Tourmund Giantsbain Vs Baelor Blacktyde - Clash of Kings

Welcome back, I'd taken a break from writing weekly league round ups as I thought I'd start video-ing some of our games, but it turns out that's really hard, requires more effort than expected and the edit can't be done on my iPad in bed. So here I am back at the word processor under the duvet with a cuppa whilst Brooklyn 99 re-runs in the back ground on Netflix. #NineNine!

Joining me on the green table is Greg (@Greggers) in a Tourmund Giantsbain Vs Baelor Blacktyde match up (Stats link for lists and spoilers). Greg's free folk looks fierce, he's chasing down his badges on Stats and still needs a win with Tourmund, so has built his list around that plus his new toys, the Frozen Shore Bears.

It'll be the second time I've used Baelor Blacktyde, the first in a loss against Colin's Baratheons last week, following that I feel like now I know what he can sustain and where I can throw him. Stoked.

Planning.

My plan here is pretty simple, push Blacktdye up and use him to hold the center. Engage the Bears with Daarios Blacktyde Chosen before they get chance to charge, sit bowmen on the flank objectives and use Vic in Reavers to wander around and fuck stuff up. My NCU package is beautiful for Free Folk fighting, I've got Botley for blocking the horses, and Blind Beron for staying power on the Blacktyde Choosen, finally Wendygod, the shifting and healing Greyjoy legend. 

For the Free Folk, Greg plans on largely ignoring Silenced Men and Taking out Vic in Reavers before they get pillage, (that would leave him two up on activation's) then take out the bowmen. Or alternatively depending on the state of the game, use Thenns to do hits when the unit activated and Trappers to do hits when the unit moves - free hits without activation ;) He's brought Ygritte, Lady Val and Mance, as his NCU package so I'm worried about all the extra movement he'll get, along with the Counter Charge and Diversion Tactics.

Let's go! Greg vs Aden, Clash of Kings and we played the game mode of the same name.

Deployment.

I bunched up on the left ignoring the right objective, Greg can have that, holding the others is my aim knowing the Silence Men can holding my flank AND centre. Greg kept his deployment tight, keeping his options open with the bear and chariot movement.

Uncertain of the exact rules, Greg won the dice off and chose to take the objectives and chose the side of the board, letting me pick turn order. Worried about Endless Horde I went second, playing the odds that he didn't draw it initially. - Feel free to comment on how this should of worked.

Round 1

Greg grabbed the cards, I took the horses and moved my Silence Men up. We took turns moving units up and taking tactic zones until I decided to risk a four up charge with my Silence Men, hoping to double tap his trappers with swords on the next turn. However Greg used their order to knock my movement down 1, so now I needed a five. Bugger. Anyway, rolled a four didn't I, Salt. In. The. Wound. So Silence Men now sat exposed waiting to be spanked by Trappers, Tourmunds Thenns and the Chariot. I however, know they're an absolute monster and will just soak that all up.

Round 2

I'm up first so decided to take horses to block endless horde rather than charging with silenced men. Greg was hoping I'd take swords to shoot with my bowmen, allowing him to counter charge. Baiting swords he left them open and charged the chariot into the flank of the silence men. Vics Reavers where likely the original target but they've been influenced by Blind Ben. SM lost a rank rather quickly, I think having seen this tempted Greg to think about charging them with Tormund too.

Continuing to ignore the tactics board I thought I could flank charge and kill the Chariot with my Daario BTC (re-rolls vulnerable, crit blow, precision, on 3s etc.) then surge and block the bears from a charge so I went for the kill. Easy, one dead chariot. However counter assault prevented my carefully planned surge forth and bears smashed into my BTC, and then they activated reducing BTC to three wounds. FFS.

Tycho, I'm recent times I've been very dependent on Tycho, using him as a crutch to get me out of tight spots, this list doesn't contain Tycho, and I was feeling it now.

