This is general guideline. I haven't mastered Martell in this system as I play mostly 2nd edition but I'll give some basic guidelines.

1) Overview
Martell is known as a corner house with good defensive position. where your home territory should consist of 4 castles, 4 supply, and 3 consolidate power. Your natural target to 7 castles will be either baratheon or tyrell depending on who makes mistakes. It's best to make friends with tyrell if he respects your home territory and go after baratheon.

2) Home Territory
Starfall, prince pass, boneway, yronwood, storm's end and the others should be your home territory. Should Tyrell insist on prince pass or more territory, consider him to your enemy. Do not declare war but rather, plot your moves until you ready to attack him

3) Opening moves:
Sea of Dorne - March +1
Sunspear - Consolidate Power Special (blue line)
Saltshore - march +0, take starfall but you may consider not leaving a token if you feel having 5 tokens is important for a potential bid. If you suspect tyrell is hostile to you, change the march to CP. This may deter tyrell players from attacking you.

Consolidation - if you and tyrell are friendly, muster one ship in sea of dorne and one fm in sunspear. If tyrell is hostile or insist on prince path, make sure to have 2 ships in East summer sea and 1 in sea of dorne. You can muster 3 ships in WSS but that will signal your intentions to attack bara or tyrell.

If no muster comes, then make tyrell pay and attack his lone ship in WSS. However, consider that attacking with ships will limit your ability to claim your home territory so consider the trade-offs carefully.

3) Consolidation - Consolidate from sunspear, prince path (if friendl ywith tyrell) and port. If bara and you are friendly, then CP from boneway as well.

4) Track Position -
For martell, depending on your alliances, you may not necessary need track position. You can choose to bid minimally on king's court to save for the next cok if you feel you can.
Iron throne - if you attacking or hostile with tyrell, then being ahead of him in iron throne is important but not critical
Fiefdom - Being high is important as your 1 card can save you from loras. It also makes attacking tyrell and others more deadly as you can inflict more casualties.
King's Court - having stars are nice, but generally 1 or 2 is enough.

5) Few notes:
Your support from sea of dorne is unraidable but be aware of Barathone's card Sallador. The card can neutralize your support so make sure you have 3 ships out in WSS in case bara decides to attack. If bara has superior track position to you esp on the fiefdom, please be aware of your house cards and bara's position to attack.
- If you can take prince path, starfall and boneway, you can establish a 2nd support system around yronwood. That's important.

Last edited by jamie on 2013-Dec-16 05:46, edited 1x in total

Nicely done.
You can muster 3 ships in WSS Do you mean ESS?

but that will signal your intentions to attack bara or tyrell. Not only that - if Bara occupies Storm's End and there is a Mustering next turn, he will have a ship in Sea of Dorne. I think it would be difficult to get him out again (without compromising ESS).

hi,
i disagree that an Alliance with Tyrell is better than an Alliance with Baratheon.
Its almost impossible to gain the upperhand against Baratheon, because of two things:
1) in 95% of the Games, Bara will suüpport Bara against you in Battles in the Shipbreaker Bay. In 4% of the games, hes an idiot and only in 1% of the games its justified. The only real way to get the Shipbreaker Bay is either because Baratheon didnt muster enough ships or with a decent use of Arianne when Baratheon has only one ship in Shipbreaker Bay (attacking first from Storms End port and then from ESS).
2) If you cant take Shipbreaker Bay, you have to go over land, but for that you have to take first Kingswood and then Kings Landing against a strong supporting fleet in Blackwater Bay and easy counterattacks from Baratheon.

Allying with Tyrell usually ends up with Martell trying 10 rounds to overwhelm Baratheon (with maybe finally being able to do so) while Tyrell is getting stronger and stronger and backstabbing you in the end in Starfall. I wouldnt recommend that.

if Bara occupies Storm's End and there is a Mustering next turn, he will have a ship in Sea of Dorne. Thats why you either have to put a m+0 or a cp* in Sunspear (to take Storms End/muster into Sea of Dorne). Anyways, a m+1 in Sea of Dorne is a musthave, or Bara will just move into ESS.

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"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." , Terry Pratchett

if Bara occupies Storm's End and there is a Mustering next turn, he will have a ship in Sea of Dorne. Thats why you either have to put a m+0 or a cp* in Sunspear (to take Storms End/muster into Sea of Dorne). Anyways, a m+1 in Sea of Dorne is a musthave, or Bara will just move into ESS. Yes, the context was, that it is not good to muster both ships from the CP* in ESS.

Yes, because bara is higher on iron throne. But generally, bara would not take storms end unless martell gave his blessing.

Now martell target should be tyrell but preferably bara. Alliance with tyrell is the most beneficial because each one can consolidate power beside each other.

