*Teeth grinding noises in the background…*
Hello Westeros!
The second tournament of 2022 for “A Song of Ice & Fire” game took place last Saturday at SGF!
With the new 2022 update just released last Monday, it was no surprise to see the Stags back in force, all proudly showing off their newly obtained abilities, units and tactics cards. Unfortunately for me… the day belonged to the pretender and usurper, Renly Baratheon!
The participating factions were as follows:
– 1 Stark
– 1 Night’s Watch
– 1 Greyjoy
– 1 Targaryen
– 3 Baratheons!
As usual, you can find the tournament scores on TTT: https://tabletop.to/sgf-asoiaf-store-tournament-202202
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My lists: For the One True King!
Stannis is my One True Love in the universe of ASOIAF, so while I was looking towards Starks, Renly or Neutrals initially, when the new balance patch came out, I had to try the One True King armies once again.
The winners of the update were (in my opinion) the Queensmen and the Kingsmen, which just so happen to be my favorite sculpts in the entire range, so I went for 2 lists featuring each prominently, with their respective commanders: Axell Florent, First of the Queen’s Men, and Andrew Estermont, First of the King’s Men.
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Both lists feature Bronn in R’hllor Lightbringers, which with Petyr Baelish as NCU is just too good an option to pass on, as well as Selyse and Shireen, who while costly, can allow me to save a unit at the right time, while greatly helping my panic tests throughout the game (especially with one of the game modes for the tournament being “A Feast for Crows”).
The Axell Florent list was meant to work for both the “A Game of Thrones” and “A Feast for Crows” modes, while the Andrew Estermont one was aimed at “Fire & Blood”.
For the Axell list, I needed at least 2 units being able to hold one objective: Lightbringers are one, especially with Bronn in there, and I decided to put Wardens with Axell himself as the commander bunker. Queensmen can work as both defensive and offensive unit, so they would take care of the middle objective. I added Davos in them to help my next unit to survive, while at the same time giving them rerolls from 2 ranks on.
The last infantry unit had to be the R’hllor Faithful, who are very fragile, but with Queensmen and Davos to mitigate their wounds, could sustain long enough to be a thorn in my opponent’s ranks. I planned to put them next to my Lightbringers, for that sweet free attack when they get killed.
Finally, I had in mind a Dragonstone Noble/Selyse & Shireen combo which could prove successful: keep S&S sacrifice ability to keep the DN alive, giving him the R’hllor keyword at the same time, making Axell’s cards and other units’ abilities work on him as well.
The Andrew list had a completely different goal: attack and survive. I wanted an elite list, tried to get to 7 activations, but it would have been at the cost of too many options, so I went for a very dangerous 6 activations list (spoiler alert: BAD choice).
I obviously put Andrew in Kingsmen, to get a maxed out “Ours is the Fury” at each of their attacks, while adding Davos in Stag Knights as the secondary main damage dealer. The SK unit would stay behind to protect a flank until round 3, healing the other units meanwhile.
Finally, with only 6 activations, a unit with the “Sentinel” order could be useful. Enter Sentinels! I like these guys, especially with Andrew’s cards, but they are a bit flimsy. I decided to put a Warden Captain in them, for some added sustained offense. Ideally, a successful charge from the “Sentinel” order could end up in 2 attacks, one with 5 free hits thanks to the Captain! Plus, I painted mine as Rolland Storm, the Bastard of Nightsong, ideal for a Kingsmen heavy-force!
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Round 1 – Fire & Blood
And I’m fighting… Greyjoys. Well bad luck, the last faction I wanted to get on “Fire & Blood”. Fortunately for me, or so I thought at first, my opponent Masha went for his Baelor 7 activations list, instead of his Victarion 8 activations one. Deployment went smoothly at first, with my Lightbringers scaring the kraken out of him when I put them on the table at 12” from his Reapers and Silenced Men.
Problem was, I had a stupid palisade in front of my sentinels, which I knew I had to deal with at some point, I just took too long. For some reason, when he started by maneuvering his Silenced Men forward, I shot at them, instead of the Reapers who were my “Marked” target, or the palisade blocking my “Sentinel” order… “Hardened” and some good saves only made 2 wounds on the Silenced Men, not a great start.
He then proceeded to charge my Lightbringers, which was not a huge problem for me defensively, but offensively was a pain in my side. I destroyed the palisade with the Sentinels, and retreated my archers to be able to shoot, with the Stag Knights engaging the Silenced men to prevent them running after Bronn and his men. Unfortunately, Beron’s influence and Baelor’s “Hardened” make them really tough, and they didn’t suffer many losses.
On the left, the Kingsmen went after the Reapers, and managed to do a fantastic 9 wounds attack. One Wendamyr and a Greyjoy card later, and the Ironmakers lost some men to reinforce the Reaper unit, nullifying their damages.
The very embarrassing truth about this game was that I was basically playing with 4 units and 2 NCUs against 2 units and 3 NCUs, and my guys COULD NOT break through. Worse, my Stag Knights were my first unit to die, after a pretty bad defense roll and a disastrous panic test!
The Kingsmen finally managed to eliminate the Reapers, but it was too late, the Ironmakers had joined the fray and were protecting the Bowmen. Sentinels and Kingsmen did not manage to get through the entire unit, which meant healing, and Bronn and the Lightbringers spent most of their time running away from Baelor and the Silenced Men.
