When you play the Game of Thrones...

 

 

You win or you die... Yep that is the famous line from the books and the show brought to you by none other than Cersei Lannister.

 

Ok well when you play this Board Game you will not literally die but you will have a lot of fun trying to take over Westoros as one of the 6 houses (Baratheon, Stark, Lannister, Greyjoy, Tyrell and Martel). However, the less players you are, the less houses there are to choose from... I actually don't get that part but whatever.

 

On with the review...
 



Here's a game that, when you open the box, you are like WOAH that is a lot of stuff and look at the size of the game board... well it is quite intimidating and quite hard to learn unless you read the rules book very carefully and check out the tutorial video posted by Fantasy Flight Games (best to just buy the game, read the manual and play a few rounds with 3 houses by yourself - that is what I did and now I can play it as well as teach it).

So I started a game by myself as 3 different houses (Stark, Lannister and Baratheon) in order to learn the basis steps of playing this game; some of you are going to say "But you can cheat this way", true, but the point was not to win (which Stark did) but to learn and review.

House setup after a few rounds.

Almost every step of the game I had to re-read the section in the manual until I got it straight the head but even then, I would sometimes make mistakes. For instance I was using Raid orders to remove March orders and you can't do that... Or using the special order of the consolidate power to gain more power instead of either choose to gain more power or to muster new units and a stronghold or castle... Or finally figuring out how ships work. Yep there is a lot to learn in this game including playing Westoros cards, defending against wildling attacks, planning your next move, trying to bargain with other players and make alliances and then breaking them when you are in a good position and so much more.

 

I do love all the details; from the house cards, to the power tokens and the board is just beautiful... large but beautiful. What is cool is that FFG used the same art work from their card game on this game or vice versa (not sure which was first).

 

As you can see, the board is huge and the screens are used to hide the total number of power tokens you have, which are used to bid on the influence tracks.

The fewer players there are, the less houses you can choose from but also there are areas on the board that you cannot even set foot in.

 

This is a really hard game and could take up to 4 hours to play (if you are 6 players). I really enjoyed it and would love to see how this game actually plays out with other players. Like I said the details are awesome and it is a must have for any Game of Thrones fan out there.

 

I find that this game can be easily learned if you know how to play Risk... take a chance at expanding and take the chance of losing the advantage. The picture here shows the round track and the Victory track. If the 10 rounds are up, the house closest to controlling 7 castles or strongholds is the winner, but if a house gets to the 7 before the 10 rounds are up, then kudos to them and they win.

I will quickly go through the gameplay:
Each house screen tells you how to setup your starting positions on the influence tracks, the supply line and the victory track and where to place your starting units.

First round you do not play Westeros cards, you start with placing orders on areas you control with at least one unit on it (a unit is represented by the little plastic figurines - footman, knight, ship and siege machine).

Then, you reveal the orders by all players.

Then, you do the orders revealed in this order:

1. Raid orders
2. March orders (which leads to combat and that is a whole separate area to learn...)
• You declare which area you are going into
• If there are enemy units, you start a combat, otherwise you simply take control of the area.
• In combat you total the unit strength (footmen = 1, knights = 2, ships = 1 and siege machines = 4 - note that siege machines only count their strength when in a controlled area with a stronghold or castle), then you add the strength of the house card you play and then add any bonuses if you hold the Valyrian blade and then resolve the conflict (the house with the highest strength wins and then counting the number of swords or towers on house cards - swords determine how many units are lost from the battle and towers determine how many of those units are safe from the swords - and then retreating the units - for the losing house, to either an empty area or to a friendly controlled area - for the winning house, well they take control of the new area).
• You can also use the defense orders and the support orders in combat in order to help you win or defend.
3. Consolidate power orders.

When all this is done and the board is all clean, the next round begins, but this time you must play a card from each of the three decks of cards (I, II, III) in the Westeros area and do whatever the card says to do (from being attacked by Wildlings to Mustering new units to Adjusting the Supply track).

Then you continue as you did in the first round until there is a winner.



I don't know what else I can say about this game other than how awesome it is and what fun you can have with a lot of players. Also, a great replay value because no player ever thinks the same.

I will definitely give this game a 5 dice out of 5.

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