jhagen said:

I have already paid for this game. The playtesters were paid with my money. They didnt do their job. I dont think its too much to ask for FFG to be the ones to fix it. I thought your ideas were a good start, but we shouldnt be burdened with fixing a game that was supposed to be playtested fully.

agreed, but FFG has our money now. so i say we fix what they couldnt (or wouldnt)

Long-time lurker who finally managed to pick up a copy of 2nd edition for myself. I've been following discussions of the "Lannister weakness" here and on BGG, but it doesn't really ring true to me after looking at the game...

From the "theme" standpoint, I actually think the Lannister position is quite faithful to the first book. Remember that:

{SPOILERS FOR BOOK 1)

1. Cersei bribes the gold cloaks to take King's Landing but the actual number of Lannister swords in the city is very small.

2. Tywin is furious with Joffrey for executing Ned, because the Lannisters are caught between Baratheon-Tyrell and Stark in the North and fighting on two fronts. He dispatches Tyrion with a real Lannister force to try and hold King's Landing.

3. Lannister loses every proper Stark engagement save for the feint by Bolton, which puts paid the notion that the gold of Casterly Rock somehow enables the Lannisters to fight any better than the northmen.

4. Balon Greyjoy decides to go after Stark rather than much richer Lannister due to a personal grudge against the Starks.

{SPOILERS END HERE}

So really, the book Lannisters aren't really all that more powerful than they're represented on the board game. They're just very lucky and very good at politicking - both of which are adequately represented by their positions on the Influence tracks: lousy on Fiefdoms, best at the King's Court, and second best on the Throne.

Now, from the game balance perspective...

Karl M said:

While Damphair allows the Greyjoy player to dictate the outcome of every battle, 2 power does hurt! Also, Lannister can dictate the strategic situation so long as they hold the Messenger Raven - they can change orders. If Greyjoy holds 2 power in order to use the Damphair, they're unlikely to gain on the King's Court Track and likely will not have special orders. I think the combination of special orders, the Raven, plus the fact that Lannister will act before Greyjoy makes them very deadly and hardly a pushover. The key is to use the Raven to change key orders from raids to support, and staying ahead of Greyjoy in turn order - both easy to do if Greyjoy must conserve power for Aeron.

Here is my proposed: "Riverrun or Bust" Lannister opening:

1. March -1 for your starting ship. If a march shows up on the Iron Fleet, then you can retreat to the Port at Lannisport, where you can continually raid any attempt at Greyjoy fleet support with impunity. If Greyjoy doesn't try to smash the Lannister fleet, then you can continually raid their ship support and force them to split up if they want to do something.

If a March doesn't show up on the Iron Fleet, use the Raven to change the fleet action to raid to counter any Greyjoy attempts at raiding or support.

2. Move the footman from Stoney Sept to Harrenhal.

3. Special Order consolidate in Lannisport and muster another knight (or siege tower if you want Riverrun for sure!).

You are ahead of Greyjoy in total strength even if a mustering comes up and can raid any attempt at support from the sea with your navy. Greyjoy likely has access to very few special orders as well if he's holding out for Damphair and won't be likely to rise on the Court track if a Clash comes up.

4a. (no muster drawn) Play Special March +1 in Lannisport, Raid in the sea, and Special Raid in Harrenhal (to remove any defence orders). Switch one of the Raids using the Raven with a Special Support +1 order if you can afford it (either the ship or the footman). With a +1 March Knight/Knight/Footman in Lannisport, a Footman/Ship +1 Support, you have 8 strength. If you were gutsy and went for the Siege Tower, you have 10! Even if somehow you cannot place a support, you have 6 (8) and should be able to deny at least some ship support to Greyjoy land forces (even if you had to hole up in port you should be able to raid the surrounding sea), who can at best manage 3 (the Knight/Footman stack) + 1 (another Footman) +1 (if he split his ships, but this may not be likely) +1 (Valyrian) = 6, which is still beatable if you took the Siege Tower option. Play Gregor Clegane ; Greyjoy's best defenders cannot avoid all casualties and an early game bloodying will give you the edge you need for further battles.

