As promised, CMON delivered the Season 4 update for the A Song of Ice and Fires Miniatures game on Monday. After spending an evening pondering the update – plus another day or so of debate and writing – we’re here to talk about what changed and what it means for you and your armies. There’s a ton to cover here and while today we’ll be looking primarily at the changelog and offering commentary, you can rest assured we’ll have more to say about it in the coming weeks, from additional analysis to updates on our older faction guides. So, sit back and let’s dive into what changed.
If you missed the changelog, you can find the original post here on CMON’s website.
House Stark: Umbers are Looking Uber Competitive
Carly: For the longest time, Starks needed an update to their Units to bring them back into the fold of the game. The inconsistency between the quality of the Stark Units and other Factions has been getting clearer and clearer with each update to which finally CMON have responded with major changes and minor tweaks.
Mormonts and Karstarks saw updates that don’t generally change too much for them. The Loyalist’s rework is polarising with how out of place it feels in Starks since there is nothing to synergise with them. There is no place for the Loyalists with their own Attachment, let alone with the entire Faction. Spearmen along with She-Bears saw the necessary tweaks to bring them to the right level but the changes to the Bruisers are inconsequential. Karstarks, Mormonts, and the fact Tullys saw no changes to their non-Lance Cav stuff, is a big letdown for the Faction.
However, if there is one silver lining it is that Umber armies will become one of the staples of Stark competitive play. Berserkers are very good with their rework making them more survivable over time rather than better at hitting, adding in an Attachment that further this like the Mormont Veteran with Hardened or a combat boost like the Sworn Sword Captain will further their prowess. Any player that brings two and builds a list around them will see a huge leap in performance for Starks from Season 3 to Season 4.
When you combine this with the newly released Umber Ravagers, the powerful Commander Greatjon Umber, and the reworked tech piece Umber Greataxes, and you could have a powerful force that can cut open any target whilst living to tell the tale. But even outside of pure Umber they can shine with Ned heals coming after the benefits to the innate defensive abilities, and the power of targeting with most of the tools being hyper lethal.
Starks are on the rise and perhaps Winter has finally arrived.
House Lannister: Meta-Leading Tools Dulled Down
Thanqol: House Lannister has always felt like an extremely middle of the pack faction in terms of balance, and this change sands away the few sharp edges they had. This is generally going to be a good thing, though – taking away a top tournament list archetype at the same time as a wider balance pass shaking up some other overperforming factions means that House Lannister now gets the breathing room to explore the rest of their extremely large variety of options.
The standout winner is Joffrey Commander. I think this change to the Kingsguard is going to be the final push that stops them from being a meme unit, which they have been for an extremely long time. Nestle him into a flank to reduce the number of units that can engage him, and he can efficiently power through a variety of targets, and having him on the field opens the door to explore Lannister NCUs and attachments that don’t rely on having constant control of the crowns.
Lannisport City Watch are not in a good place following these changes; I wouldn’t rate them over Halberdiers with virtually any attachment, and maybe not even Halberdiers with no attachment – though that’s not entirely fair because Halberdiers at 5 points are and remain one of the best basic combat units in the game.
The NCU changes are an interesting combination. Pycelle has been nerfed but it’s not as bad as it seems. Turn one sometimes doesn’t matter for placing tokens, either because your opponent can clear one with an NCU/the Coin/etc, and the presence of a token beyond turn 5 is often too late to make a difference, so realistically he’ll be up on the critical turn 2-4 period. Qyburn, long serving as the We Have Varys at Home, finally has serious utility especially in synergy with Bribery. By warding the Swords and Coin tactics zones to prevent your opponent clearing a turn one bribery or making a critical attack he can seriously support the Lannister gameplan. Finally, Tommen has come to represent a serious dilemma against Circe – the problem with Tommen was that you wanted Bribery as early as possible and Subjugation of Power in the midgame, so he didn’t represent effective deck management. But now, Intrigue and Subterfuge is an evergreen tactics card and means that Tommen can mill out all your early game wish list, leaving you with a lean and effective tactics deck – solid upgrade.
