Storm of Swords - Round 3.

On the third round I was challenged by Martin Baratheon, my campaign co-organiser… as his event, Martin had chosen “Plentiful Leadership, which meant, that he could field 2 commanders in his list, gaining two good unit attachments and 12 tactics cards. Only one of them was to be nominated as THE commander, scoring extra points from objectives etc. I was lucky to obtain “Mercenaries” event, which allowed me to field a 10% larger army, that would certainly be needed!

Honed and Ready

Was the scenario we rolled for… this is a scenario, in which Baratheons have the best victory record in ASOIAF Stats… ok, a bit of an extra challenge then…

So I chose this list for the game, even if it’s not so optimal to this scenario, as Jorah has no business to take objectives, as he would probably not survive the arrow volleys from the walls and Stormcrow archers would suffer from them too, with their 5+ armour save. Actually nothing in the list has better armour save than 4+.

Martin had the following in his army:

* Rose knights with Eldon (the commander)

* Stag Knights with Renly Paramount, commander attachment

* Sentinels with Brianne the Blue

* Bolton FM

NCUs

* Courtney Penrose

* Margaery Tyrell

* Tycho Nestoris

Deployment and Round 1.

We both deployed our commanders facing flank objectives and one another, Baratheon Sentinels and Stag Knights positioned towards the centre objectives, challenged only my SC Archers and Jorah. Last unit I deployed was Drogon into my right flank, as I decided to leave Hrakkars in reserve. Flayed men deployed opposite to Drogon, luckily there was a set of stakes between them…

My plan for  winning this battle was to secure at least two objectives, one with my commander of course, charge the enemy commander with my Hrakkars to contest the objective and deny 2 VPs for a round or two and then finally let Drogon run rampage into those heavily armoured enemy units, securing victory by a combination of kill points and objective points. Great plan, huh? I let Martin start the game… to make sure I can deploy Hrakkars at the start of R2.

Round one went just fine, Stormcrows peppered Sentinels with at least two volleys (Unsullied officer) and at least a rank was removed. 
Units moved forward into positions, avoiding fully covering objectives, in order not to get arrow volleys in just yet…

Martin’s last activation was to move FM closer to the center, still staying far from Drogon… if I would not have had the priority to deploy Hrakkars in set start of R2, I would have moved Drogon into position to charge FM in the beginning of R2, but now he was moved close to the stakes standing between right flank objectives.

Round 2.

As planned, Hrakkars were deployed right behind Eldon and his Rose knights…

I then continued shooting at the Sentinels, whom decided to turn tails and move away from my range, as well as to face the new threat caused by Hrakkars!

Then I had to choose a new target to shoot with my archers and as they let loose at the Stag Knights, as I the means to shoot three times with them, I could start really thinning them down, as their Resilience order could only handle one attack in a round. My idea was to reduce them into less then 6 wounds left, to be able to finish them off in a one go from Drogon.

But! As I shot at Stag Knights, Sentinels used their order and manouvered towards my  Hrakkars, ready to charge them, as they had not yet activated. 

So I had to activate Hrakkars and I couldn’t charge Rose Knights, as I would have stayed within LOS of Sentinels… so instead I moved full speed ahead and bypassed Sentinels. Brienne had manouvered well, bust now she was staring into an empty space. Still this thwarted my plan to deny Eldon his 2 VP!

After Flayed Man had moved on to the centre objective, as my final activation I moved Drogon forward on to an enemy side flank objective. I needed to keep eleven with VP for now. Next round, Drogon would start his rampage! Stag Knights were now situated between Drogon and Hrakkars… FM were really threatening my SC Archers too…

Deadly rain of arrows fell from the walls… My Unsullied lost three of their number, nothing to worry yet, but then a disaster struck!

Five arrows hit Drogon and I didn’t manage a single save on 4+!!! Drogon was badly wounded!

We both scored 3 VP from round 1., but the cost I had paid was deep…

Rounds 3. And 4.

Martin had planned to start the round by charging with FM, but the opportunity to take out Drogon with another volley from the walls was too good to be missed!

Four more arrows struck Drogon… well I only needed to save statistically half  of them to survive… I saved one and Drogon was out of the game! Out of 9 hits, I had managed just one 4+ save!

Ok, this was going to be bigger challenge after all!

At least Martin doing this first gave my Archers the change to survive, I took the horse zone and moved them on to a low wall, this would make FL lose their charge rerolls and  give me a 4+ armour save.

This worked as FM only managed 2 kills with their attacks and then 2 more with a failed panic test, naturally. I had a card to play!

So my Stormcrow Archers slipped away from the clutches of those terrible Bolton riders!

They then proceeded to perform extremely well and after a couple of volleys with Jorah and the right zones supporting them, FM succumbed to those shots and into failed panic test, HUZZAH!

In the meanwhile Hrakkars had charged Sentinels in the rear and almost managed to wipe them out… Martin then cashed in with Tycho to save them.

Then Sentinels attacked Hrakkars. After this dice roll by Martin, I stopped complaining about my bad luck with Drogon!

Eventually Sentinels won this joust, with just Brienne and 2 men left standing - it was a close call!

So our VP score remained quite even, we both had lost a unit or two,  and both of our commanders were sitting on objectives. Martin had a narrow lead 7-6

As round 4. was ongoing,  our battlefield looked like this:

Stag Knights had already used their order and as there were couple more volleys coming their way, Martin decided to retreat, instead of capturing the center objective.

He thought my SC Archers couldn’t reach the objective, but with straight ahead march and then a pivot got them covering it!

Neither commander was willing to move and as a final action of the game Jorah then moved onto a side objective, daring the arrow volley…

And he survived it! I guess old Westerosi Knights have tougher hides, than juvenile dragons!

So I scored 4 VP and that took me to 10. Martin scored 2 VP and ended at 9. I did contemplate on not taking the objective with Jorah, as a 1 VP margin, still counts as a draw in our campaign.

My analysis was, that if we went on for the 5th round, Stag Knights would smash my archers and claim the centre objective and there was an obvious risk for Jorah to die too… these portents were so dire, that I chose to take this morale victory aka settle for a draw!

Conclusions

What a dramatic game! If only I had not lost Drogon! As we’re playing the campaign in two player teams, I had given my team mate the opportunity to use Tycho and I had Mopatis. Should I’ve had the banker, Drogon would have been healed and survived. Then the game would have been quite different! Martin played well, denying me the chance to attack Rose Knights in the rear.

So our struggle against Baratheons will continue as we are neighbours on the campaign map…

Follow my campaign story here