The end result was 5 to 4 in favor of Greyjoys, since I only managed to kill the Reapers, and he killed Stag Knights and Sentinels.
Beron replaced Erik as “must-have” NCU in Greyjoys list in my opinion, his effect is very strong, and the fact that it works on effects can also protect them against “Final Strike” (which I unfortunately didn’t get). In Baras, I was very happy with the Kingsmen and Andrew commander, they dealt a lot of damage, Greyjoy healing got the better of them unfortunately. 6 activations for me was clearly not enough, as suspected, but it would have worked much better without Beron. Groumf.
Bad start, on to the second game!
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Round 2 – A Feast for Crows
Next opponent was Lee with his Starks. Unconventional Greatjon list, with Zorses and Brynden attachment. This unit basically messed up the whole game, with their “Outflank” ability I tried to avoid at all costs (I’m usually not too worried about “Outflank”, but Lee told me about how they wiped a unit in his first game thanks to the Greatjon newcard, and for some reason I became obsessed with not allowing them to get on the battlefield…).
Which I did manage, in the end, with the Zorses not appearing on the table the whole game, but at the cost of 3 of my units not doing much.
It did make the whole battle pretty weird though, since I basically spent my entire time shifting tables, to avoid a flank or rear charge. After consideration, I should probably have just kept the Dragonstone Noble as protector of my rears and hoped for the best, but well, decisions, decisions…
One strong result of the battle on my side were the R’hllor Faithful, who managed to get a charge with 8 wounds on the Umber Greataxes, and then to survive a flank charge from Umber Berzerkers (thanks to Davos’ healing, but still).
Axell Florent then led his wardens on the later’s flank, and the end result of this succession of attacks was a quite funny 1 v 1 v 1. Sadly, the Berzerkers fled the scene, leading to the deaths of only the Greataxes and Faithful.
So once again, pretty embarrassing, I was playing with more activations on the field, but didn’t manage to get through.
We both ended up scoring 4 points, and I basically only got the win due to his dead Greataxes unit costing more points than my Faithful one. Selyse was once again a good NCU, helping to keep my unit alive for one more turn. Little did I know that getting the win would actually cost me a lot more, for my next opponent was…
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Round 3 – A Game of Thrones
Renly! Yes, Baratheon civil war, and actually my opponent, Baratheon Avenger, had already played a full Renly civil war the game before, in a near mirror match.
Regarding my game… Didn’t go well either, unfortunately. The whole day was basically as if a small gnome took my carefully pre-crafted plans and went: “NOPE. Why not throw that out and charge instead?” And I listened, obviously.
The plan was simple enough: I had more units on the field, I could just hold 3 objectives for 3 rounds, and not die. But obviously, he threw Champions of the Stag in the mix, once again attacking my Lightbringers. I used them as bait, he took it, I was counting on 3 units to kill them fast. I wasn’t counting on Renly’s INSANE healing. Insane as in “I probably killed his Champions 2 to 3 times in wounds total, and they were still not dead by the end of the game” insane. I had Sundering, flank attacks, vicious, all the fun words, but no, these guys would not die. Which is a real shame, because there were some great attacks from my men, Faithful up there as usual (I didn’t like these guys before, but playing them this time made me appreciate them a lot more, even though they died in both my games). But no, it wasn’t meant to be.
I forgot to take pictures, but basically Lightbringers, Faithful and Wardens were all on the Champions at some point, with Lightbringers shooting to trigger Selyse’s autowounds from the Faithful, as well as Axell’s Intimidating Presence helping with more wounds from Panic…
Worse, they held their ground so well that the other units, much slower, still managed to catch up to the rest of my army, and contest the objectives, healing more than I dealt them wounds.
In the end, only my Faithful had died, and all his units were basically full, while mine were in very bad shape.
My Queensmen and Davos were sadly too far away from the combats to help, and ended up spending the game on one objective without attacking anyone. I originally planned for them to help the Faithful with the Pikemen, but everyone sort of moved left instead…
So another big blunder of a game!
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Conclusion
I went in as the One True King from last tournament, I left as the King defeated at Blackwater Bay… But I will come back and conquer the Wall!
So first things first, congratulations to all my opponents and the other players, every battle seemed pretty intense. The playing level is definitely going up, which is a fantastic way to improve! Two Renlys at the top was quite interesting, illustrating that healing mechanics are very strong in this version of the game. I noticed it before in game when I healed way more than Greyjoys, so I think Renly is in a very strong place now, which is good, time for the Stags to shine!
I felt like some of the new stuff (Greyjoy Heroes 2 or Starks and Baratheons tactics decks in my games) really challenged how I viewed some units and combos, and pressured me into finding alternatives and ways to get around them (with more or less success), which is a good way to keep the game alive and try new strategies. So I’m looking forward to work on more list-building with the new “must-haves” in mind (for example taking Beron into account when playing against Greyjoys, rather than Erik).
I will try to work a bit more with Stannis units as well, for now my 2 tournament defeats happened with Mr. Teethgrinder’s side, so I need to improve with him. Stannis-loyal-Baratheon is my favorite faction esthetically, but it is definitely not a walk-in-the-park game-wise!
Next tournament, probably Starks, I need to howl in the night after such a day, and I never brought them yet…
Grob’
PS: Thanks to SGF for organizing the tournament!
Chez Grob 