Hello Westeros!
Last Saturday saw a clash of kings take place, with 11 players fighting for the control of Westeros!
I hesitated a while on which faction to bring, but in the end went with the One True King himself, Stannis Baratheon. It had been a while since I played him, and… I should have practiced again with him beforehand; it didn’t go fantastically well…
(I checked: I didn’t play Stannis loyalty since February 27th! It felt as much, sadly…)
As I got hold of the new Martells last tournament, and having a few painting orders to complete in the weeks to come, my painting schedule is a bit full, so I decided to go for fun lists rather than optimized one, to have a good time rather than win (spoiler alert, mission accomplished for not winning, and in terms of good time, I still have trouble sitting after that second game…). Apparently Eric too, you’ll see later his idea of “FUN”…
#oberynhaditcoming
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My Lists
List 1: Soloooos
Stannis Baratheon TOTK in King’s Men, R’hllor Lightbringers, R’hllor Queen’s Men, Dragonstone Noble, Dragonstone Noble, NCUs Petyr Baelish, Davos Seaworth, Roose Bolton
The goal of this list was to try 2 Dragonstone Nobles. Simple as that. I really wanted to try this out, so this was my “main list”. Of course, I used it only once and got… martelled…
List 2: What is Dead May Never Die
Stannis Baratheon TOTK in R’hllor Faithful, Davos Seaworth in R’hllor Lightbringers, R’hllor Queen’s Men, Dragonstone Noble, NCUs Selyse and Shireen, Melisandre, Tycho Nestoris
This list was to try a combo I still never tried before: the Stannis-Faithful-Mel machine. Spoiler alert, it worked fantastically well in my last game, and not really in my first. Well it did, but I made 2 HUGE mistakes which cost me the win…
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First game: A battle in Stannis’ mind…
A Clash of Kings
Weird match-up: another Stannis, with the Mel-Jaqen combo.
His list:
Roose Bolton in Queensmen, Ramsay and Reek in R’hllor Faithful, R’hllor Lightbringers, Baratheon wardens, NCUs Melisandre, Jaqen H’ghar and Axell Florent.
First game, crap. Double Mel list. There was 4 Baratheons out of 11 this tournament, so I was pretty much certain to fight one. I would have really liked to fight Renly, but got paired with another Stannis loyalty. I played DDL before, and the last time we fought, he won with Renly against my Stannis. I had to make it right! And I nearly did… Sigh.
I picked my own Mel list against his, as I was a bit scared that both my Nobles would be in great danger against a double Mel-bomb. Selyse would be my bunker to survive, and the rest of the army was good enough on morale to survive it.
First round started well, with one rank of Wardens out and only 1 of my Lightbringers dying, thanks to their success on Jaqen’s roll and a timely Baratheon Conviction.
Then… Wardens lost one more rank, wouhou, but his NCUs started activating a bit more as well… And my Lightbringers took Ramsay’s charge full blast. The middle of the game is a bit blurry, but in short, his Wardens die from Mel, my Lightbringers die even earlier, my Dragonstone Noble stays on the objective on the right.
Queensmen vs Queensmen, and his Queensmen come out on top, helped by his Lightbringers still alive.
First HUGE blunder of the game: I used Selyse’ once per game ability. But, but, what about “To the Last”? Well, I remembered it two turns later. Serves me right for not practicing before tournament…
This was very important as it ended up preventing me saving other units, and having to use the Bags zone when I really wanted to take the Horse one to prevent him from turning around with Ramsay’s unit, who was near my flank/rear. I got lucky then, as he failed his charge in my flank, and I got some breathing time. This allowed me to kill more of his Lightbringers, but not enough. He then retreated with them on my flank.
The next round, he changed target and charged Stannis and my Faithful.
Second HUGE blunder: this one is even more stupid than the previous one… In short: he only has Ramsay and 4 guys in his Faithful unit, and attacks my own Stannis and 4 Faithful unit. BAM! Faith token spent, and he takes 6 hits. Unfortunately for me, he only takes 3 wounds and Ramsay is still alive. Well, no problem, let’s kill him now!