4b. (muster) You have even more options here. Add another ship and change the Footman in Lannisport to a third Knight, and muster another Footman in Harrenhal or upgrade to Siege Tower. Either way you have an overwhelming force that can take Riverrun. Note that if a muster was drawn, Greyjoy may decide to go after Lannisport if he has control of the sea, but if you were able to crush Riverrun, retaking Lannisport and bloodying the remaining Greyjoy forces even further is easily doable. This may be costly though if Greyjoy forced your ship into port earlier and thus take the ship from you, but hey, no war is ever completely free from risk.

You may want to use Tywin for Riverrun and save Gregor Clegane for retaking Lannisport, but I'd rather have the guaranteed casualties on Riverrun and bet that Greyjoy will likely ask for some breathing room.

I feel this opening has the fewest number of holes in it, but let me know if I've missed anything. Trying to hold both Lannisport and take Riverrun at the same time is tricky but I think it's still doable for the Lannisters. Greyjoy cannot use any special orders on turn 1 (at least if you're playing five players), so they definitely cannot out-muster you at the opening.

I feel G. Clegane is the best leader for an early battle against Greyjoy; taking one or two units off Greyjoy early is needed to blunt his bite and teach him not to mess with the lions, although you may prefer the power tokens afforded by Tywin , or alternately, you may want to go Footman heavy and use Kevan so as not to burn your best leaders early. The key again behind the strategy is to exploit the Messenger Raven, Special Orders, plus the fact Lannister acts first.

But again, this strategy is only if you want Riverrun and must have it early. Personally I feel Riverrun makes a better bargaining chip with either Stark or Greyjoy. Lannister can easily surround Riverrun at any time and apply some serious pressure on the holder in favour of the other northern power, so using it as a bargaining chip can make either northern player play a little nicer.

Also, do spoiler tags work on this forum?

Hello Vendredi , I enjoyed reading your strategy very much ! I think it is very capable of putting Lannister in a bargaining position or even cripple the Greyjoys if they attack Riverrun. This strategy counters his house cards : even a Victarion that has support from his ships will not be able to defend against the counterattack. Balon and Euron won't be enough if you attack with a siege tower. With Clegane, Tywin and Kevan, the Lannisters have good options to make a strong attack.

One less attack / movement order for Greyjoy hurts him tactically . And he might loose the Valyrian sword if he starts bidding on the Raven to get more star orders.

One remark : would it not be better to place/switch in a defence +1 on the ship in the Golden Sound if Greyjoy puts an attack order on his ship at Iron Bay. You could play the hound for a total strength of 4 , while Greyjoy would need to play at least a + 2 house card but will probably spend his Aeron due to uncertainty, which is good since he loses a good house card and two power while you only lose the Hound and retreat your ship.

Vendredi that is almost the exact same strategy I came up with while playing lannister vs greyjoy and it works. Although I think the best choice for Lannister to to ally with greyjoy and split riverrun and seaguard with each other. If greyjoy isn't willing that strat is your backup along with an alliance with stark to really put greyjoy in his place. People focused too much on taking Riverrun first turn and worrying about a muster card coming up 2nd round. I've played about 6 games so far and had a muster card 2nd round maybe once. I think it is actually a worse strategy for greyjoy to try and take riverrun and seaguard and hope for the mustercard then playing it safe and not wasting much needed resources on Riverrun early.

zorzogoth said:

I actually forgot about Sandor but now that you mention it this is a great idea too! Greyjoy has no leader than can beat Sandor's two fortifications in 2nd edition so you can force Greyjoy to spend a House card. Since you've got Specials to spare you could play defence +2 as well, forcing Greyjoy to spend the Valyrian blade or play a +3 or better leader.

Actually, I think Lannister's leaders are overall better than Greyjoy; if the other houses left Lannister and Greyjoy to duke it out I believe Lannister always will come out on top - their better initiative and Raven power is just so much better than the Sword. The Greyjoy deck is good only if you are on the offensive, and because Lannister always marches first Greyjoy can never truly be on the offensive unless the Lannister player lets them.

Still though, any good Greyjoy player knows that you can (and most definitely will! Lannister cannot afford to lose any strength in turn 1!) save the navy with Sandor anyway and likely won't burn the Damphair. Lacking Sandor for later might hurt too if Stark attempts to muscle in on your territory or if Tyrell goes north; so whether or not you want to use Sandor is probably best left to your judgement of the players at the table.

