A Game of Thones CCG
Review by Piers Bergquist

Yes I indeed play a few CCG games (more than 20 so far). My Current favourite is “ A Game of Thrones” from boardgame manufacturer Fantasy Flight. The setting is George R R Martin's world of Westeros from his acclaimed A Song of Ice & Fire series of books.

The books revolve around several powerful Houses. In the game you represent one such house and the objective is to win 15 power. This can be done a number of ways, firstly if your opponent is unable to block an attack by your characters then you claim 1 power, certain abilities of cards will also allow you to gain power. Lastly during the final stages of a turn there is a phase called dominance, whoever has the most strength in dominance also gains 1 power. Sound simple? It is, but…

There are three different types of attacks (called challenges) you can do against an opponent and you can perform one of each per turn. Military, which if successful, kills one of their characters, (your opponent decides whom it is that gets the chop). Intrigue, which makes your opponent discard random, cards out of their hand. And finally, power, which results in you stealing power from your opponent.

Each house has its strengths and weaknesses, which normally means that you will be good at one type of challenge, average at another and poor at the last. Don’t get to attached to your characters however as you will probably lose quite a few during the course of a game which can lead to some dilemmas over which character can you afford to loose at the end of a vicious military attack. One difference with this game is that you kneel (or tap) characters to attack and also to defend which means you have to choose who attacks carefully as to leave enough defence to stop your opponent.

Also different to most CCGs is that this game uses two decks of cards. Your main deck includes all your characters, locations (which give you money to spend on other cards and/or some other effect), attachments (similar to Enchantments in Magic) which negatively affect an opponents character or give one of your's a bonus. Event cards offer a one off effect during the game. The second deck is your Plot deck, you only have 7 of these and each can be used once (after all 7 are used you then get them back and can reuse each plot again). Plots dictate how much money you have to use this turn, the turn order and also the claim value. Claim value is the number of characters killed during a military challenge, the number of cards discarded during an intrigue challenge and the number of power stolen during a power challenge. Lastly, the plot card may also have additional effect such as searching your deck for a character or kneeling opponents characters. Choosing the right plot at the right time is another of this games’ intricacies.

Why should you play? In short because it’s great. The themeing is fantastic and gameplay captures the feel of the series. Gameplay is tense, often during the game there are difficult tactical decisions to make such as which character you can afford to lose and can be an incredibly difficult decision as the wrong choice may make it very hard for you to gain the upper hand. Also which plot to take and the order and participants of each challenge can have a huge effect on the success and efficiency of your challenges. While some games can be one sided most aren't as there are a great many cards that can be used to even out an opponent's advantage, this also means that decks have to recover from a disadvantage or catastrophic event quickly. This frequently results in some see sawing of the game lead and some unexpected outcomes. Game of Thrones also plays well multiplayer, even the art is pretty good.