ASOIAF Batrep: The Frozen Dreadfort

Hello Westeros!

Another game last weekend, with Roose Bolton leading the Dreadfort against the Great Walrus offensive, including terrifying bears!

After participating in a Battle of the Bastards conversation, I really wanted to play Boltons again, while Eric really wanted to test the new Free Folks heroes, mostly Abel the Bard, Borroq and Dalla.

And let me tell you, they did not disappoint!

Important Disclaimer: we tried to do a video batrep for the first time, which basically did not turn out great, so the pictures might be a bit lacking as I forgot to take some multiple times during the game… No worries, we’ll try again until we get it right!

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The Lists

I first wanted to go full Boltons, but my second Cutthroats unit being unpainted, I decided for an allied Stormcrow contingent (after playing, I definitely regretted that decision…). I also really wanted to try Walder, so I had to stay on 2 NCUs in order to be able to play him.

Roose Bolton in Bolton Blackguards, Ramsay Bolton & Reek in Stormcrow Mercenaries, Bolton Cutthroats, Stormcrow Archers, Bolton Flayed Men, NCUs Littlefinger & Walder Frey.

On the FF side, Eric had seen the fun “Hidden Traps” + Abel + Dalla combo and really wanted to try it, so the list went like this:

Great Walrus in Thenns, Bear Riders, Spearwife Matriarch in Trappers, Borroq in Spearwives, NCUs Craster, Val & Dalla, Opponent Attachment Abel the Bard.

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The Battle for the Frozen Dreadfort

Deployment went okayish, but if we could redo it I would redo the whole thing. The most important part was: my Flayed Men were on a flank with only the Spearwives in front of them. Easy peasy, in one charge and one attack the ladies should fall, right?

On the other side of the battlefield, Ramsay was fuming: “Bears and heavy shields right in front of us, how the hell are we gonna destroy their ranks easily, Reek?”

So basically a good deployment for Eric, and a pretty bad one for me. And it’s literally my fault, he deployed first…

First round went peacefully, with every unit marching straight forward, and Abel starting to kill Stormcrow Archers with his horrible lute. In return, the Archers shot the wildlings thanks to a free attack from Walder, which sadly only did a few wounds in the Spearwives in front of them.

Second round escalated rather quickly, since all of the “traps” had a potential target. And let’s just say that those traps are efficient!

First, I made a big mistake, by using “Issue Commands” straight away. This cost me 1 victory point, Roose and his guard only arriving in the middle of the battlefield one round later to capture the objective and have any influence on the battle. Moreover, with the traps and Abel, the archers ended up at one rank straight away, which was highly disastrous and meant their damage input greatly diminished in the blink of an eye. There was a possibility he would have used the traps against the Blackguards instead if these had moved, so it was a bit of a missed opportunity for me.

On the left of the battlefield, the Bears charged Ramsay and his SM (Stormcrow Mercenaries you dirty minded f-Reek-s!), with some heavy casualties! Having the “Fear Keeps A Man Alive” in my hand, I chose to make a risky move: charge the Bears’ flank with the Bolton Cutthroats to make them fail a panic test and heal quite intensively my Ramsay unit. This would make my Cutthroats very vulnerable to a Thenn charge, but it was the best way I could use the card and make a dent in the Bears. The charge was successful, but the panic test only made 2 wounds, which was quite unsatisfactory.

The Thenn warriors didn’t waste a breath and charged the Cutthroats, who managed to tank the flank charge surprisingly well. Right after, Ramsay counterattacked against the Bears, who took a bit more wounds but got healed by Craster’s once per game ability.

On the right, the Flayed Men decided to charge the Spearwives, who had just moved back a bit to make it harder and prepare for the incoming devastating assault.

So obviously, failed charge. And obviously, failed panic test. So, the Flayed Men ended up at 1 horse down without having touched anything yet. GREAT.

Oh and that meant that the Glory Seeker, supposed to heal the Stormcrow Archers when entering the melee, just stayed there shouting insults at his cavalry instead of being all “We look fabulous boys, follow us!” in the archers’ direction.

All my units were in pretty bad shape. I did want to kill the Bears, so I started with the Cutthroats free-attacking the Bears, giving out a Vulnerable and re-rolling. They managed to get them down to 1 rank. There, Eric surprised me once again. Instead of activating the Bears or going on the Bags to heal them, he attacked the Flayed Men with the Spearwives, who then charged, killing way too many horses for my taste. Because yes, I failed the panic test too. And yes, the Hedge Knight was the last one standing.