Wanting to keep Greg off the other token I charged my bowmen into Spearwives. Did one wound - Epic. Worked a treat though, blocked the token claim and tied them up. Planning for the next turn, Greg didn't attack, but retreated, a brilliant tactical move to let him help free up his bears next turn.

Tormund was next to try his hand at the SM, flanking them from the other side, dropping them down to one rank. Greg’s nice hits on activation and hits on movement plan could now play out. However SM now had two pillage so where -2 wounds on failed panic and where blocking three hits through Beron Blacktyde. Looking weak but staying strong.

Round 3. GJs start 2-0 up.

Greg's first up, but before he can take horses for horde I dropped Botley blocking the zone. Ha! He wasn't happy. This turn I needed to plough all my resource into holding what I have, as it was looking precarious. BTC low on ranks, SM low on Ranks, Vic doing nothing, and Bowmen made of wet paper bags.

Daarios BTC did manage to take a rank of the bears before Greg used his (wisely re-positioned) spearwives to charge them in the side. Ouch. And because I hadn't seen this coming his spearwives could not be seen by my bowmen. Blows where then exchanged across the rest of the board. Although Silenced Men continued not to die and infuriated Greg even when Tormund retreated (from Mance) specifically to re-charge. 

I'd now only one unit left to activate, Vic and reavers. And to be honest I just wanted the points so, used his order first to shimmy then activated, a little smile flashed across Greg's face as he said 'Are you activating them, after doing the order?' Yes I said. "Taunt." He said " Bollocks" I said.  As I duly failed the panic test and had to charge the flank of Tormund, whilst staring wistfully at the central objective now unoccupied.

Round 4. 3-0

Things really heated up here, I took the swords and BTC killed off the Bears, but then died from the flanking Spearwives, who surged to threaten the Bowmen. Silence Men hit Tourmund weakening them. Trappers hit back, but nothing got through. Retreating Vic I started to move his unit over to the objective on the far side. Trying to get out of reach of Tourmund, but Greg dropped Val and retreated Tormund towards Vic. Vic, now being more careful not to see Tormund, made the objective but was panic bombed en-route with there's too many taking some serious hits.

Round 5. 6-2 to the GJs

The round started with my bowmen staring down the face of Spearwives, SM locked in with trappers and Vic about to be side flanked my Tourmund. Despite the score being heavily in my favour Greg had a real chance to beat me to ten points, by killing Vic, the Bowmen and taking the objectives. I'd be on 9 and him on 10 come the end of R6. Bugger.

I took the bags and influenced Vic with Beron, but Greg countered by Crown zapping him which I failed, loosing all the bag wounds and more importantly Beron - I'm such a idiot. Anyway in fear of loosing Vic (and being stupid) I'd completely forgotten about horses and Horde at this point, which is exactly when Greg played it. Right behind the bowmen. Rush of aggression gave them the 6 charge and dropped the bowmen to one wound. They died shortly after and he took the objective. Bugger my beautiful plans!

Wanting to keep things locked in the middle Greg used Regroup and Reform to add more ranks to the trappers hoping I'd retreat to the token which he could then simply contest. So moved all but four wounds from Tourmund to them.

Greg now tried to finish the job and win the game by charged in with Tourmund and his objective card - highest attack dice - very expectedly Vic died off the attack, however, yes ladies and gentlemen my turn one first card drawn got played, What is Dead My Never Die, back in with three, nice, then easily passed the panic test using Blacktyde Conviction and to add to Gregs anguish I then threw Lash Out down on the table. Boom, and just like that I'd win the game.  Greg understandably was not a happy bunny, 4 wounds to a unit on a single rank, he'd even just used Regroup and Reform and could have left 5 wounds. But I don't suppose it would have mattered much as Vic still had his activation.

Silence men then went for the kill, Blacktyde Resentment made an appearance (was saving it for Tourmund but didn't now need it) and so did Krakens Wrath, rerolls precision, panicked, 6 dice on twos. Easy I thought, but they stayed around with one. So close. Round ended 8-3.

