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The format was based on CMON's tournament pack in the documents sections https://asoiaf.cmon.com/ To summarise, two lists at 40pts, played on a 4ft x 4ft board. Having only played half a dozen games or so, mostly 50pt on 6ft x 4ft boards and generally the same scenario, I was expecting this more to be a learning experience. How right I was...
There were 18 players, a pretty good turn out as the game was not long out. I had one of only 4 fully painted armies along with one Stark and two Nights Watch, and was paired up with Simon Millership's painted Stark army to do a video recording of the first game (hope to add the link soon)
The scenarios were as follows: A Clash of Kings, A Dance of Dragons and the Winds of Winter. The only one I had played was Winds of Winter, as I normally play the Game of Thrones.
Although my second list was more aggressive, I never used it, deciding to stick back with the same force for all 3 games, as below:
Jaime Lannister, The Kingslayer (Commander)
NCU: Tyrion Lannister (The Imp), Cersei Lannister (Queen Regent)
Lannister Halberdiers (with Jaime attached)
Lannister Guardsmen with Guard Captain
Lannister Guardsmen with Guard Captain
Lannister Crossbowmen
Knights of Casterley Rock
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| My lovely Lannisters |
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| Lannister Crossbowmen |
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| Lannister Guardsmen |
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| Lannister Halberdiers with the Kingslayer |
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| Second unit of Lannister Guardsmen |
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| Knights of Casterly Rock |
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| Cersei and Tyrion in the Throne room. High Seneschal keeps track of the turns... |
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| My reserves for list 2, never used |
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| Nor was The High Sparrow, my second list Commander. Love how much he looks like Jeremy Corbyn... |
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| The army of my opponent in the first game. 2 x Umber Berzerkers with Champions, Umber Great Axes and Lord Eddard Stark commanding his House Guard. Fast and hard hitting |
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| The NCU's were Varys and Baelish |
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| I didn't face it, but the second lsit was polar opposite, with two units of Tully Sworn shields and two of Stark Sworn swords, with Hodor/Bran and Robb attachments and Brynden Tully NCU. Both armies were exquisite, and I regret not getting some close ups particularly of the Tully Sworn Shields. Simon Won the Best Painted Army Award and it would have been a close run thing between this and the one below... |
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| Tony Moore's Night Watch were really excellent, and must have been 2nd Best Painted army. |
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| Varys got about a bit... |
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| Nasty Brothers of the Watch, the Watchers on the Wall |
Hope to get a video link soon
GAME 2: A Dance with Dragons v Roland Hynd's Lannisters
The mission was to hold objectives, scoring 1 VP each as of end of Turn 2 (But if your commander is on one, scores and extra point). And an extra point for each unit destroyed. On the left, the objective removed an NCU abilities, centre took D3 wounds of unit per melee but gave vicious and sundering, and right gave out weakened and panicked conditions.
Terrain wise, 2 corpse piles centre and left, right was two palisades bottle necking the area. I deployed heavily on my left, (respectively, cavalry, crossbowmen, halberdiers and both guardsmen)while Roland acknowledged he made errors in deployment by not leaving enough room for his troops space wise after deploying centrally, forcing his cavalry and halberdiers into the bottleneck.
DEPLOYMENT
TURN 1
Rolands first activation was Cersei, targeting my Crossbowmen with a panic check with a -3 which I rolled badly on, which cost me 6 crossbowmen. I added some tactics cards while Pycelle allowed the Mountain and his halberdiers and advance
Turn one was a quick march to the centre. The fake lannsters led by the Mountain took the right objective, but my cavalry took the left. Unfortunately, the right one only gave conditions when scoring, my left one was immediate and I was able to nullify Cersei...
Still, her earlier influence and damage had injured my pride, and I rather stupidly opened fire with my last activation (My Cersei taking the free attack slot and allowing my Crossbowmen to target the Lannister Guards that were just in range). I killed one, then he passed morale triggering Lannister Supremacy... I didn't really think it through, and the resultant snake eye took off my unit!!!
