Trashdome - Warrior Knights vs A Game Of Thrones

AGOT friggin rocks.

Thanks God they added the word Warrior to the cover of the game with a pic of a bad ass guy in armor with a sword and the word "Knights" above him. Yeah, yeah other games, with the name Knights, etc. etc. How about they come up with something not so sucky instead of tacking on an unneeded descriptor instead? What's next? Corrupt Politicians? Protesting Buddhists on Fire?

A Game of Thrones by far....

Bullwinkle wrote:

I'm really enjoying each poster's analysis of these games.

I'm at the edge of my seat reading each and every one!

BloodyJack wrote:

Protesting Buddhists on Fire?

This is the game I want to play.

"Impress the Western powermongers with your selflessness! Or not. Whoever collects the most burn points while ridding themselves of desire wins! Or loses. Or ceases to exist in the wheel of suffering. Or something, fuck I don't know...."

I haven't played either of the Trashdome games this time, so that's my only contribution.

A game of Thrones. Superb game! Though you need the harbours from the first expansion. And the 6th player addition is also sweet.

This game always gets the table talk running all over the place. Who should be attacking where because of this and that. And then everyone knows that every "advice" has a secret underlying agenda. The hidden order placement is so cool. I also like how differently the families play. It's a whole different game when starting as Lannister (red) compared to Stark (white). But do not use the family cards from the 1st expansion. Use the original cards or the cards from the 2nd expansion.

The drawbacks are that you can get a very sour game because of the event deck. No new troops in the first 3 or 4 turns really makes for an empty map. But it's also part of the game. Do I dare risk taking that city when not knowing if there is going to be any reinforcements next turn? If you knew when reinforcements would occur the game would change radically. It's also very thematic and according to the books. In the books you just never knew about reinforcements.

If you really want a brainburner try playing 3 persons with 2 families each. Now that is good times!

A Game of Thrones. Because.

Vote: Warrior Knights

Primarily because I really really don't like AGoT, despite trying hard to find fun in it. The only aspect of AGoT that I find interesting are the blind bids for defence against the Wildings and bidding for the Iron Throne, Raven, and the Sword. The luckless combat system in AGoT is crap and kills all the fun that could be there. It's just too Euro for my taste.

I've not had much experience with the FFG version of Warrior Knights, more with the GW version.

But this thread is making me want to trade away my (unplayed) copy of AGoT. I thought the only really helpful thing from the expansions were the port markers and rules, which I could have mocked up myself, but it sounds like it improves deck balance and strategy as well?

There's no way I'm buying an expansion to "fix" a game thats languished in my attic for years - so might as well ditch the original. I've held on to it because I thought it might provide a measure of the thrill of Diplomacy in some sort of sensible play time.

Didn't much like the books anyway

MattDP wrote:

But this thread is making me want to trade away my (unplayed) copy of AGoT. I thought the only really helpful thing from the expansions were the port markers and rules, which I could have mocked up myself, but it sounds like it improves deck balance and strategy as well?

There's no way I'm buying an expansion to "fix" a game thats languished in my attic for years - so might as well ditch the original. I've held on to it because I thought it might provide a measure of the thrill of Diplomacy in some sort of sensible play time.

The only thing you need from the expansions are the ports from the 1st expansions, and these you can easily make yourself.

In the 1st expansion there is also part of a new map for a 6th player if you want that. The rest of the 1st expansion is "useless"

The 2nd expansion is really a new game for 4 players. New map, a lot of new rules etc. But you can incorporate some of those rules into the base game if you want. The only stuff we have tried to take from the 2nd expansion are the cards, and that worked fine for us. But the original cards are actually plenty of fun and we mostly use these.

And by the way, this game is not about being balanced from the start. Do not let a beginner play red against some seasoned players. That would really be like throwing a sheep to the wolves

I'd play either game at any time as I love both. But right now I feel more like playing Warrior Knights, so that gets my vote this time. Game of Thrones also has a few problems as mentioned above, as well as the fact that it doesn't play so well without the full complement of 5-6 players. I don't own GoT and don't really want to buy 3 more boxes (with the 2 expansions), so it's a bit harder to bring to the table.

Vote : WARRIOR KNIGHTS!

GoT is an important game, I think. It was one of the first to really, seriously make an argument for hybridization. When it came out it, it was pretty groundbreaking. It was a little DIPLOMACY, a little EL GRANDE, a little COSMIC ENCOUNTER...a lot of unusual combinations of mechanics.

But it's just no damn fun. The game is too scripted, restrictive, and limited. It seems like it has this huge scope and all these options but it really doesn't, and most of the expansions just tweak or bolt on chromey things that are pretty cool, but not necessary and kind of artificial. I still don't really get the port thing.

The last time I played it, I got into one of those "must buy all expansions" things. I got both of them and we played it a few times. It just lacks excitement, plain and simple. There's cool systems and interesting mechanics and plenty of dirtbaggery, but it doesn't really deliver on what I'd want from a game of its class. I think Robert MARTIN called it "DIPLOMACY with too many rules and almost no movement" which kind of rings true. It doesn't help that I don't like the setting, which I think is boring. I'd rather it be a more general historical or fantasy setting than keyed to a book that I don't like.

WARRIOR KNIGHTS is the clear winner here. It's not a perfect game at all, and there's a ton of problems that crop up in it but it's got a level of excitement, unpredictability, and friction that I think is much more fun. I like that it has scope (the expeditions, economics, research, politics, sieges, religion, etc.) and I actually really like the fighting. The VP thing doesn't work right and if you don't double your starting armies there's no meaningful fighting until the very end.

I've never played the original GW game so this is based on the FFG version with the expansion.

I like Game of Thrones a lot more than Diplomacy, because Diplomacy can easily stagnate into a long, boring stalemate, while Game of Thrones at least has a turn marker and events to keep things moving along. Like Barnes said, AGoT introduced an innovative mix of mechanics. Although I haven't even played a five-player game yet, I suspect that this one is a more-the-merrier type situation, which is why I will eventually buy an extra base set and do up a 9-player set following the template of those Westeros freaks.

So far, I have held back from voting, because I have only minimal knowledge of Warrior Knights. But now I must vote for A Game of Thrones, due to this image that I found at TOS:

I'm going to let this go a few extra days because of the downtime.

Late entry....

Vote: Warrior Knights.

I own WK and have played it a few times. It needed a bit of tweaking before we were happy with when the game ended, but overall a popular choice with my group.

A Game Of Thrones
timeLESS
Mr Skeletor
Octavian
the barefoot killer
mads b.
BloodyJack
Protoss
scissors
Shellhead

Warrior Knights
sydo
Schweig!
Southernman
ozjesting
Partizan
Columbob
Michael Barnes
Death and Taxis
Mad Malthus

This is a close fight. I'm going to let it run until Friday in place of doing something new this week.

Mad Dog wrote:

A Game Of Thrones
timeLESS
Mr Skeletor
Octavian
the barefoot killer
mads b.
Mad Malthus
BloodyJack
Protoss
scissors
Shellhead

Warrior Knights
sydo
Schweig!
Southernman
ozjesting
Partizan
Columbob
Michael Barnes
Death and Taxis

This is a close fight. I'm going to let it run until Friday in place of doing something new this week.

Hey I voted for Warrior Knights, not A Game of Thrones.
I merely said that A Game of Thrones took out Warrior Knights' eyes and a testicle before ultimately loosing.