You asked
How do I setup the game?
Answered counted as answeredAsked with: A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragonsbg-257496-en-1e
To setup the game, follow these steps:
1. Determine Player and Vassal Houses: Choose a player randomly; starting with that player and proceeding clockwise, each player selects the house they will play for.[1] Any house (except Targaryen) not chosen becomes a neutral vassal.[1] If playing with House Targaryen, place the Essos side board against the right side of the main board so the bottom of both boards are flush and aligned; otherwise, return the Essos board to the box.[2]
2. Gather House Materials: Each player gathers materials corresponding to their chosen house, including 1 player screen, 7 house cards, 15 order tokens, 3 sea order tokens, 1 supply token, 3 influence tokens, 1 victory point token, 1 garrison token, and all plastic units of their color.[1] The Targaryen player gathers 20 loyalty tokens and 7 house cards marked with an 'A'.[1]
3. Gather Vassal Materials: For each determined vassal, gather 1 vassal setup card, 1 supply token, 3 influence tokens, 1 garrison token, and all plastic units in their color.[3]
4. Prepare the Game Board: Unfold the game board and place it in the center of the play area.[2] Place the Eyrie and Bite overlays on the game board and the influence track extension next to the game board.[2]
5. Prepare Decks and Tokens: Shuffle the wildling cards to form a deck and place it on the space provided at the top of the game board.[3] Place the wildling threat token on the '2' position of the wildlings track.[3] Separate the Westeros cards into decks according to their Roman numeral (I, II, and III), shuffle each deck, and place them separately facedown next to the game board.[3] If playing with House Targaryen, also shuffle the Westeros cards labeled 'IV' and place that deck facedown next to the Westeros III deck.[3] Place the game round marker on the '1' position of the round track.[3] If playing with House Targaryen, place one dragon strength token on spaces '2,' '4,' '6,' '8,' and '10' of the round track.[3]
6. Place Influence Tokens: Place each house's influence tokens on the influence tracks according to the order shown in the rules, regardless of player count.[4] If any vassals are in any of the top three spaces of a track, remove all vassals from that track, slide the player tokens forward, and fill the empty spaces at the end of the track with the removed vassals, maintaining their original order.[5]
7. Place Tokens and Units: The house occupying the highest position on each influence track claims the matching dominance token (Iron Throne, Valyrian Steel Blade, or Messenger Raven).[5] Place each vassal's victory point token near the Iron Throne track (these are vassal markers).[5] For each vassal, assign a set of four vassal order tokens to the player highest on the Iron Throne track who does not already have a set (in a three-player game, the fourth set goes to the player on the highest position of the Iron Throne, who starts with two sets).[5] Place each player's starting units on the game board according to their player screen.[5] Place each vassal's starting units on the game board according to its vassal setup card.[5] Place each house's victory and supply tokens on the game board as instructed on the back of its player screen.[3] For each vassal, place their supply token on space '4' of the supply track.[3]
8. Place Garrison and Neutral Force Tokens: Place each house's garrison token on its home area.[6] Place the 'King's Landing' neutral force token in King's Landing.[6] If playing with House Targaryen, place one loyalty token in King's Landing.[6] If playing with House Targaryen, place the Braavos neutral force token in the Braavos area.[6]
9. Prepare Braavos and the Iron Bank: If playing with House Targaryen, shuffle the loan cards, place the deck facedown on the designated space at the top of the Essos side board, and draw one loan card to place faceup in the rightmost space of the Iron Bank track (marked with the '7').[6]
[1]
RULEBOOK
[2]
RULEBOOK
[3]
RULEBOOK
[4]
RULEBOOK
[5]
RULEBOOK
[6]
RULEBOOK
That's the page. Back to the table.
