Game of Thrones

...fantasy and the odd board game or three, hence it was only a matter of time until I got hold of a copy of The Game of Thrones board game, which nicely blends the two.

WHAT IS IT?

The Game of Thrones board game is a strategy game set in the world created by George RR Martin in the novel series of the same name. After the death of King Baratheon, 6 powerful Houses vie for the right of succession to the throne of Westeros. ...
...be put off though, this game is worth it! Each player chooses a random "House Card" which tells them which of the special characters (all taken from the novels) are theirs to control, which regions of the map they own at the start of the game and what army units to place in each location. Once the armies are placed on the board, you're ready to begin.

The turns are split into three phases, the Westeros Phase, the Planning ... more

Those who know me well will be aware that I enjoy a bit of swords & sorcery fantasy and the odd board game or three, hence it was only a matter of time until I got hold of a copy of The Game of Thrones board game, which nicely blends the two.

WHAT IS IT?

The Game of Thrones board game is a strategy game set in the world created by George RR Martin in the novel series of the same name. After the death of King Baratheon, 6 powerful Houses vie for the right of succession to the throne of Westeros. In this game, you control one of these factions and, through diplomacy, guile and medieval warfare, you must gain mastery of Westeros and seize the vacant throne.

WHAT DO YOU GET FOR YOUR MONEY?

You get a glossy board featuring a map of Westeros (which looks a lot like a back-to-front UK!), 100 colour-coded wooden pieces representing military units (footmen, knights and ships), a total of 203 cardboard tokens and 70 cards. I know what you're thinking, with all those cards and counters this must be complex, well it kind of is and isn't...

HOW TO PLAY

The rules are fairly complex but the rulebook explains them as simply as possible, to the point that it's fairly long-winded and patronising! Don't be put off though, this game is worth it! Each player chooses a random "House Card" which tells them which of the special characters (all taken from the novels) are theirs to control, which regions of the map they own at the start of the game and what army units to place in each location. Once the armies are placed on the board, you're ready to begin.

The turns are split into three phases, the Westeros Phase, the Planning Phase and the Action Phase.

WESTEROS PHASE

This phase involves the turning over of the top card of each of the three Westeros decks. It would be pointless to go through all the details of all the cards (not to mention taxing to my poor brain, since I don't have the cards in front of me), but they all detail global events, i.e. things that affect all the players. This can be barbarians attacking the land, requiring the donation of a certain amount of resources to keep them at bay, or nothing at all, just to give you a breather.

The most important is the Clash of Kings, in which each player bids some of their power tokens, without seeing how many everyone else has bid, to alter the balance of power in the land. I'll try to explain this more fully - there are three things to bid on, the Iron Throne, The Kings Court and The Fiefdoms. Players ranking on the Iron Throne track dictates the order in which they take their turns in the action phase, furthermore, the player ranked 1 gets to call the shots in the event of any draws (for example when equal bids are placed in the Clash of Kings). The ranking on the Kings Court power scale is a reflection of the potency of a House's network of spies and informants, which in practice means that the players ranked 1-3 on the Kings Court power scale can use 3, 2 or 1 special order tokens respectively (I'll explain them later). In addition, whoever is ranked 1 can make one change of order per turn, after orders have been revealed (again I'll explain later). Finally, the rank on the Fiefdoms track reflects the potency of your forces in battle, with all ties in military conflict resulting in victory to whichever combatant has the highest rank on the Fiefdoms track. Your position on these power scales is of critical importance, hence shrewd (or just high) bids can really swing things in your favour in the coming turns. However, you never know when the next Clash of Kings card will be drawn, so you could bid high, only to find yourself bidding again the following turn with much depleted reserves!

I'm trying not to get bogged down here, but it's not easy!

PLANNING PHASE

During this phase the players study the board and decide what they intend to do with their armies in each of the regions they control, before placing order tokens on each region. Each player has a set of order tokens, supplemented with up to 3 special orders, depending on their position on the Kings Court track. During the planning phase all players place order tokens face down in each of the regions of the map they control. There are 5 types of order, which dictate what the forces in that region intend to do during the next turn. Each player has three of each order token. These are:

Defence - This gives a bonus to the strength of an army defending that region. Two give a +1 bonus whilst the third defence token gives +2 to the army strength but is a 'special order' which can thus only be played if you are ranked 1-3 on the Kings Court Track.
March - This allows you to move forces to attack an adjacent enemy controlled region, claim an adjacent neutral region or simply redistribute your armies between your own regions. In this case, the special order gives +1 to the strength of the marching army.

Support - this allows the army in this region to add their strength to that of an army in an adjacent region, whether that army is defending or attacking. The special order, once again, adds +1 to the strength of the supporting army.

Raid - this allows you to remove a support, consolidate power or raid order from an adjacent opponent controlled region (or two, in the case of the special order).

Consolidate Power - this allows you to gain 1 power to use in the next Clash of Kings.

ACTION PHASE

In this phase everybody reveals their orders, before resolving them (i.e. moving armies, attacking, or whatever) in the order of their rank of the Iron Throne track. Raid orders are resolved first, followed by march orders (and any ensuing battles) and finally consolidate power orders.