I’m not really putting much mind to Kevan’s changes. He’s still good, it’s just a very specific list configuration that is dead. There’s still tons of places to explore with him even outside the context of the crossbow machine gun.
Neutrals: A Disappointing Minor Tweaking for Minor Factions
Carly: This is a mixed bag as in some cases the changes were much needed for reducing the power of the choices chosen across almost every player, and much needed tweaking upwards for the Units used the least. However, this feels aimless in some instances and the result is lacking.
Golden Company Swordsmen were a dominant force in the entire game to the point where CMON tried to nerf the Unit in the middle of the mid-season update but this still failed. In the end they have almost reverted it back to what it was before its change and now it will fade into obscurity. This Unit was picked by Factions that could exploit it but also Factions that needed a strong 7pts Unit to help them. Lannisters were able to utilise the Unit the most, and Baratheons needed the Unit the most. Now they must look at alternatives as this balancing was well needed.
When CMON mentioned there would be tweaks to Bloody Mummers, the community assumed this was of the whole Faction, however this was for the Skirmishers only and not for the Affiliation. The Unit has not had a significant change and will still be underwhelming in comparison to many other choices. This is disappointing but Mummer stuff has a place in the Bolton Faction now.
The Stormcrow update is a welcome one to the Morale statistic. The times I have faced down a Mel/Jaqen Bomb with my army of Morale 7+ has been way too many for me to count, and now it is night and day in comparison. It sort of discounts the value of Jokin since he had a card for auto passing Morale, but overall is very useful. In places where you just want the Unit, we could see the Dervishes show up now that they aren’t lacking in this area. All welcome tweaks but unlikely to result in a drastic change apart from the Archers.
The Archers have stolen Bronn’s ability for Loyalty Through Coin, you may not see Bronn in this Unit anymore which opens some space for other Attachments or more points to spend elsewhere. In general, the Unit has gotten to a point where it can rival the Golden Company Crossbowmen for other Factions, especially in those that have gotten better NCUs such as Targaryens.
House Bolton: Mercenary Work Needed to Save Dreadfort
Carly: House Bolton has had a shaky release with it being the worst Faction in the game by a long, short. There is a significant margin separating the Mini-Faction from every single other Faction in the game and this is most due to the restricted roster for the forces of the Dreadfort. Opening the door to the Neutral faction will expand their roster and fix at least some of their issues from the release day.
Having a wider spread of NCUs from the Neutral range will be the biggest benefit from the restrictions being lifted and expect to see Varys, Petyr, Tycho, and even Shae makes an appearance. They have less competition since some of the NCUs do not shine like Walda being unimpressive in certain builds and Tybald getting a clarification on his rules reducing his playability significantly. No longer will he have a pseudo-double activation on the board and his rules are activating him out of sync with the usual order. This feels like a negative since there are now countless NCUs way better than him.
Off the top of my head, I do not believe any of the Units will make a massive difference and will instead play a specific niche for the Faction as a whole. Vargo Commander might prefer the Bolton Tactics Deck over the Neutral one and so bringing him with some Bloody Mummers could be useful, especially the light cavalry option being opened to the Faction in the Zorse Riders.
Unsure the true outcome of this change even though I have stated more Units to the roster is what they need. The lack of synergy is more the issue especially with the Neutral Deck being so good in comparison to the Boltons.
Free Folk: Reasonable Nerfs, Unreasonable Buffs
Carly: Although CMON said there would be minor changes to the Free Folk Faction who will receive a lot more in the next update, the changes that were done in this instance are quite strong and may have brought Free Folk into a better position.
Varamyr Commander received points nerf resulting in his lists becoming a little more costly, but this was needed to prevent the insane activation lists that he brings. It won’t change him too much and some would argue that it wasn’t enough. Craster, who saw play in almost all lists, was nerfed for the giant lists but remained unchanged for the infantry lists such as the Styr led ones. Yigritte and Val remain unchanged and are still very likely going to appear in every list going forward.
