The visions in the flames were clear. The time of the Stag is now. With the new update drastically changing the forces of the South, we have seen increased play and performance of the force with some standouts now starting to show. What are these breakout armies? And how will 2022’s releases evolve the faction? Let’s go hunting for the answers.
Tournament Lists – Fire Spam Stan and Eldon Eternal
When looking at some of the best performing lists for the Baratheons I can boil it down to two prominent themes; Fire Spam Stannis and Eldon Eternal. The Stannis lists is about utilising the damage output of the Lightbringers whilst tying up the enemy army with surprisingly hard to kill R’hllor Faithful and/or Queen’s Men, these are then backed up with a a range of different NCUs but all are utilised to do the most damage particularly with the Panic checks. The Eldon lists tend to counter the goals of Stannis, whereas the fire of the Lord of Light wants to kill the enemy, the loyalists of Renly want to stay around for as long as possible and take advantage of the slow attrition through Eldon’s tactics cards and some unit abilities such as the Champion’s Wrath on the Champions of the Stag. Eldon doesn’t leave home without Cortnay Penrose and Margery, a 3rd NCU does tend to show up but it is mixed with who this is with the most popular choices being Olena or Petyr.
Looking at these two lists it’s clear that top lists are all about quick elimination of the opponents units rather than holding objectives or some niche way of combating armies trying to out kill you. Free Folk have been doing well and I do believe this is due to the high activations in most wildling lists or the Insignificant ability of the Free Folk Raiders. Khal Drogo, Cavalry Spam Starks and the Fire Spam Stannis lists all prove their tactic. Niche lists like Donal Noye with his protection abilities, Eldon with the attrition game backed by NCU healing, and Mance Rayder Insignificant heavy, all show that when they can combat the killing strategy effectively they will do well.
Seeing the current state of play with Baratheons, how will the future releases of this year develop the performance?
Court of Dragonstone
Baratheon Heroes 3 Contents: King Stannis Baratheon (Mounted), Justin Massey, Dale Seaworth, Bryen Farring, Maester Cressen and Patchface.
I am unsure how popular this box will be, even to a point where I believe we could see a Night’s Watch Heroes 3 scenario where no one purchases the box and we are left in the dark on the rules a little while. However, the ever popular Justin Massey has me especially excited, always wanting to see if he could truly take over as Warden of the North as Stannis predicts plus he has shown to be quite an effective Commander on and off the battlefield. Furthermore I do hope he gets married to Asha Greyjoy. His rules should reflect Stannis’ words “he is better suited as an envoy than a warrior.” I can’t imagine Justin being a strong Commander and will likely be a stronger NCU however seeing how he is being sent to hire more swords a healing mechanic mixed with the Iron Bank could be possible.
King Stannis Baratheon (Mounted) should be a glorious model, something you aspire to paint up with the best of your skill. But sadly this falls flat when you look at the cavalry prospects. Champions of the Stag are the only Baratheon cavalry available for the forces of the fiery heart and thus it is probably more likely this model won’t be accompanied by his glorious bannermen on the field but surrounded by an enemy for most of the books in the Bolton Flayed Men (the lore masters weep at this thought). Seeing as how the Flayed Men have been everywhere since the dawn of their existence I doubt they won’t show up in an aggressive Stannis list here. Although it will most likely perform well, it leaves me deflated at the lore breaking prospects. Shame.
Dale Seaworth, fighting aboard Wraith during the Battle of the Blackwater is a perfect Commander for the Baratheons. Although he doesn’t fall for the charade that is the R’hllor faith he is still loyal to Stannis and being some of the first into the frey in the Blackwater is considered an honour in his eyes. I am unsure how this Commander will be built as there isn’t too much to go off of but perhaps a combat focused version of Davos could be in the cards. Plus who wouldn’t want to run an army just full of Seaworths?
Squire Farring, Maester Cressen, and Fool Patchface. I doubt any of these will have meaningful rules, I suspect Maester Cressen might be a useful NCU as I suspect he has some trait that heals or protects units like the other Maesters in the game. Patchface is likely to be a pre-update Pyatt Pree and Squire Farring I suspect to be similar to the new Satin.
I do not think much if anything will change in prowess for Stannis armies with this box. I think a box focusing on a bunch of characters in his conquest in the North would have been a better choice to add flavour and shake things up.
The Rainbow Guard
Highgarden Pikeman
Riders of Highgarden
Baratheon Heroes 4 Contents: King Renly Baratheon, Ser Loras Tyrell, Ser Robar Royce the Red, Lord Bryce Caron the Orange, Ser Emmon Cuy the Yellow, Ser Guyard Morrigen the Green, Brienne of Tarth the Blue and Ser Parmen Crane the Purple.
We have had a lot of love spent on Stannis for the Baratheon’s so far. Queen’s Men, Lightbringers, R’hllor Faithful, and King’s Men, to Renly’s Rose Knights and Thorn Watch. Now we will be gaining new additions from the reinforcements from Highgarden. Both of these units will for sure see play, the low points cost plays into that high activation design of the high performing armies and each unit’s rules aren’t half bad in terms of statistics. You’re quite likely to see eight or nine, possibly even ten activation lists with 3 NCUs sitting comfortably with the 40pts.
The real talk of the town is the potential of the heroes box. There are several lines I want to focus our gaze upon; however with the elaborate description of the Karstark Loyalists, this description could just be flair.
“Each a capable commander in their own right, they are at their most formidable standing together with King Renly himself on the field…”
This needs to be broken down into two parts. The first part blows the door wide open for the box to contain eight commanders. Although insane and it may become the best value for money box, I can’t say CMON doing this. Recently buying some of the new heroes boxes like the Greyjoys Heores 1, within was multiple copies of the cards for several languages. I doubt there is even a box big enough to hold all the cards let alone the weight and model space. So if not eight how many? We can safely eliminate Brienne, no one is following her if she was giving commands amongst the host. Perhaps Loras can be singled out in the same fashion Jamie was in the Lannister Heroes 2 box however in this position he would be Lord Commander of the Kingsguard which would only fuel the fire of a Commander deck since it is in the title. Being the only Lord in the box Bryce would make sense and personally due to his conversation within A Clash of Kings Robar Royce would be my next pick.
I don’t think the box will be stuffed with commanders, however it won’t be barren like Joffrey’s. Speaking of trumping Joffrey, this box does mention that the unit can be taken as one and even goes into detail of what they do together.
“…not just for their expertise, but as a symbol for all King Renly’s troops to rally behind.”
From this we know it will be a strong combat unit, but it also looks like they will be a strong anchor with an aura of benefits to morale. Perhaps the banners are different with them being able to hand out buffs to nearby units.
How will these commanders, attachments, NCUs even unit change the game for the Baratheons? Personally, with the very bad game design around Commander Joffrey the King Renly Kingsguard idea does not fill me with confidence that it will matter. Games can be won or lost on a few points and characters that give away victory points are A grade trash (apart from you Rickon, you good boy, and we love your puppy). Current Loras is doing well which people believe is because of his Expert Duelist which may set a precedent of what some of these skilled fighters might be capable of. A resilient army focused around healing backed up by great combat commanders sounds like an impossible fortress to breach. Well. Unless you have Bronn.
Either way, the second half of the year belongs to Renly and we will see his ghost haunt the LGT without a shadow of a doubt.
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