Round 6. 8-3 to the GJs

Now those in the know will be aware that Greg and I aren't the quickest players, so we theoretically played out the next round, because we wanted our beauty sleep and it was 22:45.

I'd take swords and kill the one wound trappers, moving back on the objective and heal up Vic would give me 4 points at the end of the round.

Greg unfortunately didn't have the movement to get to my SM so would only take one point.  12-4 we decided.

Summary.

Silence men with Baelor feel too good, it's nerve wracking having them on one or two wounds but even when hits are getting through, they aren't failing panics or when they do aren't taking wounds, and with Beron for extra blocking power, they're basically unkillable. No to mention I didn't even need to use their last stand ability. Baelors cards are nice too, I'd initially thought Dagmar might be the best Greyjoy commander, but having played both, Baelor is better especially in this 2021.S01 (catchy) update. The reduced commander points means a longer game which favours more staying power, but I'm still trying to run very aggressive Dagmar lists, mainly because he's so much fun! Running around smashing stuff is more fun the hunkering down to score points - hence my Daario BTCs. 

I was a bit disappointed with the Bears, but Greg's positional play and plans for his triggering them to free charge was brilliant I just didn't give him the chance (by fluke rather than cunning) to trigger it. Gregs positional play was really good and his use of the underrated Retreat was fantastic, I expect we'll see more retreats in 2021.S01.

Greg and I are closely matched on stats and have a tit-for-tat game record so it's always close and fun but we need to get quicker, this match took 3 hours! All that said, bloody boss 3 hours. Looking forward to the re-match!

Peace and love.

Aden.

Too many words? Not enough words? The wrong words? Let me know!

WotNW League - Game Week 9 round up

Week 9 Bumper Special Package!!

 - league winners - friendly games - battle reports - special guests - memes -

    Week bloody Nine, not in all the Seven Hells did I expect us to get this far this quickly. Anyway, I'll cut to the chase, Cols win against Alex earlier this week meant that the League would come down to one final match, top vs second, Ste vs Col, winner takes all. Not only would the winner be crowned one true warden, but he'd also be taking home Rays beautiful trophy AND these WotNW themed dice!! Would ya look at those….oooooo.

    So, a Stark vs Nights Watch (Ste v Col) battle for the trophy. With Ste on 24 points, unbeated and Col on 22, with one loss, anything but a defeat would see Ste roll those dice every week until the next league, but because of Colin's higher SPs a win would see him pip Ste to the top spot taking the glory by a nose.

Current League Standings
Player	Tag	Faction	GP	W	D	L	VP	UPD	VΔ	SP	Pts
Ste	Psychoste	Starks	8	8	0	0	89	170	64	25	24
Col	Kolco	NW	8	7	0	1	88	160	41	27	22
Ray	Mr Ray	Bara	8	6	0	2	84	147	55	25	20
Andy	Lord Robbo	Targs	8	4	0	4	74	102	58	18	16
Greg	Greggers	FF	6	4	0	2	54	63	45	14	14
Brian	Bannockburn	Neutrals	8	3	0	5	53	74	73	10	14
Aden	Spykr	Greyjoy	7	2	0	5	46	79	57	11	11
Alex	Avandijk	Lann	7	2	0	5	57	68	64	10	11
Dale	DK117	Starks	8	1	0	7	36	73	76	6	10
Jamie	Rudesby	Lann	6	0	0	6	25	0	73	2	6

Game 1. ‘For the League’ Honed and Ready

    Both guys had saved their best commanders for this match, Eddard Vs Othell. Col had, as expected, lined up in the typical Othell fashion, protecting the conscripts and tight to the corner protecting the flank from those Tully Cav, whilst Ste had man-spread across the whole board. I know from experience Ste likes to mix things up in deployment to hide his aim, counting on the extra Cav movement to get himself into his actual position during turn one. I guess this was no different, he also dropped a couple of corpse piles, for those conscript panics. 

