Dr Gadget - GAME OF THRONES BOARD GAME

	List Price: $49.99 Our Price: $39.03 Your Save: $ 10.96 ( 22% ) Availability: Manufacturer: Fantasy Flight Games
Average Customer Rating:
Amazon Minimum Age: 144 Binding: Toy Brand: Fantasy Flight Games EAN: 9781589941038 Feature: George R. R. Martin's best-selling novel comes to life! Is Autographed: 0 ISBN: 1589941039 Is Memorabilia: 0 Label: Fantasy Flight Games Manufacturer: Fantasy Flight Games Manufacturer Minimum Age: 144 Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games Studio: Fantasy Flight Games
Features George R. R. Martin's best-selling novel comes to life! Designed by Christian T. Petersen (Twilight Imperium, Tide of Iron) Ages: 12 - adult, Players: 3 - 5, Game Time: 2 -3 Hours Download game instructions at http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/PDF/agotbgrules.pdf Look for the "Clash of Kings" and "Storm of Swords" Expansions also from Fantasy Flight Games
Related Items Clash of Kings A Game of Thrones Expansion A Game of Thrones: Storm of Swords Expansion A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 1) Rio Grande Games Puerto Rico The War of the Ring Board Game
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: Great with more than 3 players Comment: i love this game...it is a lot of fun and has a lot of strategy involved. my only complaint is that a three player game can be very boring if the three people aren't overly aggressive. There just seems to be too much map for three people. But, other than that, I would highly recommend this game to anyone. Customer Rating: Summary: Great Fun Comment: This game is great. So much more tactical than games like risk or even axis and allies. The only thing I wish it had was an allied victory condition, as towards the end of the game one person just gives up and helps another person end the game quicker. Customer Rating: Summary: Novel War Game Comment: As an experienced gamer who has tried out a wide range of strategy-oriented products, I have found the Game of Thrones to be an especially strong one (which is fairly surprising given that it was not designed as a stand-alone product but instead grows out of a series of genre novels). It is a nice game in all of the superficial ways: gorgeous board, sturdy and attractive pieces, strong box in a convenient size to add to shelf and with attractive artwork that would make you proud to have it there. But what especially impressed me is the overall unity of the design. Most niche board games come with extremely thick manuals filled with idiosyncratic rules to govern every situation. They may be enjoyable, but they take forever to learn and you generally cannot get non-gamers to invest the time. We feared this game would be the same, but I sat down with my wife, kids, and a family friend so that we could walk through the manual and we quickly realized that the rules were especially consistent and logical. Even my 12-year-old daughter picked them up quickly. If you're looking for a comparison, I'd say that among the traditional war games this one most closely resembles Diplomacy, and anyone who has played Diplomacy will find the rules particularly comfortable to learn. The action choices are similar, and determined in advance in a similar fashion. Randomness plays little role in battle outcomes. And, like Diplomacy, the game even permits the addition of a negotiation session as players make non-binding deals with one other. But don't take these comparisons too far. This isn't Diplomacy with a new thematic overlay. It would take too long to go into all the unique features of this game, but I'll highlight three big ones: (1) Different territories offer different resources: Troops, Supplies, Power. If you also factor in whatever direct military advantage taking a territory might bring, the result is that players must make uncertain choices about which advantages to pursue and when to pursue them. (2) Players periodically bid for positions of political influence that can help them out later, producing a nice tension between saving your resources vs. investing them in gaining potentially useful advantages. (3) A group of savages called "wildlings" will attack occasionally, threatening all the players at once. The rules set up an intriguing collective-action problem: Contribute too much to repelling the invasion, and your rivals will have gained a relative advantage. Contribute too little and the marauders roam the countryside, killing your people before they return home. Does the game have problems? We've noticed one: The arrival of troops and supplies is governed by event cards, so sometimes a strategy will be stymied not because of any strategic error but because the needed card stubbornly refuses to pop up. But, by the odds, that kind of difficulty would only appear in a small percentage of games. Finally, please note that I have not read the George R.R. Martin novels that served as a point of departure for this game. I cannot testify to its level of success capturing the world depicted in the books, only its success at creating a fun and exciting gaming environment. At that task the game designers have succeeded brilliantly. Customer Rating: Summary: Risk + Diplomacy = Cool! Comment: This game is the definition of strategy game. Gone is the dice mechanic of Risk and having one guy in Indonesia defending Australia from the invading horde. Gone is the marches across entire continents with improbably large forces from Asia. This set speedily reduces the diplomatic dealings of Diplomacy while still retaining the elements of mystery and subterfuge. This game has ruined me