![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoyHey, turns out there's one more rule change I missed! Now when you play your last house card, you only get your *other* ones back. Not sure I like this, but *shrug*. (Dammit, now I have to go back and add links... or maybe just an edit, anyway...)
(Also, we played special consolidates wrong the first time -- it's muster *or* gain tokens, not both.)
Anyway. So Dan is apparently leaving for Detroit tomorrow and wanted to get in a second game before doing so. So we did. (And I stayed up a damn long time on Sunday to get back on cycle for it.) Last time rather than randomizing houses, earlier people got to pick. :P This time we actually randomized. Dan was Stark, I was Baratheon, Nick was Martell, Kristin was Tyrell, Eric Gamble was Lannister, and Marc was Greyjoy. Once again, we house-ruled in the old way of passing the Iron Throne.
This one went better, but... oddly. We didn't have time for a full rules explanation, but it seemed to work regardless. Actually, Nick as Martell wasn't random -- he was added at the last minute. Or, later than that; we'd already started the first turn. The quick briefing we gave him was also helpful to Kristin and Marc (the other new players) who apparently had less idea what they were doing than I'd expected (Dan had sent them some rules primer video on Youtube).
After some initial scuffling with Nick over Storm's End, the two of us quickly formed an alliance against the growing Lannister/Tyrell threat. (Another game with a disengaged Tyrell... though in this one, rather than just sitting back and not doing much, Kristin basically just did whatever Gamble told her to do. Sigh.) I expected to have to cede quite a bit to Nick to cement the alliance, but fortunately not so. The strength of our alliance was proved when after Nick made an unsuccessful attack against the West Summer Sea, I decided not to wipe out Nick's navy.
Actually my ships just sat in Shipbreaker Bay pretty much the whole game; I didn't want to antagonize Nick to the south, and Dan was too strong to the north, in the Narrow Sea. Early on I had a plan of making a token attack against Dan wherein I would play Patchface and use it to strip one of his strong cards, allowing me to win in a coming actual attack. However I came under repeated attack from the Tyrells and Lannisters, in battles I couldn't win; the first time I tossed out Melisandre, but on the second one I didn't want to toss out Salladhor Saan, nor start throwing out my 2's, so, Patchface it was. And thus the entire course of the game was changed.
I suppose I also could have attacked Dan if Clash of Kings had come up earlier and I'd outbid him on Fiefdoms -- that's how close it was, as also indicated by the fact that I thought stripping a high card from him would be enough to turn it -- but in fact it didn't come up till the last turn. Or if I'd been willing to use all my ships, but that didn't seem like a good idea.
The last turn, when there was a Clash of Kings, there was also a Wildling attack. It was only for 4, and we had plenty of power tokens, but of course we spent most of them trying to outbid each other, so when time came for the attack, none of us had more than 3 left; some had none. We did repel the attack... but the distribution of bids was 0,0,0,1,1,2. Hooray. I was the 2, and as my prize, got the 2 back.
Meanwhile, Greyjoy sat around doing not much. Expanded a bit into the Twins, then fell back to defend. Finally I pointed out to Marc, you're Greyjoy, you have such a naval advantage, you should be aggressive -- this was done in the open at the table, by the way. It worked, and I goaded him into attacking Eric. Unfortunately, I'd failed to notice that he'd neglected to place any ships in the Sunset Sea, and Eric just retreated there. Oops. I was hoping to get Marc to start attacking Gamble in the rear so Eric would have to take some of the pressure off me, but instead I just started a war at sea.
Still, Eric did pull back some of his forces (I guess to deal with a straight-up land attack from Marc?) and with help from Nick I was able to retake the Baratheon lands along the coast. OK, at that point I didn't really need help from Nick anymore -- well, not militarily, anyway. What I did need was for him not to skip my turn. See, the first Clash of Kings had finally happened, and while Kristin now held the Iron Throne, I'd still won iniative over Lannister. Which was quite important, because he'd massed some siege engines in King's Landing which could have destroyed me if I weren't attacking first. But Nick went before me, and fought Kristin, and used Doran Martell, intending to knock Kristin to the back of the Iron Throne track (and take the Iron Throne for himself). He didn't realize this would result in my turn being skipped.
At that time, Tyrell was last in Fiefdoms, and effectively last in King's Court (the last two spots being equivalent, both granting no stars), so to do anything else would basically waste the ability. Fortunately for me, he agreed to do this.
But what was Stark doing this whole time? Well, I never got up quite enough strength to attack him, and Greyjoy wasn't really harassing him, so Dan basically just sat there most of the game, expanding into Arryn lands and building strength. On turn 7 or so, he simply took Crackclaw Point and Seagard, and won the game having fought only two battles. (Me, as soon as he took Crackclaw point that I'd just won back from Gamble: "If he wins the game with only two battles, I'm going to be annoyed.")
So it went. Well, now everyone has a better idea, I guess. (Low point of the game: On the last turn, having won the Messenger Raven, Marc used it to change one of his orders to a raid; only when time came to resolve it did he ask, what's a raid do? "Y'know, you could have asked that before changing it, seeing as the orders were known to everyone by then; you wouldn't have been giving anything away...") Also after the game Nick and I admitted that had the game gone another turn, we probably would have broken the alliance and attacked each other then.
