Quick question. Have you ever read Lord of the Rings? Good. Now have you ever read A Song of Fire and Ice? No? WHY NOT! Yes George R.R. Martin's award winning fantasy series A Song of Fire and Ice has been many times voted the best series you have never read, and it's a shame because of how incredibly enjoyable reading the whole series is. So, when Fantasy Flight set out to create “
A Game of Thrones”, a collectible trading card game based on A Song of Fire and Ice, they had to not only work hard to please the long time almost obsessive fan base, but also to please the multitude of fantasy and TCG fans out there that would have been part of the obsessive fan base. As a result, A Game of Thrones is a relatively simple game with few hang-ups that can be enjoyed by both newbies and veterans to the Song of Fire and Ice series.
To play A Game of Thrones (AGOT from now on) you need a plot deck, a house deck, and a house card. Your house card actually doesn't have any rules on it. It simply serves as an indicator of what house you are playing as, so you can just as easily announce it at the beginning of the game and forgo the house card all together. Before a game starts, you can also attach one “Agenda” card to your house, which acts as a permanent modifier to the rules of the game. Agendas can only be played on their matching house cards.
Your plot deck “represents short term strategies” according to the official rulebook. What it really does, is set the flavor for your current turn. Each turn you get to choose a plot card from your plot deck and put it into play. Plot cards have stats for income (resources you will use to cast cards), claim value (how much damage you do in the challenge phase), and initiative (a stat that determines who gets to go first). They also have specific rules that alter the way the game is played the turn that they are active. Your plot deck has to include exactly seven plot cards and no duplicates.
Plot Cards
Finally, you have your house deck, which is quite simply the deck that you play the game with. All the other cards in the game including Characters (your main attacking force), Locations (permanent cards that either grant resources or static benefits), Attachments (cards that modify other cards), and Events (quick effects) are part of your house deck.
Before I go any further let me talk about the Initiative system that AGOT uses. Unlike other card games, players do not take full turns one after the other in AGOT. Instead, each round, all players complete the current action phase before moving on to the next one. However, players do not go simultaneously, they go one at a time and for that AGOT has the initiative system. Many cards (no matter what the card type) in AGOT have an Initiative bonus printed on them. At the beginning of each round you count up all of your initiative bonuses. The player with the highest initiative goes first, with the rest of the players following them afterward. So for example, if you were playing a two player game and you won initiative, you would draw, then your opponent would draw, you would get your marshalling (main) phase, and then your opponent would, you would get your challenge (combat) phase, and your opponent would, and so on until the round ended and initiative was determined once again.
Speaking of phases, there are six phases of play in AGOT, Plot, Draw, Marshalling, Challenge, Dominance, and Standing. In the Plot phase, both players simultaneously choose a plot card to be put into play and reveal it at the same time. This is the only simultaneous action that players take. After that, initiative is determined and the player with initiative takes the rest of the phases first.
The Draw phase is exactly what it sounds like and consists of players drawing 2 cards each.
The Marshalling phase is the generic “do things” phase that most TCGs have. In AGOT your main resource is income. Income is represented by little cold coins printed on cards (any card type can have an income bonus but generally they are found on locations). At the beginning of your Marshalling phase you determine your income for the turn and create an income pool. You then spend income from the pool to play cards. Each card in AGOT has an income cost, but some cards cost zero. Income empties from your pool at the end of your marshalling phase. In addition, some cards also have an “Influence” cost. Influence is another resource that can be printed on any card. Unlike income, influence isn't generated automatically. To pay an influence cost you must kneel (turn sideways) a number of cards who's influence is equal to or greater than the influence cost. Of course, you cannot kneel a card that is already kneeling.
The challenge phase is basically the combat phase in AGOT. Each character in the game has a combination of 1-3 challenge icons on them, each representing the challenges they can participate in (Military, Power, or Intrigue) and a strength value showing how useful they are during a challenge. To participate in a challenge, players announce what type of challenge they are making, and then both players kneel a as many characters as they like with the corresponding challenge icon. These characters are now participating in the challenge. The winner is the player whose participating characters have the highest strength. If the player issuing the challenge wins, certain effects happen. If you win a military challenge, the opponent kills a number of characters equal to your current plot card's claim value. If you win an intrigue challenge, your opponent discards a number of cards equal to your plot card's claim value. Finally, if you win a power challenge you steal a number of power tokens from your opponent's house card equal to your claim value (more on power token's later). Each player may make one challenge of each type per turn.
