ASOIAF: First ever 2 day tournament @ Winter War event 5.-6.3.2022 and talking Stats

Clash of 18 Commanders

Winter War tournament has for many many years been the largest wargaming event in Finland, organized by our club Nopat & Taktiikka. It caters tournaments for many games including The 9th Age, Flames of War, MESBG, Bolt Action and this year for the first time ASOIAF TMG. I was organizing this tournament with my mate Jaakko as the second TO. Read all about it!

OUR BIGGEST TOURNAMENT TO DATE

Original plan was to have a tournament for 20 ASOIAF TMG players with visiting players from abroad. I did reach out to Sweden, Denmark and UK but still Covid seemed to hamper people's willing to travel. Well, at least we had players from all around Finland, furthest one traveling more than 600km to join in!

As part of the process I was fortunate to have the opportunity to feature in the ASOIAF Stats Tourney Ground Live before the event - just the day the S1 2022 update dropped - and a review after the event.

See tournament details and results at ASOIAF Stats

Setup

The Previous night all TOs were setting up tables and decorating the scene, here is how our tables looked like:

My armies

Faction: Nights Watch Commander: Jon Snow - 998th Lord Commander Points: 40 / 40 Activations: 6 (7) Combat Units • Ranger Hunters (7) Jon Snow - 998th Lord Commander (0) • Sworn Brothers (7) Watch Captain (3) • Ranger Hunters (7) Benjen Stark - Wolf of the Wall (1) • Conscripts (5) Watch Recruiter (1) Non Combat Units • Aemon (4) • Othell Yarwyck (5)

Faction: Nights Watch Commander: Othell Yarwyck - First Builder Points: 40 / 40 Activations: 8 Combat Units • Veterans of the Watch (7) Othell Yarwyck - First Builder (0) • Coldhands - Mysterious Ally (4) • Conscripts (5) Watch Recruiter (1) • Builder Scorpion Crew (5) Scorpion Modifications - Builder (1) • Builder Crossbowmen (7) Senior Builder (1) Non Combat Units • Aemon (4) • Samwell Tarly (5) • Gilly (0)

Armies on Parade

At Nopat club there's a strong tradition of playing with painted armies and tournaments typically reward well painted armies. In this tournament a fully painted army got a 1 tournament point and an army with more than half of it's models painted got 0,5. This did not change the winner of the tournament but did impact positions between 5 and 10. Also the best / coolest army - as voted by players - was rewarded.

Kustaa's Lannisters

Oskari's Night's Watch

Pave's Free Folk

My Night's Watch

Painted this Ranger Hunter unit for the tournament 

Teemu's Baratheon

Leo's Free Folk

Pasi's Lannisters

Johannes' (tournament winner) Free Folk (painted ones) 

Esa's Boltons - voted as the best / coolest army

Action!

My games - DAY 1.

First game was Game of Thrones and my Othell army faced Kustaa's Lannisters lead by Roose Bolton

Feeling confident as the game is starting...

But the unexpected happened: weakened KOCR charged my Hardened Veterans, with Coldhands providing -1 to hit... BUT Papa Tywin bombed my Veterans with all he has 

...and with the following charge from the knights one shotted them (few had fallen from Tywin's hits)

That more or less decided the game :-(

12-6 to Lannisters

Game 2. Here We Stand

Vs. Tini's Lannisters

Tini was voted as the nicest opponent by the players. He had travelled all the way from Oulu to join - that's more than 600km!

Tini played really aggressively with his Guardsmen!

Eventually I was able to grind more points killed and won the game by this tie breaker 19-17

VPs were 10-10

3rd. Game Clash of Kings

Night's watch fought Night's watch as my Othell list faced Oskari's army lead by Donald Noye

That's what I call a defensive formation! Combination of a Senior Builder ability and Othell's Rapid construction card worked like a dream on several games! In this game it blocked the enemy army very well and I was holding 2 out of the three objectives!

 

This is how you shoot a Scorpion to 

a target beyond long range!

Rerolls from Othell worked very well!

Crushing victory to me 13-7

The Night

After first day's games many of us moved to a nearby bar and we ordered some food too...

This kinda backfired as the food wasn't quite ok... it came back up during the night! As the next morning dawned, I wasn't feeling very rested...

DAY 2

Game 4. 

Dark Wings, Dark Words vs. Jaakko's Greyjoys

As Round 4 started both me and Jaakko (whom I consider to be the best Song player in Finland) were in a position, where all was still possible - winning would take either of us to top tables...

Night's Watch in a T shape deployment - Conscript battery behind the battle line

Jon Hunters and Benjen Hunters facing Baelor Silenced men and GJ Archers. I attacked Baelor about a million times, but they just wouldn't die! And when they finally did... well, they fucking didn't! (What is dead may never die) A lesson learned - one should always bring one list with anti-hardened tech!

This uphill battle ended 13-7 to Jaakko, I only managed to destroy a one Archer unit - 4 freaking points!

Well, now I could relax for the final round...

Game 5. Winds of Winter vs. Lauri´s Lannisters

Well, third game against Lannisters. Well, at least it was easy to choose my list - Othell!

Once again my army was sheltered by two sets of stakes and a swamp! Lauri is like "what the hell..."

My Scorpion bolt thrower really is a great psychological weapon! Lannister cavalry chose to stay out of 12" and stop on an objective and that was fine by me! Coldhands charged their flank and my scorpion kept hitting them on 6+ (with Othell rerolls for sure) - Honed enhancements were Counterplotted for sure!. Soon they were no more and I was on the roll!

In the end of the battle only Warrior Sons were standing from Lannisters, they had parked too long on an objective, behind stakes...

Crushing victory 12-4 to me!

FINAL RESULTS

TOs. 

Jaakko placed third in the tournament with his Greyjoys. I placed 5th - there were 6 players with 11 tournament points, but my painting point raised me position nicely.

The Winner! Johannes with Free Folk and score of 15 / 14 / 98 - only player with 5 straight wins.

See his lists here

Tini - nicest opponent

Hoffa - 2nd place with Greyjoys

Conclusions

Oh boy was I tired, BUT HAPPY, when I finally got home on Sunday evening, after helping with the logistics of getting all the stuff back to our club. 

I was so happy, because our tournament had been quite a success: all 18 players showed up and everybody reported that the experience had been very good, great games and nice opponents. It tells a lot, that quite a few players got votes in the nicest opponent vote!

Stats

Free folk (win rate 82%) and Greyjoys (win rate 77%) really ruled the tournament.

See more stats from Stats!