ASOIAF Buying Guide: Lannisters

Hello Westeros!

I’m seeing more and more “How do I expand from this starter?” posts on reddit, so I figured, let’s do a series of articles for each faction!

The most recent one I saw was for the Lannisters, so they are the lucky firsts!

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Lannister Starter Contents

So first, what is in the Lannister Starter?

There are 2 existing starters for this faction: the old one, dual with Stark faction, and the new one, on their own. There is only one unit change between both, so this guide will touch on both.

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Heroes

There are 4 heroes in the starter: Jaime Lannister, Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane, Cersei Lannister and Tyrion Lannister.

Both Jaime and Gregor can be used as Commander or Attachment to put in Combat Units, while Cersei and Tyrion can only be used as NCUs.

The two commanders vary greatly in style:

• Jaime Lannister is a simple but well rounded commander, giving bonus to other units when in range of him and his unit.
• Gregor “The Mountain” Clegane is the offensive commander, with all his cards and abilities focused on attack and damage.

Similarly, both NCUs have different function, but are quite complimentary:

• Cersei helps you recycle 2 cards of your deck, one to cancel opponent’s abilities and one to inflict more panic damage
• Tyrion allows you to expand your cards limit to +1, and gives you the opportunity to recycle the “Counterplot” card, to cancel your opponent’s tactic cards.

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Units

This is where the difference between both versions comes in.

The Lannister starter comes in, as any other starter, with 2 basic infantry units and 2 more specialist ones.

The Lannister Guardsmen are the basic defensive unit of the faction. For 5pts, they provide you with a good objective holder, with their special rule making the opponent take a panic test after attacking you. They come with the Guard Captain attachment, who brings you the order “Hold the line”, allowing you to really punish anyone fool enough to attack you.

The Lannister Halberdiers are the common specialist unit to both starters. For 6pts, you get a good flexible unit, which can be quite offensive with a decent attack profile and the Sundering keyword, while also being able to defend a position thanks to their “Set for charge” order, making the opponent think twice before charging them. This unit comes with the Assault Veteran attachment, who helps to cause more panic damage. He synergizes a bit more with other units such as the Guardsmen or the Mountain Men however.

The old starter comes with House Clegane Mountain Men. These guys are the followers of the Mountain, and they come with a nice offensive profile, for 6pts as well. They have a strong focus on panic, even healing when causing opponents to fail panic tests in their contact.

The new starter comes with House Clegane Brigands, which is a cavalry unit. Also members of the Mountain’s forces, they are very good at harassing lonely units and morally frail ones, or acting as a finisher. They are quite flimsy however and cost 7pts, so be careful when handling them, they can die easily!

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What should be my first purchase after the starter?

It is quite easy to answer this question, as it is more or less the same answer for every faction (I can think of 2 exceptions only where the answer would change): the faction’s Heroes 1 box.

Heroes play a huge part in the ASOIAF game, and are the best way to add a lot of flexibility to your lists, at the lowest price. Plus, for book readers or show watchers, it is much more engaging to play the Hound in a unit instead of “Unnamed Assault Veteran #1”, and makes for a more interesting game.

The Lannister Heroes 1 box brings you 5 new characters, all quite essential to the faction.

For Commanders, you can now have Tywin Lannister and his son, Tyrion Lannister (who has a different miniature and profile than the one from the starter, this time representing him in battle), as well as the High Sparrow.

Tywin is an interesting commander focusing on the use of Weakened tokens and undermining your opponent’s attacks, while Tyrion is the ultimate troll and keeps messing with your opponent’s overall strategies. The High Sparrow is a bit different, synergizing best with units of the Faith, which are not in the starter, so he will probably not be your first choice (plus his NCU version is way too good to pass on).

Both play very differently from each other and from the starter’s commanders, so they bring a lot of diversity in playstyle. My favorite is personally Tywin, both character-wise and play-wise (don’t hesitate to check my Tywin tutorial here to learn more about him), but he’s a very polarizing commander, while Tyrion is often recognized as one of the best of the faction, and a Faith list led by the High Sparrow can pack a serious punch.

For attachments, Sandor “the Hound” Clegane and Tyrion Lannister will both find great use in your lists: the Hound is one of the best 1pt attachments in the faction, helping his unit heal after dealing damage and giving out a Vulnerable token when charging, while Tyrion keeps pulling your opponent’s hair by cancelling his tactic cards and orders. It is important to also note that the Hound gives the “Clegane” keyword to his unit, making them synergize better with the Mountain commander from the starter.

Finally, you get 3 NCUs, with Grandmaester Pycelle, the High Sparrow and Tywin Lannister.