Karl M said:

I also wanted to address this point - Tyrell can in no way take Lannisport on turn 1 unless you oblige him. House cards are never played unless an actual battle takes place. Thus, Loras can only be used if there are forces in Searoad for Tyrell to engage and play the card. The only way this could happen is if Lannister moves into Searoad on Turn 1, which is a stupid decision to do considering the bloodthirsty Greyjoys are at your door.

The only other possible way for this to happen is for Greyjoy to take the Golden Sound, move a footman into Searoad, and intentionally lose to Tyrell playing Loras so Tyrell can execute the second march into Lannisport - which is incredibly, incredibly brain-dead play by Greyjoy and should allow you to smash him even without Lannisport.

In any case, Lannisport is hardly the keystone of the Lannister strategy. Yes, it's a home territory, but the two areas Lannister really needs are the very humble Stoney Sept and the Blackwater. Each is firstly completely invulnerable to raids or support from the sea and secondly each supports an incredible number of territories. A Lannister player that can secure both has control of almost all the south.

I read most of the this but skipped the last page or so so apologies for any ground being run over again!

I think it's worth pointing out that Seagard and the North is a much more inviting target for the Greyjoys and this scenario has little chance of coming up. If it does (and apologies again if this has already been discussed, dismissed or debunked) then surely there are strategies that can be played that aren't pre-determined or set in stone. In a game I played I managed to take out 3 Tyrell territories with much weaker Baratheon forces due clever use of house cards, supporting tiles and raids. Also worth noting was what cards my opponent had left.

I understand that this scenario goes by earlier turns and influence positions but what makes this game great is that everything can be turned around and you can very quickly find yourself in a reverse situation than before. First time we tried this game out we got a Clash of Kings card on the 2nd turn! There are so many ways that can force Greyjoy to make or not make certain moves, ranging from Stark getting involved, Wildling attacks reducing power tokens etc etc. When we played the Lannisters and Greyjoys both had the biggest forces on the board but neither won. I myself managed to win with Baratheon all down to swift attacks using ships on the last turn. Because I was pinned back with only 1 on supply track for many turns people just kind of largely left me to myself, I was not a threat. Tables turned though with some luck with resupply and mustering. I know its a different scenario but there are always moves to make and to force your opponent into. Its a great strategy game that can be unpredictable at times. Not all these moves are set in stone and will work the same each game.

KC Accidental said:

This is very true. I got a couple more games in over the weekend with the "Riverrun or Bust" opening (alas, I am stuck perpetually playing Lannister in my play group as I seem to be the only fan of the House from the books) and I'm convinced that a "Riverrun at all costs" attempt is not the optimal Lannister starting strategy. For one thing, it's important to avoid too early confrontation with Greyjoy - don't get tempted by all the seemingly easy castles at Seagard, Pyke, and Flint's Finger. You'll never be able to hold Greyjoy down long enough to avoid having another player gut you in the rear. If you can nail them as part of a Greyjoy backstab at the end game sure. Also a really aggressive posture early doesn't necessarily bode well for future cooperation with Greyjoy.

I gambled on this on the last game but with a majority of my fleet blockading Pyke and a majority of my House leaders discarded, House Martell (who had traded control of the ocean in exchange for leaving Tyrell alone) made an assault on the lightly defended Golden Sound and took Lannisport with an incredible invasion force, which proceeded to chew through my rear Lannister areas.

House Lannister's main problem is they have a front on all sides both at land and at sea. You will be hard pressed to try and maintain even two fronts evenly on just one of the theatres. Lannister is the player in most dire need of a strategic alliance to start or at least a nonagression pact. If Greyjoy doesn't irrationally hate you then he's a good candidate for this; he generally doesn't want to waste strength fighting you all game.

On the flip side, Lannister is in good position to make friends . Stoney Sept, Harrenhal, and the Blackwater are all in easy reach and provide you with tremendous leverage over the big conflict spots that can occur in the three way brawl for the South between Dorne, Tyrell, and Baratheon. It's more important to husband your strength and spend it on strategic support or raids that help the southern powers wear each other down rather than fight directly. Your low rack on the Fiefdoms track also really encourages this. A second priority should be the construction of a decent fleet in the Golden Sound - mostly to deter sea attack on Lannisport, but that fleet can quickly go on the offensive when you're ready for the win.