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
- outcome
- ANSWERED — Answered
- corpus profile
- live,vps
- answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
- gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
- timings
- search 83 ms · ask 7024 ms · total 7112 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 0 ms · generation 7112 ms
- retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
- [{"page": 4, "score": 0.032522, "snippet": "Place each house's influence tokens on the influence tracks according to the order shown below. Ignore the order listed on the player screens. Then, if any vassals are in any of the top three spaces of a track, remove all vassals from that track and slide the player tokens forward. Finally, fill the", "headingPath": "9. Place and Adjust Influence Tokens · 10. Claim Dominance Tokens · 11. Place Vassal Markers and Assign Vassal Tokens · 12. Place Units", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "This Mother of Dragons expansion increases the player count in the game to eight by adding two new playable houses, Arryn and Targaryen. Also, a vassal system increases the viability of playing with fewer than eight players. Finally, a new Essos side board extends the place space and allows for the ", "headingPath": "Mother of Dragons · Using This Expansion · MOTHER OF DRAGONS SETUP · 1. Determine Player and Vassal Houses · 2. Gather House Materials · Expansion Icon", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 4, "score": 0.030777, "snippet": "If players have both the A Feast for Crows and the A Dance With Dragons expansions, they can decide as a group to play Mother of Dragons with an alternate set of house cards that thematically emulate the state of the houses in the later books of the series. (These may contain plot spoilers.) To play", "headingPath": "Alternate House Card Set dAeneRyS tARGARyen 4 · 4. Gather Vassal Materials · 5. Prepare the Wildling Deck and Wildling Threat Token · 6. Prepare the Westeros Decks · 7. Place Markers on Round Track · 8. Place Victory and Supply Tokens", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030536, "snippet": "Place the garrison token for each house on its home area (matching the area name on the token). Then, place the 'King's Landing' neutral force token in King's Landing. House Targaryen: If playing with House Targaryen, place one loyalty token in King's Landing. Loyalty Token House Targaryen: If playi", "headingPath": "13. Place Garrison and Neutral Force Tokens · 14. Prepare Braavos and the Iron Bank · 15. Gather Power Tokens · ESSOS BOARD · VASSALS", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.030214, "snippet": "2 MOTHER OF DRAGONS 48 Plastic Units 7 Vassal Setup Cards The Baratheon vassal starts with the following components on the game board: ɇ 1 Ship in Blackwater Bay ɇ 2 Ships in Shipbreaker Bay ɇ 2 Knights in Dragonstone ɇ 1 Footman in The Kingswood ɇ 1 Footman in Storm’s End Vassal Setup A Game of Thr", "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.027885, "snippet": "Vassals do not participate in bids against wildling attacks, do not gain any benefits or suffer any penalties from wildling cards, and cannot be chosen as the highest or lowest bidder as specified by game effects on wildling cards. This section contains additional rules for vassals. ɇ ɇ Vassals cann", "headingPath": "Wilding Attacks · Additional Vassal Rules · HOUSE TARGARYEN · Targaryen Victory", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.027584, "snippet": "MOTHER OF DRAGONS 1 Essos Side Board 2 Player Screens 48 Plastic Units 1 Eyrie Overlay 1 Influence Track Extension 1 The Bite Overlay 2 Garrison Tokens 1 'Braavos' Neutral Force Token 5 Dragon Strength Tokens 21 House Cards 7 Vassal Setup Cards 7 Vassal House Cards 10 Westeros Deck IV Cards 40 Power", "headingPath": "COMPONENTS · Neutral Force Tokens", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.016393, "snippet": "Unfold the game board and place it in the center of the play area. Then, place the Eyrie and Bite overlays on the game board and the influence track extension next to the game board as depicted below. Influence Track Extension The Bite Overlay The Eyrie Overlay House Targaryen: If playing with House", "headingPath": "3. Prepare the Game Board", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}]
- citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
- [{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Mother of Dragons · Using This Expansion · MOTHER OF DRAGONS SETUP · 1. Determine Player and Vassal Houses · 2. Gather House Materials · Expansion Icon", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "3. Prepare the Game Board", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Alternate House Card Set dAeneRyS tARGARyen 4 · 4. Gather Vassal Materials · 5. Prepare the Wildling Deck and Wildling Threat Token · 6. Prepare the Westeros Decks · 7. Place Markers on Round Track · 8. Place Victory and Supply Tokens", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 12, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Loan Effects · Influence Track Setup", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "9. Place and Adjust Influence Tokens · 10. Claim Dominance Tokens · 11. Place Vassal Markers and Assign Vassal Tokens · 12. Place Units", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}, {"page": 5, "quote": null, "headingPath": "13. Place Garrison and Neutral Force Tokens · 14. Prepare Braavos and the Iron Bank · 15. Gather Power Tokens · ESSOS BOARD · VASSALS", "sharpsignalDocId": 908}]
- boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
-
no registered errata card matched this query; no base-rulebook boost — this ask EXCLUDED the base book, so its rulebook was never resolved and no id for it went on the wire (boosting it would have put that book back into a scope the reader took it out of); rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
no base-rulebook boost — this ask EXCLUDED the base book, so its rulebook was never resolved and no id for it went on the wire (boosting it would have put that book back into a scope the reader took it out of)
- answered-before recall
-
this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
- answer fence
- passed — letter density 0.92058 of 3425 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
- debug row recorded
- Aug 20, 2026 12:06 UTC
retrieval — what the passage search returned
what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.
score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the TWO-ARM fuse (full-text + vector), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.03279 — both arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). Measured healthy band on this fuse: 0.016–0.033. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.
per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.
token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.
| fused rank | document | heading | page | fused RRF score | snippet chars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | 9. Place and Adjust Influence Tokens · 10. Claim Dominance Tokens · 11. Place Vassal Markers and Assign Vassal Tokens · 12. Place Units | p.4 | 0.032522 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | 300 |
| #2 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | Mother of Dragons · Using This Expansion · MOTHER OF DRAGONS SETUP · 1. Determine Player and Vassal Houses · 2. Gather House Materials · Expansion Icon | p.3 | 0.031746 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | 300 |
| #3 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | Alternate House Card Set dAeneRyS tARGARyen 4 · 4. Gather Vassal Materials · 5. Prepare the Wildling Deck and Wildling Threat Token · 6. Prepare the Westeros Decks · 7. Place Markers on Round Track · 8. Place Victory and Supply Tokens | p.4 | 0.030777 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | 300 |
| #4 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | 13. Place Garrison and Neutral Force Tokens · 14. Prepare Braavos and the Iron Bank · 15. Gather Power Tokens · ESSOS BOARD · VASSALS | p.5 | 0.030536 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | 300 |
| #5 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | p.2 | 0.030214 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | 300 | |
| #6 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | Wilding Attacks · Additional Vassal Rules · HOUSE TARGARYEN · Targaryen Victory | p.7 | 0.027885 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | 300 |
| #7 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | COMPONENTS · Neutral Force Tokens | p.2 | 0.027584 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | 300 |
| #8 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | 3. Prepare the Game Board | p.3 | 0.016393 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | 300 |
what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it
what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.
