ASOIAF Miniature Game

ASOIAF Miniature Game is a new rank and file wargame that's based on A Song of Ice and Fire. Despite being made by a company with a bad miniature system record but good boardgame record, it still manages to be a rather fun game. Also it is based on the book, so they can choose to not copy stupid shit from the show.

It received a resurgence on /tg/ but noone gives a fuck about it on the general. They were some fan-made factions early on (Greyjoy, Yunkai, Tully) but even those people fucked off. Both the official app war council and asoiafbuilder, lets you look at units, while they somehow fucked up and made no gallery, closet I found is https://cmon.com/product/a-song-of-ice-fire-tmg. Also there is a TTS mod for it.

Setting and History

Meh later i'll write condensed fluff

As this is CMON the game began with a [[1]kickstarter], and after that the game has had at least 2 dozen more releases with more factions added. The problem for CMON is, that Asmodeeus does all the distribution and that shit doesn't work. Most units had an initial releases, which prometly sold out, and then 4 months later those units were available again. Fuck that.

Atleast Duncan Rhodes says it is one of his favorites games.

Game Mechanics

ASOIAF is a rank and file system. Unlike Fantasy, you have alternative activation instead of I-Go-U-Go. So player 1 activates a unit, then player 2 untill everything is activated once. A combat unit can do one action generally, which includes pivots, movements, and attacks. The standart movement for example, is pivot, straight movement and then pivot. A march would be double movement and then pivots. Attacks are a number of dice based on ranks against your own accuracy. All hits are saved by the enemy units armour. If you suffer 1 wound, you have to do a panic test with 2d6 against your moral, taking 1 + 1d3 wounds if failed. Now add to all these some unit abilities.

Compared to Fantasy a lot was streamlined and made more fluid. You have a fixed rank size (4 in each row of 3), attack dice are based on number of ranks and health are just model on the bases for most parts Units usually have 1 or 2 abilities, which are normally easy to understand, and either give bonus actions and abilities or more dices/wounds. There is also conditions and shit but you will figure it out.

Now to the unique part: You have two unique aspect: the tactics board and tactics deck.

The tactics board is the political side of the battle. Here non-combat units (females) can influence the board. You have 5 spots, each with a unique ability. These can be healing, taking another attack or movement, forcing panic test and drawing tactics card. This gives another layer of strategy to the game.

The tactics decks are faction specific decks, which around 7 cards + 3 commander specific cards in pairs of 2. These cards have bonus effects which can be played from your hand, some of them quite powerful like free movement, better charges or in case of the dirty Free Folk, respawns. A lot of these cards gives better effects, if you control certain spots on the tactics board, which gives another layer of decision making to the game. A big part of your thought process will be dedicated to make the best use of the tactics card in your hands in a turn.

Last point is objective: While killing a unit gives off 1 VP, you need 10 to win a 40 Points game. Most games are therefore played with a scenario.

Models

All characters are unique and for the most part pretty cool looking. Units are made from 12 dudes, with around 4 variataion in model sculpts + 1 Banner. So you have around some samey looks. Cavalry has 4 sculpts. Models are good to amazing and for the most part realistically made. The body are made from PVC, also shitty boardgame plastic but all weapons and fragile is made from normal plastic. So that is okay. Then the Baratheon showed up.

The Factions

Like all game under the sun, you will have different factions and playstyle. While this lead to widely different armament and technology in a unified realm, having all look the same would be stupid as fuck.

There are currently 6 factions. Stark, Lannister, Night Watch, Freefolk, Baratheon and Neutrals, with Greyjoy down the line.

The biggest difference between each faction are unit choices (with their abilities) and the tactics deck. Closet to each other are Stark and Lannister which I will use now to show the difference: In most cases the unit variety between both factions can be big: the stark sworn swords and the Lannister guardsmen are both 5 points unit who are suppose to hold ground, but the lannister are very defensive while the sworn swords have the option of a better attack. So in most cases you have 1 unit in each faction fulfilling the same task but with sometimes a cost difference and widely different abilities. But there are also unit who are quite similar: Lannister Knights and Tully Cavallier (who cost 1 more). Both have the same statline, same primary ability but a different secondary ability.

But we now come to the biggest difference: Tactics deck. Each faction has its own tactics deck, which are ability cards you can play. There are usually quite strong and change how you approach the game. The Tully Knights play a differently due to the access to their new cards.

I would generally say that you have three factors influencing your army playstyle: Your faction, which gives you your 7x2 generic tactics cards. Your commander, which grants you another 3x2 generic tactics card. Your subtheme, units from a certain theme play differently from other units.

