so we've played out Clash at Kingsroad 3 times i am always Lannister as they are my favorite house and my friend is always Stark and it seems like i cannot get a win at all, my friend forms a triangle with mage mormont at the northern crossing, and uses the archers and Karstark to plug in the southern crossing, i throw myself at him with both Marband and Kevan but the Archers on the hill and his friends are constantly thinning out my ranks while Karstark acts like plug stopping me from ever pushing foward to the second objective.

what am i doing wrong?

Probably nothing - it is generally agreed that scenario 1 is slightly balanced towards Stark. Try scenario 2, and you'll have an easier time.

That said, if you didn't already do so, be sure to use the optional rules from the FAQ/Errata, in particular coordinated attacks. That gives you a better chance against Rickard.

got a much better feel for the game and finally got a win in Scenerio 1. isolated his war host of the north and completely ignored the objectives until i decimated most of his troops on my side of the river, left Maege wandering around by herself and stormed the archers and karstark with what was left of my calvary and Kevans pikeman and was able to get the win

moving on to Scenerio 2 and was wondering if as lannister i should try and do the same thing? focus on one side of the board and see if i can destroy them before i turn around and move back towards the objectives and the middle? any adivce for paying the piper would be appreciated

also has anyone experiemented with switching commanders out for scenerios like say using the mountain and jamie instead of adam and kevan or would it mess up the balance too much

Winning Scenario 1 as lannister is great, congrats!

We have never swapped commanders if it wasn supported by the rules (you get a scenario in Tribes of the Vale Expansion with a choice between Timmett and Tyrion). I guess it would alter balance quite a bit. Imagine to have Jaime instead of Adam - Jaime is so much slower. The hexes he can reach withn a given number of turns is quite limited - moving one hex, instead three or four like Adam. But if he is already next to an important spot, he is difficult to capture…

As for Scenario two, you might want to take a look at our short session reports for inspiration:

http://bgg.cc/thread/715554/a-lions-lessons-paying-the-piper

http://bgg.cc/thread/836319/stark-raving-paying-the-piper

Alright well all the forums for this game seem pretty dead so im just gonna keep commenting in this thread, played 3 more games along with one of the wardens of the West scenerios and correct me if im wrong in my observations

- Correctly using Gregor Clegane The Mountain can make it viable to rout an opponent on the morale tracker, no other game was it even close but Gregor made it 2 away from a rout

- The Brax Pikeman are not that good, Calvary just avoid them because they can outmaneuver them and at 3 str the stark infantry target them early to get rid of them

- Clegane Crossbowman are very very good, and used correctly are far superior to Archers

- There is no point to attacking and targeting a Red unit early when attacks against green or blue can help you so much more, friend attacked Gregor 3 times and did not score a single point against him

- The Dogs of War ability is pretty trashy if you are in a good position and your first dice roll hits with a moral flag moving your opponent out of range of your other ordered unit, i was surprised how much better the dogs of war are behind frieidnly units when they can use their ability on top of the war host of the north attacking and not have to worry about getting hit

- forrests are pretty amazing for green units

- Karstark is an absolute beast along with Robb Stark

now questions

- does the engagement token leave play if the unit being attacked is forced to retreat

- the forrest hex says 2 dice before modifiers, if gregior is attacking the forrest and rolls 2 flags does he still roll 2 additional dice, i beleive so just asking

- noob painting question, if i use hobby spray primer on my figures what do i use to paint the grass?

There are certain scenarios (or situational development in combat) where a rout does become possible (and actually some few of our games have been decided by rout, and some more forced one player to alter strategy to avoid being routed). I did not see any special role for Gregor in this, besides hitting heavy and being hard to capture. (His commit ability wasnt that relevant for us so far).

Pikemen are less cool then i expected them to be, yes, the first scenario with them was like "how should Stark win" before playing, and "gosh, pikemen are wothless" afterwards. But after some more plays with them, they feel a little more balanced (still not "good"" for me.

Crossbowmen are amazing, yes, i like them very much, too.

Scoring no hits against Gregor in three attacks might just have been bad luck. Depends on how many dice, whether they were flanking, and so on. (Do you know our iPhone and Android apps for dice roll probabilities?) Anyway, attacking red units can be useful. Do you play with the optional reduced strength unit? It makes attacking commanders way more useful.

Rolling the result you did not want is always trashy, not just with dogs of war. They are somewhat less reliable, though.

Forests are good with greent units, and a place where archers like to hang out.

Rickard is a beast, yes. I hate him. And Robb is even worse.

For your questions:

If a unit retreats, an engagement token placed there is removed.

Gregor gets his bonus rolls against forests.

