Let's Play a Game of Thrones: the Board Game (2nd ed.)

So, anyway, it turns out that Recently Headless Ned had a variety of sons who did not get pushed out of windows. One of them is Robb, and he wants to be King of Mystical Dragon Land! But Cersei has a son, Joffrey. He is the current King of Mystical Dragon Land! So Robb has to overthrow Joffrey, but also, Dead King Robert had brothers, who have figured out that Cersei’s babies were caused by illicit, brother-in-law fuck-times. And you’re not going to believe this, but Brother One (Renly) and Brother Two (Stannis) BOTH want to be King of Mystical Dragon Land! Then there’s Daenerys. She, too, wants to be Queen of Mystical Dragon Land, but is currently side-tracked, what with her being worshiped by various non-white populations. And yet! Robb had a foster-brother, Theon, who comes from a disgraced house of Viking equivalents. Theon is convinced that Viking equivalents should be the Kings of Mystical Dragon Land! Who will emerge victorious as the One True King of Mystical Dragon Land? I sure hope you didn’t want an answer to that, because it turns out there are like five more books in this series.
- Sady Doyle, Enter Ye Myne Mystic World of Gayng-Raype: What the “R” Stands for in “George R.R. Martin”

We took another of our tax-free booze and cheaper board games trips to Sweden last spring, and came home with Fantasy Flight's Game of Thrones board game.

It promises to be an epic strategy board game of plots and intrigue for the domination of Westeros - or, more to the point, Diplomacy, but fun. The first player to control seven castles or strongholds wins!

Anders Finer: Asha Greyjoy

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As I've explained before, the only rightful rulers of Westeros are House Targaryen. Sadly, France Essos isn't included in the game, so everyone has to play a squabbling faction of filthy rebel scum. For our first game, I picked House Greyjoy, because of, well, Asha. Here we are, all smiles before the actual game began!

A post shared by Michael Halila (@michaelhalila) on Jul 2, 2018 at 2:54am PDT

Below is the opening setup for five players. My Greyjoys are tucked away in Ironman's Bay, between the Starks in the north and the Lannisters to the south. Further south are the Tyrells, and to the east, the hated usurper. Because we're missing a sixth player, House Martell is replaced by a pile of neutral force tokens in the southeast.

The action kicked off with a Baratheon blitz into the continental Crownlands, capturing King's Landing and threatening to carve up Dorne. Lannister reacted by seizing Harrenhal, and the Tyrells moved into the inland Reach. I grabbed Seagard, but my problem was simple: Baratheon was threatening to win the whole thing, but I could only get to him through someone else. Either I'd have to attack the Lannister rear, or get in the way of the Starks' glacial advance down the east coast. I didn't fancy either option, as both would have taken quite a bit of pressure off the Baratheons. I was also slightly hamstrung by being on the last place on the King's court track, which meant the others could use the special Consolidate Power order to muster troops, and I couldn't. Also, we drew no mustering cards from the Westeros decks for several turns, meaning I was stuck with my initial forces while the others could expand their armies.

If I'd have known how passive Stark and Lannister were going to be, I'd have burned either Winterfell or Lannisport to the ground. After a succesful Baratheon spoiling attack on Harrenhal, House Lannister spent the rest of the game sitting on their hands, apart from a few desultory attacks on Seagard and the Reach. The Stark advance got bogged down in indecisive sea battles in the east, and eventually it came down to a Tyrell-Baratheon showdown. Baratheon overextended trying to grab Dorne, and eventually Tyrell rolled up the Baratheon position and won. I succeeded in grabbing Riverrun off the Lannisters, but it was too little, too late.

In retrospect, we all played too passively - except the Baratheons! I finished shared second, but my major mistake was imagining that Stark and Lannister were going to do something. However, what we all learned was that this is a really, really good game. It's fairly approachable, and the bidding mechanisms for the various tracks, as well as the combat rules, are easy to pick up once you actually start using them.

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We're working on scheduling another game, this time with the full complement of players. Also, I was delighted when Fantasy Flight announced a new expansion, featuring House Targaryen! So this is a subject we will be returning to. In the mean time, expansions or not, this game is a steal for its price and definitely worth playing. Highly recommended!