ASOIAF Miniatures/Tactics/Baratheon

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Why Play Baratheon

"Ours is the Fury"

You are the true King, by virtue or by ability.

You are like a rock and will not move, hell they can hit you all you want, they are just playing into your hands. This is the faction for you.

You are a defensive faction, mostly because you are slow but also because all your ability go off getting stuck in battle.

Pros

• Lots of free attacks
• 2 Major themes
• Stannis
• Attrition based game
• Two widely different playstyle (good for two list format, as preparing is hard)

Cons

• Fucking hammers
• Stannis is a fuckin mess
• Renly is a bit simple at this point
• Slower then even Lannister
• Half of your releases won't work with the other half

Playstyle

House Baratheon are about attrition. You just take it on the chin, wait for him to be unprepared and then hit him, multiple times.

Via your tactics deck and your characters, you have more attacks then god.

Generally you are a defensive factions, but you counter attack on the field via attacks. If you can't auto-attack no problem, you will grind everyone to dust.

Unit and Attachement Analysis

I would now say you have x themes, where x is a number. With the Baratheon x is so high, leading mathematicians are unsure if x is observable in our universe. So I'll say you have 6 theme in your unit choices. Your generic part, which can be used by both sides. In general you have good - average moral, err on the slower side and work via condition and taking a hit then hitting back.

Renly's Tyrell, who only work for him, these have the two themes of healing wounds and dealing auto wounds, these will probably be armed well.

Stannis followers, who only work for the rightful king. Here you have the R'hollor followers, the Kingsmen and then Davos and his son. My complaints will follow

For Both

Commander

Bobby B? Never heard of him.

Units

• Baratheon Wardens (5pt): Your bread and butter by virtue on just being cheap. 3 + armor and above average armor. Giving out weaken is good, though the other ability is only good if you really lucky on your attack. Loses a lot of dices later with rank lost, which kinda fights your theme of taling damage, but honestly these guy were never dealing damage

• Baratheon Sentinels (6pt): A good unit if a bit expensive. There are your attacking unit, sundering on 8 dice is good, but once again consider how much dices you lose on lost ranks. Within your faction, this unit probably make the best of all the free attacks via tactics cards. Sadly your offense buffs by some of your commander add sundering which is wasted on them

• Stag Knights (8pt): Way too overpriced. You want them to take dmg and keep them at low health, but you can't really prevent them from dying if you get to low health. 7 7 7 is good, if you can luck out and always keep them alive but more often then not they'll not be worth there value.

Non-Combat Units

• Shyra Errol (3pt): Literally who? But she is useful, she is a 3pt NCU which is a value in itself but her ability isn't too shaby and works with some of the baratheon ability (stannis condition attack and axell)

• Alester Florent (4pt): This one is match-up based. You can deny your enemy his game if you use Alester smartly, or you can use him to claim while using a different spot, but keep in mind, this enables your doe to still claim that the used spot. A bit of synergy with Bronn, and all Stormcrows

Attachement

• Master Warden: Always useuable, if you facing mobile armies this can save a unit, but you have to find the correct use to get the value back. if you stop only 1 charge it might be a waste

• Stag Noble: Good attachement, bad choices of units. Your generic unit lose a lot by losing a rank, pushing in more wounds will hurt you. Stag Knight would be perfect but they are fragile and expensive. The Rose Knighs though are a good choice, only one which can really fit. Neutrals are all just not good enough offensively to warrant such an expensive artachement.

Stannis

Short rant: Stannis suffers from a lack of focus. On the one hand you want to take damage to activate your ability, but you have no benefit from actually having weaken units (except the generic Stag Knights). You have 4 themes in this army (R'Hollor who want to damage themselves, King'smen who mitigate that they are weak, Conditions usage and lastly Seaworth movement shit) If you follow my blog/vlog/twitch/youtube/onlyfans/livefree I can rant a bit more but fuck I hate that they don't fit yet.

Fuck, the fixes proposed by the autist would help all these characters find a spot.

