A Game of Thrones
So, little known fact these days, but the game that really kicked off
me and Dani’s board game collection was the Game of Thrones Board Game. I
bought it for her as an 18th birthday present, alongside a set of
the A Song of Fire and Ice books. We played it that night, and it quickly
became one of our favorite activities. That summer we invited our friends over
to play it constantly, additionally carting it to Mizewell a few times to try and find new
people to play it with. We even went so far as to try and get a friend to make
an expansion we found online that added the Tullys, Arryns, and the Targaryens. That did not work out, but we did
end up adding and playing with an Arryn expansion of our own design – courtesy
of Dani’s crafting skills.
Eventually, however, we more or less phased out this
game from our rotation. If you are considering getting it, it’s a fantastically
designed game. However, getting a consistently good play group for it is tricky and
we quickly discovered a number of issues.
The first is that it is an exceptionally complex game,
even by my standards. There are lots of interactions that confuse people,
especially around harbors. Second, much like Axis and Allies, the game has a
high additional knowledge requirement. It’s not enough to know how to play, to
play well you also need to know the general openings for each faction and how
to play around them. All it takes is one weak player to destroy a game and hand
a win to someone simply by virtue of being next to them. If the Baratheon
player is inexperienced and does not contest the Starks for the Vale, the
Starks just win. If the Lannister player doesn’t know how to defend themselves
against the depredations of the Greyjoys, it is really hard for anyone to save
them and stop a Greyjoy win.
Finally, a lot of our friends are also just too nice
for the Game of Thrones. They play safe farmy games and never make the
cutthroat plays and backstabs needed to win. Worse, they leave the game with
their feelings hurt by friends who brought about their downfall.
So, a Game of Thrones needs people who:
- Understand
the game.
- Understand
the basic strategies and how to react to them.
- Don’t
take things personally and play cutthroat games.
There is a fourth occasional factor that often
prevents us from having good games, and that is “feeding.” I define this as a
losing player giving up their home castles/strongholds to one of their
neighbors. The line here between intentionally throwing and inexperience can be
really fine, so it’s hard to call this one out. But when players do this it
completely ruins the game. If you are losing, you are free to kingmake and
support the player who screwed you over the least/you want to win. But your
Kingmaking should stop short of giving up castles for free.
Because of these four factors, Game of Thrones
remained largely unplayed on our shelf for a number of years. However,
recently, I was able to introduce it to a couple new people at my bachelor
party, and following our wedding, Dani and I bought the Mother of Dragons
expansion which adds what we’ve always wanted: the Arryns and Targaryens. While we’re
currently on Honeymoon, we managed to sneak in a 8-player game of this right
before leaving Arkansas. With any luck, we’ll get in another one or two before
leaving Conway. Suffice it to say we really like this expansion and think it
adds a lot to the base game. I will briefly talk about the actual first game we
played with the expansion last Saturday and some of the individual elements of
the expansion. However, most of this piece will dwell on how I think the
expansion has changed how each House is played and what a solid opening
strategy for each looks like now. I intend for this to be a general resource
for my friends whenever they try out a new House. However, this should all be
taken with a grain of salt, given that its derived from one game played and
lots of theory crafting with Dani rather than a wealth of experience. I expect
my thoughts on a number of Houses and how you should open with them will evolve in the years to come, but I hope what I write here will remain a good
foundation to build on.
Without further ado, let’s get into each house.
House Stark
The Starks probably suffer the most from the
expansion. They lose an essentially guaranteed castle in the Eeyrie (Baratheon
players in our games have historically been very bad at contesting it). The
traditional win for Starks generally took them to the Eeyrie, Cracklaw Point,
and two of Dragonstone/Storm’s End/King’s Landing/Flint’s Finger/Seagard. On the plus side for them, they now have two potential
castles to take in the Vale now. They also have good options in Essos with
Bravos and potentially Pentos. On the downside, I think the Arryns are a bigger
threat to them than the Greyjoys ever were. It did not come to pass this game,
but a determined Arryn push into the Bite all but guarantees they take White
Harbor and Moat Caitlin.
This is to say that Starks now need to care a lot more
about diplomacy, both of their neighbors pose large threats to them and they
need to avoid being 2v1’d. The general Stark play remains more or less the same
though. You farm through the early game - collect all the outstanding barrels
in the North, and set up taxing centers in Karhold and Castle Black. I feel
like the fact that the Starks are a naval power is often lost on Stark players
(exacerbated by the fact that we often give the Starks to new players).