If tyrell insists on prince path, then strongly consider raging war against ur tyrell.

With that said, its best martell pressure bara. If shipbreaker cannot be attained, consider attacking kingswood and eventually king landing from yronwood or storm

Generally, if martell is able to consolidate his home base, wait for tyrell or bara to make a mistake then pounce.

If tyrell insists on prince path In my former games, Prince's Path was never the issue. An alliance was impossible because of Starfall.

If shipbreaker cannot be attained, consider attacking kingswood and eventually king landing from yronwood or storm This I don't understand. Kingswood might just be possible without Shipbreaker Bay. But take King's Landing without raiding the support in Blackwater Bay? I don't see a chance.

If tyrell insists on prince path In my former games, Prince's Path was never the issue. An alliance was impossible because of Starfall.

If shipbreaker cannot be attained, consider attacking kingswood and eventually king landing from yronwood or storm This I don't understand. Kingswood might just be possible without Shipbreaker Bay. But take King's Landing without raiding the support in Blackwater Bay? I don't see a chance.
If tyrell wants starfall, then it's considered war then. In that situation, just put a CP on saltshore. A smart tyrell player will realize u gearing up for war and may reconsider taking starfall immediately and consider other options.

Yes, taking kingswood is difficult but fighting over bara's territory, puts pressure on bara. If martell has troops to spare, it's not a bad idea. And yes, taking king's landing is pretty hard but honestly, i rather fight bara then tyrell unless tyrell is blatantly open.

Last edited by jamie on 2013-Dec-17 00:37, edited 2x in total

I had tried ultra-offensive strategy for Martel. Enough said it did not work due to randomnes of Westeros cards and i lost twice. It was basing on hoping on early Mustering instead CoK. What i was doing i was taking all Castles/strongholds, that Martel can possibly take in first round and trying to hold Bara in Check.

This is Impossible due to permament Reinforcment Order from Sea near Kings Landing (holding main Bara fleet). If Bara Will not go North to engage Stark than being all-out-offence does not work.

Player ends up being not strong enough to conquer Bara and wide open to Tyrell who is almost never bothered by Lanni (overoccupied by GJ).

I will try playing in a more balanced way now. The result will be probably better - but it just does not feel right NOT to try a rush approach with Martell :/

A few things:

1) Going after tyrell isn't necessary set in stone. If tyrell offers prince path, and tyrell can prevent gj from wiping out lanni, there's benefits to going after bara.

just try to be flexible

The Stark MArtell ALliance against BAratheon is only holding until Baratheons fleet is destroyed. After that both can attack or retake shipbreaker bay easier than against Baratheon with Salla.

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AFFC PBF - #10
You do not need to know everything, but where to read it.-Albert Einstein-

Reading is overrated.-sarcasm off-

Martell is a corner house but its strong defensive position allow to regulate the board. My most interesting games as Martell are the ones where GJ try to rush Lanni as it often happens.
I try to convince Bara to help Lanni while acting non-agressively towards him and offer a non raid deal on ironwood. As Stark has no opponents on North, Bara will not plan to invade you, Stark being a massive threat.
In the same time, I offer full alliance to Tyrell and give all the positive signals I can to convince him to push in Sunset. Once he's there, there's no real threat of backstabbing.
As you have 2 friendly neighbors, you can CP hard (you need to negotiate PP in the beginning with Tyrell), get the throne, neglect sword track and only one star is necessary to cp* and get tokens.
With the throne, you can try to balance the fights on the other side of the board and even take the wildlings casualty if needed as you can afford that with your strong defensive position.

I will respect my alliance with Tyrell that will end around turn 6-7 and then, you can use the spares tokens to get sword and rush the easier target.

I'm currently having a pbem in this configuration and seeing GJ wiped by Lanni and Tyrell is always a lot of fun :
https://game.thronemaster.net/?game=77489&review=1

Martell Tyrell alliance is a real benefit for the both houses and you have to be patient to prepare a massive offensive in the last 3 turns. Early rushes on Tyrell will get you alone against the world with a lot of difficulties to have good track positions.

Last edited by blondin on 2016-Apr-23 21:05, edited 1x in total

I find it pretty hard to go after Bara early, unless Tyrell cooperates with you and queen of thorns his support in Blackwater bay.

Stark can be an ally against Bara as well, but typically they prefer to build up the north early on.

Given that Bara is a pretty easy opponent after shipbreaker bay falls, and given that taking shipbreaker bay immidiatly propels martell in a potentially winning position, Stark doesnt get much out of helping you, unless Baratheon was agressive against him before that.
If I'm stark, I want Martell in the shipbreaker bay, at the end it will be far easier to go south. Tyrell will also fight Martell if he takes Dragonstone.