The Brotherhood Without Banners Faction for ASOIAF: TMG has been fully revealed by CMON. The new Faction has a new ally mechanic, whilst bringing a bigger focus on Attachments and movement than any other Faction in the game. In this article, we will be looking over the Starter Set for the Brotherhood and what the foundation for the Faction looks like.
Brotherhood Without Banners Starter Set
The Brotherhood Without Banners set comes with miniatures that look like Neutral Units, but the set does not come with any cards that allow you to play the Brotherhood Units and Attachments outside of their Faction. This is an important note since the Bolton Faction came with this and it may not be clear that these are not Neutrals.
Another note is that unlike other Factions there are no unnamed Attachments in the set. Usually there is an attachment for the duplicated Unit and one more for one of the others, but in this instance there are two additional name characters instead.
Just like the Bolton set, there is a Faction card with a rule that allows Brotherhood players to bring one Stark or Baratheon Combat Unit with their force. If you’re already a collector of these two Factions then this is a big bonus. But if you are new, it gives you some more options to look at. There is also a further faction rule which reduces one Attachment by 1 point. Two strong abilities that we will discuss where relevant in the article.
Tactics Cards
The Base Tactics deck is very flexible with a lot of different triggers, and only two sharing the same trigger. This means the deck can be active more often throughout the game with it always supporting you. There are a few movement cards in the deck that allow you to better position your forces for both flanking and survivability. Alongside that there are three cards that provide healing with a fourth limiting the potential damage of a Morale Test. There are a few avenues for some tokens, as well as a way to stop an ability or Tactics Card. But mostly the deck will be about movement and healing.
Some of these cards synergise off of each other, such as an activated But The Realm Remains preventing the negative token from The Forgotten Fellowship. The card Azor Ahai! can give you the best outcome from a Morale Test while dishing out Weakened Tokens, but then you can follow this up with Sudden Retreat (if it came from a Melee Attack) to get yourself into a safer position.
The Base Tactics deck ticks off the most important factor of being present throughout the game and being useful in multiple situations. Having versatility and playability is what every player wants from the Base Tactics deck and I am glad the developers have achieved this for this Faction. Furthermore, it feels like a good foundation to build around with certain types of Commanders.
Beric Dondarrion – Commander
Beric’s Commander Attachment is overwhelming. He has some incredible rules and an unusual amount of rules in comparison to many other Commanders in the game. As a Neutral player, having Jokin just give Precision is incredibly uninspiring next to the likes of Beric. Pathfinder and Sentinel are some great rules often not given the spotlight they deserve, and having an extra action for Beric’s Unit is very strong. This alone would be great but the developers decided to give him a way to heal through passing morale tests with extra healing if you hold that precious Crown Zone. He is bonkers good.
Beric is likely going in an allied Unit from Starks, Barathones, or Neutrals. You want a Unit with some good movement and decent morale to take advantage of Beric’s abilities. Personally, Baratheon Units are looking to be the right place for Beric with King’s Men and Stag Knights looking to be the best picks for the Lightning Lord. However, Units with good morale and some keywords from Starks would be useful like Greataxes as an example. You could see Beric in the increasingly popular Stormcrow Dervishes since the retreat can put him in a further better position for future activations, you just need to deal with having no keywords.
Beric’s cards are Assault Order, Six Times Too Many, and Lightbringer. This allows Beric to bring a lot of extra damage whilst having an additional heal in his back pocket. Assault Orders is a problematic card for the game since free actions put you leagues above forces that do not have them. For Beric, this can snowball into an incredible combination with Stromcrow Dervishes. You could charge from Sentinel, retreat into the rear, free charge from Assault Orders, followed by another retreat, then you still have another action for his Unit. Dervishes give Beric a true command of the battlefield that other Units don’t have.
You can combine this with Lightbringer to spread additional Panic Tests for some chip damage to other Units, or enforce a second Panic Test on the Unit you just attacked. If Beric or another important Unit are in a risky situation, you can hold on for longer by keeping that Unit around with Six Times Too Many then follow it up with one of the Brotherhood’s many routes of healing.
Beric is very good and I can see him being the best Commander for the force based on the lethality of Beric alone. If you face this Commander, the best thing to do is to target down Beric and the Brotherhood will dismantle around him, but it is far easier said than done since you can’t pin him down or reliably reduce his numbers.