So Vendredi, you would suggest different course of action for Lannister than immediate conflict with Greyjoy who took Riverrun on turn 1? Expansion towards the eastern coast in hope for grabbing cracklow point? Cause it's certain that you can't live on 3 mustering points for very long before other houses will amass forces much greater then yours. Is it possible to continue to place the special consolidate power token in your capital in order to muster troops AND keep Lannisport safe at the same time?. I can see the benefit in taking the central positon on the map in blackwater and threatening either Baratheon or Tyler, witch will posiotion you as the perfect Martell ally. Do you have posiibly any experience with this or any other leave-the-riverrun-to-grayjoy-for-the-first-turns strategy?

My preference would be yes, to go east towards Cracklaw Point, but I hesitate to make too strong a recommendation. Every game is different with a lot of variables to consider. Some games the Greyjoy player will hate your guts and you're gonna have to slug it out (which I still think is a poor idea on Greyjoy's part). Some games you'll be able to have a pretty good run of non-interference from Greyjoy. Obviously you'll lose if two or more players decide to gang up on you... but really this goes for any faction.

The key thing to remember is that Lannister can access and support nearly every player on the map, so you gotta do some wheeling and dealing. You're easily the decisive factor in a Stark/Greyjoy conflict and the Baratheon/Martell/Tyrell slugfest in the south. Remember that supports don't require adjacency with the troops you're supporting, just with the battle zone. You can intervene for whichever House is going to give you the better deal... or perhaps backstab. Since you have a lot of fronts, it's in your interest to keep your assistance limited to support only - if you try to intervene everywhere you'll burn through your leaders very fast and get confronted with some very bad situations.

There's also some weird ways you can offer assistance sometimes. In my last game Greyjoy was down to Theon Greyjoy in his hand and facing a very brutal Stark counterattack. I sent a single ship from the Golden Sound in a piddly attack and dropped Cersei, letting Greyjoy win with Theon, which allowed him to replenish his hand of leaders. He was very thankful that I was able to refresh his hand against Stark.

If you don't already, I really recommend having a pencil and note paper handy during your sessions. Try to break up alliances, let players know you'll support their backstab attempts, etc. etc.

That being said, you can survive perfectly well on 3 mustering points. Most other Houses only have three muster points within easy reach (at least if you're playing with 6 - I'm sorely tempted to remove Dornish territories in a 5 player game, the garrisons barely do anything to hold off the southern players). The only really crucial thing you need to do to protect Lannisport is to keep a fleet-in-being in the Golden Sound. All land approaches to Lannisport are generally within your area of influence, and you've got a 2 strength garrison to start with, so it's invasion from the sea that you need to watch for. You don't need to keep too big an army sitting on Lannisport.

Since Lannister tends to start high on the King's Court track they can afford to place down Special Consolidate Orders from the beginning - Riverrun makes an excellent , if a little unsafe position to do this since it lacks any crowns. Lannisport is much safer but you are missing out on the 2 power tokens you could gain instead, which may hurt you in the long run.

I think next game i will choose Lannister [we normaly draw houses at random, but as Lannister is tough to play i hope to trade afterwards ] and try to let the Riverrun go if the Greyjoy will take it and focus on the center of the map. I'll post afterwards how it all went : )

I think the reason Lannister is so threatened by Greyjoy is so the Lannister player has to play like a Lannister.

Using your words and manipulation to convince the Greyjoy player to fight Stark in return for the seas around Lannisport.

Further more, the Lannister player is the only player that can support every house around them against another house!

Plus you could always backstab everyone on turn ten to steal those undefended castles (it's what I love doing). Go House Lannister!

vendredi said:

This probably was one of the single most useful posts here. Its a solid strategy my lord, I humbly bow before you. I will try this next game as Lannister.

We played a four man game yesterday which got me thinking about this. Around turn 4-5 Lannister was completely obliterated by Greyjoy. Which got me thinking Greyjoy is overpowered and Lannister is the underdog. Here's how it went down:

Lannister consolidated power in lannisport, his ship in the golden sound was defeated by attacking victarion greyjoy, tides of battle destroyed the lannister's only ship. Lannister rushed for Riverrun, while Greyjoy went for Seagard.