Pycelle is one of the best NCUs in the game, giving out a Weakened token every round, and works exceptionally well with Tywin commander (yes, very lore-accurate!). The High Sparrow influences enemy units to heal your own when those fail a panic test, which is very good in this faction, working well with the abundant Panic modifiers you can get. Tywin Lannister is a much harder to use NCU, basically dropping a small bomb on the battlefield once per game. It can turn a game upside-down, but used at the wrong time, can be completely useless and end up in the privy. Very lore-accurate too.

The Lannisters have 3 heroes boxes so far, and while the new one, Heroes 3, is also quite varied in gameplay, bringing you for example the Mountain that Rides as a solo unit, I think Heroes 1 is overall a better value for a starter expansion, and will bring you more “auto-includes” such as Pycelle, the High Sparrow and the Hound, to get the most of your army.

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Heroes done, how about units?

Now that you have your starter and your heroes, you basically need only one more unit box to get to 40pts consistently, which is the most common for games.

In both starters, you get the same 2 Lannister Guardsmen and 1 Lannister Halberdiers base, meaning you are all set with infantry.

One of the best choices for both starters would be the Lannister Crossbowmen: they give you a range unit, which is currently lacking in both and can bring a lot of control to the battlefield (for more details about them, you can check the article about Crossbowmen HERE).

Range units are an important option to have in an army, and the Crossbowmen are the easiest ones to learn with, as well as the most forgiving.

The second contender to best new unit for both starters would be the Red Cloaks. They are still an infantry melee unit so more redundant with the others, but their “Lannister Justice” ability allows them to deal damage at a distance. This gives them some control of the board too, albeit less brutal than Crossbowmen. Please note that Red Cloaks enter their full potential when you control the Crown zone, so to have Joffrey NCU or Littlefinger NCU help tremendously. However, the first one comes in Lannister Heroes 2 and the second in Neutral Heroes 1, so it might be best to wait for investing in the Red Cloaks at the same time as one of these boxes.

Those are the 2 units I would advise for both starters equally. Now, for each starter, I will give one more option.

For the old starter, due to the absence of cavalry, the Knights of Casterly Rock would definitely be a good investment. They bring you a real mobile hammer, able to destroy 2 ranks in one charge, and even more if helped through some cards. Cavalry is another important element in the game, bringing some different maneuvering and flanking options, and the heavy Knights bring the best of offensive and defensive worlds. They are however costly points-wise, at 8pts, meaning they will limit a bit your lists in terms of flexibility.

For the new starter, since you already have a cavalry unit with the House Clegane Brigands, you are pretty much all set on this front. Due to them bringing the Clegane keyword, which synergizes with the Mountain commander’s card, I would try to focus on this commander at first, and get the House Clegane Mountain Men. Yes, it’s a bit weird to advise you to get the only unit which has been replaced in the new starter, but the Mountain Men are a really good unit in this version, and it would be a shame to not capitalize fully on what the Clegane Brigands bring to the table.

So with this in mind, this gives you 3 different options for both starters. I would say all choices are worth considering, but might depend on your play style, your favorite commander or even your taste in units (some may hate using cavalry for example, or are particularly averse to shooting in games, so will not even consider Crossbowmen).

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What next?

Once you have purchased Lannister Heroes 1 and 1 unit box of your choice, you should definitely try a few games. This will give you an idea on what your strong suits are, and what you think is missing from your usual lists.

For example, if you went for anything except the Crossbowmen, you might want to purchase them next, to vary your play style and get a drastically different type of unit in. Or if you really enjoyed playing the Clegane Brigands and think cavalry is where you shine, investing in the Knights of Casterly Rock or Bolton Flayed Men for a heavy cavalry list could be a smart choice.

You can also decide that you really like a certain subtheme and go for it: for example, you are really interested in the High Sparrow and the Faith, so your next buys will be the Warrior’s Sons and the Poor Fellows. Or you really enjoy the mechanics of messing with your opponent’s head, so the Neutral Heroes 1 box could be perfect for your Machiavellian needs. Or your ultimate goal is to recreate the Battle of Blackwater Bay, and all you are missing is a boy king and green fire maniacs…

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The possibilities are numerous, so just try out some lists, even proxy some units to see how you feel playing them and if they are worth your investment, and always remember, it’s a game, the goal is to enjoy and have a good time, so focus on that first! Competitive or amateur, both sides of the game can be tremendously fun due to the overall very good balance, so if you love to win tournaments, go for the best units, if you love the lore, go for the famous battles or subfactions, and if you love painting red, just go for Red Cloaks!

In short, ENJOY!

Grob’