837 replies to this topic

[stevehouston]

I'd like to get a spot going for any Night's Watch players--I love this faction.  I have been tinkering with this deck and so far I am 3-0 with it on OCTGN.  I know that means literally nothing, but what I do know is that Night's Watch has some really great features that make them, I believe, very light-footed and versatile while at the same time able to amass power quickly.

 

http://thronesdb.com...wbara-new-remix

 

NWBara new remix

 

The Night's Watch / Banner of the Stag

 

Packs: Core Set (3)

 

Plots

1x Building Orders (Core Set)

1x Calling the Banners (Core Set)

1x Calm Over Westeros (Core Set)

1x Confiscation (Core Set)

1x Filthy Accusations (Core Set)

1x Marching Orders (Core Set)

1x Wildfire Assault (Core Set)

 

Characters

2x Littlefinger (Core Set)

2x Maester Cressen (Core Set)

2x Melisandre (Core Set)

2x Bastard in Hiding (Core Set)

3x Fiery Followers (Core Set)

2x Benjen Stark (Core Set)

1x Ghost (Core Set)

2x Jon Snow (Core Set)

2x Maester Aemon (Core Set)

1x Old Bear Mormont (Core Set)

2x Samwell Tarly (Core Set)

1x Ser Waymar Royce (Core Set)

1x Yoren (Core Set)

3x Messenger Raven (Core Set)

2x Old Forest Hunter (Core Set)

3x Ranging Party (Core Set)

3x Steward at the Wall (Core Set)

2x Veteran Builder (Core Set)

 

Locations

1x The Iron Throne (Core Set)

3x The Kingsroad (Core Set)

3x The Roseroad (Core Set)

2x Dragonstone Port (Core Set)

1x Chamber of the Painted Table (Core Set)

1x Castle Black (Core Set)

2x The Wall (Core Set)

 

Attachments

2x Milk of the Poppy (Core Set)

2x Longclaw (Core Set)

 

Events

1x Superior Claim (Core Set)

2x Seen In Flames (Core Set)

3x A Meager Contribution (Core Set)

1x Take the Black (Core Set)

 

Best cards for me have been:

 

Messenger Raven--holy heck, these guys are great.  Like, phenomenal.  With the Wall out they easily help you win dominance and then draw cards.  Or just soak claim.  I've found myself killing off Bastards in Hiding or something before killing my ravens, though.

 

Ranging Party--what a deal.  Amazing alone, and throw any combination of The Wall, Longclaw, Jon Snow on/with them, and they win games.  Also best art on card.

 

Benjen--you can win with this deck in one turn if you are on about 10 power, with various combinations of cards, but Benjen usually nabs you at least 1/8 or 2/8 of those.

 

Sam Tarly--yes, +1 reserve does really actually help a lot, especially when he's tending to the ravens.  You can also frequently use him to win INT challenges and draw even more cards.

 

The Wall--The Wall works.  Every game, it fires at least once, usually twice, and meanwhile buffs all your guys.  It works.

 

I threw Banner of the Stag on here for the kneel package, but mostly because I think playing banners is really good right now just because you have access to great setup cheapies when you add in a banner. I've found the core NW strategy of working together to be what wins me games, rather than the banner.  I can see this working with any number of banners.

 

Anyone else having success with this faction?

[szczudel]

I would not call my experience a success 

I have very mixed experience. I think that my win/loss ratio is about 50% and I played couple  dozens games. I love to play with them but too many factors need to occur for comfortable game. I have written many times about it:

-Wall needs to appear, since I think that "Building Orders" is waste of plot  and I'd rather take my risks without it (while waiting for some agenda securing this location in setup).

-Gold needs to be flowing - If i Find myself without 2 Roseroads + 1 Kingsroad by the end of round 5 it is highly probable I cannot win anyway. NW suffers a lot from the lack of 0-cost economy locations. Meager Contribution is a great mean to choke opponent but only when Naval Superiority hits the target. Otherwise it's 2 gold swing is rather a waste of card than a difference.

-Draw engine resources must be in play. If no messenger Ravens occur, I most likely run out of cards and not because of loosing INT challanges. This must have been identified by FFG since First Chapter gives Insight character.

 

Every second opponent praises me that i play in more elegant way than other NW they encounter - so something must be right with my approach.

 

What I am concerned about is that NW needs some powering-up. Those that are soonest to appear are in form of CP, which we all know will rotate.

For The Watch, Will or even some economy locations will not be forever and in my opinion they are key elements for NW to keep it's character (Especially For the Watch). I know they will probalby have subsitutes but still NW is, in my opinion, first faction that needs Deluxe Expansion.

[chrsjxn]

Yeah, right now I think the Night's Watch is really dependent on a few things. You need Jon and Longclaw. You need the Messenger Ravens and Old Forest Hunters for economy (or good luck drawing into your neutrals). My build is fealty to maximize the latter, and make The Wall a more impactful location.

