and now that we have our favored perspective Houses (Lannister for her, Stark for me), we are trying to figure out where to go from here.

We both want the perspective Deluxe Expansions for our two favored houses. But after that it gets a little tricky. I probably want to pursue all of the Defenders of the North packs, as a Stark player. The real question is what Chapter Packs would be best for my wife who plays Lannister?

Also, we are looking at expanding into two more Deluxe Expansions, most likely Martell and Greyjoy. Can anyone tell me how those two houses play?

Thanks in advance!

The recommended purchase order goes a little something like this.

1. A second core set. Core sets are just generally great for getting all those little things that make deck building easier, like resource-producing locations and cheap characters. While there isn't much synergy in just buying another core set, it's the best way to build well-rounded decks for those four houses.

2. The Greyjoy/Martell expansions. Obviously this is dependant on whether you really want to focus on your chosen decks or experiment with everything AGoGoGoGoT has to offer. Personally I find the Greyjoy/Martell decks the most fun decks to play in AGoT, so I would say go for these. As for what they offer:

• Greyjoy's specialise in three things, winning unopposed challenges (through combinations of stealth, warships and various character abilities like Intimidate), discarding from opponent's deck (through Raider traited characters, more warships and event cards) and crest control (Greyjoys have a huge amount of unique characters with crests, and the ability to control other opponent's crested characters.)
• Martell's are all about losing battles to win the war. They can turn losses around their opponents with ease (their house-specific keyword is the opposite of Baratheon's: card stands if a challenge is a lost). They also have icon control and great cost-reduction synergy with House Dayne and Hellhot cards.

These expansions are also great because of some fantastic neutral attachments/plots you get. Especially the Greyjoy Power Struggle/Intrigue Gambit/Military Battle traited plot cards which offer all decks a little something extra.

4. After that you've experienced the six houses, you're free to choose how you plan your purchases. Obviously the house specific expansions will power up those specific decks, but I'm of the opinion that more well-rounded purchases offer more longeivty to your game, especially if you aren't planning to be uber-competetive with them. For that, I recommend you grab the Brotherhood cycle as it offers lots of different options for all decks (and it's 3x copy of each card, unlike the older cycles). Once the other cycles have been released in 3x, I'd go for King's Landing (which I've heard is great for House Lannister), or, if you're really interested in building a Night's Watch/Wildling deck, get the Defenders of the North cycle.

5. At some point, a third core set. Because then you have the cards to allow your playing group to play two of the same house at once (or, if you're like me, you can put one copy of each card in a album and marvel at your collection)

Good luck!

Welcome, glad to hear you like the game! Looks like someone else answered fist, but after typing all this I figure I'll post it anyway.

BenStark said:

There's a couple of articles on cardgamedb that have suggestions for what to get next. Refugees of War and Ancient Enemies are good choices for adding some good cards while keeping the Houses relatively balanced. A 2nd Core is always a good investment; Lanni can use another copy of Golden Tooth Mines, for example, and Stark will be happy to get their hands on another copy of the Kennels to help with a Direwolf build. It will also provide more than 1 copy of a number of plots, especially Valar.

BenStark said:

The Lanni box is not out yet, so you'll have to wait a few months on that... Defenders of the North is being reprinted in 3x format, so you'll probably want to wait for the reprint before purchasing that too. The best option for a Lanni player is probably going to be the King's Landing cycle, which is also being reprinted later in the year.

BenStark said:

Martell tends to have a "revenge" playstyle, with a lot of nasty events and attachments that help them when they lose challenges while defending. For example, they have an event that reads "After you lose a challenge by 4 or more STR, all characters controlled by the winning player lose all of their icons." They also have a really nasty attachment called Venemous Blade, which repeatedly kills low-STR characters; it is probably one of the top 5 cards in the entire game.
Greyjoy has a variety of options, they are good at winning unopposed challenges with stealth and their Intimidate keyword, and they can build a pretty good deck with their Holy-crest characters. They also have a resource denial "choke" theme involving Winter and cards that reduce or steal gold from their opponent combined with cards that cancel triggered effects like discount locations. I suggest you check out some card lists at either cardgamedb or agotcards.org.

Thanks for all the info!

So, not to sound like a total idiot, but I have another question. The Defenders of the North and the King's Landing expansions are both listed at Not Yet Available. However, I can find DotN expansions on Ebay. Why is that?

The Defenders of the North and King's Landing cycles are both being reprinted. Prior to the Brotherhood without Banner cycle, chapter packs contained 40 cards: 10 cards in the pack were singles, while the other 10 cards came in triplicate. The Brotherhood and Oldtown cycles are packs of 60 cards, all 20 of the distinct cards in each pack come in triplicate.

Defenders and King's Landing were both out of print, so they are getting a reprint that will boost the numbers to 60 card packs. FFG's site lists those packs as unavailable, as the reprints have not yet been released. The versions you can find available now are the older, 40 card printings.

Incidentally, this also effects the Deluxe Expansions for Greyjoy and Martell. The initial runs of Princes of the Sun and Kings of the Sea were not done in triplicate, an issue that was rectified in the Revised Editions of those two expansions. I doubt it would be an issue, but make sure that when you buy those packs that they are Revised.

I'm no real expert but I don't think Defenders of the North is as Stark specific as one might suppose... It's more a question of if you want to add Wildlings or Night's Watch (although the latter are admittedly probably better with Starks and Baratheons)

Thanks for all the responses! This game is both fun and frustrating. It's fun because I was a fan of the book series before I began playing the games and continue to enjoy both the LCG and the Board game. However, it is very frustrating because we can't buy the Stark or Lannister expansions.

However, my wife and I are enjoying the game and have decided to buy two of the deluxe expansions. But, we can't decide which two to get. Could anyone offer a little insight? Here's the two ways we're deciding on:

1.) Greyjoy and Martell - This would give us all six houses, so we could expand on the other four later. Greyjoy plays similiarly to Stark from what I've read, and Martell seems sneaky which my wife likes. How are these two expansions?

2.) Baratheon and Targaryen - Baratheon is probably my secondary house, or might even replace Stark since they seem a little too heavily concentrated on military. Baratheon seems well rounded. Targaryen seems madly powerful and decently balanced. My wife also seems to have a sudden like of Danaerys (I'm not sure why, since she wasn't a fan of hers for a long time) and the dragons are pretty cool.

So, there you have it. We'll either buy Greyjoy and Martell or Baratheon and Targaryen. Any advice, opinions, etc. about these perspective sets?

Thanks in advance!

Regarding big expansion is quiter easy. you simply buy what you want to play. Bara is usually rush deck or knights one. Greyjoy is similar to stark, heavy military, martell and Targ are control decks. They are slower at the beginning and must survive push from rush deck to win finally.

If you want to look inside I mean cards other thhan for specific house I would definitely buy targ and martell expansion.

I´m not sure how fast you intend to expand your collection. The Martell and the Greyjoy deluxe expanions also have few cards from the other houses so it would help all of your decks. I think the power level of the deluxe expansion decks and the Core set decks is roughly equal. So if you just want to play with a few cards first and see how the game goes i think it would be a good strat to have the two missing houses first and end up with 6 decks which are easy to balance out against each other.

The Targaryen and the Baratheon deluxe set of course helps both houses a lot, but i think with only a realtive small card pool available both houses would become too good compared to the Core set decks with only a few additions.

You may also want to have a look at all the released expansions on different fan sites like http://www.agotcards.org/ or cardgamedb.com and have your own impressions.