Commander

• Stannis Baratheon - The Rightful Heir: The man himself. His ability as a commander attachment is good. His cards are useful but the timing is the biggest problem. One requires a death, 1 require claiming a specific zone while the last requires the start of the Round, but you already have 2 of these cards, so you are kinda screwed. I admit I am a Stannis man through and through. But meh. I recommend putting him in Sentinals or Bastard Girls, who can gain much from spamming attacks and using Tactical Approach

• Stannis Baratheon - The One True King: Stannis converted but damn that was a horrid choice. His ability goes from good to why right now? He gives bonus to moral, whcih the faithful and the Stag Knights didn't need, and lost Critical Blow to give out the R'hllor tag. His card doesn't really vibe too with your faction, he really wants more units. The armor increase would be great on a 3+ unit but your only 3+ unit kinda sucks except in holding the line and being cheap.

• Andrew Estermont - First of the King's Men: Andrew is good. He ignores all the R'hollor stuff and just pretends he is actually Tyrell. Tossing card to draw is actually worthwhile in Baratheon, while his cards aren't too shaby. Reliable Bannerman is the weakest, At any cost, mgiht be good in another factions, but Baratheon really don't care about but the last card is just great. Forcing someone to toss his hand will win you a round.

• Davos Seaworth - Hero of Blackwater: You wanted to play stark but you didn't want to sleep with a bear? Davos got you. Pathfinder is just good, so put him in any unit and he'll shine. For the True King and Flea Bottom Tricks are good suprise cards, use them to charge from 20 inches away, and surprise the fuck out of your enemy who expected the slow and reactive Baratheons. If you field him, you'll play totally different and should choose your force accordingly. Everthing is okay, but nothing I would build your force around.

• Axell Florent - First of the Queen's Men: Strangely your best commander. His ability is kinda shit, Caits better, but he does makes people R'hlorr. He does have 2 things no-Baratheon commander can actually achieve. A) He has an attack buff on an attack (compared to Hold the Line), which isn't impossible specific to pull of. B) He actually has cards which can combo reasonable well. Good for you Axell.

Units

• R'hllor Faithful (7pt): The reason for all my complaint is this fucking unit. Their best and unique ability should be Heart of Fire. This unit dies and another, deathstar unit would attack. Nice and even fit into Baratheon unrelenting assault theme, but first that other unit needs to be Rhollor and within Long and engaged (or ranged), and secondly this unit is 7 points and on the higher end of the cost bracket. The other half of your ability wants you to remain in combat long or atleast get hit often, to make the best use of your ability to inflict panic test, but they are made of cardboard, Good moral, but shit armor, your sentinels are better armored. Also back to making the target Rhollor, I feel like most unit get destroyed early in the round, which makes the work of setting up this ability even harder. Lastly why are they only speed 5, fuck atleast be speed 6. Atleast their attack is usable. I would field 1 unit, but just because you don't have much better choices. They will be better if we get good R'hllor units, maybe a unit to make use of excessive faith token, and ranged units, to force moral test and make use of your free attack easier.

Non-Combat Units

• Axell Florent (3pt): He is 3 point with an influence, he is good. Use him with Shyra, and Warden to take out tough units. The problem is that Shyra doesn't vibe with Melisandre and Wardens are unreliable. You can throw the Influence on a friendly unit, but if you field Stannis 1 unit is basically immune, Andrew does the same and if you go Melisandre you can usually kill your own conditions.

• Davos Seaworth (4pt): My Man. Kinda overpriced though. 2 times in a game re-roll is not really good especially for 4 points. It doesn't even guarantee you make it.

• Selyse & Shireen (4pt): Another Rhollor person. This one damage you to damage your enemy, only problem, he might be better in healing. As your faction only has limited healing abilities infaction, and you already have take damage ability, and basically gain nothing from the fact you are low on health, this kinda sucks. Might be good in Wardens if you really want to press through a wound to force the panic test, but honestly meh. She does make someone R'hllor which is kinda important for a couple of commanders (Sucky Stannis, and Axell) and your faithful.

