The Lion Libretto - Infamy

The House ability of the Lannister usually requires a little finesse to use, and definitely requires quite a bit of preparation before the ability actually kicks in big time.

By itself it is a rather lackluster ability, and the few cards that has it usually has some predictable ability like STR enhancement based on power, kneel or protective ability (again base on power on it) and lately even power-gaining ability (Daven Lannister - kinda difficult to pull off still, but everyone is working on it). However, unlike Renown, it doesn't actually gain you any extra power, but simply manipulates the placement of it.

But it is actually more than that if the player spent more time looking into deck construction elements to fully exploit its power.

For a start, power on characters are usually very resistant to common power-stealing/moving actions (primarily initiated with Power challenges), and a good majority of decks has very little means of actually taking any power from a player that has no power on his House card - Infamy can make sure that happens. Of course, the down side is that the power on the characters are gone if they go to the discard or dead pile, and we all know how common that happens in a game.

But with sufficient save tech, this risk can be reduced (though unlikely to be totally eliminated), and it becomes extremely useful if this ability is coupled with the "If you have no power on the House card" tech of the Brotherhood cards. John has shown us what the Lannisters can do with Beric on their payroll, as well as the whole gang of the Brotherhood people walking around in Casterly Rock.

There are attachments that give Infamy, and some also gives good ability that bounces off the power that the attached character gains from Infamy - Devious Intention gives you +1 STR for every power, among other things, the Dwarf head thing is a little less useful besides just giving you power onto characters that otherwise might not be unable or slow to get it - pretty useful with people like The Black Fish to speed up things a little.

But if that Melisandre girl hits the table, then suddenly your route to victory had just been sent to the heavens, and that is actually quite difficult to recover from in a pure Lannister deck.

So, Infamy is definitely a much better ability than Stalwart, but not anywhere near the power level of Intimidate, and is actually still somewhere on the lower end of the House ability power level - mainly because it adds very little by itself, doesn't really contribute to winning by itself (no net gain) and requires much effort on the player to make it work.

No to mention that it doesn't sound cool at all. Infamy. Bah.

(o.o)