Dalla saw points decrease, Jon and Mance received some small reworks to make their abilities better. The problem here is not that these NCUs were not good or useful, but that the other options were so strong that they were constantly overlooked. Bringing the rest of the slate up to the powerful one’s level is not the solution and will have an impact on the game going forward. Craster was a reasonable change and they needed to continue this to the others.
Mickey on Tourney Ground did mention a combination that could become problematic not just for Free Folk but for other places that Overrun appears. For Free Folk there is a way to get Harma in the same Unit as Tormund Commander to enhance the mobility of the Overrun alongside Sentinel. Anything that can buff the new March mechanic of Overrun can result in a slingshot mechanic and is potentially a problem.
The other changes are mostly small tweaks, but the Borroq’s Boar, Spearwives, and Skinchanger all received buffs that were unnecessary to a point where they will plague list building. Skinchanger at 1pts, or 0pts in a Raider Unit, will be taken in every list instead of almost all other options. Stalwart alone is enough to mitigate some of the Morale issues the Faction has, something the Development Team wanted to remain a weakness for the force when reworking Mance Rayder. Now this is clearly not the case, and it also comes with some additional Skinchanging benefits such as disorderly charges or shifting to get into position. This is a bad change for the internal balance of the Faction.
Borroq getting his Boar for free was due to the Unit not seeing play on the table. This is not because of the value that the Boar has but rather that it counts for activations which gives the opponent pass tokens. Players are trying to avoid giving their opposition a benefit and thus leave him at home since Borroq is worth it on his own. Even with it being free this will be the case unless it is in a list that wants high activations, which now became 2pts cheaper.
Spearwives is a powerful Unit that was taken competitively due to their effectiveness. When you pair them up with something like Commander Tormund, they become even more scary with the potential they hold, now this has become even more of the case which on top of everything else that is possible is a bad omen. Free Folk should rejoice with these changes, but there are some insane moves that could see them become an issue.
Night’s Watch: Night’s Watch Fall Far from The Wall
Carly: We all knew this was coming, and the rework is a fair change to the Faction that has had mountains of advantages against any opponent. The most important change here is the colossal redesign of the Base Tactics Deck which has removed the ease of access to a plethora of buffs for the sake of being around. You must choose an instant buff or an Attached buff that you may lose. Some of those buffs have remained the same as the Shield that Guards the Realms of Men, others have been nerfed like Sword in the Darkness which is practically unusable. Whilst this is a heavy hit, these cards are still powerful, and I have a feeling CMON are still finding their feet with the future of the Night’s Watch.
One card changed drastically that affects the tweaked Qhorin Halfhand and Coldhands Solo. And Now His Watch Has Ended used to be able to hand out free actions on the death of a Unit which was able to be triggered by you killing Qhorin or losing your soon to return immortal Coldhands. The triggers and combinations of some of these have been utterly removed from the game and to a more reasonable extent. Qhorin is still useful, but tuned down, and the same can be said for Coldhands. Both are still viable choices for the Night’s Watch.
Whilst Qhorin saw a tuning for the better, the other NCUs chosen for a focus are relatively pointless compared to Bowen, Aemon, or Donal. Why would you ever bring Sam Tarley over Bowen for example. It is sort of the same issue as Free Folk where the weaker NCUs are brought up somewhat and the best ones remain the same, thus nothing changes.
Whereas the Warmachine changes encourages a way to deal with them rather than having a disengaged game with your opponent. The Stonethrower was reverted and then had its morale worsened resulting in it looking far less appealing going forward. There are some important changes to the Night’s Watch Faction that mostly comes down to their Tactics Deck being balanced across other Factions, however, for now Night’s Watch are starting to look much more appropriate for the game.
Baratheons: Reworked for Nothing?
Carly: It is hard to look at the Baratheon changes without covering your eyes. I, like many others, were expecting a boost to the Stannis Loyalty side of the Faction that has plenty of unique pieces in their roster but mostly lost all their competitive options last update. Could a new competitive outlook and flavour be on the horizon? No, but they did try.