However, it’s even more important to remember in MoD. Getting boats in the Bite
and holding it is absolutely critical, and having ships in your western and
eastern seas only marginally less important. This is both to protect yourself
from easy invasion, give offensive options on multiple fronts, and to support
from the seas into Winterfell and Moat Cailin.
Essos provides really interesting options for the
Starks, and if they can maintain good relations with the Arryns, they can
potentially benefit a lot from pushing into Targ territory. Megan belated tried
to do this in this game, but I would be very curious to see a Stark player
attempt this pre-turn 6 in a future game. Above all else though, avoid being
2v1’d, bide your time to build up power, and don’t lose control of your seas.
Greyjoys
The Greyjoys actually don’t change a lot in this
expansion. You need to pick the Starks or Lannisters, be friends with one, and seek
to destroy the other. You pick based on how much you think you can trust the
player, and how the meta diplomacy breaks down. Traditionally we’ve said
Greyjoys should attack the Lannisters and go for the full elimination. But increasingly
our play group has favored Greyjoys fighting the Starks because there is room
to fight and acquire territory without threatening a complete elimination (and
thus forestalling other players ganging up on your). Putting a player
completely out of the game too early without the ability to completely
eliminate them (as happens often with Greyjoys fighting the Lannisters) also
can be dangerous as it incentivizes them to aspire for nothing but to try and
bring you down. Greyjoys can reliably take Riverrun, but taking Lannisport
often takes a lot more effort.
Greyjoys continue to benefit from what we generally
think to be the best deck in the game. Balon and Victarion in particular just
wreck basically every other 2 and 3 strength card in the game and are usually
auto-wins when you play them. The presence of the Arryns in the game changes
things a little bit for the Greyjoys: posing an additional threat to Seagard
but also giving them a ready made ally to bisect the North. However, a Greyjoy
win is always going to consist of basically the same castles as before: Pyke,
Seagard, Flint’s Finger, Riverrun, Harrenhal, Moat Calin, Winterfell/Lannisport.
Check and mate.
Lannisters
Oh boy, I still have yet to figure out how Lannisters
win short of a neighbor being an idiot. Lannisters just feel really weak, and
even our general QoL buff (giving them a knight in Stoney Sept instead of a
footman), doesn’t seem to help them much. It may be worthwhile to consider
giving them another/investigating what people online have done. The unfortunate
reality though is that small QoL buffs probably will never be enough because
their problem is quite simply the map. They start next to a militaristic
faction with strong cards who can basically take Riverrun from them whenever
they want. Just compare this to the Tyrells, who instead have a very safe
second Stronghold in the form of Oldtown.
Starting with the Raven is amazing and the one reason
they are competitive. They can easily swap to taxing or raiding early on if the
Greyjoys don’t make them support out of Stoney Sept. I also think Lannisters
(along with the Starks), are one of the factions that might always want to
muster turn 1, if for no other reason than to shore up the Golden Sound. But at
the end of the day, they are still right next to the Greyjoys and one territory
away from Highgarden (the Tyrells also having one of the other stronger decks).
Lannister cards by comparison just kinda suck. An
experienced player can use them well to counter the Greyjoys. Tyrion forces the
Greyjoy player to return Balon to their hand…but then they likely just win
anyway. Kevan can beat someone like Balon or Victarion on attack if you build
your armies around him. The Mountain is in theory pretty good, but in practice
is just hard to pull off. Tywin has the onerous distinction of being (imho),
the worst 4 strength card in the game, and having a weak 4 strength card is just
awful. It would be excessive to descry the Lannister cards as trash, but they
are just weak compared to the ones the Tyrells and Greyjoys are throwing out.
And now you have the Arryns to potentially contest
Harrenhal…WOOOOOO.
So, what seven castles do you go for? You obviously
need to completely eliminate the Tyrells or Greyjoys to win. How do you pick?
Well…. if you completely eliminate the Greyjoys, you get the ultra-safe Pyke
and you secure Riverrun. The problem then becomes that you are left with Segard
and Flint’s Finger as your 5th and 6th castles, both of
which are contestable by a remotely competent Stark player. If instead you lay
waste to the Tyrells, you get the very safe Oldtown and Highgarden, and the
moderately safe Reach as your 6th. However, you still have the
Riverrun/Ironborn problem. So…take your pick.
I’m kidding, you should always go for the Tyrells.
This is why I always describe Lannisters as a
diplomatic/kill faction. You need to completely eliminate a neighbor, and you
need a pretty specific diplomacy break-down to realize your full potential.