    Honed and ready, deployment sorted, and fist bumps done, the game kicked off with Ste. Both players shuffled stuff around in what was a tense the first turn, and finished as below, nothing much happening everyone was now ready for the war to come having drunk some tea and moved some trays.

End of Turn one

    Turn 2 Colin took the horses and deployed the outflanking Vanguard behind the Stark Bowmen. In response Ste, used Littlefingers once per game ability to control the horses and then dropped him on the bags. On Colin’s next turn Ste played swift reposition moving Eddards Honor guard into view of the outflanking Vanguard, which then activated and charged the rear of the Bowmen, 8 wounds, but Ste wasn’t done doing stuff in Cols turn and dropped ‘Fury for the Fallen’ - what a great hand Ste had here - allowing Eddard to charge.

    
    The Sworn Sheilds, the Bowmen and Tully Knights saw off the Vanguard, and whilst attacking in short of Edward healed up some wounds too, tidy. Nights Watch Crossbowmen took a pop shot at the Sworn Sheilds after the death of the Vanguard. Turn ended 2-2 with Othell on the center objective and the Knights on the right (or left depending how your imagining this in you head).
    

    Turn 3 saw everyone attacking everything. Another Swift Reposition and the Swords allowed the Sworn Shields to charge the rear of the crossbow men for 6 wounds, Col healed up then moved Othell into position ready for his next activation. The specifics of the battle here are lost to the mists of time, but the Tully Cav managed to charge Othell getting shot by the crossbows in the process, Eddard then charged Othell too, leaving him on 4 wounds. Shooting from range Stark Bowmen also shot Othell who suffered only one wound but failed the panic test and suffered 3 more wounds! Dead. The round ended 3-3 with Nights Watch controlling one objective.

Minutes before Othell Died

    Turn 4: With the armies scattered not much happened in round 4, other than the Tully Cav getting killed! Crossbows shot at them, then after they ran away they got crowned, taking three wounds and being collected from the board and placed back in the box. With both forces having now lost their big units, the game was starting to tighten up. Seeing Colin heading for the other objective token with his crossbowmen Ste marched his own bowmen into range of the conscripts, awaiting the next round. His earlier use of Swift Reposition bit him here as at the end of round 4 he was overlapping, but not covering, two objectives, so with no one on any objectives the round ended 4-3 to the Nights Watch. Then Ste lifted from his deck his auto panic pass cards (Norther defiance), seconds too late to save his Cav!

    Turn 5 saw Starks take the swords, killing off the conscripts, pew pew. The NW crossbows responded leaving the Stark Bowmen on 1 wound! In a desperate bid to save them Ste manoeuvred them away but Col still managed to kill them off and moved onto an objective taking him up to 6 points, Starks moved Eddard onto another now having two objectives with sworn shields on another taking them to 6 points as well. Round 5, 6-6, Tight.

    At this point the game came to a grinding halt as the players realised that it could very much end in a draw. Much discussions with the T.O., Greg, took place to determine who’d win what. As per the league document a winner in the event of a draw would be determined by the unit cost left in play, remember anything but a win for Col would see Ste take the top dog award.

    Turn 6 With the Armies depleted the remaining forces now occupying objectives, crossbowmen and wall attacks was all that was available to the players. Eddard took some from the crossbows, bringing him down to one wound, and the Crossbows took it from the walls but healed up. Sitting on an objective each, the game ended 7-7. A draw! 9 Weeks, 39 games, over a thousand points destroyed and the whole thing ends in a draw. Madness.

Turn 6 end state

    But someone has to win, so with 13 pts left on the table, Ste took the win against Colin’s 10 pts, and thus took the league, and we now all have to suffer hearing about it for the next year ;) So there we have it, here’s the winner taking home his little bag of plastic dice. 

Unbeaten, 9 wind out of 9. Our 'One True Warden of the North West'

    The other league games this week, included a cracker between Ray vs Alex, Col vs Alex, and Myself vs Greg.

