From Under the Cloud of Season 8: A Tiny Epic Game of Thrones Review

Putting aside both season 8 distaste and the fact that it doesn't have anything truly original to say, this is still a pretty solid DoaM.

Never has a franchise reached such towering heights, only to crash to such unbelievable depths that not only is it basically not discussed any longer but the mention of it is usually the trigger for any number of cringes, electronic and otherwise. It's hard to believe that, prior to season 6, Game of Thrones was considered among the best TV productions of this century. Furthermore, prior to George R. R. Martin not making any progress on the series for fourteen years, it was also heralded as one of the outstanding epics of fantasy literature or genre literature, period. And then it all started to go south. Where once the gaming world was replete with examples of Westerosi presence (good and bad), these days, as with TV and books, it gets a shrug of acknowledgment, at best. It's no longer considered a license to be paid attention to, unlike other properties that continue to stand the test of time. So, akin to Tiny Epic Cthulhu, when Tiny Epic Game of Thrones was announced almost simultaneously with TEC, my reaction was muted. I still appreciate both books and show for what they were and will probably sit down with The Winds of Winter if Martin ever is able to complete it. But I'm not going to rush out and grab something simply because it has the GoT license attached since, like season 6-8, many of those games after the first round of releases in the 00s ranged from mediocre to downright bad. But I am a fan of the Tiny Epic series and Scott Almes, so I figured I'd stick with my path owning them all (something I can no longer say, incidentally) and try it out. And, again, unlike TEC, I didn't need an appreciation curve, since TE GoT is a pretty solid game right out of the gate.

Part of that is almost certainly rooted in its basic design, which is a combination of one of the best of the TE series in Tiny Epic Kingdoms and one of the most widely appreciated in Tiny Epic Galaxies. As with the latter, in TE GoT, dice are rolled to determine what actions are available and, as with the former, everyone at the table may choose to follow whatever main action you perform. There's a bit of a wrinkle in it in that all 5 (or 6 with the expansion) are rolled by the Hand of the King and then one die is selected by each player, while the fifth die is then circulated to give each player potentially two options in actions to take on their turn. On top of that, the dice are played on an action mat with six slots. Placing a die on a slot gives you an optional second action to take (and excludes anyone else from taking it for that round; there are 6 rounds in a game), as well, so the possibility to perform some compound moves does occur quite regularly. Also, abilities and cards that permit you to change a die face are plentiful throughout the game, so no one in our plays has ever felt genuinely constrained by the "randomness" of the dice; not least because if you don't get the result you want, you can follow someone else who does later in the round. What the dice and action may do instead is open up avenues that many players might not have considered when first selecting their dice and also provides avenues to responding more effectively to what happens in the turns before them. In that way, there is no "punishment" for going last and going first may not always be the advantage that it seems.

Like most DoaMs, those actions range among the usual suspects (March, Recruit, Sail) and the sligthly more particular (Whisper, Plot, Event.) The latter three are all oriented around the Plot card system, which is rooted in the card-driven wargames of the modern era, where cards can be used for either the points they provide for strength in battle or for the Events listed on them that change various factors at play. Whispering lets you discard cards for gold and new cards, while Plotting lets you acquire Power tokens from potential allied houses to sway them to your cause. House Arryn is the always available NPC, while the rest of the potential allies are made up of the houses not being played by humans. In addition, every player has a leader of their house who is a famous character of that family from the story and, in contrast to the meeples used as both troops and Power tokens, has a mini of fairly average quality to represent their position on the board. (Cue the requisite outrage among the Meeples-Only set in the TE community. Fewer of them every year, thankfully.)

The primary concern among many players of games like these is: How risky is attacking? And, I have to say, that Scott did a great job here in a number of ways. First off, the economy of the game displayed on the player mats restrains players from building up massive piles of units and laying waste with them. There are only 6 rounds in a game, so you have to get moving if you're going to win. Furthermore, the winner of a battle gains a VP, which is important, but the loser of the battle only loses 1 army/Power token (plus 1 for any allied forces with him which end up being acquired by the winner...) and then all the rest of their forces have to retreat. The one army that you lost? Gives you the reward listed under it for being returned to your player mat (either gold or a card.) Yes, it's a check to your plans, but it's not devastating and may just open up opportunities elsewhere. The combination of House and Ally abilities, Hero abilities, Hero cards, and Plot cards allow for some genuinely sweeping moves that are both thematic with the stories themselves and impressive for a game of this size. As noted, most of the House abilities are concerned with resetting dice to a particular face, so it's wise to play into those tendencies, but many of the Hero abilities lead directly to those sweeping moves, such as Euron Greyjoy who lets you move to anywhere on the map and, if you start a fight, steal a gold from the enemy first. Or Cersei Lanniser, who lets you do a free Recruit from one of your allies into a doman where a Hero from your house is present (i.e. potentially anywhere on the map.) I've seen some eye-goggling moves by people who've just been handed a loss in a previous turn, so there's a real sense of tension and excitement that accompanies most rounds, not least right after the dice are rolled to begin it.

As usual, the production is outstanding for what fits into the box. Not only do all of the house pieces carry their colors and heraldry, but the artwork on cards and mats is well done and distinct for each house and character. Even in a fairly crowded map of Westeros, it's still pretty easy to assess who is where and what at a glance. And, for that matter, to notice that House Baratheon is going to be knocking on your door next turn... The one exception to the presentation was the fairly odd choice to color House Stark's pieces a pine green. House Arryn is colored navy blue, but then it seems like Stark should have been white, no? Maybe it was a production issue? And speaking of production issues, one did indeed occur in that three Secret cards among the Plot cards are missing the 1 gold cost required to play them. That's not a huge deal, but it's also indicative of the difficulties that Gamelyn may have encountered trying to complete two games almost simultaneously (The TE series has always been one about every six months.) The "deluxe" version of the game added only a nice meeple for the Iron Throne and included Tyrion as an option for the Lannister hero, instead of Jaime. The Heroes Pack adds in another 7 heroes, one for each house of the main game. Meanwhile, the Ice & Fire expansion added not only the Night's Watch and House Targaryen as expansions, but also a whole different way to play the game, where everyone is cooperating to stop the advance of the Night King and his horde of zombies. I've only played this once, but it's a sufficient level of threat to be interesting.

So, yeah. If you're into dynamic wargames/DoaMs, you could do a lot worse than this production, regardless of your current opinion of the IP. Maybe if Dan and Dave had consulted Scott Almes, he might have suggested a better end to things. As it stands, this is probably the most exciting thing you're going to be seeing with "Game of Thrones" on the cover for some time.