Specifically, you desperately want the Greyjoys to go North and commit to it in
such a way that they’re unlikely to suddenly switch gears. So, with that in mind,
you want the Arryns and Greyjoys to team up against and fight over the corpse
of the Starks. In the south, you want the Martells to work with you to take down
the Tyrells, and you come out ahead. Finally, you want the Baratheons to solo-fight
the Targs and create room for your victory.
If this sounds insanely specific, that’s because it
is. Lannisters are just hard, and if someone else figures out how to make them
work more consistently, I’d love to hear it.
Tyrells
One of my favorite Houses in the game, and I think
even stronger in Mother of Dragons. The Martells and Baratheons now have other
expansion prospects and as a result you have more freedom to pick your
enemies/attack one of them when they are distracted with Targaryens. More
importantly, Tyrells now start with a star, rectifying the weakness that was
their inability to muster independently in the base game.
Tyrells want to start out pretty farmy, critically
grabbing the Arbor, and whatever other satellite territories Dorne is not
interested in. In MoD, you have the opportunity to get in good with the Baratheons
early on by moving into the Reach Turn 1 and supporting (or charging them power
to support), their otherwise difficult attack on King’s Landing. I generally
think Tyrells are best farming power and waiting until after the first Clash of
Kings to make their move. With good taxing territories in the Arbor and Dornish
Marshes, you and the Starks will probably be the ones to clean up on the first
round of bidding.
To your North you have the Lannisters, who would
really like to destroy you but have a lot of difficulty doing so do to the
layout of the territory. In order for an attack on Highgarden to be successful,
the Lannisters basically have to push into Searood Marches, Blackwater, and
then the Reach before attacking Highgarden. You will probably never face a
naval threat from them due to the layout of the western sea zones, and the
general inadvisability of leaving the Golden Sound undefended if you are the
Lannisters. You don’t need the supply as badly as the Baratheons or
Lannisters, but if you can move into the Blackwater, you can consistently
undermine the Lannisters by playing raids and supporting yourself into Stoney
Sept/Lannisport.
On the whole though, I don’t recommend outright trying
to eliminate the Lannisters, because the Greyjoys are just much better
positioned to scoop up all the prizes from that war, and unless you can defeat
the Greyjoy navy your going will be hard. But a weakened Lannister player who
can’t march on the Reach and Highgarden is definitely to your advantage.
The Tyrells are not a naval power, but you do want to
always possess your two home sea zones, and possessing them sets up your best
first aggressive move: boating Starfall. Starfall is a pretty natural conquest,
although you need to be careful to invest it with enough to hold it. You can
boat it from your home area and easily bring a siege tower, but you need to be
careful since it won’t contribute to the defense of Starfall once you take it.
Martells also have annoying cards in the form of Ariane and Doran so if you can
attack it after these are gone that is generally preferable.
Once you take Starfall, where you go is really a
question of who is weakest of Lannisters/Baratheons/Martells. I would generally
recommend trying for the three Dornish castles and picking up Storms End as
your 7th, but King’s Landing, Harrenhal, and Cracklaw Point are all
viable options as well.
The Tyrells have one of the better decks in the game
although it takes a little finesse to use. Mace is straight up the best 4
strength card since he’s effectively always a 5 strength card when used
properly (Stannis is more situational by comparison). Where the Tyrell deck
really shines though is with Loras, who promises the possibility of blitzing to
an undefended enemy capital or completely eliminating an army you have routed.
Great care must be taken however, as it’s easy to outrun sufficient support to
win the battles you are picking. Finally, a quick shout out to Olenna, her
ability to potentially take out an opponent’s support provides some really
strong situational options and a way to
better set up Loras.
The Tyrell core territories are some of the safest and
best in the game, you just need to watch your diplomacy and be careful not to
get 2v1’d by Martells and Lannisters coming at you at full steam.
Martells
Probably the faction that benefits most from Essos.
Martells in the base game are a very safe power, but one that is easily trapped
in a corner without clear paths to victory. Previously, they needed to
basically completely overpower the Baratheons with Salador Sahn and Patchface
to win, a tall order indeed. Tyrells provided the option for the long campaign,
but it was often hard to support armies across such a long distance into Tyrell
territory, with Tyrell seas hard to penetrate with perennial supports being
played out of the Redwyne straits.
But now you have Volantis! A city basically made for
the Martells to capture. The expansion fixes their biggest problem by giving
them an extra expansion route.