R’hllor Faithful and R’hllor Queen’s Men underwent significant changes to enforce their playstyle of lasting long in combat. Faithful want to do this using their faith abilities to heal and boost their combat prowess for a fight, whereas Queen’s Men have doubled down on their resilience becoming one of the hardest (and slowest) Units to shift in the game. Thing is, for a 6pts and 7pts Unit, they are outshone by the 5pts Wardens who can tie Units up and survive just as well if not better than them. Halberdiers even do better, and when your role is done by those cheaper and in some instances statistically better than you then your rules become redundant. Both Units, remain on the shelves.
It isn’t all doom and gloom, but it is still dreary. Dragonstone Noble suffers from a change of archetype where it has left the days of being a missile behind for a supporting role. It is now an annoying solo that is difficult to kill that can remove tokens from Units. It won’t kill much, but good luck trying to kill it. Just underwhelming in comparison to a fun Unit that was not problematic before. If there was no change, there would be no complaints.
King’s Men saw a change that is only beneficial when you remember Golden Company Swordsmen are dead in the water. 7pts choices are flooded for Stannis, but none of them are appealing. In a way, the King’s Men are better than the Golden Company Swordsmen, and due to this we may see more of them although their synergy with their Commander Andrew Estermont is gone.
Axell was changed to be worse than Shyra and he wasn’t even being played. His Commander used to be strong until he was reworked last update and now his NCU is even worse. At least Selyse and Shireen went down points but in a storm of great NCUs like Patchface, Davos, and Cressen, why would anyone bother? Stannis’ loyalty roster was tweaked but not enough to make any changes, in fact it is worse now than pre-update.
The rest of the changes are mostly inconsequential, but the Rainbow Guard change is nice followed by a version of Brienne that is nice but likely to see play due to her better version with Renly being so good, and for free. It is a bad time to be a Baratheon player.
Targaryens: NCU Playing Field Reworked
Thanqol: A large and unexpected set of changes, this feels like a full faction rework. I’m not quite clear on what the faction looks like now, but it’s been gradually mutating for a while with the release of the Targaryen infantry, so everything feels fresh again.
The Hrakkars are the big one. They were always a weird unit because a 4+ save and excellent morale meant that they could be extremely swingy – opponents might just fail to put one down for multiple turns while it just hit like a truck each time, but other times it’d crumple to the first thing that hit it. Now they’re pure Outflank tech units which is an interesting investment for four points, but I’m not convinced they’ll make it. Even if they take two full ranks from an enemy unit with a maximum damage rear charge, they still stand real good odds of dying on the counterswing and giving up a VP.
There are a bunch of +1s and -1s across the board, but the real spice is in the NCUs.Starting off, Hizdahr is good, especially with the Houses of the Undying. Being able to mill out two tactics cards per turn can make your opponent run completely dry by turn 4, and you might pick up a couple of points of healing or channel even more critical condition tokens. Mirri adds to this theme of chip healing and condition channeling, and Paniked and Weakened is a great pair of tokens given House Targaryen’s ready access to Vulnerable.
Pour one out for Xaro and Illyrio – I was personally bullish on Xaro because he was half of the House Targaryen morale shock build, which is now dead beyond hope of recovery. Their new incarnations are worth consideration on their own terms, though: Xaro now interacts particularly well with spear units where he can add or subtract three dice at a time in the right conditions, and he can potentially bank up quite a few tokens for a big turn. Illyrio – part of me wants to write him off as just dead, but realistically most tactics zones are quite good on their own merits, so it’s quite possible that he’d go through entire pre-nerf games using his ability twice depending on the circumstances. So, mostly dead.
The last big thing to comment on is that the Targaryen tactics deck is no longer feast or famine. In the old days if you had the cards in the wrong order, it’d be hideous, with all your charge buffs becoming available after the lines have locked leaving you with hand after hand of nothing. I think that overall the big change is that my default NCU array is going to be Hizdahr, Mirri and Pyat going forwards – they have great synergy and overlap, can throw out ludicrous quantities of condition tokens while also strangling the life out of your opponent’s tactics deck. They’re a great combination.
