We had a rough week at home, but last night my wife and I sat down at the gaming table to play the Game of Thrones version of Battlelore. She enjoys BattleLore–it’s the only Commands & Colors system she has played, but she likes the straightforward system mechanics and the medieval fantasy theme. Well, in recent years she has become a fan of the Song of Ice & Fire novels and the television show, particularly championing the plight of the last living daughter of the Targaryens. “Can I play Daenerys leading a legion of the Unsullied into battle against your prancing Lannister army?” she asked. No, I explained, but she could play the Stark forces against my prancing Lannisters.
Our first game was small, mostly for practice, as she learned how the game worked; it’s quite different from Battlelore, in her opinion–it involves more strategic thinking, more like chess than the straightforward, choose a unit to activate, roll some dice, and move onto the next.
Still, she won the first battle by a slight margin. Then we set up a second battle with a full complement of forces, and she tried to teach me a lesson for placing my leader’s unit in the center of my front line–with a bold play and some good die rolling, she destroyed my leader’s unit and almost captured Jaime Lannister on the first action of the game! I managed to come back and decimate her forces, but then she switched into a defensive mode, shepherding her broken units to the rear and reinforcing her position to finally defeat my Lannister forces, leaving me with only Jaime to command a single unit of archers at the end of turn 4, scoring a crowning victory for the Starks.
Fancy Wars 