The big thing Martel players need to be cognizant now
of, even more so than before, is their relationship with the Baratheons. Before
it was fairly easy, you either planned to win by eating them and tried to set
that up as your long-term play, or you reached an accommodation with them and
focused your efforts westward. Now, it’s a lot more nuanced, because Baratheon
play is more nuanced. Did the Arryns
take Cracklaw Point? Then you need to consider ceding Storm’s End to the
Baratheons in order to keep them relevant and able to fight the Targaryens. Do
you participate in the eastern alliance against the Targs? It depends if the
Baratheons are on board and what your Tyrell neighbors are up to.
This last game we saw the Targ player really wail on
the Martells with dragons, but I actually don’t think that will be the norm. I
think dragon bombs are more likely to get dropped in the far north or
Pyke/Dragonstone, with a primary invasion landing in the Vale or in the Crownlands.
If that proves to be the case going forward, Martells only get stronger from
MoD, and I think once the Martel player works out their general meta strategy,
going for Volantis is a very strong option. It nets you 4-5 castles early
(depending on who claims Storm’s End), and grabbing two castles in the late
game is fairly straightforward. Pushing up for KL/The Reach, going west to
Oldtown/Highgarden, or taking some combination of Cracklaw Point, Pentos, and
Dragonstone are all solid options. I think the Martells are particularly strong
in this expansion because they can set themselves up at five castles without
having had to kill someone or put them out of the running to do so. There are
very few Houses that can claim that.
Finally good Martell play will probably
continue to emphasize using the threat of Doran more than putting him into
play. Martells continue to suffer from a general lack of good taxing
territories, so make sure you consolidate power regularly and try to set
yourself up taxing centers in the Boneway or Prince’s Pass.
In sum, the Martells have good opening options but just
need to be smart about playing the diplomatic game. In particular, the question
they need answered is how the war in the narrow sea is going to shape up.
Baratheon
This expansion massively changes how the Baratheons
are played, and I think generally nerfs them (mostly…its complicated).
Let’s look at the downsides of this expansion for the
Baratheons:
- Cracklaw
Point is no longer a freebie.
- Without
a star to start with, taking KL on turn 2 is very hard and its more likely not
to happen until turns 3 or 4.
- You
now have a powerful naval rival to your east.
Now for the upsides:
- Your
first in turn order position is perfect to take advantage of a quality turn
1/turn 2 Iron Bank loan.
- You
get first choice of vassals (if they are in the game).
- Players
have strong incentive to leave you alone because nobody else is in as good of a
position to mess with the Targs.
Before, the Baratheons were a pretty militaristic
faction that usually sought to win by scooping up Dragonstone/KL/Cracklaw
Point/Storm’s End and then moving north to take the Eeyrie, Moat Cailin and
White Harbor for the win. They could alternatively go south to take down the
Martells, but doing so would usually entail more of a land campaign that the
sea-based Baratheons are ill-equipped to handle.
The biggest asset of the Baratheon player is fear of
the Targaryens. You need to play it up with the implicit idea that threatening
or hurting you too much gives the game to the Targs. You lead the anti-Targ
crusade and need to lean into it.
I’ll get more into this in my Targ section, but
generally I would hold that if the Targs make it to Turn 6 without losing a
dragon or getting bodied too hard in Essos, they just win. They did not in our
game, but I think this is a good general rule. To body them in Essos - taking
Pentos and sending them running into the hinterland - you probably need at
least three of the players on the east coast. Maybe enlist the Martels and Arryns/Starks
with the idea that you three will each get one of the castles in Essos.
Now obviously maintaining this alliance and preventing
players on the western side of Westeros from messing with your plans will be
difficult. And indeed, you probably don’t want the Targs completely destroyed.
If you do you want it in such a way that you can scoop up their holdings.
If you get the feelings that the Baratheon’s now
require a delicate balancing act I think that’s accurate. Very different than
the base game where you just killed motherfuckers. The expansion also makes
their supply problem even worse, so try your best to get some of those barrels
in Essos or alternatively convince the Lannisters you should control the
Blackwater.
Be smart, curry favor with players using the Iron
Throne, and you just might come out ahead. And of course, don’t neglect your
navy. No player can truly afford to neglect their navy (something frequently
overlooked by new players), but the Baratheons, Greyjoys, Starks, and Targs in
particular cannot afford to do so.
Arryn
Alright, done with all the base houses. Time to talk
about how I feel the new houses should be played. This will be very tentative,
as I only have seen one game with them currently and consequently there is a
lot of room for innovation.
