Limbhack (A Game of Thrones, 2nd Ed:)

@moistloaf, I started playing Netrunner before any other card games, and then went on to explore Star Wars LCG, Conquest, MTG (just drafting), and now Thrones, in that order. I refer to these types of games as “creature combat” games.

Thrones is my favorite of the creature combat type games so far, because of the way it handles the concept of damage and the win condition. I’m not sure how familiar you are with the game, so forgive me if I speak too broadly.

In Thrones, you can perform one of three attacks; an attack on the opponent’s hand (net damage), and attack on their board (not specifically killing a character of your choice, because they get to choose who to discard), or an attack to further the win condition (agenda points, from the runner’s perspective particularly).

This may sound like a busy system, but it is actually much more like Netrunner than any other creature combat game I’ve played so far! You can spend your turn basically as you please, and whether or not you should be spending resources disrupting your opponent, building your board, tearing down their board, or pursuing the win condition is very much at your discretion.

It seems like with other card games there is always a correct opportunity to attack. Whether the system is based on reducing life totals, destroying opposing creatures, or some combination of both, many games seem to have entirely “correct” lines of play, especially when it comes to combat.

I think Thrones gets away from this in the same way Netrunner does. You could spend a whole game of Netrunner drawing for a specific tool to set up your attack rather than just making small, opportunistic runs, and it’s tough to quantify which of those lines would be better, even in hindsight. Thrones is similar; you can make intrigue challenges the whole game while sacrificing board state, but you have a sense that the effects of your attacks are inhibiting your opponent in such a way that will eventually win you the game. I’m really digging the game so far.

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I should try it out at an LCG one of these days. I think a fair amount of our ANR community is playing it. Attacking someone’s hand seems positively brutal. It definitely is a ‘creature combat’ game as you say, but I am inclined to believe you when you say it’s the best, although I think VTES is an incredible game, the only downside being a lack of 1v1 format.

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I’ve become pretty wrapped in this game, bought one core, played a bunch of games, cancelled my Netrunner sub and bought 2 extra core sets.

Interestingly, in my small local meta, all our wives have told us to stop playing Netrunner and just buy this. Between the lore, the simplicity of the mechanics and what have you, it seems to be a much more accessible game than Netrunner, and the fact that it has excellent built in multiplayer as well as 1v1 is really cool. No more sitting around watching my friends play Netrunner (winner keeps the table style).

Just noticed this thread again, so sorry for the late reply, but I’ve been using this for both my netrunner and agot2 scans Releases · ExplodyCat/octgnNetImages · GitHub

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I played 1v1 VTES a bunch. It’s a different game, but it’s not bad. AGOT seems plenty deep enough. If and when there’s a community locally, I’ll give it a go.

15 posts were split to a new topic: Doomtown

For what it’s worth, I’ve bought a single core of every LCG that has come out. AGoT is the first one that I went on to buy two more cores. But in no way is it as good as Netrunner.

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I think it compares pretty favourably to Core Set netrunner though. Even if it’s mechanically less interesting.

My main “negatives” with AGoT are:

  • No real ramp up. You essentially start the game with two full turns
    of stuff all slapped down before the first challenges phase.
  • A little bit too brain burn-y. This is probably a positive for many.
    But I feel my head start to hurt trying to think of the chain of
    events for every possible challenge, and then what challenges the
    opponent will do.

But the game has lots of good stuff too. Most of what people have said above. I love the different types of challenges and their effects.

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My main thing with Agot is a bit lack of options during game and limited card draw. Playing a huge number of card games Agot feels a bit generic but I love the plot system. I love that Netrunner is not very draw based and click system provides many ways to play yout turn. In Agot I feel there isn’t much to do if opponent draws better than me because options are mainly decided by draw and there are still few tutors. Netrunner offers so many choices to migrate the luck with click system and drawing whole deck is not uncommon. Agot games usually last about 5-6 turns with less than 30 cards drawn from the deck. I think 50 card decks would had worked much better. I am sure I will like Agot more with bigger card pool. Now all decks feels like unfocused “pile of good cards” with high variance.