    Euron vs Rattleshirt, Fire & Blood

Me vs Greg, Greyjoy vs Free Folk. I'm still smarting after my last few loses (and general lack of wins) so I spent a bit more time thinking about game tactics and list planning before the game this week. 

The '5 mins' prep work I did.

Luckily for me Greg was on his last commander before his refresh, so I at least knew what sort of list he would likely be running. As such, I went for Fire & Blood and choose another panic based list, this time with Euron, Roose might have been a better panic choice with his 'spread fear order' but I wanted to have some extra fun by stealing his Endless Horde card. Greyjoy Horde FTW!

Our Lists

    Deployment. Corpse piles, lots of corpse piles, this was all I'd managed to plan on a terrain despite watching two hours of Tourney Ground terrain analysis last week (my main takeaway from which was Chris’ “pick whatever it doesn’t matter” summary). 

    Greg deployed first and sat himself behind a wood in the corner quite far back - 'Annoying' I thought, but before I had chance to place my first unit he changed his mind and moved it up to front and center - claiming that he 'doesn't come down every Thursday to turtle in the corner' - 'Excellent' I thought whilst drumming my fingers together and grinning manically. We then all lined up, marked some Bowmen, Reapers, Spearwives and Bonelords. 

Turn 1 Plans

    Turn 1, had a super cagey start. Playing the panic game I wanted him to move up to me, so he was always near the corpse pile and so that I didn't just get charged into oblivion by that chariot, Greg knew I was playing the panic game and didn't want to expose himself so also didn't want to start by moving up, as such we all just kind of shimmied around for a bit. Until, wham, I unleashed Wednygods order on the Bolton Bastards Girls and smashed into his Spearwives faces. Have it. Thanks to Erik the Silenced Men had pillage, and with Ramsey Snow giving BBGs Intimating Presence Spearwives where facing a -5 on their panic, corpse piles FTW. The whole event (2 attacks and thus 2 panic checks) dropped them down to one remains wound. Had I had re-rolls, thanks bog, I might have rolled one better on the charge and they'd have been smashed off the board.

    After all the shimmying and Spearwife beating, Greg pulled off a brilliant move using Diversion Tactics' to sweep through my lines with his chariot then swizz it round and be in the rear of three of my units and the flank of another - something to ponder. But being second player I wasn't that bothered as I had the first turn to react next round (double tap those spearwives). To finish Greg charged the Reapers, needing a 3+ and sadly only getting a 2, but amazingly passed their panic despite Silenced Infamy. 

Turn 2 Plans

    Turn 2, all hell broke loose, and unfortunately for Greg it was looking bleak. Opting to ignore the Chariot I decided to dispatch the Spearwives with the BBGs off the swords and surged forth passed the Followers of Bone. We then both spent the best part of ten minutes deciding how I needed to rotate to be out of line FoB, moving removing, getting laughed at from across the room because despite everyone else being on turn 4 we'd just managed Turn 1 and a bit. When happy I could be out of line of sight we notice BBGs would be less than 1 inch away, FFS, that’s time I'll never get back in my life. At this point I pivoted to prevent a flank charge from FoB, but opening up the flank to the chariot. This, I was hoping, would stop Greg ramming the chariot up my commanders rear. Keeping his chariot options open for now, Greg charged with the FoB into the BBGs, doing some decent damaged, knocking them down to 3 wounds. I countered by Tycho-ing, and then to everyone surprise, including my own, took the horses to retreat the BBGs turning them to face the flank of the marked Rattleshirt.