On that note, I want to note that the Arryns start
with three knights right off the bat (as opposed to a knight and two footmen),
and speculate that there may be a lot of room here to explore early rushes.
I’ll leave that to someone else though.
Arryns at first seems to be a shrimp among whales, wedged
between Targs, Baratheons, and Starks. But upon further reflection I think that
the Arryns are the whale. In particular, I think the Arryns benefit from
setting themselves up diplomatically to go ham against the Starks or the Targs.
I mentioned in my Stark section that the Arryns
probably post a larger threat to them than the Greyjoys and I stand by that. If
the Arryns ever are able to invest The Bite, I think it’s basically GG for the
Starks. At the very least I don’t know how they hold Moat Cailin and White
Harbor reliably. Alternatively, the Arryns are the best or second best
positioned to push on Pentos.
If worst comes to worst, the combination of the Eeyrie
garrson with Lysa Arryn makes it difficult for the Arryns to be eliminated.
I’ve remarked to Dani often that the addition of two new players with only four
new castles essentially guarantees that at least one player will be eliminated
or gutted by the conclusion of the game. The Arryns are in the middle of it
all, but they do have tools to ensure they stick around for quite some time.
I will also stand by my initial impression that the
Arryns should always open by taking Cracklaw Point. The Baratheons simply can’t
meaningfully oppose them if they want it, and it seems like a good play to
prepare for a turn 2 muster. The only reason I would not do this is for diplomacy.
From Cracklaw Point you can further threaten Harrenhal and move into central
Westeros, but again, I generally think your best options are north and south.
The Arryns don’t need a navy to survive like the
Starks do, but they need a navy to win, and with that in mind don’t neglect
yours.
Targaryens
Finally, we arrive at the giant on the playground, the
Targaryens.
If the Targaryens want you dead after turn 6 and have
all three dragons on hand, it will likely come to pass.
The Targaryens first and foremost benefit from being
the ticking time bomb. Nobody really wants to deal with them, but if nobody
does they simply win the game. They benefit from the possibility of a tragedy
of the commons at play, as each house tries to invest the minimum it needs to
stop them.
Because of this though, a 2-4 player dogpile on you is
very likely in the first few turns. The solid move seems to be claiming Bravos
and Volantis off the bat to prepare for a muster, then hunkering down and
preparing to defend Essos. In particular, it is probably wiser more often than
not to keep your dragons inland. The very earliest you should be fighting with
them is turn 4.
The Targs need to do their best to sow dissent among
the attacking alliance, and use their power to gain allies on the western end
of Westeros. They are also potentially one of the better positioned players to
take a helpful loan from the Iron Bank - one of the unit granting ones in
particular could go a long way towards strengthening their position early.
I think it goes without saying that if you have the
power, you should pretty much spawn every loyalist that you can. The ones that
allows you to place supporters in the Arbor, Castle Black, Dragonstrone, and
Pyke in particular seem very strong. Late game, you start the Dragon World
Tour, and fly your death ball around to collect supporters. These isolated
territories are excellent, because you need to avoid at all costs locations
where two or more players can collapse on you and kill you dragons. To that
end, Dragonstone and Pyke seem like very fruitful locations for conquest,
isolated and only supportable by one sea zone, and completely within the sphere
of their respective players.
Dorne seems like an iffy player to attack because Ariane
can set you back a turn. Additionally, as we saw this last game, attacking KL
with dragons alone seems doomed to failure, as tempting as it might be.
As Targaryens, you ultimately want to play
conservatively, husband your resources until the moment is right, and attempt
to break the alliance/dogpile on you by sowing dissent and tactically giving
away power. When the moment is right, you strike.
Other Expansion Elements
I love the Iron Bank, in particular because it gives a
way to acquire units without a phase one muster or a Starred Consolidate Power.
The Pyromancer card also seems extremely powerful, a fact I didn’t truly
process at first. It probably stopped my win in this previous game.
I believe this expansion generally reduces the power
of the Raven Track (with the addition of vassals providing more incentive to
seek the Iron Throne and the addition of more order tokens for boats reducing
the demand on your starred ones), and made both of the other tracks slightly
better by comparison. Being first on the Iron Throne now gives you right of
first refusal on IB loans, and consequently the possibility to muster without a
star.
That interest does add up fast though.
The ability to trade power was not as impactful on
this game as I thought it would be, but I also expect we’re just getting
started in terms of seeing its impact on the game. The Targaryen ability to
distribute it during bidding though does cause the already tedious Clash of
Kings to stretch even longer.
