A Game of Thrones: A Feast for Crows

The reprint of the Game of Thrones board game included most parts of the previous expansions from the first run, so Fantasy Flight needed new ideas for the new expansion. The second expansion for the reprint is titles Feast for Crows after the 4th book in series (inexplicably being released after Dance with Dragons, named after the 5th book). A Game of Thrones is a great game, but is this small, card-only expansion worthy?

Additions

House Arryn – A new house is introduced to the game with a new set of character cards. They are interesting and focus on available power tokens for the most part. However, I have a major problem with the addition of the Arryns into the game. They do not come with their own components!
Each house in the game as their own set of beautiful, marbled troop tokens in their house colours. Except the Arryns. They rules say just to use the green Tyrell tokens. Really? How great would it be to have a new set of sky blue components and fully include the Vale in the game. But no, Fantasy Flight cheaped out, just to they could contain the expansion as a simple deck of cards. I feel ripped off. Missed opportunity.

New 4-player set up – So the Feast for Crows expansion is 4-player only (Stark, Baratheon, Lannister, Arryn), and as such they each have new set-ups to make the game work. Not much more to say about that.

Objectives – The main reason for this expansion it to introduce objectives, which are missions that can be claimed by the players for points. Therefore, the regular objective of capturing 7 castles is replaced by mission points. For example, one of the objectives is to control the home area of any other house. Once you do that, you play the card and get the points. And the points are adjusted depending on which house meets the goal, as goals can be easier for some.

Critique

Best Feature: Um, the objectives are…. good. They are interesting to play with and add a new aspect to the game. But… they also mess with the overall nature of the game at the same time. I’ll discuss that in my final thoughts.

When to use: You can only use this when you have 4-players, and you should only use this if you play the game a lot and are looking to switch things up quite a bit. Its fun every once in a while, but should not be used most of the time.

Does it fit?: Yes, its just a deck of cards. I store mine under the insert flap.

What type: This is a different scenario expansion.

Overall: Okay, I liked trying out the objectives. It reminded me of the Mission variant of Risk, which is fun for a lark. But the problem is that it takes away from the essence of the original game. Its no longer a game about conquering as much territory and controlling as much land and power as possible, and that’s what Game of Thrones should be. Add in the fact that Fantasy Flight refused to make this collection complete with a full set of Arryn components, and I can’t recommend this.