 I'm David from Teen Gaming Club, I'm here with a Game of Thrones the board game strategy guide. I have a couple friends I play the board game with and they were having trouble learning the strategy of the board game. Also I couldn't really find any strategy guides on YouTube for it, only Let's Plays and this is not Let's Play, let's be clear with that it's just the strategy of the game not really how to play it. Hey guys this is the starting board, it's all set up. You have the martels right in there down in Dorne, the Tyrells, the Baratheons, the Lannisters, the Greyjoys, and the Starks. Here is the starting position for those groups, the Baratheon is the yellow stag, the Lannister is the red, the white grey piece is the Starks, the piece with the golden sun on it is the martels, the squid on black is the Greyjoys, and the rose on green is the Tyrells. Starting with the martels, they start down in the south where there is four main castles you have the one at Sunspear, the one at Yornwood, the one at Starfall, and the one at Old Town. As you can see here they are surrounded pretty much by the Tyrells and the Baratheons, they can't really move that far without having a conflict with them. Starting down here the first thing I would do is capture Starfall in Yornwood and try and muster up a force so you could take on and hold back the forces of Tyrell and Baratheon. Also I try and get your ship out of the Sea of Dorne down into the East Summer Sea to make it more difficult for the Baratheons to come down and invade. In the early turns you will mainly be mustering so you won't do much, you will probably have a couple battles with the Tyrells and the Baratheons but not much besides that. Most of the castles are farther north as you can see. So you really have to make a push later in the game to get those. The Tyrells start up in Highgarden. Their main problem is they are surrounded. To the south you have the Martells, to the east you have the Baratheons and just north of them you have the Lannisters. You have to be very warlike or very defensive to play this part. Because you are surrounded and you have very few castles in the area you really have to move out. Most likely to the north to get this row of castles over here or possibly to the south capturing Old Town, Starfall, Yornwood, Sunspear and Storm's End as well as the Reach. Bonus for you guys though is you have a lot of supplies and crowns so you can really muster a bunch of power, get a bunch of power behind you. So you can have very large armies because of all the barrels in the region, all the supply you have. The Baratheons need to have an alliance early on. They are also going to be bombarded from all sides. You have the Starks just north of them, the Martells just south of them, the Tyrells and Lannisters to their west. There's not many castles but there's a fair enough amount that you could capture and start mustering forces. The Storm's End, the Reach, King's Landing, Crack Claw Point and the Erie nearby as well as your starting location at Dragonstone. You really need to start off with an alliance with either Stark or Martell or else and then have to be at war with the other one. If you can capture the five castles along the coast plus one more then you can win. Also the Baratheons have very little supplies nearby. They have to go far to get supplies to muster larger armies. Next we have the Lannisters over at Lannisport. They have a fair number of castles and strongholds around them and a fair amount of supplies just to their south but again just like the Baratheons they are surrounded. Greyjoy's right at their door as well as the Tyrells in their south. Also the Baratheons can be a problem if they try and go in across to grab Heron Hall and River Ronten the game. For them it's best to make an alliance with either the Greyjoy's or the Tyrells so they just have a little bit of a buffer zone and a little bit of help in combating the others. Greyjoy's have the advantage of being an island and can have a very strong navy but you cannot depend on this navy. You have to have a strong army to go with it. Their best tactic is to gain the entire west coast of the board game with their ships. Gain all this season in the west so they can move people from their hub here at Pike, move large armies across the board very quickly into good locations to get very key strongholds such as you can take Lannisport, Old Town, High Garden and even White Run. They again have very few supplies nearby and really have to get off that island quickly because if not the surrounding area can be filled up with strong armies and they are stuck there for the rest of the game and doomed to lose. Alliance with the Lannisters or Starks could be there helpful for them and also help them gain the neck. The Starks have a huge problem. They're stuck up in the north and if someone takes Moat Kylan then they can be stuck up there all game. Their first move almost always has to be move all their troops available down in here to gain away into the neck. If not they can be stuck up there all game and again just like the Greyjoys doomed to lose. Again they should make an alliance with either Pike and the Greyjoys or Dragonstone and the Baratheons. Both could help them greatly. The one perk that the Starks have is they have ports on both sides. They're the only ones that can muster ships on both sides of Westeros so they can be a huge naval power if they want to be and