A Song of Ice and Fire: The Miniatures Game Season 4 has been out for a while now, and people have flooded to the game to try out the new changes. After letting things settle and the initial reactions digest, we continue our review of S.04 and how much it will impact the game for the next six months.
In this article we will cover the Neutrals and Boltons. I will also be covering some of my games from the recent Welsh GT since I took Boltons to the event and have some firsthand experience with the state of the Faction.
Event
At the start of March, I attended the Welsh GT with the Bolton Mini-Faction to see how well I could do as the worst Faction in the game at a strong competitive event. Whilst I did not forge the best competitive lists, I did craft thematic ones with some Neutrals sprinkled basing it around Harrenhal.
The event itself was, as always, a fantastic experience and the highlight from the weekend was playing against players I have never had a chance to play before but have seen and interacted with at previous events. The Welsh GT is one of the events I will always aim to attend due to the people there making it a great atmosphere for a weekend of gaming.
Games
1st Game – Free Folk – First game was against James from Dead Meta Gaming and his Styr led Free Folk with triple Thenn Warriors. This has certainly taught me how strong Taunt is and I cannot express this enough: NERF TAUNT for the love of God please. Double tokens or control your opponent through redirection. It sucks to go up against it once but have three in one go is a lot. To be honest it is basically the same issue with War Cry just throwing out tokens all the time.
Whilst this was an annoying moment, the game was incredibly close, with Ramsay Spearmen becoming a potent mess for the Free Folk to deal with. In the end it came down to the wire and if the Free Folk could bring down the Flayed Men with the weight of numbers, it would give the Free Folk the win.
Going up against one of the best Factions in the game was worrying, however not seeing the incredibly useful Skinchanger spreading Morale buffs was a silver lining. Surprisingly, when you can get the enemy to fail Morale tests the Boltons become a lot better, the only issue was the crucial moments were stopped dead in their tracks by Styr’s card to automatically pass a Morale. Boltons rely too much on the Morale game just to be like any other Faction on their mid-level. Too much effort to be just like the rest.
2nd Game – Baratheons – Second game was against Chris’ double King’s Men Axell Florent Baratheon list. Dual King’s Men with Intimidating Presence from Attachments is quite scary due to the damage that can be dealt out. This was supported by the new Dragonstone Noble, Lightbringers, and the Mel/Jaqen combo. Something to note is that Mel/Jaqen are still very strong, just not as far reaching as they used to be, which ultimately means that they won’t do much early on.
ASOIAF can have some specific moments which define the game, but this can come from making a small mistake that costs you greatly. For Chris, this was not giving enough space between his Lightbringers and the Zorse Riders which resulted in the Lightbringers being taken out of the game completely. This certainly swung the game in my favour, but I could not capitalise on it by removing the King’s Men due to the power of To The Last.
The mistake for myself was not aligning 50/50 with my Cutthroats to allow the Bastard’s Girls to charge in and kill the Unit, but also escaping the danger of the other King’s Men Unit. Doing so would have won me the game. Small mistakes can have big consequences especially for a list that had little presence on the battlefield in the Baratheons, or a Faction that needs everything they can get in the Boltons.
3rd Game – Targaryens – Third game was against Daniel from the Dukes Aces and his Barristan led Triple Dragon Targaryens. Thanks to Rimble Rumble, I had learnt a hard lesson about playing cagey against Dothraki Targaryens and immortal Greyjoys. You must commit to the fight, even if it will hurt to do so. Not getting stuck forces you into a cagey game and you are wasting turns trying to get your opponent to make a mistake or for you to have the best opportunity that might not come up.
In my run up to the event, I played a lot against a friend learning Targaryens and played a lot against the Dragons. There was no way I was doing any Morale damage and I needed to pile on one at a time to remove them to stay in control. Seeing that Daniel was looking to play cagey I castled up and spent the turns positioning in a way to be able to pile on when needed.