Now my units were in real trouble, and with the right flank in even worse shape, I decided to focus all my efforts on the left flank and the Bears. Wise decision for once, since the Bolton Cutthroats went on a killing frenzy and finished 8 wounds of Bears (I think this was the only Panic test that Eric really failed, so that was hugely satisfying from a Bolton point of view).

With this taken care of, the left flank could breathe a bit.

Back on the right, the Flayed Men did not like losing so many of their men, and tried to counter-attack the Spearwives, while being weakened.

1 wound. Wouhou.

Luckily, that meant 2 wounds could be healed on the SC Archers thanks to the Hedge Knight.

But to add injury to insult, the Trappers just shot at him, and killed him.

So yeah, a brilliant use of Flayed Men.

With my right flank completely dead and my Archers still threatened, the situation looked exceptionally dire.

Unfortunately for me, it wouldn’t stop there: Abel the Bard sang one last song just before a Crown bomb, killing the Archers, while the Thenns on the left flank utterly destroyed the Bolton Cutthroats in a devastating attack.

Witnessing this, Ramsay decided to avoid them altogether, focusing on the objective in front of him rather than charging into the Thenn shieldwall.

With only Ramsay-boy and Daddy Roose left, the game was more or less lost for the Dreadfort. Even worse, a bunch of Free Folk raiders appeared in the horizon, strolling peacefully towards an objective.

Seeing the flank of the Trappers exposed, Roose went on a vengeful charge with his Blackguards, aiming to erase the hairy savages from the map. Obviously, even with 2 more hits thanks to “Planning and Insight”, the Trappers had 1 wound left, the Spearwife matriarch, who retreated straight away.

After some more actions and convenient objectives holding from the Free Folks, a Crown bomb shot down the unit, but it was too late to be of any consequence other than small satisfaction at killing a unit.

On the left, the Great Walrus and his Thenns hunted Ramsay down, playing cat and mouse until the Bastard finally bit the dust, Reek jumping around happily until he remembered Thenns sometimes ate their prisoners. Out of the fire…

And this was the last meaningful action of the game, with a victory of 11 to 8 for the Free Folks!

The Dreadfort got Frozen!

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Conclusions

That Free Folks list is mean. Like, really mean. I admit I expected Abel to end up in the Cutthroats, and was quite surprised when Eric put him in the archers, but it was a pretty smart decision, making them quite useless for the whole game, while the Cutthroats had to enter combats anyway and would be susceptible to normal attacks. So great move from Eric with that one!

So yeah, Abel for 2pts, utterly and absolutely worth it. Dalla for 5pts, utterly and absolutely worth it. Borroq for 2 pts, utterly and absolutely worth it. All of them together, worse than Joffrey on his worst day.

The Great Walrus in Thenns seems a great combo as well, we didn’t really get to see it since I never even attacked them, but I think he can turn Thenns into a very annoying bunker. And his cards were very nice, “Battle Endurance” is very lethal on this unit, while “Frozen Shore Resilience” can help a so-so unit to survive a bit longer.

It was the first time I tested Walder Frey in his new version, and I admit I wasn’t impressed in Neutrals. Sadly, they are still a bit stuck in the “Roose is the best commander but is also one of the three 4pts NCUs of the faction”, so it is quite hard to navigate list-building-wise. I think that Walder was definitely even more outmatched against this FF list due to both Craster and Val being able to replace zones, giving him complete free reins on the tactics board with only Littlefinger as opposition, the Late Walder Frey coming at the end when all the movement and healing shenanigans have been done. I will test him again, but in another faction I think.

Roose commander is great, sadly I really underused him this game, and had lots of troubles using his cards: not enough tokens to use FMHNS, Eric passing all his Panic tests or failing them to the bare minimum for FKAMA, and finally only one “Whispered Threats” appearing, around the end of the game so way too late. So that was a bit of a blunder.

Flayed Men w… we don’t talk about Flayed Men.

The only unit which greatly impressed me was the Bolton Cutthroats, who managed to do tremendous damage to the Bears, while surviving against quite a lot of attacks. For 5pts, they are really a good investment, and I’m looking forward to use them more, in other factions as well!

So overall, I would say Eric played much better than me, with some great deployment and maneuvering on his part throughout the whole game, while I misused a lot of my units and even cards.

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So I was hesitant in bringing Neutrals to the next tournament happening… good question when, but I will probably go in with Lannisters after this terrible game!

(Eh who am I kidding, as usual I’ll decide two days before the event after having done 25 lists in 5 different factions…)

Hope you enjoyed!

Grob’