We used citadel knarloc green color, thinned with a little water. You can check some pictures over at boardgamegeeks:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/722906/tales-of-two-painting-newbies

Lannister4live hopefully you respond because no one else seems much into these forums

im playing Riverlands Rescue tonight as Lannister and im pretty stuck strategy wise, the Karstark is a beast but Robb Stark and his troops seem pretty formidable as well, my frist thought was to take all my troops west towards the inns and the stark objective point, then hopefully hold my ground there while picking off some of the green Stark troops and hoping to edge by him by round 5 in VPs. is this bad commanding or should i maintain the split Lannister forces and engage both Karstark and Robb?

seems like a risky play for lannister either way with the crap commande3rs of Kevan and Adam

First of all, you can find our session reports for that one over here:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/717909/a-lions-lessons-riverland-rescue

and here:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/845961/stark-raving-riverlands-rescue

You might note i lost both times - so dont worry too much if Stark gets you in this one, 4, 5 and 6 were all Lannister wins in our first play-through

Killing the guys in the village is not that hard, except for Karstark, who is not that easy to get. Most important task in my opinion is to not make the same mistake i did. You really have to make sure Stark wont get his instant win condition in. So secure at least one River crossing. I would tend towards combining most of the units at the western front, cause it should be more easy to mass units there at the crossing, and you can kill the village people as you go, threatening to fulfill your own instant victory and maybe driving Karstark away.

But do not focus too much on that - get the crossing first.

Strategy does depend a little on what Stark does, though, since there isnt much you can do about Robb. If he rides west, you might want to try and get your green or blue rank heavy infantyr onto one of those other crossings. maybe you'll do that anyway, because taking care of those slows Stark down quite a bit. Note that its not possible to pursue or advance onto bridges!

As for the commanders, Kevan and Addam are not that bad- kevan should stay behind some other guys most of the time, and just hand two dice to his men - prefering flanking units, of course. (And, in general, 4 dice ranged attacks can be nice, too!) With Adam, try not to expose him, cause he can get captured easily. Position him well, since he is mounted, his reach is quite nice, and since he is always flanking, he can often either kill or drive away (with morale) the units he attacks. Consider not to use pursue for a second attack, but for positioning. If he ist not engaged, he is that much harder to get, sicne he will not be flanked himself so fast. Very important: Remember his commit ability, he can force a retreat nce, which might get very important if you desperately need to pursue (sometimes) or need to drive some Stark away from a victory objective (quite common).

I hope this helps a little, and good luck to you for the next session!

Feel free to aks any further questions that might occur!

ok so we played Riverlands Rescue and i got pretty slapped up

it took until turn 4 before my contingent of pike man with Kevan even reached the river crossings and by that time Stark had set up pretty well with his archers and war host, i was able to hold the western crossing with marband but once Stark got over there he pretty easily captured Marband and with the Karstark holding down the middle and eastern crossings i was dead by the end of Turn 4, couldnt push anyone off the fords or bridges and he got his instant victory

- surprised how weak i find dogs of war, i dont fear them at all and find them pretty fragil against my pikeman

-some units are so slow it makes it such a hassel to even get them into battle

-still hate marband

-switching Karstark and Robb confused me but robbs such a beast i couldt really do anything to him either

- Kevans Ability with Archers was good advice, thank you

looking foward to the Battle of the GreenFork and getting The Mountain back under my control, any tips for lannister would be greatly appreciated

-also just strated my painting process, started with the Bear Island Shieldmaidens because were not gonna use them for a while, cant believe how quickly a can of primer goes, now onto painting the bases green

Okay, i'll start with links to bgg again

Great to hear you started painting. Some of our beginners-experience:

http://bgg.cc/thread/722906/tales-of-two-painting-newbies

And the session report for number 4:

http://bgg.cc/thread/718688/a-lions-lessons-battle-of-the-green-fork

The second report is not yet up, i lost on replay, but is was a close fight, with a lucky turn for Stark, having Robb attack my stalwart cav, rolling 3 blue, pursue to attack Adam, and rolling 4 blue to capture him. Quite unlikely, but i still gave him a hard time winning that one. My thoughts on scenario 4 are:

- Dont care too much who dies. Its all about the tokens, really, and you cant get routed.

- The right flank ist the most fragile one, from my experience so far.

- Rickard and Robb will get a marker anyway, dont bother to try preventing them from snatching one. They are too fast and near unkillable.

- Tempt your opponent into wasting time. Like setting your archers on the hills, he will likely attack. And the next turn, attack again, instead of moving towards the objectives. Even if they all die, if Stark loses one round, ist worth it.

- The red units can sit on the points, sometimes, but with the light green ones, use their speed to rush into any oncoming northmen. If the fight, they loose time, if they march on, they take parting blows, and are that much easier to kill for Gregor

- Dont be afraid to fight uphill with your red units. Loosing one attack die is okay, because if Stark rolls morale, he wont be able to advance onto the points.