that could really help them get out if they do get stuck with a large opposing army in Moat Kylan. Now to the influence tracks. The Iron Throne track is key to hold. Anyone who holds it can have a huge position as the first person to go which always helps because it's the difference between getting attacked and being the attacker which can be huge in many battles especially if you have the plus one special martial order. Moving down to Fiefdoms it's not key to have it unless you're going to be extremely war like or extremely defensive. In that case you're really going to want to be high on it. Also holding the sword does give you that extra perk of plus one in battle. The Messenger Raven track or the King's Court track I don't feel as if it's that as necessary the Messenger Raven itself doesn't have a great perk to it but you really do need those stars to get those special orders which do really help so for them I'd say you don't need to throw all your power tokens into it but just try not to be one of the last two that get stuck with no special orders. The cards in this game are very important and can really help a lot in battle. For the Martell family your better cards are not the ones with the higher points the higher combat strength they're the ones down here that have the really good text abilities especially the leader of your family Doran Martell I think that's how you pronounce his name with awesome ability to immediately move your opponent to the bottom of an influence track of your choice that can devastate them. Also especially when you're holding a stronghold Irene Martell if you are defending and lose the combat your opponent may not move their units into the battle area they must return from the area which they marched your own units must retreat that is huge because that keeps them out and especially if you hire them on the uh Iron Throne influence track you can move in again before they can the next turn. That's huge I think these are some of the better cards in the game. The Tyrell cards are again extremely powerful but this time some of their better text features also come with high combat. So our Laurent Lawrence Tyrell if you are attacking and win the combat move the march order token into the conquered area instead of discarding it that march order may be resolved again later in the round that is huge especially when you're attack you're on the attack. That means that you can keep moving with a strong force. Mace Tyrell the leader of the family immediately destroy one of your opponents attacking or defending footmen that's huge because that has them lose one point one combat point. The Baratheon cards are again very powerful the best text features I feel or patch face who at the end of combat you may look at your opponent's hand and discard one of their one card of your choice that's huge especially when you're going up against a house that has powerhouse text cards. The next one that's huge especially in naval battles is Sallor San. I hope that I'm pronouncing that right if you're being supported in this combat the combat strength of all non Baratheon ships are reduced to zero again huge especially in naval battles they can really turn the tides. The Lannisters have some great cards as well. My two favorite and I think the more powerful ones if you're attacking all of your participating footmen including your supporting footmen gain two combat strength instead of one combat strength and also again going up against powerhouse cards you may cancel your opponent's chosen house card and return it to his hand he mustn't then choose a different house card to reel. If there are no other house cards in his hand he cannot use a house card in this combat that can get rid of some of the more powerful cards that the opponents have it's very useful. For the Greyjoys their two good house cards are Balin Greyjoy the printed combat strength of your opponent's house card is reduced to zero that really helps especially when going up against a house card with very high combat and then Victorian Greyjoy if you were attacking all of your participating ships including supporting Greyjoy ships add plus two combat strength instead of plus one again huge especially with Greyjoy's supposedly great navy again you really need a great navy to play as Greyjoy and last of all the Starks again some pretty good house cards all the houses have some pretty nice house cards the two big ones the blackfish you do not take any casualties in this combat from house card abilities combat icons or tide or tides of battle cards huge because you don't lose any men and your other big one if you win this combat you may choose the area in which your opponent retreats you must choose a legal area for which your opponents loses the fewest units that's Rob Starks that means if your opponent is surrounded by enemies you push them right into another enemy and have them go to battle that's nice also that means you can push them out of your way if you're trying to get past them and conquer another area if you found this helpful please like and subscribe comment below if I did anything wrong and think some other strategies have worked better for you in the past also please tell me if you guys like what I'm doing because if you don't I shouldn't really be doing it for you and tell me what you guys want me to do also please suggest other board games for me and the team gaming club to play in the future see you guys later