ASOIAF August Cup: 2nd Battle

FIGHTING BARATHEONS 

- Clash of King(s) and The Queen

In my second battle I faced Baratheons (Renly loyalty) lead by venerable Eldon Estermont.

Old Turdle 3 Faction: Baratheon Commander: Eldon Estermont - Lord of Greenstone Points: 40 Activations: 7 Combat Units • Rose Knights (7) Eldon Estermont - Lord of Greenstone (0) • Champions of The Stag (8) • Baratheon Sentinels (6) Bronn - The Sellsword (1) • Baratheon Wardens (5) Non Combat Units • Margaery Tyrell (4) • Cortnay Penrose (4) • Olenna Tyrell (5) View this list at asoiaf-stats.com/builder/PLAYEReu-west-2:034f34c1-fd3c-477a-b731-aec64b650d4aLISTe99bf7c0-f043-11eb-82f6-b9faa604be72

An obvious choice was to play my Mother of Dragons list against slow moving, heavily armoured Baratheons.

In our cup several comps are in effect, mostly on NW, but as nobody is playing NW, the only one worth noting is the dragons doingD3+2 wounds, instead of D3+3

Deployment

My pretty standard deployment with this list is to start deploying dragons, one by one, quite in the middle, to see where the enemy deploys - as dragons are fast enough to “redeploy” as I wish.

I deployed Daenarys to my extreme left - aiming to get her on an objective without facing threat from too many enemy units. My opponent spread his 4 units evenly on his deployment zone, which I think was a mistake… trying to crab all three objectives is too greedy and this deployment gave me the chance to focus my dragons on a one flank and destroy enemy units there, before moving further down to line. I believe, that armies as slow as Baratheons should really stick together to protect their flanks and to get counter charges.

Round 1.

On my left flank Daenerys faced Champions of Stag moving in to block the objective - a smart move to deny my commander from getting 2 VP from the objective… luckily Daenerys had her winged children close by…

I even managed a charge with Viserion and hit Them mounted Stags in the flank. This caused appropriate damage, but  as we know Renly loyalty has plenty of healing available… Margaery Tyrell healed them up and made Viserion vulnerable…

Other dragons were holding in pattern for their turn to engage approaching Wardens

While Eldon and his heavily armored Rose knights slogged towards an objective, quite far from the action

Round 2. Bring it down!

Champions of Stag finally fell under dragon fire (I played Dracarys with Dany's activation), but as their last strike they caused several hits on vulnerable Viserion, sadly taking it with them! This was actually wrongly played, as "Final strike" can't be played when the unit is destroyed by the enemy attack!

Drogon and Rhaegal double tapped Baratheon Wardens and decimated them during rounds 2 and 3.



End of R2 Targaryens 2 - Baratheons 3

Round Three

As Daenarys and her bunker were  unable to reach the objective, I had to secure it whit Rhaegal for now, while Stormcrows secured the central objective. Drogon moved to be ready engage Bronn next round. Eldon was holding the remaining objective, scoring 2 VP... but I was destroying his army, unit by unit!



End of R3: Targaryens 6 VP - Baratheons 5 VP

Round 4. fight for the centre

My opponent made a mistake in his positioning of his Sentinels and that gave my Stormcrows an opportunity to charge them first, blows were exchanged with both units losing men. To win the fight (and the battle) I had to charge in with Drogon, that was already wounded from the fight with Wardens...

And again, while I destroyed the Sentinels, they took Drogon to the grave with them!

In the end it was a very close call. My opponent had played  "Hefty ransom" on almost dead Stormcrows, but I managed to pass this critical Crown Zap test, whew... denied 2 VP from Baratheons



Then there was really nothing more to do, than hold on the objectives, so Daenarys moved to an objective, Rhaegal flew to control the central objective... 



...while Eldon still just watched the battle field

Final score: Targaryens 10 VP - Baratheons 8 VP

Conclusions

I think the battle was decided at the point on R2 or 3, where I had destroyed 2 / 4 Baratheon units, lost one dragon and Eldon was still stuck on the right flank objective, so he nor his Rose knights were not contributing to the battle at all (except of course scoring 2 VP every round). I could then swamp his Sentinels with three units (including 2 dragons) and then hold on to two objectives with Daenarys scoring 2 VP. My weak point was definitely my NCUs; with Olenna in the game, I could only use the tactics zone that was left with Walder Frey and so his potential drastically reduced. It is really crippling to play with just 1 NCU until your last activation. I need to rework my MOD list for sure! At least with Daenarys I did right, she was not in any danger to be destroyed, which in this scenario would have given my opponent 5 VP and lost me the game.