I’m sure some of you already guessed… Yes, he also had a Faith token. BAM! I only saved 2 wounds out of 6. Unit dead. And a draw instead of a victory.
This was one of the bloodiest games I ever played: not even one full tray of miniatures left at the end! It ended up being pretty fun, the battle in Stannis’ mind, and really made me wish I had played him at least one more time since… forever, before bringing him to the tournament.
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Second game: It’s getting hot here…
A Dance with Dragons
Worst match-up ever: Oberyn Martell and Doran NCU.
His list:
Oberyn Martell in Golden Company Swordsmen, Bronn in Sand Skirmishers, Spearmen Captain in Spearmen, Jaqen H’ghar in Dervishes, NCUs Doran Martell, Littlefinger and Walder Frey
Fun list eh? With the Manticore Venom, I couldn’t really bring Selyse and the Stannis-Faithful combo, as he would probably target them first. After playing it, I’m pretty sure I would have done better with that list, Mel-bombing Skirmishers into oblivion while protecting my Faithful unit with the others… Because these Skirmishers are EVIL. They put the TERRORS in “The night is dark and full of terrors”.
First round went terribly wrong. Martells being new, I did not pay sufficient attention to the crazy amount of shooting Skirmishers could do. Well, first round, my Dragonstone Noble moved towards the objective, and they managed to deal him 2 wounds. Outch.
My whole plan before game was to get second player when we started, to be able to stop Doran. As I saw it, being the first player on round 2 was the only way to delay Doran, by taking the Water Gardens and forcing him to use a combat unit. I got lucky, my Noble staying alive for one more turn. I healed him next, but two more attacks later and he was dead. Bronn in Skirmishers had made it an impossible choice between zones, and my Noble having the objective, he was stuck with a pitiful movement of 4, making it impossible to move out of range. So lesson learned, short range is AN ILLUSION on these guys.
The rest of the round went pretty much as well as it started: Oberyn managed to charge my Queensmen and poisoned them, nullifying “To the Last” and my healing cards, “Rising temperatures” was placed on my Lightbringers, nullifying my healing cards, and I ended the round by failing my King’s Men charge on Skirmishers not once, not twice, but three times, spending all my Davos tokens to reroll it, and managing a tiny 4 wounds on them.
RULE question: we were not entirely sure if I could spend all of Davos’ orders in one charge, we ruled it this way after checking the rulebook, but if anyone has some definitive ruling, we’d love to hear it!
So a catastrophic round 2, with the situation not really improving on round 3: the only redeeming quality my army had at the moment was my Queensmen oddly dying 1 wound at a time for 2 consecutive attacks, surviving to a grand total of 6 attacks before finally biting the dust in round 4, from the Skirmishers obviously. Without healing! So yeah, definitely MVPs of the game on my side, their resilience allowed me to keep scoring with the King’s Men and the second Dragonstone Noble, while the Dervishes managed to kill my Lightbringers, on round 4 as well.
The Noble was paralyzed with the objective token, but did manage to finish Oberyn’s unit thanks to his Sundering. His victory was short-lived however, as the very precise arrows of the Skirmishers rained down on him.
Summary: Dervishes killed Lightbringers, Dragonstone Noble killed Oberyn, King’s Men did an omelet and the Skirmishers went on a rampage and killed 3 units.
So in the end, Doran did not get his VPs, as I had blocked him on round 2, but the game belonged to the Martells, with an 8-5 ending score!
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Third game: it’s getting colder in Dragonstone…
Honed and Ready
Ideal match-up for this game mode for me: 2 NCUs list with a wolf.