4th Game – Greyjoys – Fourth game was against Shane from Dead Meta Gaming and his Dagmer Machine Gun Golden Company Crossbowmen Greyjoys. When Shane picked the Crossbowmen list there was so much relief that overwhelmed me. His second list had so much Sentinel in it that I don’t think I would have been able to do anything, whereas against Dagmer I had a chance. Whilst there were some crazy rolls to allow me to stay in the game such as multiple 5 or 6 charges, it was not enough against the theme of the army.
We Do Not Sow, Petyr Baelish, Bronn, and Knowledge Paid in Iron, results in many free attacks for the Crossbowmen hence the name Machine Gun for the list. Whilst I rolled well with the Blackguard, all it took was one attack that did max wounds that spelled the end of the game. I will be honest; I needed a lot of luck to keep the game close and it really is down to Boltons not being good to match up with the rest of the Factions rather than Greyjoys being powerful.
5th Game – Martells – Fifth game was against Karl and his Darkstar double Skirmisher focused Martells. Karl is a great player and a pleasure to chat to throughout these events, whilst his force is the complete opposite. Not having too much experience against Martells was certainly an issue, but really it was the endless ranged attacks with bonuses from Scout Openings that forced me into not being able to do anything. If I could tie up the Skirmishers, then the cavalry was on hand to counter attack and save them. It was a well-designed list and one I could not deal with.
Ranged units in general are quite strong in the game now no matter where you find them. You can see that in a lot of the top performing lists there is an element to this, but they aren’t dominating the scene. Spamming free actions has always felt like a bad experience being on the receiving end in this game or being the one to deal it out with my experience playing Benjen Stark on foot. It doesn’t make for a fun game and sometimes the opponent can do nothing but watch. They have been around for a long time, and most of the time when there is a problem in the game it comes from too many attacks in quick succession.
6th Game – Starks – Final game was against Germano’s Blackfish Cavalry Starks with an added Elephant. Starks have become a favourite for best Faction in the game now due to the Season 4 changes, and it certainly helps having some of the best Units in the game both on and off the board. Germano was no different, opting to bring two of the Tully Cavaliers.
However, having none of the powerful NCUs, activation disadvantage, and having one of the cavalry Units starting off the board resulted in the best outcome for my Boltons to try their luck. Tying up the Elephant as soon as possible with the Zorse Riders took them out of the game, and they delayed the cavalry with Brynden until mid to late game. This gave me as much time as I needed to defeat the other cavalry and score objectives to win the game. If Germano chose to keep both cavalry on the board, I am more than sure that would have been game. There is nothing I can do against double cavalry other than get lucky and slow them down. A tough game that worked out in my favour.
Boltons
Throughout the event I have had enough time with Boltons to put them away for good until a new update. They aren’t fun to play, and you need to put so much effort into using them just to reach the middling standard of everyone else. Whilst I don’t know for sure, the rules feel rushed and stitched together without much thought into how they work with the rest of the game, almost as if they were made at the last moment or a long time ago.
Tactics Deck Sucks: Back when Baratheons were struggling, their Tactics Deck was a big player in this due to needing to be in combat already to trigger any cards. There is a similar vibe from the Bolton Deck where there are too many restrictions for pitiful gains. If you draw Sadistic Games in Round 1 you might as well dump it since you can’t activate them until you are engaged. You need ranks to be destroyed, Panic Tests to fail, and tokens on Units to do anything at all with your Tactics Deck, whereas all other Tactics Decks get something just for playing it like a token or keyword ability. Hence you must do more to get what others do with no effort.
Blackguard Are a Trap: Boltons need all the help they can get to perform on the table and a slow unit that does very little in combat doesn’t give very much of that. The defensive stats are fantastic but sitting on an objective and not interacting with the game is a points sink. All units must be applying pressure, and the Blackguard are not quick enough to apply this, whereas Dreadfort Spearmen sport some decent defensive capabilities whilst being able to do some damage. Highly recommend leaving the Blackguard at home.