• Melisandre (5pt): The only reason to play R'Hllor. If your foe has someone with 7 moral on the field, may god have mercy on their soul. With corpse pile this is basically a guaranteed 6 kills. You will have a unit of Warden or Stormcrows just dedicated for her, and boy will it be worth it. Use her and bomb a 7 moral unit, even better if they already lost 3 models. Then look how alive they look, now you can either take money to heal your warden back up, or if you feeling lucky go for the panic spot. If both test are failed these are 5 + 2d6 wounds. Choose your target wisely and she will probably kill a unit by turn 2. If you go the slow route, just go for money every turn and slowly bleed them dry by turn 3. Throw a panicked token on a unit to have some insurance, but honestly that is unneeded. If you want a token removed, just use her to bomb a unit using the unit with the condition as battery, then heal and remove the condition.

Attachement

• Andrew Estermont: Andrew gives critical blow and has that loyalty ability. Critical blow is good, maybe worthwhile in some units but 2 points are iffy. The second ability is suffering from lack of who should have it. This means a unit is at the last rank, should probably live for another turn to be worthwhile, and has a benefit from being low? Stag Kngihts don't care about having more ranks, Wardens are pretty much useless even with 2 ranks, Sentinels are probably the best choices, and your Faithful won't survive another attack on the last rank.

• Davos Seaworth: Davos doesn't want to be a Stannis men it seems. He can heal another unit, on their turn IF they are at their last rank by taking damage to his unit. This heal is sadly randomized, so you won't know how much it hurts you and how much it will actually help. Also any unit with True Loyalty doesn't need to get to 2 ranks before an attack. And then we get to his unit, to make use of his True Loyalty you want to send him into a fight, but then taking damage to heal someone else is basically a death sentence especially as it is random. So you either make use of true Loyality or his heal, using both means something is going wrong. He is a good example of anti-synergy. Even then he would be okay if he wasn't 2 points. Can work if you put him in a unit of stormcrows who were acting as a battery for Melisandre anyways. He like all the R'Hllor effects really want a unit with inbuild Go Down Fighting

• Devan Seaworth: And now his son. Actually I find him to be good. Getting an insane charge off can sometimes be worth so much, use him with counter charge for the maximum fun. It is a may effect so decide if you want to take d3 to get rid of chance. Also use it on full health, on 2 wounds less you really risk losing 2+ attack dice unless you are a Stag Knight (once again too expensive). The only bad part is that it is predictable and more telegraphed then anime.

Renly

Commander

• Renly Baratheon - The Charismatic Heir: The starter box renly was made for the content for the starter box, but he can benefit from Rose Knights and the new attachements too. He does get access to Brienne below, that is just a giant plus. His Younger... works great with Rose Knights, as the card is a new source of healing therefore you can dish out those wounds. "They will make me King" requires a bit of foresight, but it will shift the balance towards you. He is ok with any kind of list, but does want a nice bunker for himself to give out buffs, while he wants a fighty unit for Brienne. His bunker doesn't really need to be very offensive. In general he is a solid, if a bit unfocused commander. Keep him in the middle, and make sure he doesn't die as his best cards require him being alive.

• Renly Baratheon - Lord Paramount of the Storm Lands: Renly is armor. He lost his area buffs and his friendly tactics card to focus more on single targets. He might want to be used in a more proactive choice, so Rose Knights works well. He wants an aggressive unit, as he is one of your two auto-included attachement. Keep attention to when your units gets attacked to make use of all your cards. He also gets Brienne, so you usually field 2 fighty units (2 Rose Knights = 14 and 3 Wardens/Cutthrouths/Stormcrow Mercs make a nice 29 point base to fill up with NCU's). Throwing in some Stormcrows can make it easier to trigger Hidden Affairs, I recommend 2 with either Wardens or the Leutnant.

• Loras Tyrell : Loras wants to be in the thick of it, and he makes good use of the additional attacks of the baratheon deck, as he personally will kill a bunch of people. Growing Strong enables him to run 3 Rose Knights with Tycho for maximum fun. Else he just wants some Rose Knights to heal with 2 of his cards, while he himself is in the thick of it to make use of his ability and his leftover card.

• Eldon Estermont: Fucking meta gamer. Eldon has a bad ability, in ever other factions. In Baratheon it is average and situational. His cards are interesting though, ability turn off is always useful and reducing dices kill solos and warmachines. His Battle Endurance is average on the 4 turn and good later. Use it but don't keep it. Lastly his ladt card can win your game or shit up your hand, but 1 VP can suprise anyone.