His list:
Greatjon Umber in Stark Sworn Swords, Stark Sworn Swords, Stark Bowmen, Karstark Spearmen, Bran & Hodor in Umber Berserkers, Summer, NCUs Catelyn and Sansa
My final game of the day was against Alex, who I met playing Keyforge and who finally jumped into the Asoiaf with Starks, with his first game happening that day, at the tournament!
I could not risk bringing 2 Nobles against the Greatjon’s auto-wound cards, so I went with the second list. Spoiler alert: it worked much better than the first game…
The scenario was Honed and Ready, which meant that with his 6 activations on the board, he would have many units to grab objectives. Unfortunately for him, a direwolf is less resistant to arrows than an armored noble…
With the Greatjon being the commander, I played a bit more defensive than usual, relying on Mel to take care of his bowmen, while waiting for him to cross the field to meet me. Yeah, it’s not my play style at all, but it worked. Mel managed to destroy his bowmen quite fast, while the Stannis-Faithful combo worked like a charm.
I saw his Greatjon unit walking steadily towards my bowmen, so kept them at a safe distance while taking the maneuver to prevent him from charging. My dice were pretty much on a roll so his whole unit took some very heavy damages after 2 shooting volleys, while the rest of his army ended up stuck with my R’hllor Faithful, who had charged in the Karstark to keep some momentum and contest the central objective.
Very bad luck for his Berzerkers, whose charge on the flank of the Faithful ended up doing 3 wounds only, including one from Hodor. Between Karstark Spearmen, Umber Berserkers and Stark Sworn Swords, the Faithful held strong until the end of round 3, thanks to Stannis, Tycho and Selyse. Pretty much the ideal scenario I had in mind when building my list.
They finally went to R’hllorla, but it was too late for the Starks to catch-up: the battle apparently took place at Dragonstone, the Noble not taking a single wound, while both Summer and the Greatjon unit got pierced by arrows from the walls on each side, killing them.
The Karstark Spearmen managed to survive till the end and keep the central objective, pressured by Queensmen who were heavily supported by the Lightbringers, who themselves managed to finish off the Berserkers.
Another very violent game, with most of the Stark units dead. And to end on a high note: Loras probably managed to invade Dragonstone from the other side, as the Noble took 2 arrows in the chest on the last volley, not killing him but surprising both of us!
End result: 10-7 for Stannis!
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Conclusions
So in the end, the results were as follow:
1st place: Baelor Blacktyde
2nd place: Baratheon (Andrew & Roose)
3rd place: Night’s Watch (Cotter Pyke & Jon)
4th place: Loras Tyrell
5th place: Stannis Baratheon
6th place: Martells (Oberyn Martell & Vargo Hoat)
7th place: Addam Marbrand
8th place: Baratheon (Renly & Loras)
9th place: Night’s Watch (Jon Snow)
10th place: Lannisters (Jaime)
11th place: Starks (Greatjon & Robb)
Victory for Baelor!
For the full tournament results, please check the TTT link: https://www.tabletop.to/sogofun-asoiaf-store-tournament-202210
Sadly, it appears that Stannis is not working too well for me in tournaments, so far I reached 2nd, 5th and last place with his loyalty…
I was really happy with the Dragonstone Nobles overall (except one, but wasn’t really his fault, he got traitorously ambushed by some Robin Hood proxies…), for 4pts, they are a really good objective holder, which can join the fray if needed. Mel was surprisingly efficient as well, I really enjoyed the panic-healing combo with Stannis and the Faithful, much better than the double Mel-Jaqen which I find a bit boring and a pretty bad player experience for me and the opponent.
It was still a fantastic time, I was very happy to be able to help (and burn hehehe) a bit some of the new players who joined!
For the third tournament in a row, the day belonged to Greyjoys! So once again, congrats to Masha and his Baelor list haha!
Thanks to Bruce for the organizing, to Cactus Bar for the location, and to every player for making it a really fun event!
So next one, new faction! And no, not Martells yet, I don’t think I’ll have time to paint them all, and I’m still licking my wounds from that brutal second game…
Grob’
Chez Grob 