Second turn Muster Card is revealed. Lannister musters one ship and rest on land, Greyjoy deploys two ships and rest on land. Greyjoy keeps 3 ships in sea area around pyke always with a +1 support, and one in Golden sound with a raid. Having focused on power (since he has no special tokens) Greyjoy is able to rise to top in all influence tracks. (Myself Baratheon and Stark were busy taking fortresses in our spheres) At turn 4, with the help of his ships, Greyjoy takes over Riverrun. One having lost one of his two territories with supply on it, Lannister is forced to destroy both of his defending units in Riverrun since he cannot have 4 land units in one area. Greyjoy continues to take over Lannisport and kick Lannister from the game. So it was a literally 1 on 1 between Lannister and Greyjoy and Lannister was steamrolled.

This happened one more time yesterday. In my opinion, while every other house can afford to make mistakes in the first few turns and survive and contend for the game, Lannister (against Greyjoy) cannot afford to make mistakes. Its way to easy and simple for Greyjoy to overwhelm Lannister. I'm not saying Lannister cant survive, but he needs to plan out everything very carefully and anticipate every Greyjoy move. I'm leaving out diplomatic options out of this since all houses should be able to survive 1 on 1 early game, without aid or alliance from other players.

It is doable to survive and contend for Lannister but I do not think its fair. It should be fair. Not equal, but fair. Balancing problem. Will take Lannister myself next time and try out efidm's strategy. If with variations it does not work out against equally experienced Greyjoy, I will call in some of the House rules suggested here.

Greyjoy has 2 adventage with boat: they start with 2 boat, and can have a devastative attack. One thing I've seem is the Lannister securing a defensive position on land, build 2 ships and attacks the greyjoy fleet if there is no muster, cutting of Pyke from the mainland and leaving it very easy to take (in fact you could probably take it the same turn.)

I've though about the 3 castle + pyke move and even if I think it's quite good and will probably try it next time I play Pyke I there is no freaking way it is unstopable… you have no support at all… if stark as a +1 move on winterfell he can retake moat calin and kill your unit or decide where it retreats. If you spread instead on seagart and riverun and lannister happens to have a move +1 on lannisport or Stony sept he could retake riverun.

Also i'd tell you that Cersei is a really good card seriously you just have to know how to bargain with it, it's the only way to remove a march token… and I've used it every game, and it was very usefull for me or for my ally.

I like the lannister in the game Gregor can litteraly wipe out an army, Kevan can make a footman the strongest army ever if you have enough supply for shitloads of footman. Their starting position is difficult when the tyrel are there but if you manage to make a alliance with either tyrel, stark or better greyjoy you can do great deeds… without any alliance well… how much time do you think the starks can hold to a baratheon greyjoy attack? Or the Baratheon to a Martell Stark attack of the Greyjoy to a Lannister Stark attack? Or the Tyrel to a Lannister Martel attack ? Not long. Every faction is stuck in this game the lannister are not worst then any other.

A lot of these Lannister strategies suggest using Kevan Lannister's ability of increasing the strength of footmen to 2 for an attack. Please keep in mind that Kevan's card clearly states that this ability only works for DEFENDING, not ATTACKING. Victarion Greyjoy's ability is so much better because he does not have any restriction like this.

It does seem like the Lannister House Cards are weak in comparison to others like the Greyjoys. Victarion and Balon have very powerful abilities.

A lot of these Lannister strategies suggest using Kevan Lannister's ability of increasing the strength of footmen to 2 for an attack. Please keep in mind that Kevan's card clearly states that this ability only works for DEFENDING, not ATTACKING. Victarion Greyjoy's ability is so much better because he does not have any restriction like this.

It does seem like the Lannister House Cards are weak in comparison to others like the Greyjoys. Victarion and Balon have very powerful abilities.

Sorry for thread necro but it's not like there's alot of new threads on this forum anyway.

Strange, as his card reads as following "f you are attacking, all of your participating Footman (including supporting Lannister footmen) add +2 combat strength instead of +1".

Also, diplomacy is all well and good but if other players refuse to play ball it feels sad that the Lannisters can do nothing. Does anyone know a good fix? Are the expansion cards worth it to mix things up?