-Harry
(Also, we played special consolidates wrong the first time -- it's muster *or* gain tokens, not both.)
Anyway. So Dan is apparently leaving for Detroit tomorrow and wanted to get in a second game before doing so. So we did. (And I stayed up a damn long time on Sunday to get back on cycle for it.) Last time rather than randomizing houses, earlier people got to pick. :P This time we actually randomized. Dan was Stark, I was Baratheon, Nick was Martell, Kristin was Tyrell, Eric Gamble was Lannister, and Marc was Greyjoy. Once again, we house-ruled in the old way of passing the Iron Throne.
This one went better, but... oddly. We didn't have time for a full rules explanation, but it seemed to work regardless. Actually, Nick as Martell wasn't random -- he was added at the last minute. Or, later than that; we'd already started the first turn. The quick briefing we gave him was also helpful to Kristin and Marc (the other new players) who apparently had less idea what they were doing than I'd expected (Dan had sent them some rules primer video on Youtube).
After some initial scuffling with Nick over Storm's End, the two of us quickly formed an alliance against the growing Lannister/Tyrell threat. (Another game with a disengaged Tyrell... though in this one, rather than just sitting back and not doing much, Kristin basically just did whatever Gamble told her to do. Sigh.) I expected to have to cede quite a bit to Nick to cement the alliance, but fortunately not so. The strength of our alliance was proved when after Nick made an unsuccessful attack against the West Summer Sea, I decided not to wipe out Nick's navy.
Actually my ships just sat in Shipbreaker Bay pretty much the whole game; I didn't want to antagonize Nick to the south, and Dan was too strong to the north, in the Narrow Sea. Early on I had a plan of making a token attack against Dan wherein I would play Patchface and use it to strip one of his strong cards, allowing me to win in a coming actual attack. However I came under repeated attack from the Tyrells and Lannisters, in battles I couldn't win; the first time I tossed out Melisandre, but on the second one I didn't want to toss out Salladhor Saan, nor start throwing out my 2's, so, Patchface it was. And thus the entire course of the game was changed.
I suppose I also could have attacked Dan if Clash of Kings had come up earlier and I'd outbid him on Fiefdoms -- that's how close it was, as also indicated by the fact that I thought stripping a high card from him would be enough to turn it -- but in fact it didn't come up till the last turn. Or if I'd been willing to use all my ships, but that didn't seem like a good idea.
The last turn, when there was a Clash of Kings, there was also a Wildling attack. It was only for 4, and we had plenty of power tokens, but of course we spent most of them trying to outbid each other, so when time came for the attack, none of us had more than 3 left; some had none. We did repel the attack... but the distribution of bids was 0,0,0,1,1,2. Hooray. I was the 2, and as my prize, got the 2 back.
Meanwhile, Greyjoy sat around doing not much. Expanded a bit into the Twins, then fell back to defend. Finally I pointed out to Marc, you're Greyjoy, you have such a naval advantage, you should be aggressive -- this was done in the open at the table, by the way. It worked, and I goaded him into attacking Eric. Unfortunately, I'd failed to notice that he'd neglected to place any ships in the Sunset Sea, and Eric just retreated there. Oops. I was hoping to get Marc to start attacking Gamble in the rear so Eric would have to take some of the pressure off me, but instead I just started a war at sea.
Still, Eric did pull back some of his forces (I guess to deal with a straight-up land attack from Marc?) and with help from Nick I was able to retake the Baratheon lands along the coast. OK, at that point I didn't really need help from Nick anymore -- well, not militarily, anyway. What I did need was for him not to skip my turn. See, the first Clash of Kings had finally happened, and while Kristin now held the Iron Throne, I'd still won iniative over Lannister. Which was quite important, because he'd massed some siege engines in King's Landing which could have destroyed me if I weren't attacking first. But Nick went before me, and fought Kristin, and used Doran Martell, intending to knock Kristin to the back of the Iron Throne track (and take the Iron Throne for himself). He didn't realize this would result in my turn being skipped.
At that time, Tyrell was last in Fiefdoms, and effectively last in King's Court (the last two spots being equivalent, both granting no stars), so to do anything else would basically waste the ability. Fortunately for me, he agreed to do this.
But what was Stark doing this whole time? Well, I never got up quite enough strength to attack him, and Greyjoy wasn't really harassing him, so Dan basically just sat there most of the game, expanding into Arryn lands and building strength. On turn 7 or so, he simply took Crackclaw Point and Seagard, and won the game having fought only two battles. (Me, as soon as he took Crackclaw point that I'd just won back from Gamble: "If he wins the game with only two battles, I'm going to be annoyed.")
So it went. Well, now everyone has a better idea, I guess. (Low point of the game: On the last turn, having won the Messenger Raven, Marc used it to change one of his orders to a raid; only when time came to resolve it did he ask, what's a raid do? "Y'know, you could have asked that before changing it, seeing as the orders were known to everyone by then; you wouldn't have been giving anything away...") Also after the game Nick and I admitted that had the game gone another turn, we probably would have broken the alliance and attacked each other then.
-Harry
no subject
Date: 2012-08-29 03:06 pm (UTC)