for playing Risk and Diplomacy and has replaced them both on my game shelf. This game is for five players (six with the Clash of Kings expansion) set in the world of the novels, Westeros, and deals with five of the royal houses seeking the throne after the death of Robert Barratheon. The houses are; Greyjoy, Stark, Barratheon (Stanis), Tyrell, and Lannister. Scattered about the continent, each house is tasked to capture and sway other feifs to their cause, through conflict if needed. Actions are determined by tokens that are placed face down on the board with your armies. You can try to ally and bargain but, never, are you allowed to reveal your marker until it is time to flip them all. Never are you allowed to be 100% sure of your alliance! Once all tokens are down, they are revealed and resolution takes place by order of influence within the court of Westeros. Army size is regulated by supply limits in areas taken and held, the ability to recruit more soldiers limited by the tides of the Westeros Deck draw at the start of each turn. This one random action in an otherwise planned game forces players to carefully consider conflicts since (as it is really) casualties are hard to replace with more trained soldiers. Actual conflict is won or lost based upon the size of the armies involved, support from flanking players (if they decide to answer the call), and the general leading the army. Players have a deck of 5 cards of leaders from the novels. These cards are selected by the players in the conflict and will decide the total combat effectiveness and total casualties in the conflict. Generals are balanced in special abilities and power among all players and it now becomes a matter of deciding how powerful a leader you must select versus how powerful a leader your opponent will flop down. Once used, the general is set aside until all generals in a players deck is used anf forcing players to carefully gauge when to use the 'big guns' and how important regions are to hold. Players, amid all of the conflict, must also bid for influence within the lands they occupy. This is important for two big reasons. The Black Watch on the Wall is undermanned and at a moment's notice may attack. When this action takes place, players must secretly bid influence to drive back the invaders or suffer the consequences. There is also the influence within the courts that must be bid on. The areas of influence are the Iron Throne, Messengers, and Feifdoms. The Iron Throne track determines order of resolution with the person in the highest position breaking all ties of influence. Messengers provides players with the ability to use more 'high end' orders (March +2, Defense +2, etc) and access to the Ravens to switch an order after they are revealed. Feifdoms determines winners in ties of conflict (higher seat assures victory) and the player at the top can use the Valyrian steel once a turn to grant a combat bonus to his army. A focus on a strategy of cards rather than dice means that actual battle tactics and army size determies victory. No more is the opposing player slicing through your mass of troops because he rolled higher than you. Gone is the single soldier holding off an entire invading horde. More importantly, allied players can lend you help in battles or betray as suits their goal. Unlike Risk, this game permits cooperation and even encourages it as the lone player will be taken down by allied forces. If you are a fan of strategy and military war games, you will want to pick this up. If you come to enjoy this game, I highly reccomend getting the expansions. Customer Rating: Summary: My favorite board game Comment: Game of Thrones takes the simple play mechanics of Diplomacy adds a splash of Magic the Gathering and creates what is simply my favorite board game ever. Every order you make is critical every fight is of absolute importance. Fights are cool because you almost always know the results of the battle ahead of time so you have to strategically plan when to win and when to lose. The best part of the game is the buildup to a victory push. Because of the supreme advantage given to players who ally together against a common foe, it becomes nearly impossible to simply slowly grow your way to victory. Instead players are forced to cautiously manouver into a position to make a victory rush. If the rush fails that player is generally pushed back to the bottom of the list of powers forced to restart his buildup once more. The games not without flaws. There are two big ones fixed in the expansion with the addition of ports. Also as with any board game it's only fun if you have fun people to play with. It also helps to play with smart people. It's frustrating to lose a game because somebody is an idiot. The game generally doesn't involve chance but there are event cards and they can be frustrating sometimes. More Reviews
Editorial Reviews: Take the roles of the Lords and Ladies of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire as they struggle to win control of the Iron Throne and the lands of Westeros. As the head of one of the Great Houses, players use a combination of battlefield strategy, political maneuvering, and sheer will to take the shards of a broken kingdom and forge them in a realm that answers to you and you alone! In the fine tradition of Diplomacy, Game of Thrones places the mass attack thinking of Risk aside, choosing to hold to a higher standard of clever strategy and ruthless cunning. With excellent design standards and excellent gameplay, this is sure to become a standard in the upper end of strategy board games. 3-5 players. Ages 12 and up.