Thoros of Myr – Commander
Thoros Commander is a lot of fun, and is going to be in the similar realm as Beric Attachment with the Faith abilities. Having an additional Faith ability to get more value on a Unit that already has Faith can be incredibly strong. However, Thoros’ Prayers to R’hllor ability doesn’t work the best with R’hllor Faithful, Queen’s Men, and King’s Men. Vicious doubles up with Faithful’s Vicious, Sundering doubles up with King’s Men Sundering, and the Queen’s Men aren’t used that much due to how slow they are.
That being said, if you were to bring Beric Attachment, you want him sitting with your Faith Units, and Thoros somewhere else. I would recommend a Neutral 7pts melee infantry Unit to put him in specifically the Stormcrow Dervishes which gives them extra morale but mainly keywords that they desperately want. Men-at-arms would appreciate Vicious, healing, and then some extra morale, but just like the King’s Men you double up on Sundering, but you will still be able to pick it up if the opponent has control of the Crown Zone. As a Commander, Thoros brings some extra bite to a Unit and some survivability.
Thoros’ cards are Fiery Charge, Loved By The Smallfolk, and The Last Kiss. Thoros gives a max threat range to the army in the form of Fiery Charge which is a similar card to Rush of Aggression, but dishes out some Panicked Tokens likely to be used by Thoros with his Vicious effect or combine with the Brotherhood Archers if they can grab their Vicious effect. But mostly Thoros is about sustainability, bringing a way to hand out tokens to an enemy before their Melee Attack action with Loved By The Smallfolk.
The Last Kiss allows you to keep the Attachments you lose in the game for longer. I can see this being used on the 2pts Attachments which gives you more reason to bring them. The most interesting aspect of this is that it ignores Attachment limits so you can start to develop a death-star Unit from all of the Attachments you bring over the course of the game. This will likely be a fun thing to aspire too, and it will be a combo of two Attachments that makes this strong. Right now it looks to be overkill if you are doing it, but some minor Attachments joining the same Unit could be worth looking into.
Thoros feels fun, but not as good as the other Commanders in the Faction. This is only because Beric and Stoneheart are really good, not that Thoros is bad, and frankly Thoros can be very good since you can combine him with Attachment Beric. The main fall off is he has two cards that aren’t going to impact the game as much. Loved By The Smallfolk is a difficult card to pull off since most Units have great Morale in the game, and The Last Kiss needs a Unit with an Attachment to die to use. He is a fun pick but not the strongest in the Faction.
Units
Men-at-Arms are a specialist Unit that needs a lot of help to get them off the ground. If you cannot get them in the flank, make sure they have the Crown buff, or have another way of improving them, then the Unit is worse than many 5pts Units when they cost 6pts. They are a gamble and you must play them correctly to find worth.
The problem with gamble Units is that there are other options for less effort such as the new cavalry for the Brotherhood. Heavy Cavalry have long been a shining star in the game for their ease of play, and Units like the Men-at-Arms are often a niche. The only time you are selecting them is when you don’t have space for better Units due to a points issue, and most of the time the slot of high cost Melee Infantry Unit is going to be taken up by another option.
For Men-at-Arms, just combining them with a Peasant Levy Unit and making sure your opponent doesn’t have the Crown Zone will be enough to make them worthwhile. I wouldn’t recommend trying to play around Ambush unless there is an opening that could help you. The problem is going out of your way for a Flank or Rear charge takes too long to be worth a few tokens. However, Brotherhood do have some Base Tactic Deck cards that could get the Unit into an Ambush position, on the other hand, this can be used on other Units that could find more value. This Unit is likely to be left on the shelf, but I look forward to being wrong in this instance.
Brotherhood Archers are incredible. They have a new design to a range Unit that makes Crannogman Trackers weep. Just like the Men-at-Arms, the Unit wants to play in the Flank or Rear, but unlike the Men-at-Arms they have an inbuilt Order that helps them get into position for this. Having a free movement ability on a ranged Unit is a powerful tool especially if it is one that can get you a pivot as part of that movement. There is likely no hiding from the Brotherhood without being really close to them, and even so they will try to find a way around you to hit you the hardest.
Any Ranged Unit is going to have a lot of value with how useful Long Range attacks are in the game. For Brotherhood Archers, expanding on this attack with Vicious and Precision makes them very good, although Precision is not a brilliant ability in comparison to the rest, it is Vicious that puts them over the edge as they are likely forcing some more casualties from their attack.