Having hamstrung my forces by wasting my numerical superiority on the left, my first activation was to charge the Knights of Casterly Rock in the bottleneck. That would protect my line and effectively keep the Mountain and Halberdiers away from the battle. (At this point I had totally forgot he would be scoring to Victory points per round as they were on an objective)
The Halberdiers with the Mountain tried all sorts to allow the Knights to retreat, but they were effectively blocked in and decided to sit on the objective (as that was all they could really do)
As battle had been well and truly joined, I didn't take too many pictures but to summarise. I lost my Guardsmen to the Clegane Men, my Knights wiped out the Cleganes Men, Jamies Halberdiers were decimated by Cersei giving extra attacks on the Guardsmen and influenced Lannister supremacy (and embarrassingly ignored by the other unit of guardsmen who headed for the objective), while my guardsmen were awesome in slapping down some Knights while Tyrion allowed Jaime to retreat...
End of tactics board for turn 3
Jaime runs away...
VP's end of turn 3. Roland has 7 VP's to my 2 VP's
TURN 4
In a desperate attempt to save Jaime and his unit, the cavalry activated first and charged ineffectually into the nearest guards. Sadly, this allowed Roland to use Cersei to influence and steal the crown, panicking Jaime off the board.
This pushed Roland up to 8 vp's and with the Mountain being immovable, Roland had the game won. But undeterred, we carried on. Tyrion healed up my cavalry while allowed the Lannsters cavalry to retreat Pycelle, while my Cersei influenced the Knights and allowed a free attack with my Knights. Rolands Knights then charged back in.
But despite the huge negatives, Roland rolled a pair of 6's to survive...
However, not only did Roland fluff his attacks, my Guardsmen savaged them back, and he badly failed his panic test and the two Knights were removed. My Guards then moved up to give the Mountain a charge while remaining on the objective (as Roland wouldn't have left the objective anyway and his second guards had marched onto the left objective.
End of turn 4, Roland's Lannister's 11 VP's, my Lannisters 4 VP's
That was a really good game, full of mistakes as we're both still learning but played with the right spirit and gung ho attitude needed in the big central melee. I didn't learn the importance of understanding the mission, which given Game 1 I really should have, as leaving the Mountain to rack up 6 points over 3 turns was folly. My bottleneck plan and Roland's deployment error actually worked out well for him in this. Added to this, his use of Guard captain in his Mountains Men reduced my ability to deal with him quickly via Cersei and Lannister supremacy, which I could have done with in my Crossbowmen. Add in the stupid mistake of targeting Lannister Guards with my crossbows when half strength, well, just compounded the way the game panned out.
GAME 3 The Winds of Winter v Gerry Brawley's Night Watch
Gerry's force was as below led by Jon Snow with Ghost, far left, then sworn brothers, Jon in veterans of the watch, 2 units of sworn brothers and then ranger trackers, with NCU's Amon and Bowen Marsh.
I deployed with Guards far left, Knights, Jaime & the Halberdiers, Crossbows and Guards on my right. Nothing happened turn 1 other than moving..
Turn 1 NCU board. Showing this as both my secret missions (Gerry's cards, dealt and shuffled by Gerry) were NCU cards. As of turn 2, I could score by 1 VP by activating but not claiming a spot on the board, or by taking the moneybag and free move, and if took both I would get 3 VP's. With Tyrion on the envelope, I had six good cards in my hand end of turn 1...
Turn 2
As Gerry had activated first this turn, he took the free move to advance a unit onto centre objective so I figured I just wouldn't activate my NCU's and get two points on board. Gerry then over extended with Ghost up behind my lines, so I gratefully took the chance to bring my cavalry back and smack the wolf. Gerry burned a card to keep Ghost alive on one wound.
Tyrion and Cersei did nothing this turn except put me on the VP trail
I held back as the Nights Watch gathered in strength along the centre of the board...