Battles are resolved by totalling up army strengths. Each footman or ship counter gives the army 1 strength and each knight counter is worth 2 strength, with the total modified according to the modifiers on the order that tokens were played, which can alter scores by anything from -1 to +2. After this, each player chooses a character from their set of unique House Cards to lead the army. The choice of leader is often vital. Each leader will have a value which they add to the army strength and most also have additional rules such as "footmen units in your army count double" or "remove one army token from your opponent before the battle is resolved". Finally, after the total army strengths have been compared, with ties settled according to position on the Fiefdoms track, the losing army must retreat into an adjacent friendly region (or are destroyed if there are no friendly regions). Often there are no losses inflicted, but this depends on the leader cards used. Each card has a number of sword or tower icons at the bottom, indicating how many losses they will inflict (number of swords), or how many losses they can negate (number of towers). The losing side takes losses equal to the winning leader's swords minus the losing leader's towers.

FORTIFICATIONS AND SUPPLIES

Some regions of the map contain fortification (fort or castle) icons or supply (barrel) icons. These regions are crucial! Each time a Muster card is drawn from the Westeros deck, players can add military units to any region they control which contains a fortification, 1 (a ship or footman unit) for a fort and 2 (2 ships or footmen or 1 knight) for a castle. The limiting factor on how many armies, and the size of armies, a player can have is their position on the supply track. It makes sense that a House with very limited supplies can only feed and water a small army, whilst a House controlling many food producing regions can support a much larger force.

WINNING THE GAME

There are two ways to win the game. An immediate victory is gained by any player controlling 7 regions containing a fortification (more regions are needed if there are fewer than 6 players). If, after 10 turns, nobody has claimed an immediate victory, the player with the most fortifications wins. If two or more players are tied, the winner is the player with the highest supply rank. If there is still a tie, then the game is declared a draw.

MY OPINION

I love this game! One of my friends bought it about 18 months ago and we've had it out about half a dozen times since then, which ranks it amongst the most popular games among our considerable collection.

As I mentioned earlier, the rulebook seems to labour over the basic points unnecessarily, but I just skim read through to the important and non-obvious parts. Once you get past the very basics of game setup, the rulebook is actually pretty concise and easy to follow. Whilst the rules may seem complex at first, within a few turns we all picked it up pretty well and knew what we were doing with little need to consult the instructions further.

Game length depends heavily on how much time you all spend contemplating your moves and whether or not somebody wins an immediate victory. It's entirely possible that the game could be over within an hour, or alternatively it could go on for 3 hours or more. It really is a thinking man's (sorry, person's) game, with each player boasting a number of borders that must be protected and a number of targets to take. I've found that within the first few turns, enemies and alliances will have been made in equal number. For example, in one game I made a non-aggression pact with my neighbour to the south (the green player), which freed my forces up to repel the attacks of my neighbour to the north (the blacks), whilst allowing my southern ally to expand into the regions to her east. At the same time, the black army attacked me from the north, whilst buddying up with the whites at the northern extremity of the board, allowing the white to concentrate on the yellows to his south ( and my east). The yellows were quite happy to go on an all-out attack against the whites (played by his older brother), safe in the knowledge that I and my green ally wouldn't attack him. In the end, green and I both backstabbed the yellow and were tied for victory. He he he, the trusting fool!

I found that the first half of the game tends to be fairly cagey, depending how aggressive your friends are. Either way, the last few turns tend to get a bit juicy, as old pacts are forgotten in the push to claim important regions before the end of the game. Oddly enough, through playing this game I've discovered a real talent for stabbing my friends in the back! Having played around 6 times I've been beaten only twice and drawn once, which is mostly down to my tactic of playing defensively whilst secretly positioning my forces to plunge deep into the exposed underbellies of my allies in the final turn or two! Mwa ha ha haaaaa! *ahem*. My original choice of title for this review was "Blessed are the backstabbers, for they shall inherit the Earth!", but it was over 50 characters so ciao didn't like it. Anyway, I'm sure you begin to appreciate the rationale behind that choice!

At this point I feel I should point out that I'm not quite as despicable a character as the opinions expressed in this review may suggest, I'm just a little too competitive, that's all!

Although I haven't personally read the novel series this game is based on, I've heard comments and read reviews that suggest that the game captures the feeling of the books very well (they're pretty dark and nasty and fill you with a general loathing for mankind, which makes me wonder why I've not read them yet!). Clearly, though, enjoyment of the game in no way requires knowledge of the books. Either way, the novels behind the game lend the whole thing a deeper back-story than most board games, which helps you lose yourself in the game world.

The only downside to this game is that it suffers if you have fewer than 6 players. Although there are 6 Houses in the game, regardless how many players you have, any Houses not controlled by a player are represented as a standing army, that will defend their own territory, but which will never attack adjacent regions. In effect, this means that whoever borders a non-player region has an advantage and can leave such borders undefended or can claim the non-player areas at leisure, whenever they can spare the troops to do so. This can, though doesn't always, unbalance the game.

PRICE

The Game of Thrones Board game is available (new or used) from amazon traders for £33.49. A quick check on ebay suggests that, once postage is taken in to consideration, you'd be paying roughly the same from there. It is also available from high-street shops such as Waterstones or specialist games shops, for around £35. Whilst this is fairly pricey for a board game, it ought to keep you entertained for a good while and if you split the cost 6 ways, as we did, it's really not so bad!

An expansion kit called A Clash of Kings is also available for £23.99 (with free delivery) from gameplay.co.uk. Whilst I've not played the expanded version, it apparently offers rules for a new House, wooden fortifications and ports, plus new house cards and order tokens.

So, there's nothing more to say but sally forth into Westeros good friends... and watch your back!

 

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