But I digress, and I opted to take Roose Bolton leading a force with Boltons, Cleganes and Lannisters against Baratheons and a Mercenary unit.
We played a Game of Thrones at 40pts.
My force was as follows:
NCU's: Roose Bolton (C), Pycelle
Units: Knights of Casterly Rock, Pyromancers, 2 x Mountains Men including one with Brienne of Tarth, Bolton Cutthroats with Dreadfort Captain
Also, Jaime Lannister, Maimed Captive
I've had these two painted for ages, but this is their first outing
Raymond's Baratheons are as below:
NCU's: Tycho Nestoris, Alester Florent
Units: Baratheon Wardens, Baratheon Wardens with Renly Baratheon (C), Stag Knights (with Jaime attached and Master Warden), Baratheon Sentinels with Brienne and Stormcrow Mercenaries with a Master Warden.
The charismatic heir... The Baratheon figures are excellent!!!
My Brienne used her Knightly vow to target the Stag Knights with Jaime, while her alter ego for the Baratheons targeted Brienne's Mountains Men.
We set up with a palisade on my far left, a spiked fence mid-table in my half and a corpse pile and a Weirwood tree. I won the roll off and opted to take second activation.
The objectives were clustered centre, with one off to my left. We kept them blind until taken.
We also stuck to 1.4 rules, with exception of the new panic rules...
I set up Mountains Men to take left, then Brienne's Mountain Men central beside right of centre Pyromancers, CutThroats and Knights on extreme right. Facing me, bunched centrally were (left to right as you look) Brienne and her Sentinels, Wardens, Stag Knights with Jaime, Renly and Wardens and then Stromcrows...
TURN 1
As per usual, Raymond's first activation was to get the extra cards. I then put Pycelle on the horse to move the Pyromancers up...
The Stag Knights activated and Jamie proved a handful and caused 3 casualties...
Back to strength, and looking menacing!!!
I used Roose and put a few panic tokens on it...
Raymond kept his forces tightly bunched and limped forward under their heavy armour...
I swung a unit out left and swung the rest right to try and roll the flank. The Pyromancers took and objective that allowed an extra tactics card, while the Baratheons would heal D3 when they scored points of it...
TURN 2
With first activation, I threw my Knights into the Stormcrows, hitting 8 times despite the Baratheon Warden. Raymond saved 4, and the 4 casualties were saved by Renly's tactic card when they passed their morale. Talk about blunt my right hook!!!
Baratheon Brienne swept up my left, and I countered with my Mountains Men to threaten their flank (or so I thought), while I marched up the Cuthtroats to add weight to the attack. Stag Knights and Jaime advanced onto the centre objective, but took 3 wounds from Roose tactic card by spending a panic token, but saved Jaime's hits from unruly captive. The objective gave the scoring side a free move or retreat for a unit...
I took the bait and made a charge with Brienne for 10 attacks hitting on 2 + but didn't score much damage...
And the three wounds were healed again anyway. I had also taken the swords as Tycho had taken letters again, so my knights did score some wounds on the Stormcrows and also suffered some panic casualties...
A countercharge was used to get Renly into the Knights flanks but they were weakened by Pycelle
so the few hits were saved well...
Looking busy in the centre, but I'd erred with Pyromancers and they were stuck out the way...
We then scored, and the left flank objective gave me a weakened and vulnerable on opponents units. I also got an extra card in hand but this was cancelled by one controlled by the Baratheons. The Baratheons also got to heal D3 wounds (on Stag Knights) and gave Brienne's Wardens a free advance to threaten my Brienne's flank!!!
End of TURN 2. Baratheons 3 VP's, Lannisters 2 VP's
TURN 3
After much thought, with regard to taking swords or activating Stag Knights to block a flank assault on Renly, Raymond went with Brienne into Brienne's flank...
Charging over the spikes did cause a few wounds, but with the Knightly vow, it hit hard!!!
I took the opportunity to repay the favour into Renly's flank with my Cutthroats, halving the unit strength. Baratheon Brienne then finished the job on my Mountains Men Brienne with the swords, moving down toward my Pyromancers. I had a nice Roose card, so used Roose to give out two panic tokens. When the Stag knights moved up, I played calculated cruelty, they took 3 wounds from expending the token by being in short range of my cutthroats, and then Jamie took a few more off. And they were now in range of my Pyromancers...
And with a flash of Wildfire, and the Hear me Roar card, the Stag Knights narrowly failed their morale and lost the remaining 4 men, freeing Maimed Jamie and giving me a chance...
Although, another counter charge into the Pyromancers flank would doubtless hurt...
With 8 hits incoming, my Pyromancers were in trouble. Until I rolled 4 6's.... And then passed the morale check!!!
I was behind but with first activation I felt I could pressure my right and hope my Pyromancers held up Brienne for a bit. I felt I needed to take the risk of bringing up my left Mountain Mens, leaving the objective they had been sat on. Tycho Nestoris also had been used to heal up Renly's unit which had been given a bit of a mauling!!!
At the end of turn 3, it was still tight with Baratheons on 6 VP's, Lannisters on 5 VP's...
TURN 4
I took the swords with Pycelle, weakening Brienne and her Wardens and attacked the remaining 7 men defending Renly with my cutthroats. I scored 3 wounds, and due to the vicious and flank, Renly failed his morale, taking a further 4 wounds and the charismatic heir fell...
That was a serious blow to the Baratheons, and Brienne and her weakened wardens were lacklustre again v the Pyromancers, and the other Wardens moved to take the central objective.
I dropped more green Wildfire into Brienne, killing 4, and despite her morale bonus, they failed narrowly (again) and Raymond rolled maximum wounds (again) wiping out another unit!!!
We both played cards, with my Pyromancers healing 4 with fealty to the crown, as the Wardnes "counter charged" into them!!
The Pyromancers took heavy casualties at last, but were still in the game!!!
My Knights attacked the Stormcrow Mercenaries, reducing the unit. When the Mercenaries struck back, I took a wound and passed morale, Lannister supremacy finishing of the Stormcrows when they failed another panic test. My Mountains Men moved up and completed a very lucky win for the Lannister forces...
End of TURN 4. Baratheons 6 VP's, Lannister 11 VP's
CONCLUSION
Well, despite having made error's in deployment and in early manouvering, I actually managed a win. I left my Mountains Men out of the fight and the numbers centrally were in Raymond's favour, especially with my Pyromancers languishing in the rear. When I got my Knights of Casterly Rock stuck in melee and lost Brienne and her unit, I thought I was going to be overrun with relative ease by the Hammer wielders!!! Then a few good cards, some very lucky dice (with my Pyromancers) and also some really bad dice from Raymond, the game turned on its head. At the end, we were both fairly flummoxed by not only the result, but the scale of the win... The new Morale rules are fair and though they may have looked skewed in my favour, it was more due to Raymond's ability to roll a D3 and always roll a 3.
Another great game, the Baratheon's are very tough and hard hitting, and had the game sewn up in my mind end of turn 2. Then, I got some lucky dice with my Pyromancers and my Knights also held up two units, while the cut-throats in the flank finally killed the man who would be King...
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