The only issue preventing the Archers from being used often is the competitive spot for Units in the Brotherhood Faction. Most people will be bringing a Stark/Baratheon allied Unit, a Unit of the Brotherhood Cavalry, and some Peasant Levy Units. If there is space left it will be to boost the existing forces but this could be in the form of the Archers. Outside of competitive play there is no doubt this Unit will be played due to how much fun you can have especially with building lists for them.
Peasant Levy is the Unit you get two of in the Starter Set. They are a cheap activation that can be quite the distraction for the opponent. At 4pts the Unit can be quite effective at being a speed bump to slow down the opponent allowing the Brotherhood player to fight on their terms. The true power of the Peasant Levy is fighting together with your army, and not being a throwaway body like the Free Folk Raiders. Together, the Peasants provide a number of buffs to the survival and lethalness of other Units involved in the combat.
If you can keep the Peasant Levy alive to hold the opposing Unit in place for the other Brotherhood Units to loop around and flank, then you will have the perfect ambush whilst playing the Brotherhood exactly like they do in the books. If that line breaks, or the Peasant Levy can’t keep the opponent in place, then you will need to get more crafty with your guerilla tactics. This is where Attachments and Commanders come into play.
Force the opponent to deal with them with Tom Sevenstreams and his Taunt, or make the opponent think twice while ignoring the Unit by having Lem Lemoncloak use his Battle Scars to turn the Unit into a bigger threat. No matter how you run them, the Peasant levy will be the life force of your Brotherhood army, and you shouldn’t pass up bringing multiple.
NCUs
In the book A Storm of Swords, Arya and the Brotherhood visit High Heart to meet with the Ghost of High Heart. This was to gain some knowledge on the future and where to find Beric Dondarrion. She does give some accurate information about the state of the war to the Brotherhood and some minor things that are about to happen in the story.
The Ghost’s rules are odd since they don’t really reflect the background of this character. +1 Morale can be very useful but the Brotherhood Units already has a decent Morale. The Morale effect here could be the encouraging news The Ghost brings to the Brotherhood. But the loss of a rank leading to tokens on the enemy sort of comes out of nowhere. This will be very strong in game against multiple attacks into a singular target over a prolonged engagement.
Overall, the rules don’t seem that impactful, but we will need to see how people plan to utilise the tokens. However, there are better options especially with Neutrals being available. The rules don’t match that of the story. They don’t portray a character using visions for information which is provided to the Faction. I was expecting something that meddled with the opponents Tactics Cards like Patchface or something that affects the Tactics Board like Tybald.
We meet Ravella Smallwood in A Storm of Swords when the Brotherhood visit Acorn Hall with Arya. She is an incredibly minor character who is a sympathiser to the Brotherhood, offering them some food and shelter as well as some information on current events. She does have some ties with Tom Sevenstreams, and acts as a comforting memory for Arya of her past.
Rules wise, Ravella’s rules do not portray herself but rather Acorn Hall. Help is limited but can be given to rejuvenate the losses and prepare the Brotherhood for what is to come. Healing and Token removal. Simple and matches a small place of relief.
Just like The Ghost, Ravella is likely to be outshone by other NCUs in the Faction as well as Neutral NCUs. But if you have a Tactics Card to spend for a small heal on a unit then why not? If you just had to spend an order token from the NCU for the heal, she would be held in a much higher regard, but the Tactics Cards are mostly decent which may prevent the use of her ability.
The two NCUs in the Starter Set are not impressive and will end up being overlooked in the entire Faction. Whilst the Brotherhood having weak standing in the politics game makes a lot of sense, the balance of the game may catch up to them in this aspect.
Attachments
Beric Dondarrion’s Attachment is incredibly fun since it brings a whole new rule to the game but in the design of the Faith mechanic which hasn’t shown up often. If you put him inside of a Faith Unit then you will get double the value of your Faith tokens and generate them twice as fast. Placing him inside R’hllor Faithful may see him utilise all of the abilities on the card, but also giving +2 dice to King’s Men would be incredible. In fact, almost any 7pts melee infantry unit would be incredible with extra dice as popularised by the Golden Company Swordsman.
However, quite a lot of players have been gunning for Tully Cavaliers as the pick for the allied Unit. This would leave only Faction and Neutral Units to pick from, with not many benefiting in a substantial way. I can see Beric Attachment being the reason you don’t bring Tully Cavaliers and instead look for a Baratheon Unit with Faith.
