Welcome To Westeros – A Game of Thrones Living Card Game
Ever get tired of getting your butt whooped by someone who has spent way too much on a hobby? Ever want to throw your cards out the window because some guy with more discretionary income than the GDP of an island nation had four legendary rares in his deck? Situations like this are prevalent in most hobbies, someone will always have more time to devote to a hobby, or throw more money at the game than you. Finding a game, especially a commercial one, that rewards frequent buyers but doesn’t punish the casual player can be hard. These situations often rear their head when it comes to CCGs.
Thankfully in A Game of Thrones Living Card Game, Fantasy Flight Games has solved this problem in a very clever way. Instead of producing sets of 300 cards that are used for a few months, Fantasy Flight produces Chapter Packs which contain 20 new and unique cards which are released once a month. These packs cost about $10 – $30 and contain every card in the miniature set. This means you don’t have to buy two boxes and hope you get that Jace Beleren, but instead open up one pack to get a good mix of cards for well rounded decks.
The game itself is very balanced. There is no mana flood and you can’t get “mana screwed”; the game’s resource, gold, is produced by your plot cards as well as location. Each turn these plot cards make broad sweeping changes to the table by manipulating rules or affecting cards in play, as well as changing your turn order and the damage you do with a successful attack. Meanwhile changing titles confer bonuses to the player while forming a relationship between the Houses your opponents have taken control of. The game goes on until a player achieves 15 victory points, but getting there takes an understanding of not just your deck but a political savvy and understanding of the climate of the table.
Each Tuesday the great houses of Westeros gather at the Bulwark at six o’clock to play A Game of Thrones. We will be happy to lend decks to new players, and the starter pack is readily available for $40. When you purchase a starter pack you get four decks, and the play set which includes “gold” tokens, “power” tokens, a board and plastic title icons.
In the infamous words of Cersei Lannister “When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”
The shop has acquired a copy of the core set for A Game of Thrones the Living Card Game. Now all we need is people to start playing! I am looking forward to getting into this game, and I know some folks are looking for alternatives to Magic. The Living Card Game format offers a good break from a CCG. LCGs do not have booster packs, rather sets are released once a month through a “Chapter Pack” which contain all the cards in the sets. This means, no more rare chasing! Instead the players can focus on deck construction and core strategy rather than buying booster boxes to get that Planeswalker card.
Don Boucher will be hosting a casual night of Magic the Gathering at the Bulwark. Don has been regularly hosting launch parties at his house, and we are glad to host his next gala. If you are new to magic, or an old hat this new set has it all. As someone who personally wanted to see a return to the core principles which made Magic a fun game to play, this set gets a thumbs up.
James Proffer will be hosting a Vampire: The Eternal Struggle demo this Sunday at 3:00. If you are interested in picking up a new TCG that has some great party play mechanics and several play styles this is great game to try. James has volunteered to bring his stack of cards and teach people how to play, so if you are interested all you have to do is bring yourself, and a smile! If you want some more information about V:TES check out the 