So while Lannister are generally very sneaky and controlly, only using Mountain Man and Gregor Clegane leads to a very aggressive version of the Lannister army. They keep their generic tactics card and can control the game with it, but you will have access to really heavy hitter. I'll ignore sub-themes for now and focus on the iconic playstyles.

Stark

The simple but honorful citizien of the cold north. These were one of two units introduced in the two-player starter.

As of now they are composed of the Houses Stark, Umber, Reed and Tully. In general you have more cloth and fur wearing units, while the tully side look more similar to knights and shit

Playstyle

Stark are the aggressive factions. You have heavy hitting units, some attacks where you take dmg to deal more dmg and access to Greywind, Shaggydog and Summer. And motherfucking RICKON- Your tactics cards are all about increasing damage on attack. Most of your attachement also plays into more dmg and more movement. Aggressive and very charge heavy. Try to line up side charges and unexpected movements. Tactics cards are more of a addition instead of your main focus.

Lannister

Playstyle

Lannister are generally defensive. You have an average higher defensive value then the other factions, access to some good defensive tools but are also generally slow and not moverable as much as other. Your tactics focus on messing with the enemy, turning off there abilites and such, panic test and non-direct dmg. Playstyle is a very tactics card heavy while creating scenario where you can use your ability and tactics for maximum effect, on the field you are more defensive normally.

Night Watch

Elite army somehow. Mostly to be a foil to the Free Folk

Playstyle

The Elite army. You have solid unit and attachement. Generally less unit, but long standing. You are a tough army, with some inbuilt heals and defense abilities via tactics Your tactics card give benefit over multiple rounds and stay attached. Iconic abilities are all about healing back up. Also some really nice ranged options. Attrition heavy, stay in combat and your superior units will slowly win the fight. Also you will usually draw your entire deck with this factions, so a lot of your game plan is maximizing your ability cards.

Free Folk

Uncivilized savages, a small step below starks.

Playstyle

The Horde army. Your people are cheap. Thats mostly it, try not to block charges and movements. Also Giants Tactics card are mobility based and piling in. Lots of luring enemy to overcomming and dogpiling on the surrounded units. Also a suprising amount of auto-wounds, you will probably kill more people via auto-wounds then actually attacking them.

Baratheon

Divided into 2 sub-factions with its own sub themes. You have the Baratheon of Dragonstone with King Stannis, who are honestly a mess as of now, you have too many themes and not enough pieces supporting it. Then you have the Baratheon of Storm's End under Usurper Renly. Easier to understand theme and more things working together as of now.

Playstyle

These are the newest faction. In general I would consider them second strike forces, you want to weather an attack and hit the enemy afterwards. Tactics card are all about getting benefit from starting in combat and such. Playstyle are defensive, you don't necessary need the charge but on the other hand you don't want the enemy to cripple your unit. Get hit, and counter charge them. Plays different then Lannister that you don't really have basically zero counterplay but a lot of punishement.

Neutral

Neutrals can be recruited into all factions except Free Folk. You have three subthemes, Boltons who are very panic and fear heavy., Stormcrow who are more reliable, focusing on the money spot and attachement and lastly the goat people, focusing on enemy missing them and hopefully not dying on the counter attack

Playstyle

Depending on your units and shit you have 1 of three main themes. Tactics are controlly with a hint of aggression. Takes a bit after Lannister with a lot of Aggression. Playstyle are quite aggressive, though I feel with Stark I set up a lot more domino effects where I play multiple cards after each other. Neutrals are mostly just solid one shot cards.

What to buy

There are three sizes: 30 for demo, 40 for normal player, 50 if you have to kill an afternoon. A unit cost between 5-10 points, a NCU about 3-5. A normal list will have between 7-8 Units + NCU in a 40 point game.

So to start off, you want the starter box for your factions. This includes 2 identical units, 2 * 1 another unit, 2 NCU, 2 Commander/Attachement, your tactics card, dices and all you need to play (shitty cardboard terrain). So in total you have 4 units and 2 NCU, clocking in at about 30 points.

If you want to go up to 40 points, another box would suffice. A unit box will just have the unit you want + 1 Attachement generally. Heroes Box usually contain 7 characters, which can be Commanders, NCU or Attachement. I recommend buying both, 1 unit box and 1 heroes box of the faction or neutrals.

Neutrals are the big outliner here, they don't have a starter box, the tactics cards are in Neutral heroes 1.

Tactics pages

Here's the tactics pages that we have so far:

• Stark
• Lannister
• Night Watch
• Free Folk
• Baratheon
• Targaryian
• Neutral