• Cortnay Penrose: The most standart defensive Commander. Instead of healing up from a counter attack you will try to mitigate the enemy alpha strike. But both suprise Strategy and Counterplot can be used aggressively as well. In general he is good, and his ability is actually pretty nice, If you choose an enemy, using a tactics spot to assign a condition is also targetting a unit, so use that information. Use Shyra to get another tactics board use and then play some Rose Knights

Units

• Rose Knights (7pt): Hot damn these unit is awesome, very tough, good moral and not too shaby offense. The two abilities push them over the horizon. An autoheal, basically after each time you are attack is quite nice, and just their general heal make them a nuisance to remove. Run them forwards early on, get them stuck and then they'll never die. Can take care of all your needs by autowounding them away. All types of healing make them better, make sure they suffer 1 or 2 wounds early so you can always use your healing cards on them. While their melee is only slightly above average, you will heal 1 Wounds and auto-wound 1, they do make good choices for Ours is the fury. If you field a bunch of them Tycho can deal damage all over the place. Honestly your best choices.

Non-Combat Units

• Eldon Estermont (3pt): Probably a staple in your list. Scrying and drawing 2 cards on any spot is a really good effect. It is equal to claiming the letters spot. The only problem with this is that Baratheon have a big problem with having multiples of the same card which will lead you to probably always have above 3 cards

• Margaery Tyrell (4pt): She is okay. Not useless but also not your number 1 choice. For a Rose Knight list she is a foil to Tycho. Field Tycho if you want some ensures against alpha strikes, heal multiple units and field Margaery if you are a Dreamer. Theoretically she can do 12 net wounds damage, by healing Rose Knights every turn for 6 turns, more likely she'll do 8 net wounds total. Keep in mind unlike Tycho she requires a Zone holding, which a) hurts you in 3 NCU games, and b) can't be done at any point in a turn, so play around that.

• Olenna Tyrell (5pt): A tech pick. She shuts down some of the strongers NCU, but cost a lot herself. Add to that, that you require her to claim a zone. In total I would say she is good if you dislike certain problematic NCU, like Walder, Jaqen, Styr, Joer.

Attachement

• Cortnay Penrose: He gives you another card. This is similar to Tyrion effect, but unlike Lannister you might not toss to many cards, and with Eldon, you can sometimes have some cards leftover in your hand. Is he worth 2 points? Only if you are good at making use of every card, if you rather keep them in your hand or frequently claim letters/have Eldon, do something better with your points.

• Loras Tyrell: 2 points for Precision? He is weaker then Syrio but he is in a faction with Critical Blow. Sadly he that unit is overpriced. Not worth it unless you think your Rose Knights need more auto wounds.

• Brienne the Blue: She is free for Renly and useless for anyone else (except a very specific corner case, that if you face Renly, and use Jhagen to become him.... ). That's all you need to know. But if you want to know it, she can attack each time Renly unit is attacked, so make sure she isn't stuck somewhere away from renly, face each unit 1 by 1, so she'll can support Renly and you probably win the game with her alone. Remember the enemy can shift to the opposite side, if you are at the side of Renly getting out of your range. He can also go 100% with renly unit, preventing a charge by brienne unit, so all in all watch your positioning. So ensure that the enemy can't dodge. Fuck it isn't even limited to once per round, so try to make sure Renly survives. Make sure that both Renly stay alive as long as they can. If the factions gets the archer of the marshes it is pretty much good night for every army left. If you want to make the best use of her, use Tycho to save Renly for a painful alpha strike. Best in Rose Knights (high volume of attacks is nice), or Bastards Girl, long range, but mind that you can only use your order once per turn

Building your Army

As always, your list depends on your commander and objective. Your choice of Commander also determines which units, attachement and NCU you can field. In general you want around 8+ activation in your army. Reason herefore is to wait out the enemy attacks. Most everyone wants 3 NCU, and as a Baratheon I found that a third NCU allows you to wait out the foes actions a bit more. Also because some ability requires Crown you might want 1 more NCU.

Baratheon usually build around one of three units, if you go Renly Rose Knights (between 1 and 2), if you go Stannis Faithful and else Flayed men.