Martells: Minor Changes for a Dwindling Faction
Carly: There weren’t many huge changes to the Martell Faction that are going to make a big difference. However, tweaking Ellaria to not be auto included is important since she would show up in every list and be an issue with the token play. The changes to Sand Diplomacy will make sure you still have plenty of tokens out on the battlefield.
The Commander changes were important to make Doran usable, but Oberyn has now become a pretty good choice for the Martell players, and as a fan favourite character from the books and show, he should not be able to live up to people’s expectations.
There isn’t much needed to change for the Faction, but a lot of Units and Characters are not overbearing at this stage due to the minor tweaking. At the same time, there aren’t many flavorful playstyles for the army to build around even though it has the same number of releases as Greyjoys. They feel less supported but are in fact not. The army is being picked less and less throughout the seasons and I do not believe this will have done enough to retain players.
Greyjoys: Avoided the Hit. Best Faction in the Game?
Dan: Last update, Greyjoys were clear winners with most units coming away with buffs. It was nice to go from zero to hero, so with this update, I imagined that things would get toned down a bit. To my surprise, not only did Greyjoys not catch a nerf, I think we can easily claim that the faction comes out of the update as big winners! Let’s look:
Attachments
Victarion Greyjoy (commander) gets a slight upgrade with the changes to Overrun. Overrun is an extremely powerful ability that rarely goes off, in my experience. But holy smokes when it does it’s a doozy. This is great news for several reasons: First, Victarion is my favorite commander, and it’s nice to see the rich get (slightly) richer. Second, with no changes to NCU Balon (more on that later) Victarion’s kamikaze strategy is still very much alive. And third, well, there is no third reason except that Victarion is the strongest and is my friend.
Next, non-commander Dagmer Cleftjaw gets a side-grade with the changes to Battle Scars. While you’ll miss out on Sundering, you will get to re-rolls quicker, so his efficacy will depend on what unit he’s in. Dagmer in Reavers is looking mighty nice.
Combat Units
Blacktyde Chosen got hit hard by…something. Is it a big nerf? Is it a huge buff? The internet at large seems to be unsure. For me, I think the unit got far more useful with this update. Before this update, they were an underperforming 7-point unit with a nice morale buff. Now, they’re a mobile pillage token factory with the same buff at one fewer point. Yes, they’re bad in combat, but guess what – they were bad in combat before the update, too. I think combining these guys with non-commander Euron Greyjoy is a layup and will be present in a lot of lists moving forwards. With the changes to the generic tactic’s cards, Greyjoys are even thirstier for pillage tokens, so having a reasonably tough support platform at 6 points is very, very nice.
On the other hand, look how they massacred my (three) boy(s)! Drowned Men got smacked hard with the nerf bat this time around, losing a whole ass wound and dropping from 4 to 3. Oof. I get it though, as a 4-point unit really had no business being that tanky. Now they’re a lot more likely to bite it in one activation which severely limits their effectiveness. To be honest, they feel more like a 4-point unit at 3 wounds, which sucks, but is ultimately justified. They’re still fine as a support unit and can maybe tank a turn of combat if you’re lucky, but they’re no longer the reliable mainstay.
Let’s go back to feeling great, shall we? Because House Harlaw Reapers are SO BACK, BABY! These dorks got a big glow-up with huge changes to Reaper’s Fervor. The “fight on death” ability was pure trash, but now, with 2 pillage tokens, they automatically give out a Panic token and cause +1 wound to units who fail the panic test, which is huge for a Vicious unit that heals on failed panic tests. Reapers have jumped the entire queue and are now currently tied with Silenced Men for most dangerous Greyjoy unit. I’m foaming at the mouth over here thinking about commander Roose Bolton leading these guys into battle. Very spooky.
Ironborn Trappers pick up a short-range modifier to their Trapper’s Tools ability, meaning that now they don’t have to be engaged in combat to hand out conditions. This is huge because you almost never want this crap-ass unit in combat! I think this makes Trappers an extremely competitive choice, and I expect to use them frequently.
