Game of Thrones board game 3: Here I Throne

Elderr Gutlon rose violently, his large frame towering over the seated brethren. "How dare you, Vitus. How dare you, who has yet to earn a single "R" in his name, who has not even completed his study of the ancient works, and can hardly quote from them by memory, judge us?

- Mark Brendle, Something Awful

in 2019, we played our first ever six-player game of the Game of Thrones board game. But since one regular member of our gaming group was away in California at the time, he's missed out on the particular experience that is an entire day dedicated to murdering your friends all across Westeros. Last May, we tried to rectify this - and then the coronavirus happened.

We ended up playing Here I Stand by email instead, which was quite an experience. At the same time, it's downright hilarious that the last season of the Game of Thrones TV series was apparently so bad that the entire franchise simply vanished from the public eye, especially since the dude can't finish a book (the latest novel in the series was published four months before Skyrim). I'm going to start telling people that this boardgame is the original work it was all based on. Anyway, Here I Stand is over, so now it's time for Here I Throne.

**

Our first game was a five-player affair, featuring a Baratheon blitz into the Reach and an ineffective Lannister betrayal; it was won by House Tyrell. Our second game had six players, and featured a Baratheon blitz into the Reach and an ineffective Baratheon betrayal; I won as House Lannister. This time, we've got the Mother of Dragons expansion, and while the Essos board extension barely fits on our table, incorporating House Arryn is easy. We also knew that one player would have to leave early, so we would definitely be using the vassal house rules. So we set up for seven players:

Since I've played as the Greyjoys and the Lannisters, I decided I want to be at the opposite end of the table this time, and picked the Martells. The vassal house ended up being House Arryn, who became vassals to House Baratheon. On the first turn, the Greyjoys came out swinging, grabbing Flint's Finger, Seagard and Moat Cailin for an early lead.

This, of course, concentrated quite a bit of attention onto them in the next few turns. While the war in the north raged, we in the south consolidated our positions, and the Baratheons secured King's Landing. As the Greyjoys were chased back to their islands and the Baratheons stormed the Reach, by turn 4 it was the Starks who looked like the ones to beat.

At this point, the Baratheon player had to leave, so Arryn and Baratheon were vassal houses. I decided this made it high time to grab Storm's End from the Baratheons, and the Greyjoys turned the tables on the Starks with a seaborne invasion of Winterfell.

As turn 5 rolled around, everything happened: we recalculated supply, rebid all the influence tracks and sustained a Wildling attack where they ate all our horses.

Turn 6 saw the Stark player leave the game, so we were down to four players and three vassal houses. The Stark departure made things a little bit easier for both the Greyjoys and Lannisters, and they capitalized on it, with the Lannisters grabbing a lead and threatening to win the game outright.

Therefore, our agenda was clear: a House Arryn offensive, supported by both the Baratheon and Martell navies, cleared out the Lannisters from Crackclaw Point, and a Tyrell attack led by Loras took not only Lannisport but also Riverrun. I used the distraction to grab King's Landing.

Meanwhile, the Tyrells also struck in the south, routing my garrison at Starfall, but Arianne Martell sent them right back home.

Going into turn 7, it was pretty much a dead heat between my Martells, the Tyrells and the Greyjoys.

After the seventh turn, I think fatigue set in for all of us, and it was a slog to get through the last turns. The Tyrell offensive sort of petered out; I got into a fight with them over the Reach, but couldn't make any more headway. The Lannisters never really recovered. Finally, the Greyjoys captured White Harbor at the very beginning of the tenth turn to seal the win.

The game took a little bit over ten hours and we were exhausted.

**

So, I came in second with the Martells after winning the previous game with the Lannisters. I feel like the biggest reason I lost was sheer physical exhaustion: I was out late the previous night, and by the time we got to the endgame, I was so tired I was simply unable to put together a plan to get to victory.

Another thing that tripped me up was supply. In our first game, we took ages to turn up a mustering card, and I suffered for that as the Greyjoys since it stopped me from mustering any units at all. This time, it took several turns until we got a supply card at all, but when we did, I hadn't secured enough supply areas and fell behind. Not being able to put effective armies into the field was crippling, and entirely my fault for overlooking this crucial area of the game.

So yeah, I lost because I played badly. On a positive note, though, we all liked the vassal system. The option for players to drop out is frankly excellent, and while the very limited amount of vassal orders you can give makes sure the vassal houses don't completely unbalance the game, they still make things a lot more unpredictable. I would definitely recommend using the vassal house rules, and I liked the addition of House Arryn.

I'm glad we played, but the last few turns were so grueling that I think we have to consider making the next one a two-day event. And holding it next year. At the earliest.