Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken

ASOAIF community is buzzing about the approaching release (hopefully during Q4 this year) of this new faction for our favorite game! Last weekend in Gencon (US) the starter set and minis were shown to the public for the first time. Based on what was seen there and some information leaked before, the community has stitched together enough resources to facilitate actually giving Martells a go!

This week we played a first game with them, facing their current allies - House Targaryen!

Read on to learn how it all went down!

My army

Naturally I wanted to try out all revealed Martell units - combat and non-combat, so the only question to resolve, was should I choose The Red Viper (Oberon Martell) or Doran Martell as my commander?

I made a list for both commanders and after we rolled Feast For Crows as our game mode, I chose to play with the one lead by Oberon:

Oberon with Sunspear Dervishes 6p.
Sand Skirmishers 7p.
Spearmen (5p.) with Captain (1p.) / Threaten
Flayed Men (8p.) with Glory Seeker 1p.
Doran NCU (4p., brings Water Gardens TZ)
Ellaria Martell NCU (4pts)
Petyr Baelish NCU (4pts)

Digged up my LOTR minis to play the game. Dany Khaleesi proxied for Ellaria and Grey Worm for Oberon.

My Opponent Antti had the following list

Daario Commander with Bolton Cutthroats
Unsullied Swordmasters
Golden Company Swordmen
Golden Company War Elephant
Stormcrow Archers
Dany Khaleesi NCU
Illyrio Mopatis NCU

The Battle - Feast for Crows

Deployment & Round 1.

I placed most of units more or less in the center, but angled infantry units so, that they could march diagonally. Flayed men also could head towards either flank (and objective). I set my Sand Skirmishers to face against Unsullied SMs as I wanted to shoot them first...

During the first round I set to work to start destroying SC Archers, they took dutifully 3 wounds from a failed panic test and then I placed the poison card on them... that certainly spelled doom for them!

But they were still hiding behind the stakes... my loyal spearmen then lend a hand to the Dervishes, they first used the order to give Dervishes a 3" shift and then followed to donate their whole activation:

Dervishes the marched to within 1" of the stakes and later destroyed it with their own activation... now facing the archers and start of turn 2 would be mine!

Then the counter play very concretely struck: Antti used Swift reposition twice(!) to bring the War Elephant a bit closer and charged, and in the elephant crashed!

Dervishes smartly retreated using their order leaving the Elephant weakened, panicked and vulnerable and staring into nothingness...

In the meanwhile my Sand Skirmishers had moved into position to challenge the Unsullied

End of Round 1.

Blood & Guts!

When playing with Martells, It's essential to analyze, what TZs do I need to get the most out of my cards and NCUs, like Ellyria Sand and specially Doran Martell

I started my 2nd round by taking the Swords and shooting at Swordmasters, Sand Skirmishers used their Scout opening order and with rerolls a I think I got 4 precision hits, taking out 6 Swordmasters!

SC Archers took a pot shot at Dervishes, but I saved all 3 hits. Oberon and Dervishes then charged in and finished them off, first VP for me.

Flayed men had bided their time but now launched their charge on Bolton Cuthroats, striking a devastating blow at them (they were vulnerable too). My Sand Skirmishers had taken out quite a few hits from Swordmaster's retaliation and it was crucial to heal them to secure holding the objective.

It was also crucial, that the War Elephant stayed out of the battle during R2, all my units had advanced forward rather aggressively and were chopping at Targs on 3 different melees

Round 3.

Round 3 saw Targaryen right flank crumble as my Spearmen and FM finished of Daario Cuthroats (whom had really hurt my FM) and then Sand Skirmishers finishing Swordmasters! They didn't need the help from Spearmen, whom were ready to charge in...

Final stages

New corpse piles were popping up here and there and many units were scoring points from them. Doran had also secured 4 tokens by now and would give me 2 VP at the end of R4 (this seems a bit too easy way to get 2 VP!).

Final moves saw GC Swordmen finish off Dervishes and my Glory Seeker FM galloping away from the elephant and parking on one of the objectives.

After I had crumbled Targaryen left my Sand Skirmishers and Spearmen took a break and debated weather.

With 4 VPs coming my way at the end of R4, the game ended in

Martell Crushing Victory 10-4

Conclusions

Martells certainly are an interesting faction to play!
Playing them successfully requires one to build up combos from the TZ, NCUs and cards, so maybe not the easiest faction to start playing Song
Like said, Doran Martell with Water Gardens and 2 VPs from 4 tokens on him, seems like a too easy way to get those VPs. I didn't feel practically any negative impact from being forced to claim a certain zone by him. Having Petyr in my team of 3 NCUs also felt really relevant
I think all revealed Martell units are really nice, they have plenty of movement to get the charges out against other infantry units

Sand Skirmishers are a bit expensive, but with their orders, they have a 14" threat range for ranged attacks, 7 3+ attacks with rerolls and Precision - Swordmasters really felt their wrath. Scout opening is also a great order for supporting their other units, that only hit on 4+ in melee, they really need the rerolls, when they are stuck in melee

It seems to me, that Martell NCUs is really where the magic in this faction is - and this is obviously really fluffy!
Heroes box 1. seems to be really great value, even if it doubles one of the named characters we already get in the starter box (Oberon):

2 commanders (Harmen and Obara)
3 NCUs: Oberon, Tyene and Nymeria
Plethora of attachments: Sand snakes etc.

5 point core unit (Spearmen) with two excellent orders is really valuable, with Cunning ploy card I got to play a really nice combo on R1. I also see playing Harmen Uller commander in this unit and just sitting on an objective, supporting other units doing the fighting

Can't wait to get the real Martell minis and start painting and playing with them, I do also to be playing with my proxies before that - reveals of Royal Guard and Heroes 1 content is really stimulating!

These guys at 7p. are better than NW Sworn Brothers!

What else I've been up to recently with ASOIAF?

During the spring and summer we played yet another map based campaign named "Knight of Summer", this time with players acting solo. I didn't do very well in my games (even if playing NW), won only 2 games out of 5, but I would still have won the campaign, due to my good strategy, but "demolition" event played on my buildings destroyed this dream, dropping to the 3rd place. Great fun and good games still!