about to have a beautiful win as lannister here. my rules give each player a chance to win, rather than lanni always getting dominated. check it

https://game.thronemaster.net/?game=72878

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Though mayhaps this was a blessing. Had he lived, he would have grown up to be a Frey

The battle between Lanni and GJ is taken in the sea. Lanni can outnumber GJ fast, but GJ has more power with Balon and the Sword.
Usually, the one who gets the 3 seas 1st is the one who survives.
So a mustering 1st round kicks the Lannister out of the game.
I like to start atking the sea with the hound, recruint a boat and a siege and keep ataking. Killing everything.
Once you take Pyke its done. There's no coming back for GJ.

Sea this game: https://game.thronemaster.net/?review=1&game=68395

The opening doesn't seem like a great example.

1. GJ 1-move openings are pretty risky.
2. If he doesn't even take Riverrun when fully uncontested, why support on Bay in first place?
3. In this situation, Aaron Damphair seems like the safer option so not to waste Euron

That way, Lannister get's a great start:
- Muster + Power
- AND GJ NOT having Riverrun
- AND coming out better on cards first move

To me that feels like a Top5% outcome for Lannister that only happens if GJ plays oddly.

If he Aeron, them he losts two power tokens. He tried to kill my boat, thats why the for is there. And why i play the Hound.

The hole battle stands in the Seas, the one who gets it, wins.
So Lanni rely on no Clash or Mustering. But most of all no muster in the first two rounds.

Bad example, Greyjoy played very poorly.

1. his support is useless on turn 1 and he loses momentum.
2. even with that said, on turn two he could still do very good by putting these orders in the sea to force you in defending, but should have split his boats in the two seas instead of attacking you, he took a huge risk of a muster where you played first.
3. Even after that, knewing you played first, he still put a march on his boats instead of a defend order. Normally he could easily retake the sea using victarion even if you have more boats, but couldn't

In the end, Greyjoy lost, you didn't win, big difference. But it must have been a fun game to play lol!

In KC's tournament, everytime there was an early war between Lanni and GJ, the lions were crushed and finished with one castle or any castle. On the other hand, GJ had 9,5 average points. Lannister must have a real good luck in events, battle cards, bids else GJ wins easily.

Maradona is right that Lanni's best chance of winning involves taking Pyke, and to do that you need control of the seas.  Once you have the three sea areas locked down (whether you are Lanni or Greyjoy), you have direct access and support for 4 strongholds, with 3 crowns and 5 barrels between them. Nowhere else on the map can you dominate anywhere near that rich a territory.  Honestly, Seagard should be a regular castle like the Eyrie, but that's neither here nor there.  The point is, I've only seen a couple of Lanni wins where they didn't have Pyke and Seagard. Most of the time when they keep peace the entire game, they wind up with the strongest land army, but using it to battle for 2nd place.  Stoney Sept can create an unbeatable base of support for Lanni's homelands, but expanding outside of that is dicey. Holding KL, CCP, or Highgarden against consistent sea support is extremely difficult. The Reach can be attacked, raided or supported by anyone and everyone, which generally means that you can only hold it until you are in the overall lead.

Beating Greyjoy is hard, but it is the only way for Lanni to really take its destiny in its own hands, or to win by conquering a single house.  Which is part of the incentive for Greyjoy to go north; it's slower and harder to conquer Stark, but if you do you can have a pretty good lock on 5-6 castles all the way to the end. Whereas you can conquer Lanni early, but have it only serve you to spend the back half of the game getting squeezed back into your homelands by a 3v1 effort.

In my experience, it’s much easier to win when fighting one another because you know that deep down, eventually one of you will backstab the other. Also, regarding castle proximity, you don’t have to push too far out in order to get seven castles as either house if you engage one another. Here are some of my recent examples.

Greyjoy games:
https://game.thronemaster.net/?review=1&game=137115
https://game.thronemaster.net/?review=1&game=138143


Lannister games:
https://game.thronemaster.net/?review=1&game=132961
https://game.thronemaster.net/?review=1&game=131148

In my limited experience, an alliance can work well for both players. Most games where I have seen the alliance, there was no betrayal involved. I have also been betrayed turn 1 as Lanni and got completely demolished.

If both players know how to play the game the alliance always benefits Lanni. It can also benefit Greyjoy, but it is a bit more complicated for him, in that it matters what type of players Tyrell and Stark are. If Tyrell and Stark are good players, it's better for Greyjoy to ally with Lanni.

If either the GJ or Lanni is a potato, then there is no reason for the other player to want an alliance. Too much good territories in such close quarters as both Lrich and Ser Hodor put it.

In your Lannister games examples my dear Lrich, both Greyjoy players were potatoes . The first one had an acceptable initial order set, but then he takes  Moat Cailin and NO Riverrun and antagonizes Stark in the process while he does not have an alliance with you   Then he uses Balon to keep Moat Cailin

The second game, you can see the potato from the initial orders. If you see any defense order being placed in the GJ initial 4 orders and he doesn't have any alliance with Lanni, you know someone is very inexperienced, trolling, or a potato . He also marches from Pyke with both the footman and knight to Seagard .


It is my belief that Lanni stands very little chance against a competent GJ player. Lanni needs a lot of luck with the Westeros Cards and with other people in the game to stand any chance of winning. The only thing Lanni has going for him is the promise of Mutual Assured Destruction. He can make GJ's life miserable, and cause him to eventually lose to Tyrell/Stark. The alliance is not there because GJ is afraid of Lanni, it's there so GJ doesn't get triple teamed.

Last edited by Zsa on 2017-Nov-11 04:56, edited 2x in total

It is my belief that Lanni stands very little chance against a competent GJ player. Lanni needs a lot of luck with the Westeros Cards and with other people in the game to stand any chance of winning. The only thing Lanni has going for him is the promise of Mutual Assured Destruction. He can make GJ's life miserable, and cause him to eventually lose to Tyrell/Stark. The alliance is not there because GJ is afraid of Lanni, it's there so GJ doesn't get triple teamed.
I think you're right about the last part.  Greyjoy might look a bit more tucked away to the side of the board, but he's a middle house that can easily find himself triple teamed if he gets ahead without being able to seal the deal.

Going north is prefereable for Greyjoy in a lot of ways, but the risk involved is more lost opportunity than anything.  Greyjoy starts with big advantages over Lanni, with an extra ship, the blade, and more powerful cards. But if the Westeros cards don't cooperate, Lanni can build up a big army quickly, while you're stalled out with hardly any troops and no star orders.  Whereas if you attacked Lanni straight away, you can wear them down and stop them from developing into a real threat.

I've seen Grejoy get an easy victory by stomping a weak lanny (often the case) in 2 turns regularly. For GJ going after lanny is often high reward.

Of course if Lanny, Tyrell and Stark are competent and act quickly they can turn things into hell for gj but certainly often is not the case.