Commanders Are Okay: I gave the Commanders a lot of heat during their release with how uneventful their decks are. However, I have come to change my tune on them once seeing what can be done. Roose Bolton offers a way to generate a lot of condition tokens which gives him an edge on the other Commanders. When not playing Roose you do find yourself missing all the tokens you had which can reduce the likelihood of attacks/morales not going in your favour. But that is it. The great deceiver and orchestrator of the downfall of the Starks gives some tokens out. Very boring, especially when you have so many cool and impactful cards from a plethora of other Commanders.
Ramsay on the other hand has some much better cards in theory but when using him they rarely came up or played a significant impact in the game. Opportunist is so weird considering that the only Units that don’t have Vicious are the Spearmen and Archers, it is almost forcing you into bringing the Spearmen but at least you can bring non-Bolton stuff to take advantage of this but the whole Faction was design for you to focus on bringing Bolton stuff. It is a mess.
Steelshanks is the best Commander and brings some worthwhile cards that will impact the game without too many hurdles to use them. You just need to dig through the deck to get them then be able to use them in the right moment for the best effect.
Boltons need a whole rework akin to the recent Greyjoy and Night’s Watch releases which to be honest shouldn’t be happening on a brand-new Faction. They have never gotten off the ground and they never will without a huge face lift and proper playtesting into how the Faction compares to the rest of the forces and how they feel on the board. Until then, Boltons have become what Neutrals once were…not a real Faction.
Neutrals
Units
Bloody Mummer Skirmishers – Speed and Attack Dice Increased
Before the update was released, the developers did mention in a preview article that “Stormcrows and Bloody Mummers received numerical buffs…” whilst the Stormcrows was plural for multiple units, the Bloody Mummers was not, and thus there was a sense of disappointment for a revival of those Units and Faction Affiliation.
The changes to the Skirmishers are minor and only seek to bring them in line with other 6pts Units across the game but do little to change their value to not only Neutral players but to all other Factions. Do both Skirmishers and Zorse Riders need a change? No. but they don’t have a large play rate which does bring them into the gaze of rework by the developers.
Perhaps this needs to coincide with a rework to the Mummers as a whole, along with some additions to that roster.
Stormcrow Dervishes, and Stormcrow Mercenaries – Morale Increase
Just like the Mummers, these changes are minor tweaks, but unlike the Mummers, the results are impactful. Whilst most other war games like Warhammer 40k sees less value from Morale stats, ASOIAF: TMG makes them matter since you can reliably take some chip damage after every Attack or by other means. So, a high Morale will give you survivability and for the Stormcrows this changes so much.
In my experience, playing with pure Stormcrows did feel like a paper-thin force, especially against something that cuts through already-terrible Morale like a Mel/Jaqen bomb. With this they can actually withstand attacks and become a prominent force within their own Faction and in other locations.
It plays interestingly with the power of the Jokin Commander within Neutrals, perhaps resulting in a Faction that can never fail a Morale test since there are now four auto-passing Morale Tactics Cards before utilising the new morale improvements. The Dervishes are now appearing much more frequently in other Factions such as Starks due to this change since they now sport statistics of 7pts Units. All around fantastic changes that modify the scope of what these Units can achieve.
Stormcrow Archers – Added Loyalty Through Coin
The Stormcrow Archers were a popular ranged Unit for a lot of forces that had been traded out for the more potent Golden Company Crossbowmen in the machine gun meta that has taken over some areas of competitive play. But this change is an interesting one to improve them further to challenge the Crossbowmen for that slot. Whilst this change is incredible for the unit, I am unsure how much it will change people’s mind on fielding them.
Personally, it changes whether I bring Bronn or not since I am now doubling up on rules. It opens additional points to bring in Jokin with Daario, or higher quality NCUs. This change opens up new list building which can have a huge impact on how good pure Neutrals can be. In other places where you are seeking out the Coins Zone, such as Lannisters, this can result in them being worthwhile, but it might not change much due to the power of other ranged Units now such as the Lannister Crossbowman.