The best part of new rules to the game is the excitement of list design using them. We need more Beric Attachments in the game to spark this excitement rather than more of the same rules we have had for years just in a new place. Although, it is far easier said than done.
Thoros of Myr’s Attachment brings back the once dominant Relentless rule but places it in lists that never got the chance to utilise it. When I first saw the rule on Thoros I started thinking about all the Stark and Baratheon Units you would want to place him in, and then the healing is more of a bonus. Out of all the Attachments with Relentless out there, Thoros is the best one due to the secondary ability on offer.
King’s Men have been a unit talked about a lot with this force and they sure would be a useful bunker for Thoros. For Starks I would consider Winterfell Guard just to free up some more points for other Attachments and Units for the force, but having him in something like Karstark Spearmen may be the better value for a Stark Unit. That being said most are thinking of bringing Tully Cavaliers with their ally spending, so Thoros will need to look in house or at Neutrals. Stormcrow Dervishes could be a really good pick with the only downside being no keywords to utilise. Either way, wherever you put Thoros he will be useful and a potent threat.
Thoros having rules that already exist prove that a certain combination of rules can be just as exciting for list building as brand new rules. I would love to see more wild combinations of abilities we haven’t seen before in the future.
Lem Lemoncloak is simply just a good soldier. There aren’t many moments that have Lem standout as something to be amazed at but he is very present throughout the majority of Brotherhood moments. We do get to see him take on Bloody Mummers in a fight, and he remains with the Brotherhood after Lady Stoneheart’s takeover. The main story point that is brought up often is that he has a broken nose from Arya that is healing poorly. Hence why he gets the Battle Scars rule.
Battle Scars could be very useful for the Peasant Levy who are going to be the speed bump the opponent must cross. It could give them an extra punch especially if you can get Gang-Up off at the same time. Ironically it is Neutral Units I can see him being useful in and especially in the Bloody Mummer Skirmishers.
Tom Sevenstreams is a bard. Throughout A Storm of Swords, Tom sings several songs as if the book itself is an album for the world of Westeros. Throughout all of this book he is the typical singer of the band of merry men, but in actual fact he is far more than what is given at face value. In A Feast For Crows, we learn that Tom is a spy and we do so through Jaime chapters, and by the end of it, finds himself in the court of the higher ranking members of the Lannisters.
When we learnt that Tom would be getting rules, I truly believed he would be a strong 5 or even 6 point NCU. He was able to use his skills as a bard to get close to courts of the enemy and even gave movements that allowed some of the Freys to be ambushed and killed. Which when you think about it, could be represented by Taunt. You lure the enemy to your position for an ambush. I am a little disappointed and hope we will see a NCU in the future.
The Attachments for the Thoros and Beric are quite likely to be played due to the excitement in list building, but for 2pts they are taking up a large portion of your Attachment spending. Further to this, players are already discussing cavalry options and Attachments for them which would further limit the possibility of bringing the two smaller Attachments in Lem and Tom. If there is a unit with space for the Attachments you may see them squeezed in but this is unlikely to be the case.
Summary
When the Brotherhood Without Banners Starter Set drops in December for us all to play, I can see a lot of people trying out the Faction more so than Boltons and perhaps more so than previous Factions. There is a new level of excitement added to the game with this release that has been long missing and personally I can’t wait to mess around with the Attachments on offer.
The Faction is not broken but can be stronger in certain match-ups than others, there is a lot of potential with the force if you can learn and then pull off certain combinations and synergies which is exactly what you want from a Faction in the game. But they do have their shortcomings to make them fair on the table. No doubt there will be some tweaks that are needed to make sure they don’t have anything egregious.
My biggest worry is about the balancing of Stark and Baratheons Units. As a Neutral player, I have long been on the receiving end of nerfs to the roster due to the Units featuring in other Factions to the point where Neutral players are asking for separate rules when playing pure Neutrals. Will Stark and Baratheon Units get nerfed or buffed due to how they are utilised in the Brotherhood Faction? I think for certain they will be, specifically Tully Cavaliers and King’s Men which are some of the best choices for their respective Faction.
These do change the way Brotherhood players will play their Faction drastically to a point where they are necessary purchases for players. We will be looking over the Brotherhood Knights heavy cavalry Unit and the Heroes 1 box in a future article.
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