ASOIAF - Storm of Swords Campaign 2021

 Map Based Campaign with 16 players

Here we go again! This is already our fourth ASOIAF map based campaign at Nopat & Taktiikka Club. First two campaigns were "solo-campaigns" were each player had their own kingdom and this year both campaigns have been "team campaigns" with two players forming a faction team and playing towards building a joint Kingdom. This is due to increasing number of players wanting to join the campaign - we now have 8 factions and 16 players in the campaign. It also has lot of positive impact on how we play: 

• A Team has a joint goal in building their kingdom to be the mightiest aka to win the campaign
• Teams discuss and plan their strategies and actions
• Teams need to share their faction resources for each round: each named character (including monsters) can only appear once per round in their armies, this leads to playing varied lists - specially when a named character is killed in a battle, they must rest wounded for the next round.

Factions and starting positions in this campaign:

Purple faction is a combination of a Targaryen player and a Baratheon player. This is an advantage for both of them, but they are both rather new players, so it's ok. As before, each player has a secret mission, which will score their kingdom one point of might, if successfully completed. A somewhat new / updated rules bit is making a unit or a commander a veteran (one of the events), rolled with a D12:

• The Father's Judgment: unit is allowed to reroll one morale test in the game.
• Mother's Grace: The unit has +1 to it’s armour save for one turn (max 2+), applies until the end of the turn.
• Warrior Blessing: The unit is allowed to roll two melee or shooting dice per attack (cannot be given to a war machine). An already re-rolled dice cannot be re-rolled (eg with Charge). Weaken  works normally  against this.
• Forged by Blacksmith :  Once per game the unit is allowed to remove one Condition token during its activation
• Maiden's Protection:  The unit is allowed to reroll one die when throwing armor saves (each time)
• Crone’s  Wisdom:  The unit gets a free maneuver once per game, before the start of a round (Like Arya Stark)
• Stranger’s Shadow: The unit is always protected from shooting (-1 to hit)
• Monster of Legends: - A giant, wolf or similar unit gets a +1 wound
• Favorite of the Old Gods: Unit Gets Fearless Feature (like Stark's Eddard's Honor Guard)
• Machine of Destruction: The war machine is allowed to reroll one hit die during a game
• Commander upgrade, roll D6:

Stalwart

Iron Resolve

Rally Cry

Expert Duelist

Disrupt

Order: Mark Target

Another small rules change is that conquering special areas (which grant bonus of +1 to Kingdom's might) cost 1 extra point (to conquer).

My Campaign

In this campaign playing in the Targaryen faction together with Joonatan, a newish player. 

I have a fully painted Targaryen army. Only thing needed painting was Khal Drogo's Bloodriders:

Round 1.

As campaign started some diplomatic envoys were sent and received between factions. We struck and agreement with Faction XXXX (to be relieved) not to attack one another nor to use any negative Events against one another. We agreed, that this arrangement would go on at least the first two rounds (campaign lasts 4-6 rounds)

In the first round games our faction did superb! Joonatan faced a quite experienced Free Folk player Leo and managed a clear victory - his event was "choosing my battles" and he chose "Fire and Blood" as suites Targaryens!

Leo & Joonatan fighting it out

I faced my long time nemesis and friend Jaakko, with whom we battle of the number one spot in ASOIAF stats player ranking for Finland. In our campaign Jaakko plays Greyjoys.

In our game we played "Honed and Ready" scenario. Our list were as follows:

Jaakko's list:

Commander: Theon Greyjoy 

- "Prince" of Winterfell

Points: 40

Activations: 8

Combat Units

 • Ironborn Reavers (5)

     Theon Greyjoy - "Prince" of Winterfell (0)

 • Hedge Knights (7)

 • Ironborn Bowmen (4)

 • Ironmakers (7)

 • Ironborn Trappers (4)

Non Combat Units

 • Erik Ironmaker (4)

 • Rodrik Harlaw (4)

 • Balon Greyjoy (5)

In two rounds I managed to get 4/5 objectives and  lead the

game 5-1 

Enemy Hedge Knights charged Jorah and took him out of the game

But as I was still holding all those objectives and destroyed

an enemy unit, game ended already at R3, with Crushing Victory 11-2 to me!

In the Build & Conquest phase we aimed our Demotilition Event at "Golden Company" faction and then conquered one of their territories as well as a neutral territory. In the end map looked like this:

As Round 1. was completed our Kingdom was leading! Huzzah! Nigth's Watch right at our heels... 

Round 2.

As we were leading the campaign, we were the last to make challenges and it so happened, that both 

of our games were against Night's Watch... oh dear... 

So we started planning how to beat the dreaded Night's Watch with the assets Targaryens have. These were the key findings of our planning

• Barristan Selmy NCU to block Watch Captain pseudo activations / Crossbow Ready, aim... order or stop Conscript Supply aid Order (We could only use Barristan in one of our lists!)
• Priority is to kill Conscripts! 
• This can be achieved with outflanking Hrakkars and with some panic damage too
• Be fast! Choose when and what to fight. Khal Drogo with Blood Riders is awesome...
• Shoot them! For example NW Veterans are very hard to take out in a melee, but they are quite vulnerable to shooting
• Bring Tycho Nestoris to survive long enough to kill Crossbows and Consripts
• Consider some tech, that shuts down enemy abilities, if you face NW Veterans... Zorse Riders come to mind.

These were the two lists I conjured to fight NW:

This list (42p.) has 8 activations, capability to easily shoot 4 times a round and lot's of stuff listed above...

Also 8 activations and some specialist tech.

As a Scenario we rolled "Dance with Dragons" and I chose to play with list 1.

Read more about the game here (coming).

Eventually, after a hard fight, I was able to secure a clear victory 13-8 against Mikko's Brothers in Black

My Brother in Arms Joonatan played with TWO commanders (Queen of Mereen and Grey Worm) as granted by a Campaign Event. His army included two units of Hrakkras, which he chose both to Outflank (a mistake IMHO), couple of Unsullied units and Stormcrow Archers.

With Brother Marcus they played a Feast for Crows. NW Crossbows did their work well and Joonatan suffered a narrow 12-10 defeat. Their decision to fight it out at a "parking lot" raised some comments from other club members at the club and  in social media! :-D

In the Build & Conquest phase we had only two empire points to spend and we chose to conquer a mountainous territory as we need to start some mining industry as other well to do factions (that is Night's Watch and Lannisters) are earning far more gold dragons then we are...

...and even if we hold more territory (5 areas compared to their 4), NW now took the lead and Lannisters

reached us. Greyjoys won two crushing victories and expanded to north, but still they hold the last position. If Baratheons can hold on to King's Landing and upgrade their castle into a town, they will gain quite a boost in their might and certainly join the fight for the lead in campaign.

Situation after 2 rounds (including tax collection for R3).

Round 3.

We were both challenged by our dear neighbours! I was challenged by Martin Baratheon and Joonatan was challenged by Antti, whom plays Targaryens in the Golden Company faction... that can get bloody!

I was fortunate to snatch the "Mercenaries" event and will hence play with a 10% bonus to my army size.

These battles will take place on 17th of November so stay tuned!