A good change for pure Neutrals, and one that will have little impact for other Factions.
Golden Company Swordsmen – Adaptive Style Rework
The Golden Company Swordsmen were an okay Unit turned into the best Unit in the game that almost everyone could and would take, to now in Season 4 being worse than when the developers started to rework them. I do believe they should revert the changes to what they were at release until they have found the right design for them as currently it is still not in a great place.
It is remarkable to see how a few tweaks to a rule can drastically evolve a Unit from irrelevance to permanent spotlight and then back again. I hope CMON can find a better place for this Unit with some rules that don’t break the game, are viable in some situations, and respects the source material in design. Right now, though, there was a better version of the rules for this Unit on release and it needs a change in the future for them to not gather dust.
NCUs
Petyr Baelish – Reduce Tokens
In the last update Petyr Baelish saw a limitation to his endless political games in the form of only being able to use the ability of claiming another Tactics Zone rather than the one he has taken three times per game. When this happened, it was popularised that the changes would be minor and are unlikely to show up with how often it is actually used.
Now in Season 4, this has been changed to twice per game which will have a bigger impact but only towards the end half of a game. He can still enforce his control over the Tactics Board in the important moments and again I do not see this being a big enough change to drop him out of almost auto-inclusion. However, it is the competitive slot of 12pts for Neutrals that sees him struggle.
There are other NCUs that can be better for the strategy of the game such as Varys but even Shae, Walder, or Tycho. Couple this with wanting to bring a Neutral Unit and you have a slot that is so hard to fill that Petyr might just be left out for good. Within the Neutrals, he has an easy time being picked for the NCU roster and I very much doubt there is a situation he is not taken in.
Overall, Petyr Baelish is a great NCU that has a place in almost every single Faction in the game. But he is not the standout in these Factions and is often left at home as much as he is taken. However, the addition of tokens has likely affected his pick rate but does almost nothing to his presence in the game. He hasn’t changed and is still as strong as ever.
Varys – Reduce Tokens
Varys saw a huge change in the last update which seemed illogical. He went from very strong at 4pts, to 5pts where he was still taken every now and again in competitive play, but it was a rare selection. So, to change this low pick rate, CMON reverted the pts change and were shocked by the same thing happening when he was 4pts with everyone taking him. To solve this, they reduce tokens by 1 in Season 4.
Honestly, this will do nothing. I can see people still bringing him often, and only switching out due to experimenting with recent changes to other NCUs or becoming bored of him. This changed nothing and probably should have left him at 4 tokens and 5pts since it was still a competitive choice being considered.
Walder Frey – Complete Rework
Walder was changed due to him being too niche, seeing play only with Doran or Pyatt when they brought a sixth Tactics Zone, so you didn’t lose out on Walder. The change will now see him played in more lists and potentially be better than he once was. He still has the capability to take the First Player, whilst also being able to dish out some healing or tokens. My favourite place to use him is in Boltons alongside Jeyne Poole to get a triple first player situation.
He will be played more than he once was and is one of the only ways for most Factions to steal the First Player, however he hasn’t been picked up that often due to being overshadowed by other NCUs within their respective Factions.
Overall
I have had a fantastic experience learning Boltons in the build up to the Welsh GT and surprised myself with how well I did with them at the event. But there are so many issues with the Faction locking them out from being able to compete with other Factions and Lists that out match their capabilities. They have some tricks up their sleeves and some fun combos, with some unique Units that make you want to play them, however, until a rework arrives for them, they will dwindle into obscurity.
On the other hand, Neutrals have become a full-fledged Faction thanks to the previous Season updating their Tactics Cards, and Season 4 updating several Units. Small changes to Stormcrows have made them viable in so many Factions with a rise in play rate in a unit never quite in the spotlight to Mercs being taken everywhere not just for their Attachment ability. There are still some corners that need attending too like the Golden Company and Bloody Mummers, but finally they are alongside the other forces in the game and compete with them.