 

A few more low cost bicons will make it better. Or another efficient bicon like the Ranging Party. Swap out Old Bear and the Veteran Builders and go to town.

 

Lord Snow, King of the Joust

 

The Night's Watch / Fealty

 

Packs: Core Set (3)

 

Plots

1x Calling the Banners (Core Set)

1x Confiscation (Core Set)

1x Counting Coppers (Core Set)

2x Jousting Contest (Core Set)

1x Summons (Core Set)

1x Wildfire Assault (Core Set)

 

Characters

2x Littlefinger (Core Set)

3x Benjen Stark (Core Set)

2x Ghost (Core Set)

3x Jon Snow (Core Set)

3x Maester Aemon (Core Set)

2x Old Bear Mormont (Core Set)

2x Samwell Tarly (Core Set)

2x Ser Waymar Royce (Core Set)

2x Yoren (Core Set)

3x Messenger Raven (Core Set)

3x Old Forest Hunter (Core Set)

3x Ranging Party (Core Set)

3x Steward at the Wall (Core Set)

3x Veteran Builder (Core Set)

 

Locations

3x The Kingsroad (Core Set)

3x The Roseroad (Core Set)

3x The Wall (Core Set)

 

Attachments

3x Milk of the Poppy (Core Set)

3x Longclaw (Core Set)

 

Events

3x The Hand's Judgment (Core Set)

3x A Meager Contribution (Core Set)

3x Take the Black (Core Set)

[szczudel]

Whether you need Jon and Longclaw strictly depends on your approach. But yes, if you decide go all out offence - Jon(dupped) + Claw is essential.

 

You have perfect example on it in your deck: Jousting Contest x2.

 

I kind of do not understand why in faction thread people are posting decks? We are to discuss mechanics, future cards etc, not someone decks. Or maybe I misinterpret such thread's purpose.

 

One thing that disadvantages NW is lack of means to surprise opponent in challenges (Except Sword in darkness). 

When you play NW you must exactly know who has Ambush, or some pumping/removal event so that you may plan accordingly. Opponent's on the other hand see all your assets on the board - when they attack there is no surprise for them at any moment.

[Solaris]

Since the first pack focuses on NW, I think FFG is withholding the cards that this faction needs so they can fill the quota in the pack.

[szczudel]

We still need to see what "focus" is all about in CP. Right now we do not know. Will the cards be equally distributed or "leading faction" will get 4/5 cards and the rest only one? 

[ingsve]

What is everyones thought on Old Forest Hunter?

 

I have yet to put him in any deck I've built and I have a hard time seeing the value in him. Granted I haven't built a NW-Fealty deck so I haven't had the need to use every card in the faction.

 

To me a card in hand is Worth a lot more than 1 gold so I have a hard time justifying ever using him. For income I generally use the 0-cost reducers from my banner house and to make that worth it I go way beyond the minimum of 12 cards from the banner house. That a long with the 6 1 cost reducers has usually been enough adding the neutral cards. I've sometimes used A Meager Contribution a sometimes it works to change which character the opponent can afford but a lot of the time that extra gold might not even be used.

[szczudel]

He can be useful. Most obvious reason - lucky Head on Spikes victim's dupes.

Sometimes when I see there is no way to use Sword in Darkness or I am missing one key gold I use him. 

 

Very,very rarely I even use his ability 3 times in a round (plot, draw, marshaling) - let's say my plot is feast for Crows and I know i will not use enough cards to meet reserve requirements. 

[ooo]

I think Old Forest Hunter is the card the CGDB review got most badly wrong - he's pretty much awful but they all 4/5 rated him.

 

My review of their review of Night's Watch, and some thoughts about the faction as a whole...

http://oldgodsandthe...s-was-that.html

[WWDrakey]

I think Old Forest Hunter is the card the CGDB review got most badly wrong - he's pretty much awful but they all 4/5 rated him.

 

My review of their review of Night's Watch, and some thoughts about the faction as a whole...

http://oldgodsandthe...s-was-that.html

 

Those are excellent write-ups on the reviews all round btw. Would gladly recommend to anybody. 

 

Quality writing, and you manage to reduce the (fairly overlength) data into a clear and engaging narrative.

[ooo]

Those are excellent write-ups on the reviews all round btw. Would gladly recommend to anybody. 

 

Quality writing, and you manage to reduce the (fairly overlength) data into a clear and engaging narrative.

Thanks!

 

Once the factions are all complete I'm working on some ways of comparing the houses that look to be throwing up some interesting findings.  The most important thing, I think, is that the unweighted % scores in the review make it read like Messenger Raven is as good as Tyrion Lannister or Great Kraken, which clearly isn't true.  So in their mean ratings there's very little difference between the factions but when you start weighting those ratings a bit then you get some clear patterns about where houses are strong/weak.

 

eg. I've fine-tuning my weighting but you get something like this as the most powerfiul cards in Core (before Tyrell are rated).


So these reviews of their reviews are hopefully useful on their own, but the real value will come once I've incorporated all the data and begin cross-comparing.