Finally, Silenced Men had their Silence’s Infamy ability nerfed, their leadership nerfed, but their base attacks buffed. No longer giving out a -1 morale debuff in short range for each pillage token they have, they now need two pillage tokens to get a paltry -1 morale in short range. Some folks think this is the end of the world for Silenced Men, but I’m not so down on them just yet. They still hit hard as hell, but they’re not the ridiculous cruise missile they were. The super-Sundering is just as effective, and this unit is still a perfect vessel for commander Victarion Greyjoy. This nerf does however raise the profile of House Harlaw Reapers, and it is nice to have two hyper-aggressive units in the roster again.
NCUs
I’m not going to go into a ton of detail here because functionally, the only NCUs to change were the ones no one takes. They all got better, but none of them got anywhere near the uber-stack of Balon + Erik + Wendamyr/Rodrik/Moqorro. The biggest winner is certainly Beron Blacktyde, but he’s still not gonna make it into my stacks.
Tactics Cards
We’ve got some big upgrades to the three worst Greyjoy tactics cards. First, Finger Dance now allows a unit to take up to 2 wounds before a melee attack and choose once for each wound taken from three effects:
- Defender becomes Panicked.
- Defender becomes Vulnerable.
- Attacker may re-roll attack dice.
This is really good! Its increased versatility and efficacy catapult this card from an easy Rodrik mill to a “hey, I’ll actually use this!” It still attached for the whole game, but you get to choose whether to use it, which is another big plus. Wins all around.
The Iron Price now has effects that don’t need to spend a pillage token! But spending a pillage token is still a choice you can make, and the impacts of doing so are substantially better. It’s still a late-game card, but at least now it’s a good one.
Finally, Raiding Call goes from 1-4 wounds restored to 2-4, which is minor, but nice to see. I’m always pumped to see a raiding call in my hand at the beginning of the game to seed out some pillage tokens, but this makes it a little better later as your units take damage, and that’s not so bad.
Final Thoughts on Greyjoys
The sons (and daughter) of the Drowned God made out like bandits (or pirates) once again with a very friendly balance update. Greyjoy were upper tier before the update, and it looks like they’ll stay there. Personally, I’m thrilled! Who wouldn’t be? It’s important to note that Balon, who might be the best NCU in the game right now, caught zero changes. He’s still an auto-include. It’s also important to note that Reavers continue to be one of the best 5-point units in the game, and the faction is getting a brand-new, super tanky 5-point unit in March: Stony Shore Pillagers. It is a very good time to be a greyjoy player!
So last thing, here are some lists I’m excited to run in our new meta:
Victarion and Nute Give ‘Em the Boot
Silenced Men w/ Victarion ©
House Harlaw Reavers w/ Nute
Reavers
Trappers
Drowned Men
Balon
Erik
Wendamyr/Rodrik/Moqorro
Blinged-Out Asha
Ironmakers w/ Asha ©
Ironmakers w/ Dagmer
Blacktyde Chosen w/ Euron
Reavers
Balon
Erik
Rodrik
Roose in the Hoose
House Harlaw Reapers w/ Roose ©
Blacktyde Chosen w/ Euron
Trappers
Reavers
Reavers
Balon
Erik
Wendamyr/Rodrik/Moqorro
Thanqol: I’m surprised to hear the perspective that last update was a buff for the Greyjoys, when it was a specific targeted assassination of the hideous nightmare I’d made of the faction. I was sufficiently demoralized by my invincible crab’s destruction that I’d thought the faction was no longer viable and tuned out of it. From that perspective, these buffs generally bring it back up to a point where I’m keen to explore it again.
Carly: I am very worried about Greyjoys. The only reason they were relevant in the last Season was due to a select few Units holding up the roster. Whilst the Neutral side saw some changes, the small moves by CMON to tune down the best pieces was not enough, and some weren’t even touched like Balon. Everyone else went down from their meta leading position, but Greyjoys have stayed but, thus they have risen again, stronger. What is Dead May Never Die.
Final Thoughts
Like we said, that’s a lot to take in and this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to covering everything in the season 4 changes. We’ll be back over the next month with more thoughts on this update and updates to our older content as well as more content about the great ASOIAF community, so stay tuned for all that.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. And if you want regular updates in your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter.