In the dominance phase, all players count up the remaining strength total of their standing (not kneeling) characters. The winner claims one power token for their house card. Certain effects and abilities can also put power tokens on house cards or on individual characters (although when a character dies all his power tokens go with him). When a player has 15 or more power tokens, he wins the game.
Finally, in the standing phase all your kneeling characters stand to get ready for your next turn.
As I said before, AGOT is relatively easy, but if you stick with it you will find a gigantic level of depth. Strategies are varied and houses can be mixed and matched to your liking (although doing so will be a little tougher than playing a single house only). In addition, agendas really mix the game up and give every house a particular identity. For example, one agenda lets house Baratheon play with two 30 card decks instead of one 60 card deck, and another lets house Greyjoy play with a 45 card deck rather than a 60 card deck. You can imagine that this makes deck building a deep and involved experience. My only issue with this is that some of the agendas are a bit unbalanced. Playing with two 30 card decks hinges on broken, whereas the house Stark agenda of “You can remove 15 cards from the game before you play as long as you have a deck size of 60” (basically letting you be the only house that can use a sideboard) are fun and useful but nowhere near as powerful. Still though, Fantasy Flight does a good job in balancing all of the houses, and the unique identities and play styled granted by agendas make the game all the more fun.
When you talk about presentation in this game, you are really talking about a double edged sword. The game includes absolutely stunning artwork depicting all of your favorite characters from A Song of Fire and Ice, and that if I may say is very pleasing. In addition, A Song of Fire and Ice makes a great generic fantasy setting for people who are new to the story, so it's not like newbies won't be able to appreciate the flavor either. The only detracting thing about the presentation is the immense oversight of Fantasy Flight not printing card types on cards anywhere. The only way you can tell what cards are events, and what cards are locations are by the style of banner behind their title, and these are unfortunately too similar to really make much of a difference. More often than not you are left simply guessing as to what a card is, or putting it together from context clues rather than actually knowing. I highly recommend that Fantasy Flight try to fix this when they shift the game over to Living Card Game format. (I'd also like to note, that Fantasy Flight actually REMOVED card type from their cards in the latest edition, the Five Kings Edition, all previous editions did have card type printed on them. Bad Move.)
New Character Layout
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Old Character Layout
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Other than that though, once you get the hang of it, the game is actually fun to play. 1v1 or multiplayer, both are equally as fun, but multiplayer will involve a bit more learning as new card types and rules are introduced. Overall the game scores major points for being addicting and a few more for also being relatively quick to play. I might not recommend this game for your next big money sink, but I will say it's fun to pick up some pre-cons and play between other big obsessions.
The last thing I think I need to mention is the community for AGOT. If there is anything Fantasy Flight knows how to do, its foster a community. In every Fantasy Flight game I have ever played I only needed a few clicks on the internet to find a gigantic fan base ready to teach me the ropes and break me in to their favorite craze. Tournaments are all around and Fantasy Flight never EVER lets it's games die so you never have to worry about getting into a Fantasy Flight game only to have it go out of print. AGOT was around since early in the new millennium and will be around for much longer still.
When it comes down to my final verdict, I have to say I like A Game of Thrones. It has a nice “bookshelf game” feel that a lot of collectible card games are missing. It manages to forge a unique identity in its houses, and really pushes its “house unique” gameplay concepts. Its community is decent sized and helpful and enjoyable to be in, and it satisfies both the curiosity of the newbie and the skepticism of the veteran. Final word is AGOT is decent. It's not the greatest game out there but it most certainly isn't the worst. It's solid and addictive and will keep you playing for a long time, and if it weren't for some unfortunate presentation issues it probably would have spread even further than it already has. In the end, AGOT is a solid 7/10, definite fun, but not the next big thing.
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Presentation Rating = 6.0
The art is great but the lack of printed card types makes the game harder to understand than it should be. Go back to the old art style Fantasy Flight.
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Gameplay Rating = 7.5
The house unique gameplay is where this game really shines. Being able to build your deck with different rules from everyone else was definitely a treat.
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Support Rating = 8.0
Fantasy Flight has always been great at giving support to their games and AGOT is no different. You'll be sure to find a happy welcoming community when pick up this game.
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Innovation Rating = 7.5
Once again the house unique gameplay is definitely something that sets this game apart, and the lack of traditional turns is also something that was pleasing to see. Overall it does introduce some new concepts that work well in the games design.
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