ASOIAF: August Cup Battle report 1.

 Game a week tournament

As an alternative for running one day tournaments with 3 games, one of my mates 

at Nopat & Taktiikka Club is organising cup style tournaments. We play one game per week and tournament runs for four weeks.

Finished another unit of Unsullied Pikemen for the tournament:

My two lists for the tournament are as follows:

MOD Faction: Targaryen Commander: Daenerys Targaryen - Mother of Dragons Points: 40 Activations: 7 Combat Units • House Bolton Blackguards (6) Daenerys Targaryen - Mother of Dragons (0) • Drogon (7) • Rhaegal (7) • Viserion (7) • Stormcrow Mercenaries (5) Jaqen H'ghar - Unnamed (1) Non Combat Units • Illyrio Mopatis (4) • Walder Frey (4)

Barristan's Phalanx Faction: Targaryen Commander: Barristan Selmy - Barristan The Bold Points: 40 Activations: 8 Combat Units • Unsullied Pikemen (7) Barristan Selmy - Barristan The Bold (0) • Jorah Mormont - The Wandering Knight (3) • Dothraki Hrakkars (5) • Stormcrow Archers (6) • Unsullied Pikemen (7) Non Combat Units • Illyrio Mopatis (4) • Daenerys Targaryen (4) • Tycho Nestoris (4)

As a tournament house rule or comp Dragons would "only" do D3+2 wounds with their attack. There were also several restrictions to Nightswatch, but none of the participants chose to play them... 

Dark Wings, Dark Words vs. Atte's Lannisters

In my first game I faced our TO Atte and his scheming Lannisters. An obvious choice for this opponent was to play my MOD -list. For some reason I kept orienting myself to playing Feast for Crows... so I was a bit off when we started playing DWDW!

Deployment

I started my deployment by placing one dragon at a time to hide where I would eventually deploy Daenarys. As Lannisters deployed mostly to my left, it was an easy choice to place Dany & Blackguard (looking very much like my recently finished Unsullied Pikemen unit) in my right flank, ready to march towards the objective in the right. I started the game and took Horses to advance Dany & BG towards the objective... 

Round 1. was mostly about units maneuvering into position. A light brain fart occurred on my behalf: 

we had "score 2 VP from center objective, I could have claimed the objective with Rhaegal, but analyzing the situation stopped from doing that: Lannisters had NCUs left and could nullify the objective, so  I would only eat a charge from Poor Peoples with no gains... so then those Poor People marched to the objective AND I DID NOT NULLIFY IT. Easy 2 VPs for Atte.

End of R1 2-0 to Lannisters

Round 2. Charging in

Round 2. two saw several charges hitting home. First was made by Drogon against

Bolton Bastard's Girls in the left flank. My idea was to make a pre-emptive strike to stop those Bastard's from attacking my Stormcrow Mercenaries, whom, would certainly melt away against them.

Drogon grilled 4 models and 2 more ran away due to a failed panic test, looking good...

Viserion followed suit and crashed into the flank of Lannister Red Cloaks (whom looked very much like Mountain Men)!

But then the power of Lannister & Tyrion shenanigans was released in full!

Bastard Girl's attacked with "Swords" and as Tyrion was so close, I did not want to play "Fire made flesh" TC as Tyrion would have cancelled that on 3+! So several wounds were caused on Vulnerable Drogon and then with all the  Lannister panic shenanigans from Red cloaks Drogon, went down! Buhuu!

With Tyrion's cards or some other way Bastard's Girls then shot and charged at my Stormcrows - the very thing I had tried to avoid! Dice gods favored them mercenaries and they saved all hits from shooting and melee, hence securing the objective for now.

In the meanwhile Viserion was torching up and gulping down those dastardly Red cloaks. After two attacks there were only two of them standing - if we didn't have the comp on Dragons, they would have been destroyed! Rhaegal had charged Poor Peoples to deny them from scoring more points from the central objective. Tyrion and Lannister Guardsmen were brave enough to charge Viserion, which had 7 wounds!

At the end of Round 2. I had lost one Dragon and almost destroyed Red cloaks. I scored 3 VP from objectives and Lannisters scored 1. I think I scored 1or 2 points from secret missions.

End of R2 5-4 to Targaryens

Rounds 3. & 4.

Game got so intense, that not so many pictures were taken...

Major events: 

• I had to make a hard choice: retreat or heal Viserion... or finish off Red Cloaks... I chose to destroy those Lannister bastards
• Rhaegal retreated from Poor Peoples, as it became obvious, that they could not be eaten up fast enough and she was hurt
• Viserion had finished up with Red Cloaks but was now engaged with Tyrion and Lannister Guards - facing the same dilemma as Drogon before - Fire Made Flesh could be easily cancelled by Tyrion!
• As I had expected, Stormcrows were being hammered by panic tests and Bastard's Girls. Having just two of them left, I should have retreated on R4, but another brain fart stopped me from doing that and they were wiped out 

Viserion found itself sandwiched between Lannister units and eventually succumbed, snif.

Tight margins: at the end of R3 Mountain that rides charged Dany & Blackguards, if it only would have failed a 7+ panic test and taken at least that 1 wound, it would not have contested the objective from me and I would have scored 2 more VPs!

End of Round 3.

Lannisters leading 9-8

Round 4. started and Rhaegal, that had healed, moved in to eat The Mountain - it took two attacks to finish that meal!

After that nothing much happened, Atte moved a unit to my deployment zone to score a secret mission, but I skipped Dany's activation to remove that mission.

Most of Lannister activations were just passed and it was time to count up the score...

Tyrion was now solidly sitting on an objective too, as well as Poor Peoples, so Lannisters scored 3 VP from objectives and I scored 2. Round 4. ended 3-3, but...

12-11 narrow victory for Lannisters