“The word of a Tyrell is worth more than all the gold in Casterly Rock. At least it was in my day.”
–The Queen of Thorns, A Storm of Swords
Across the verdant stretches of the Reach to their stronghold at Highgarden, House Tyrell holds sway over the south of Westeros. Their title as Wardens of the South gives them command over a quarter of the realm’s armies… but their stranglehold on the Seven Kingdoms' primary source of food gives them power that stretches far beyond their military strength. When observing House Tyrell, a cunning duality slowly grows apparent. On the surface, a veneer of honor and chivalry buys them the love of the smallfolk and the naïve—but beneath the ephemeral petals, you’ll find the iron-hard thorns of deadly schemes and plots.
Now, you can pledge your fealty to House Tyrell and call your banners alongside them with the House of Thorns deluxe expansion for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, now available at your local retailer! With this expansion, House Tyrell rises to the top with a massive influx of new characters, locations, attachments, and events, including new versions of iconic characters like The Queen of Thorns, The Knight of Flowers, and Margaery Tyrell.
Though House Tyrell justly receives the bulk of the new cards in their deluxe expansion, they’re not alone. Every other faction receives two new non-loyal cards, and fittingly, the Maesters of Oldtown receive several new neutral cards in this expansion, including their own agenda, The Conclave (House of Thorns, 45).
With the House of Thorns expansion, the Tyrells gain an arsenal of new effects to increase their characters’ STR—but perhaps none are as reusable as Wardens of the South (House of Thorns, 46). Until the end of the phase, whenever one of your Tyrell characters is declared as an attacker or a defender, Wardens of the South increases that character’s STR. If you’re using a character who can benefit from increased STR across multiple challenges, such as Randyll Tarly (Core Set, 183) or Brienne of Tarth (House of Thorns, 2), then Wardens of the South can have a significant impact on the flow of the game.
Wardens of the South is not the only new card in House of Thorns with the potential to raise your character’s STR either. A new version of The Knight of Flowers (House of Thorns, 7) increases his STR every time that you play an event, while Desmera Redwyne (House of Thorns, 13) can work either way, boosting your allies or lowering the STR of your opponent’s characters.
Boosting your characters’ STR to ludicrous heights can help you win challenges, but it’s not an end in itself—unless you can find some way to capitalize on it. Highgarden Courtier (House of Thorns, 15) offers your first hints of a reward. After any character’s STR is increased by a card effect, you can kneel the Highgarden Courtier to stand that character—letting you use that character in multiple challenges and making every STR boost more important.
Alternatively, you may play Melee at Bitterbridge (House of Thorns, 22). This event lets you choose a number of characters participating in a challenge. The character with the highest STR gains renown, and every other character no longer contributes its STR to the challenge! Unless you find yourself in a melee against the likes of Robert Baratheon (Core Set, 48), there’s a good chance this event can let your Tyrells reign supreme and claim victory at the tourney grounds.
The Power of the Reach
House Tyrell’s ambitions are strong. Their knights are the cream of the realm and their schemers at court are unmatched in cunning.
Bastards and Bloodriders
House Martell has a long history of animosity with the Tyrells. The two Houses have bickered and warred over the Dornish Marches for decades, and even when House Martell was brought into the Seven Kingdoms by marriage with the Targaryens, there has been little love between Tyrell and Martell bannermen. It’s fitting, then, that Martell receives a location like Hellholt (House of Thorns, 32).
Hellholt is a two-gold location with a simple effect—after you lose a challenge by five or more STR, Hellholt gains one power. At first glance, this may seem like a simple inverse of a Tyrell location— The Honeywine (Watchers on the Wall, 38). There are, however, a few crucial differences.
First, The Honewine requires you to win a challenge by five or more STR as the attacking player. To trigger Hellholt, on the other hand, you simply need to lose a challenge by five or more STR—on attack or defense. This automatically raises the threshold for the number of times you could trigger Hellholt in a single round. The Honeywine could only be triggered three times at most, barring effects that grant additional challenges, such as Olenna's Informant (Core Set, 189). Hellholt, on the other hand, could conceivably be triggered six times in a single round! Even if that seems unfeasible, it’s undeniable that you’ll certainly lose several challenges by five or more STR in the course of a normal game. And with House Tyrell’s penchant for boosting their characters’ STR, Hellholt becomes even more likely to collect extra power.
The other Martell card in House of Thorns gives you a way to grab some power, but it can also boost your economy and help you spring some surprises. The Bastard of Godsgrace (House of Thorns, 31) is a respectable character on his own, featuring good STR and icons, and he's cheap enough to quickly bring into play with Arianne Martell (Core Set, 104). These attributes are paired with the renown keyword to grab more power—an aspect of the game where the Martells have been historically weak. You can use The Bastard of Godsgrace's power for far more interesting tactics than simply winning the game, however.
As a Challenges Action, you can discard one power from The Bastard of Godsgrace to reduce the cost of the next card you play or ambush this phase by two! Obviously, playing events like Tears of Lys (Core Set, 44), Vengeance for Elia (Calm Over Westeros, 96), or You Murdered Her Children (Lions of Casterly Rock, 30) without needing to save any gold can have a significant impact on the game. Or, you may use The Bastard of Godsgrace to ambush Areo Hotah (Core Set, 103), Southron Messenger (Watchers on the Wall, 31), or Venomous Blade (Called to Arms, 36) at a discounted price. Ultimately, The Bastard of Godsgrace offers an unprecedented freedom for planning your tricks.
House Targaryen has tricks of its own in House of Thorns—especially with Qotho (House of Thorns, 37). Characters with the ambush keyword are relatively common. Qotho offers a twist by allowing you to pay with your cards instead of gold. By discarding two other Targaryen cards from your hand, you can put Qotho into play without paying a single gold! In many circumstances, springing a five STR character into play without warning can be a notable swing in the game's tempo, and Qotho is even more valuable if you use him to activate your other Bloodriders. Giving stealth to Jhogo (True Steel, 113) and intimidate to Rakharo (The Road to Winterfell, 33) is simply a bonus to Qotho rushing to your side in the fight.
Finally, you may be able to combat the power-rush tendencies of House Tyrell with a new Targaryen attachment: Tokar (House of Thorns, 38). In A Song of Ice and Fire, the tokar is a garment worn by the Ghiscari elite… but it’s also a symbol of the strictures of Ghiscari culture, entangling Daenerys in a web of bureaucracy, tradition, and compromise. Now, in your games of A Game of Thrones: The Card Game, you can use a Tokar to entrap your opponents in a similar way.
A Tokar can be given to any Targaryen character, and it raises the attached character’s STR for each attachment on that character. Boosting a character’s STR is most likely not enough to warrant inclusion—but a Tokar’s effects don’t stop there. In fact, it forces your opponents to play by your rules if they want to play the game of thrones. While your character wearing a Tokar is participating in a challenge, characters cannot gain power… unless they have attachments of their own! If your opponent was hoping to race to fifteen power by employing an wide assortment of characters with renown, a few Tokars could stop your opponent dead and force him to reconsider his battle plans.
Burn the Reach
Tyrell is ascendant with the coming release of the House of Thorns deluxe expansion, but that doesn’t mean the other factions are defenseless.