Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The game system (rules, mechanics) of Battles of Westeros (BoW) is very similar to the basic BattleLore game (and Memoir 44, et al.) game series by Days of Wonder.
The tactical gameplay, however, is much different and much improved in BoW. I've played both and BoW is a more satisfying experience primarily because of the way you command units in BoW. In basic BattleLore, you and your opponent draw cards from a deck and the commands on these cards are generally restricted to issuing orders in one of three zones of the battlefield (Left, Center or Right). This creates situations where you may be unable to issue commands to units in a critical area of the board for no reason other than your cards don't match that region.
In BoW, there are no Left/Center/Right regions. You still draw cards, but the orders are issued by leaders represented by figures on the board. Wherever the leader is, you use the card to command and control one or more units near the leader. Right away this makes the basic game more interesting than Battlelore since it almost always allows you to command critical units on your turn and also makes capturing (and protecting) these leaders a part of the game (regardless of scenario).
In addition to leaders and cards, BoW uses a random roll each round to give each player tokens that can be used to command units (one at a time). Again, an improvement to basic gameplay that allows for greater freedom of choice for tactical maneuvering and fighting without adding to the complexity of overall game mechanics.
There are other difference between the rules of BattleLore and BoW, but what I described above is the single biggest change that greatly improves the BoW experience over BattleLore.
The one area where BoW falls down is in the quality of its plastic unit components. The figures are separated from their bases and do not snap in tightly. You will have to glue the figures to their bases if you don't want the figures falling down or separating from the bases throughout the game. This would seem to be no big deal except that the legs of most figures are very thin and liable to bend and break off from the base. BoW was produced by Fantasy Flight games instead of Days of Wonder, and this may be why the figures are poorer quality. We played a game without gluing the figures to the bases and constantly had to keep standing the figures up and re-inserting them into bases. This major flaw reduced what was otherwise an excellent game experience to an excellent-but-at-times-annoying one.
Final note. I am a fan of the Game of Thrones series of books and enjoyed the extra dimension this theme adds to BoW.
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Unfurl the banners of the Great Houses of Westeros! To secure power in the Seven Kingdoms and to ensure the survival of their lines, the Houses of Westeros each follow very different paths. Some forge strategic alliances, some create complex political intrigues, and still others use deceit and betrayal. But there is no more direct or lasting path to power than taking to the field of battle.In Battles of Westeros, two players recreate the military conflicts set in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, taking part in battles directly from the books... or designing their own. In this epic board game of battlefield tactics, players control either House Stark, the wards of Winterfell who have called their hearty allies to defend their honor and lands, or House Lannister, an aggressive force funded by Casterly Rock's endless supply of gold.
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