Jaime and his Halberdiers were facing off against 3 units, as the Crossbows took out quite a few Sworn brothers due to poor saves and poor panic check..
The Watch hold the centre as Ghost holds down the Lannister cavalry...
TURN 3
I activated first and took the free movement to move my left guards up onto the extreme of the board. The Sworn brothers there charged in as Gerry had a mission to gain VP's per charge and as the Guards held off and I had the one outlined earlier for NCU's to take moneybag and horse, Tyrion too the moneybags and healed the far left guards. and scoring me 3 VPs. I also played on Jaime's Halberdiers my other mission which gave me a VP every time they were attacked but not destroyed as figured it was coming. The Open mission was to have 3 enemy units with the same condition, but I didn't think that was likely...
The Crossbows had been really effective reducing the right sworn brothers right down
Jamie's Halberdiers charged the Sworn brothers in front, not doing much. The Sworn brothers then activated and I played a tactics card from the Kinglsayer, "Kinglsayers Renown" which weakened and panicked the sworn brothers, who attacked but didn't destroy me, scoring me another victory point
As the left units battered away at each other, my knights finally killed ghost, while Jon Snow (in his grief) and his Veterans activated to charge the Halberdiers flank. I played "Kingslayers Renown" again (as Tyrion had gifted me both) weakening the charge and also panicking them. However, the Veterans had a card/vow that allowed 10 attacks hitting on 2+, so all hit. I used the weaken token, though was tempted to take the hits and lose my whole unit, but that didn't seem right. Still, the Veterans still managed 10 hits, in my flank. I failed to make enough saves, so Jaime and his halberdiers were destroyed, much to my glee...
As Jaime and his men were removed, and the Veterans spun round to face the Knights of Casterly Rock, I played "A Lannisters always pay his debts" tactics card, allowing me to panic and make a unit vulnerable (which was put on the Sworn brother on my left swinging away at my guardsmen)
As mentioned earlier, this gave 3 different enemy units the same condition, scoring me 3 more Victory points...
So far the Mission cards had all been stacked against Gerry but he carried on regardless, with me on 9 VP's and Gerry on 3 VP's. As you can see below, he was royally kicking my butt. His mounted ranger had barrelled into my crossbows and was all over me...
TURN 4
My two new missions were pretty good, as one was for to score a VP for every failed enemy morale check this turn. Accordingly, Cersei activated first and took the crown.
The Sworn brothers on the corpse pile, influenced by Cersei for a whopping -5 test unsurprisingly failed their morale...
Jon and his Veterans did sterling work against my cavalry when the NW charged them...
The tactics board in turn 4 was busy as I tried to move my right guards up
The left wing of my arm was hanging on, as the Nightswatch numbers had swelled to maximum
The free move taken by Tyrion allowed my crossbowmen to retreat and on activation finish off the two remaining sworn brothers...
The left guards are taken out, and the cavalry wont hold much longer
But they wouldn't have two, as with two failed morale checks, the game was over at the end of the turn...
NightsWatch 4 VPs, Lannisters 11 VP's
I felt for Gerry after this game, he had systematically outplayed me in terms of tactics, but the Secret Mission cards allowed me 5 VP's from NCU's in turns 2 and 3 that he couldn't really counter. (I mean the turn after Jon's veterans had wiped out Jaime's Halberdiers, Gerry drew the secret mission of gaining 4 VP's if he killed the enemy commander this turn) Add in the lucky Open mission of 3 same conditions on the enemy in thesame turn and having the right tactics cards gave me a commanding lead. Still, Gerry has played me more than once and knows how lucky I can be. He did nothing wrong but lost heavily and I feel in a competitive tournament setting this mission really is down to the luck o the draw...
So the day ended with the Kingslayer finally getting a win, somewhat fortuitously. Simon from Game 1 ended up in top spot, winning all three games. Will hopefully get to more events down at Board in Brum, as its a great venue and has a really good ASOIF throng playing...
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