We had no vassals this last game, but I love their
addition and we may look to implement a forced vassalization for players who
are reduced to one castle in the future to spare them from playing out a multi-hour
game where they have already been removed from contention.
The Game Itself
This record will be centered on my point of view, and
as a result there will be things that occurred that I leave out, simply because
I missed them when they happened (lots of moving parts in an eight player
game).
The players were as follows:
Stark – Megan
Greyjoy – Sam Fish
Lannister – Ben Fish
Tyrell – Dave
Martel – Daniel
Baratheon – Michael
Targaryen – Fish
Arryn – Danielle
Our three new players were Ben, Sam and Megan, and
with the benefit of hindsight I may have made an error letting the three of
them spawn right next to each other.
It ended up being a pretty peaceful early game, with a
Turn 2 Muster. Greyjoys notably did not go early aggro on anyone, nor did
Arryns. The Baratheons took KL on turn 2 with my help from the Reach (for the
low low price of 1 power). Megan did not understand that she could assault
Essos from Westeros, and Dani only had vague interest in helping (supporting
Michael out of the Narrow Sea), so the anti-Targ alliance consisted of Michael
with some support from Daniel.
For my part I was quite content to curry favor with
Fish and bide my time taxing away. Michael’s initial naval campaign went well,
and he did take Pentos. But Fish easily took it back later that turn. At this
point he had given me a lot of power during Clash of Kings, I had come out on
top of 2 tracks, and attacked Starfall – and took it from Daniel. Daniel
however, had reserved Doran and dropped me to the bottom of the Raven track
much to my own chagrin. It was then that the critical play of the game
happened, on on t5 Fish dropped his dragon ball on Sunspear.
It was an
incredibly critical and close battle, and we initially thought Daniel had won
and slain two dragons by winning a tie. But, upon a recount, Fish managed to
win by one power, taking the Dornish capital right before his dragon ball
reached strength 9. The combination of losing Sunspear and Starfall on back to
back turns effectively put Daniel out of the game, although he managed to retake
Starfall by the end of it all and was never completely eliminated.
About the same time, I raided the Lannister support in
Stoney Sept from Blackwater and allowed the Greyjoys to take Riverrun. This
kicked off a general feeding frenzy on the Lannisters for the rest of the game,
with the Arryns later attacking Harrenhal. This was of course helped by the
fact that Ben left Lannisport unguarded for the Greyjoys and kept sending his
armies south to futily attack Highgarden.
While Fish started collecting supports in Dorne
(Daniel critically delaying him a turn with clever use of Ariane), I lined
everything up for my win, aiming for Highgarden/Oldtown/Starfall/The
Reach/Yronwood/Sunspear/KL. It’s an open question of if I could have pulled it
off, I was set for taking Sunspear and KL on turn 7, but I made a critical
mistake and allowed Michael to take the Pyromancer, which he immediately used
to burn down Starfall.
RIP.
In the Game of Thrones you win or you die.
Meanwhile, with my chance to win more or less passed,
the long game of Chess between me and Fish seemed to be coming to a rapid conclusion as
he flew his dragons around Westeros, with seemingly nobody capable of stopping
them. Megan belatedly invaded Bravos aiming for Petnos, but the only thing that
would truly stop Fish would be the elimination of his dragons.
After a pretty immaculately played early game, Fish
made one critical mistake, and took KL from the Baratheons to eliminate
Michael’s muster their (aimed at taking Pentos the next turn), and collect a
supporter. Danielle, Michael and I formed an alliance of desperation, and our
armies converged on KL. Supporting Michael out of the Reach, he piled in a 20+
strength attack on KL and with nowhere to retreat, claimed the title
“dragonslayer” and took down all three. It was the end of Fish’s chance to win.
However, in the West, Sam had been quietly
accumulating territories off her distracted neighbors. Ben was effectively out
of the game at this point, and Megan was focused on Essos. On turn 9, Sam
managed to take the final castle needed, winning with Pyke, Seagard, Riverrun,
Flint’s Finger, Moat Cailin, Lannisport, and White Harbor.
The Greyjoy play was a lot slower developing than we
have typically seen it played, but I can’t deny its efficacy.
At any rate, ending on turn 9 was good because our
game had already run very long and we had a crawfish boil to get to!
GG to all, and I look forward to sneaking in a couple
more games with the MoD expansion before Dani and I leave the state.
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