    Greg then charged his Chariot into the BBG taking the flank bait against moving into the rear of my Silenced men - phew. I was willing to loose the BBG at this stage but unfortunately for Greg his rolls weren’t great and he couldn’t manage to take them out. Euron activated charging the chariots rear and obviously mushing it to dust. The writing was on the wall at this point. Free folk Raiders charged the reapers to try for at least some points. BBGs flank charged Rattleshirt and his Bonelords Chosen ruining them on the panic. Greg retaliated with Followers of Bone finally ending BBGs reign of terror. Bowmen with 'We Do Not Sow' and their activation got two volleys off against the rear of FoB leaving them on two wounds. With only one activation now left Greg had a choice to make, to crown or not to crown, the decision was made difficult by my earlier use of Mind Games on the crowns (if he takes it I may also do the action), this left him the option to take the crowns and have me use it to zap his FoB or to just nod off the NCU. Seeing that he’d get wiped if it went to round three Greg chose to crown zap me, and give me the option to crown zap him and end the game. As we’d be playing for two hours at this point I opted to zap them, unbelievably though he rolled a one on the white, dragging the game out into round three and sealing his fate of being wiped out.

Turn 3

    Turn 3 - Few attacks wiped the FF out, nothing exciting or unexpected in this round, other than Colin pointing out that 'maybe turtling in the corner on a Thursday is sometimes the right thing to-do'. Game ended 12-2, rough. 

    Honestly probably the best I’ve played to date, the game mode, Greg’s remaining commander plus his decision not to sit off in the corner and attrition the win all really played into my hands. I also didn’t make any really bloody dumb mistakes for a change, which was nice. This is the third time I’ve run the silenced men and I feel like I’ve got a really good handle on how I run them, I’ve tweaked my list to be more efficient but suspect I could drop Bronn for someone else, and the BBGs for Blackguard. Greg played some nice manoeuvres but once his Spearwives fell and he failed the reapers charge it was inevitable I’d win. 

    We also had Brian vs 'Special Guest' Carlo who was up for the Ribble Rumble Compo at the weekend (now finished) Pop over to Brian’s blog to read all about that 'friendly' fire and blood match, and look at both of those beautiful painted armies.

    Alex and Ray where also playing fire and blood (the best game mode?), but for league points! Alex came out the blocks strong.......

....but unfortunately ended up loosing 10-6 in a game that could have gone anyway. This means that with Rays one remaining match he could beat Colin to second place! Here's the summary of this weeks matches:

Home	VP	DP		DP	VP	Away	Stats Link
Euron	12	28	:	9	2	Rattleshirt	Link
Eddard	7	18	:	15	7	Othell	Link
Mountain	6	8	:	21	10	Eldon	Link
Jon Snow	10	28	:	0	6	Tyrion	Link

    It’s been a wild ride, there’s still a few games left to play, which we may or may not do, and which I may or may not write up.

    Over all it’s been great to have something to drive games and to force list variation, but not something we’ll be doing every month! There does need to be space for friendly matches and trying out weird stuff without worrying about the result. So I think we'll be taking a long break before the next league, but I'll be at the JustPlay Event on the 8th of Jan, along with a few of the others who'll be warming up ahead of the Winter GT.

Current League Standings
Player	Tag	Faction	GP	W	D	L	VP	UPD	VPΔ	SP	Pts
Ste	Psychoste	Starks	9	9	1	0	96	188	71	27	29
Col	Kolco	NW	9	6	1	1	95	175	48	29	21
Ray	Mr Ray	Bara	8	6	0	2	84	147	55	25	20
Andy	Lord Robbo	Targs	8	4	0	4	74	102	58	18	16
Greg	Greggers	FF	7	4	0	3	56	72	57	14	15
Aden	Spykr	Greyjoy	8	3	0	5	58	107	59	15	14
Brian	Bannockburn	Neutrals	8	3	0	5	53	74	73	10	14
Alex	Avandijk	Lann	7	2	0	5	57	68	64	10	11
Dale	DK117	Starks	8	1	0	7	36	73	76	6	10
Jamie	Rudesby	Lann	6	0	0	6	25	0	73	2	6

Well done Ste - Psychoste.

If you have been following along, I hope you've enjoyed it and thanks for taking the time to read my written diarrhoea. 

Aden out.