- Check which opposing units could reach markers, and focus on them. Dont kill weakened enemies with priority, but engage those within range of a marker.

- When attacking one unit with two of your own, place the engagement token with the one attacking from the side. Star will most likely attack the engaged one, to avoid getting a parting blow. If he kills them or drives them back with morale results, northmen can advance. its better for you if they advance to the side, not towards the markers.

- Dont forget to use Gregors commit ability when killing a unit. The morale might come in handy later on.

- If Stark has enough markers, or seems to be getting them anyway, check your chances for getting his morale low. If you have been focused on engaging and blocking, he will have killed most of your soft targets (green and blue units) and you will have regained some of the morale due to the morale build-up phase and round ends. If youstart killing units in round 4, there is a decent chance to drop his morale. he has some red units, too, which are easier to kill then your own ones, and you can finish off all the blue guys. Stark will have less godd targets then you. Maybe you can get his morale low enough. Its not easy, but dont give up if the markers seem lost!

Thats what i remember at the moment, feel free to ask questions and i am curios to hear about your session!

backround

i play lannister always and my opponent plays stark always as they represent our 2 favorite houses. We are working our way through the scnerios and i just started painting and bought the 2 wardens expansion so hopefully we get better as time goes on'

just looking at the scenerio before Stark even places his tokens i am positive that he will be ignoring the tokens around the Mountain. the only other scenerio that i had the Mountain i absolutley demolished his forces with him and his 4 capture rating. so i was expecting him to plant the tokens all around Marband and towards the eastern middle flank.

Round 1 starts and with speed he starts moving robb and all of robbs forces toward the middle of the board, i respond with pushing kevan my archers up onto the tokens and take a few fires even with off balance that actually hit. he completely ignores karstark and his whole flank this round and focuses his efforts on robb and his war host of the North, he rallys around robb and is able to take a few of the hills. I decide to take advice i got on here about Marband and his offensive abilities and attack the outlying war host units with my calvary and again do decent enough damage i think 7 hits spread between 3 units

Round 2 starts and he is using robb as a battering ram, he eliminated my archers on one of the locations and advanced capturing one flag. he surprised me with Karstark and ran over to the western flank of my center landing on a location and taking it. and again i started using Marbands troops and started just wrecking his guys left behind. using Marbands flanking ability and pursue he gets another token after my archers die to his red war host

Round 3 Nothing Happens, seriously i move around some more he brings some of his war host up closer to the center, oh and he uses grabs another token with the war hoston the west near gregor, this whole time the Mountain has been on top of what i correctly guessed was the only green on that whole flank. he did pretty much nothing the entire time.

Round 4 If Marband was this good in the books the war would have been over in half the time, marband eliminates another blue war host pursues and eliminates the rest of his green archers. since hes so focused on the center i completely abandon the eastern positions and move my other blue calvary towards the middle to help agains his red war hosts, he snags 1 more token and starts to move his 2 soldier archer unit away from the calvary. i kill a lot more of his soldiers, seriously the death toll right now is like 8 to 26.

Round 5 i am decimating his forces in the center, kevan keeps giving his 2 dice ability to blue ranks and i am dominating on flank attacks. but his lone green archer on the east of the board moves his 2 onto the marker i abandoned and wins the game. . . . . . at the end of round 5, in a game i was killing everyone.

Turns out Gregor and Kevan were both sitting on the other green tokens, i had thought there was one underneath my red pikeman which is why i abandoned my position and this scnerio really made me more of a fan of this game

thoughts

- I no longer hate Marband, his flanking ability coupled with Pursue 2 made him into a beast this game. granted i have never really like him before this scenerio but maybe i was using him incorrectly. he personally took 4 units off the board this game.

- i still cant believe i lost, when i was breaking his army in so soo many ways, but this scenerio wasn't about that and i got too scared about losing the center that i gave up the east and the win

- most balanced scenerio so far IMO, having to go against Karstark and Robb is rough but giving them no other calvary helped even it out, even almost captured the karstark, 4 dice 3 blue and a valar, but it was infantry attacking

- really easy to set up with barely any terrain and a useless forrest hex right at the top

- gregor might as well be called the turtle, if hes not in the action it takes 4 rounds to get him even close

- i both understand starks decision to leave gregor alone and hate him for it, really made the scenerio feel much much smaller

- this game really made me appreciate Kevan and Marband much more than i did before Both of Kevans abilities helped me to maintain his hex and Marband was the Demon of the Green Fork in terms of his attacks

- Heavy Infantry is overrated IMO, the heavy armor trait didnt help me nearly as much as advance or pursue

- I Hate Robb Stark

^^^^ sry i just copy and pasted, this is a session for The Battle of the Green Fork