[szczudel]

I have mixed feelings about your analysis. You are trying to create some kind of ranking based on those articles from main page. First of all they are subjective, secondly this does not serve any purpose.

 

Basically anyone building a deck takes pool of all available cards for him and compares cards based on their effectiveness in his strategy. Reviewing card and giving them grades is rather pointless.

 

I know that Jon S. might be a more interesting card than Old Forrest hunter, but in a defensive deck Hunter might be more useful. Should I then grade Hunter higher than Jon or the opposite. 

 

I would like to see those reviews concentrating on possibilities of use rather than giving them score.

[ooo]

I have mixed feelings about your analysis. You are trying to create some kind of ranking based on those articles from main page. First of all they are subjective, secondly this does not serve any purpose.

 

Basically anyone building a deck takes pool of all available cards for him and compares cards based on their effectiveness in his strategy. Reviewing card and giving them grades is rather pointless.

 

I know that Jon S. might be a more interesting card than Old Forrest hunter, but in a defensive deck Hunter might be more useful. Should I then grade Hunter higher than Jon or the opposite. 

 

I would like to see those reviews concentrating on possibilities of use rather than giving them score.

 

They're subjective, but if the subjective opinion of many people is similar then it's no longer subjective.  In other games I would do this from multiple websites reviewing cards, CGDB is just handily putting those all in one place.

And I'm not suggesting anywhere that this tells you how to build a deck - if power was everything we'd be cramming every Lord & Lady into our deck x3 and ignoring the cheap guys.  I'm also suggesting it helps you understand what other people think of a card in general use, not in your specific strategy.  I think it would be more less helpful for reviews to talk about cards only in terms of when they might be good, and in doing so ignore that some cards are clearly much better than others.

 

You're choosing to object to something I'm not saying and ignore the value in what I actually am saying.

[szczudel]

Maybe I will ask a question:

 

Let's say I win game because I used Old Forrest Hunter to produce 1 Gold, and that gold wins me dominance while having Feast For Crows plot.

 

So is it good or bad card? 3.3/6 or maybe 4.7?

[ingsve]

Maybe I will ask a question:

 

Let's say I win game because I used Old Forrest Hunter to produce 1 Gold, and that gold wins me dominance while having Feast For Crows plot.

 

So is it good or bad card? 3.3/6 or maybe 4.7?

 

Definately 3.3...And Feast for Crows 4.7

[ooo]

Maybe I will ask a question:

 

Let's say I win game because I used Old Forrest Hunter to produce 1 Gold, and that gold wins me dominance while having Feast For Crows plot.

 

So is it good or bad card? 3.3/6 or maybe 4.7?

 

I'd say that has little relevance on the card rating of Old Forest Hunter.

1. If you weren't playing Old Forest Hunter what you have played instead?
2. What card did you discard?  Unless the game ended right then it probably had a value.
3. What other cards did you play that turn and meant you only had Hunter to generate Gold... could you have played a different card instead and left yourself with 1 Gold, thus not forcing you to use Hunter?

4. Was gaining 3 power through Dominance actually important?  Would you have won the game just more slowly, if instead of the devastating Old Forest Hunter/Sword in the Darkness/Card in Hand combo you had played any three other cards?

Your example is actually a prime reason why you can't review cards like this, because every card is useful at some point in some way.  Every card can be really good or make a gamewinning difference in a particular situation.  Card ratings 1-5 are about how likely/frequent that scenario is, for your investment of time/gold/opportunity in playing that card.

[kizerman86]

NW Fealty is decent, and I think NW decks in general have the *potential* of being a real contender.

 

For now, however, they basically auto-lose to Bara and can't really be taken to a tourney with the expectation of going undefeated.  It could happen, sure, but they aren't a consistent T1 faction for now, IMO.

[Masterdinadan]

I think I'm something like 8-1 with NW fealty. The Wall and Castle Black are very very good. Longclaw is nice with Jon Snow (but I'm usually playing defensively). In any case, running Building Orders to pull one of these is a good idea.

Old Forest Hunter is quite good. At worst, he's cheap claim soak that will oppose mil for a turn. If you have good draw from multiple Ravens, he turns your junk cards into more throughput. And you usually draw some junk (location dupes, or cards that just don't fit to the current situation).

[ooo]

This deck has shaped up quite nicely for me, pairing Night's Watch with Tyrell and replacing Jon Snow with Randyll Tarly.
http://thronesdb.com...e-counted-v1-1-



It's early days but the synergy between the two factions is pretty strong.

[drakk]

Targ was my house in 1.0,  and in 2.0  Nights Watch is getting right up there for me, second favorite right now and I'm really enjoying playing them.

 

Jon snow hasn't really been making my decks, I find Bara is a good banner and I'm actually enjoying targ as a banner, decided to try it out because no one else wants to play them as a banner house , but a lot of cheap no attachments characters sounds good to me, and who wouldn't want Jorah to be reunited