candidate pool: the answering read scored 22 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.
floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — not armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.
arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.
| read at | document | heading | page | fused rank | fused RRF score | carried by | how it got its slot |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | 3. Prepare the Game Board | p.3 | #8 | 0.016393 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | vector | the re-ranker chose it |
| #2 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | 9. Place and Adjust Influence Tokens · 10. Claim Dominance Tokens · 11. Place Vassal Markers and Assign Vassal Tokens · 12. Place Units | p.4 | #1 | 0.032522 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | vector + full-text | the re-ranker chose it |
| #3 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | Mother of Dragons · Using This Expansion · MOTHER OF DRAGONS SETUP · 1. Determine Player and Vassal Houses · 2. Gather House Materials · Expansion Icon | p.3 | #2 | 0.031746 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | vector + full-text | the re-ranker chose it |
| #4 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | Alternate House Card Set dAeneRyS tARGARyen 4 · 4. Gather Vassal Materials · 5. Prepare the Wildling Deck and Wildling Threat Token · 6. Prepare the Westeros Decks · 7. Place Markers on Round Track · 8. Place Victory and Supply Tokens | p.4 | #3 | 0.030777 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | vector + full-text | the re-ranker chose it |
| #5 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | Choosing Vassals · Ordering Vassals | p.5 | #9 | 0.015625 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse) | vector | the re-ranker chose it |
| #6 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | 13. Place Garrison and Neutral Force Tokens · 14. Prepare Braavos and the Iron Bank · 15. Gather Power Tokens · ESSOS BOARD · VASSALS | p.5 | #4 | 0.030536 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | vector + full-text | the re-ranker chose it |
| #7 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | p.2 | #5 | 0.030214 (inside the measured healthy band 0.016–0.033) | vector + full-text | the re-ranker chose it | |
| #8 | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | Loan Effects · Influence Track Setup | p.12 | #10 | 0.014925 (below the measured healthy band (< 0.016) — a weak fuse) | vector | the re-ranker chose it |
chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited
token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.
| # | document | heading | page | quote chars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | Mother of Dragons · Using This Expansion · MOTHER OF DRAGONS SETUP · 1. Determine Player and Vassal Houses · 2. Gather House Materials · Expansion Icon | p.3 | no quote on the wire |
| [2] | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | 3. Prepare the Game Board | p.3 | no quote on the wire |
| [3] | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | Alternate House Card Set dAeneRyS tARGARyen 4 · 4. Gather Vassal Materials · 5. Prepare the Wildling Deck and Wildling Threat Token · 6. Prepare the Westeros Decks · 7. Place Markers on Round Track · 8. Place Victory and Supply Tokens | p.4 | no quote on the wire |
| [4] | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | Loan Effects · Influence Track Setup | p.12 | no quote on the wire |
| [5] | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | 9. Place and Adjust Influence Tokens · 10. Claim Dominance Tokens · 11. Place Vassal Markers and Assign Vassal Tokens · 12. Place Units | p.4 | no quote on the wire |
| [6] | RULEBOOK A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) – Mother of Dragons — Rulebook (corpus doc 908) | 13. Place Garrison and Neutral Force Tokens · 14. Prepare Braavos and the Iron Bank · 15. Gather Power Tokens · ESSOS BOARD · VASSALS | p.5 | no quote on the wire |
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 83 ms · first delta 2201 ms · total 7112 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
- full breakdown
- queued 0 ms · retrieval 83 ms · ask 7024 ms · gateway work 7112 ms · total 7112 ms
- tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
- 3533
- tokens out (what the answerer generated)
- 976
- tok/sec
- 201.2 tok/sec — 976 output tokens in 4.851 s of generation
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 36s ago)
- answerer host (measured by rulesage)
- reachable (for 22h, checked 5s ago)
- answerer node (the seat proxy's own header — this probe, not this ask)
- node1
- stream path
- streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
- watchdog
- first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
- num_ctx · think posture
- both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.
disposition
- outcome
- ANSWERED — Answered
- abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
- answered — no abstain rationale applies
setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render
- decision
- NO_APPROVED_CHECKLIST — setup-shaped, but no approved setup checklist exists for this game
- pattern that matched
- SETUP — "setup" / "set up"
- matched words (in the normalized question)
-
setup
errata registry — what the gate above had to match against
this game registers NO errata cards (edition 301), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one
Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.