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Yeah, I don’t understand why they didn’t trim decks down to 50 cards when revising to 2.0. Those 60-card beasts are just unwieldy. I agree that, with where the card pool is at right now, the games feel like “put lots of good cards in a deck and hope they come out in the right order” rather than having a particular game plan and executing on it, like you do with Netrunner. That might actually be a bit of a positive, or at least a silver lining, though: you can’t hinge your whole strategy on one or two cards, because with 60 cards’ worth of variance you might never see any copies. Of course, then they build Targaryen with a bunch of cards that depend on you having Dany in play… :expressionless:

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I agree with both of these cons. There isn’t really an “aggro” strategy, because the concept of tempo is kind of thrown out the window. You can play a deck that’s more focused on military, or you can hope to play more guys than your opponent, but neither of those are really “aggro” strategies, technically. The concept of resource generating is heavily detached from turn count, when compared to similar games.

It is definitely more brain intensive for me as well, but that also might be because I’m more fluent in Netrunner at this point. Playing 5 rounds of Thrones in a row sounds really intense…

Not to totally derail this conversation on a pointless tangent, but I can’t help noting that every time I pass by the thread I read it as “limerick.” Quite disconcerting.

Carry on.

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I have three cores and try to play whenever I can - the local meta here really stepped up they formed their own weekly day with strong turnout - good on them! Right now it’s 3rd on my priority list - Netrunner night/events, 1x General Board Gaming night, and then Sunday Thrones. Often Thrones gets cut due to life, but mostly because the card pool is a bit shallow and I felt I’ve explored most of it right now (on a casual level).

Setup phase still kinda irks me, I have issues with the concept but maybe I’ll come around on it. Plot decks and interactions thus far have been fun.

Building decks for setup is so so so huge–there’s a 1.0 vet who plays at our store, he runs a Stark/Martell deck that’s all weenies (biggest character is Robb) and routinely gets 4-5 card setups. It crushes all of us newer guys who want to put the big expensive characters in our decks. I think the skill in this game is knowing how to play for the setup, and then executing your plan based on your drop. You have to have a deck that isn’t going to draw a few 5+ cost characters, a 3 cost location, and hope to win, it seems to me. Still figuring it out, but I don’t think the game is a random luckfest like some people think.

What that does mean is deckbuilding is more skill intensive, I think–people say that the game can be won or lost on setup, and I sort of agree–but I would add that it’s a bit the fault of the deck composition if you regularly get hosed on turn 2 or 3.

Also–not sure if you’ve seen a bunch of spoilers that most likely were accidentally leaked: Four the Watch | BoardGameGeek

From what I’m seeing, I think a power rush Tyrell deck with a bunch of Knight cards, including the Tourney for the King plot, is going to be pretty potent. It’ll focus on cheaper Knight characters, probably use that “Lady Sansa’s Rose” card on Loras, maybe some Superior Claim–I’m excited about that. Mainly because I’ve been maining Tyrell already. I like the storybook knights and ladies theme that Tyrell has going.

Of course, once the renown knights decks get going, people will start playing First Snow of Winter–which I’m thinking will be the next plot we all fuss over whether to include or not.

I think the people who think it’s a random luckfest are the same kind of people who ask me at Doomtown events if Netunner is still all RNG and if Snare is still overpowered.

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This deck has been doing very good work for me:

I’m now working on a Greyjoy Wards deck, adding a few choice Starks (Arya, Sansa etc.) to the Ironborn.

I should try it out at an LCG one of these days. I think a fair amount of our ANR community is playing it. Attacking someone’s hand seems positively brutal. It definitely is a ‘creature combat’ game as you say, but I am inclined to believe you when you say it’s the best…

Exactly. Game of Thrones is the best creature combat game. There are three separate combat types which each have different and interesting effects.

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I think Conquest is still by far the best of the unit combat games, but Thrones has the potential to eclipse it if the cardpool gets more interesting.

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