That what makes Baratheon honestly really good, is the fact that your foe won't know what way you'll go. If you go Renly, he might want auto-wounds, corpse pile and wouldn't need high moral. But if you then went Stannis, he would need high volume of attacks, good moral themselves and weirwood trees.

Sample List: These are made to get into the game early. I recommend the Neutral Hero Box 2. The faction specific herobox can only be used by 1 side, that's why I suggest the neutral. I recommended 2 instead of 1 just because I feel the character within work better with both factions, but it is your decision.

Points: 40 (7 Neutral)

Combat Units:

• Baratheon Wardens (5) with Master Warden (1)

• Baratheon Wardens (5) with Master Warden (1)

• Baratheon Sentinels (6) with Stannis Baratheon - The Rightful Heir (0)

• Stag Knights (8) with Daario Naharis - Reckless Mercenary (2)

Non-Combat Units:

• Shyra Errol - Lady Of Haystack Hall (3)

• Alester Florent - Lord Of Brightwater (4)

• Jaqen H'ghar - Follower Of The Red God (5)

Tactics Deck

I know I have been shitting on Baratheon but they do have their uniqueness and strength. You will attack more then anyone else in the game, and while you can't really chain your cards well, you can attack multiple times after each other, hell your cards are quite strong.

Another thing you will sadly experience is, that you'll sit on dead cards more often then not. You have 3 cards with the same trigger, 1 card on the start of the Round and another 1 when you are destroyed. The other 2 also have specific timing. In general try to force the situation where you can play your cards, suprise him with your attacks and hope to god you don't draw Baratheon Conviction via the letters spot or both at the same time.

Also all your effects can be quite obvious if you act in a certain way, channel your Renly and hide your buggery attempt

• Baratheon Conviction: Not a good card. The card itself does nothing, but does remain till the end of the game. You need setup to make it work, which can suck tremendously as the card will be blanked at the start of each turn. If you draw it in the course of the turn, you run into the fact, that you might want to keep it to play at the beginning of the next, but that'll leave you with only 2 cards. Honestly just toss it, unless you face Melisandre or Ramsey.

• Counter Charge: Now we getting to it. Getting a free charge is great, can't say more. Don't be too obvious in your usages, as people can play around it. Make sure you have line of sight and that the enemy unit can't shift out of line of sight or range.

• Hold the Line!: Your only damage buff, it is good. Keep in mind this won't work usually work with Last Stand, Ours is the Fury!, Stag Knight Noble, Brienne, Renly and Counter Charge as those effects are usually played not in your activation. But if you do want to try something funny, attack, kill yourself with a stupid R'hllor ability or counter and make another attack. 5 bucks for that guy who manages to play this, charge his renly unit into Halbediers, use Ours is the Fury!, then use Brienne to kill herself on some spikes, use Renly card to attack again and finally use your initial charge attack

• Last Stand: Good ability, it is a free attack with max dice. Unlike Winter is coming and Watch has ended requires no set up. The crown is useful but not needed. Also makes me question True Loyalty again. Don't be too obvious

• Ours is the Fury!: Another free attack, a bit easier to pull of then last stand unless something is going very, very right for your foe. Having the crown spot is useful if the enemy has high damage unit otherwise you can survive with no rank loss, if he isn't aware of this card.

• Stag's Resilience: Your best card. This can be a shift of a total of 4 wounds in the worst case, and 8 wounds in the best. Always use it with letters. Kill off a 2 wounds unit for maximum fun, then charge another unit. Works good with Rose Knights, but what isn't)

• Stag's Wit: Meh, it requires you to be in melee and have condition. Use it immediately when you find a chance, letter is a good bonus but unless you play a lot of wardens, tactical approach and Axel you don't really requires it

Tactics

Claim the Letters spot early, you usually want your powerful cards. March your unit quickly forward unto the object. Enable flank charge for your more aggressive units (Cutthroath or Sentinels)

Claim the panic spot, to protect your sentinels if you field them and gain some of your conditional ability. Using a replace effect can be quite useful here if you are facing high moral units.

Renly wants Weirdwood trees, Stannis wants Corpse piles