Affiliation is an amazing game mechanic in ASOIAF. It encourages a certain list build where certain units get to shine for once rather than sitting on the sidelines. However, recently it feels like this mechanic has almost vanished even though there are new Commanders being released with the affiliation trait. This is the first of a series of articles where I want to focus on some of the affiliation armies, and bring them into the spotlight.
Clegane
“Ser Gregor has served us well. No other knight in the realm inspires such terror in our enemies.” – Tywin Lannister
Who would have known that Clegane would come out of the War of the Five Kings as one of the victors almost miraculously untouched? Oh wait is that Oberyn Martell? What’s he doing in the capital? Wait, is he…? Oh no. Guess I spoke too soon.
One of the oldest Commanders in the game, Gregor still stands tall amongst the giants as one of the strongest Lannisters have to offer. The Assault Orders and Overrun Tactics Cards you can really swing a game into your favour in such a short period of time. Affiliation is important within the lists as it turns the Assault Orders from a free Attack Action to a threatening free Charge Action and it gives a reroll on the charge for Overrun.
Gregor Clegane Commander and Sandor Clegane Attachment both give Affiliation Clegane, allowing you to pass off the extra buffs to two infantry Units in your list. House Clegane Mountain’s Men and House Clegane Brigands are both House Clegane Units and also benefit from the buffs. It’s a shame the Clegane Butcher does not give the Affiliation trait to Cavalry units, as this would certainly shake up list design.
List 1: Pure Clegane
House Clegane Mountain’s Men – Gregor Clegane – The Mountain
House Clegane Mountain’s Men
House Clegane Brigands – Clegane Butcher
House Clegane Brigands – Clegane Butcher
Tywin Lannister – The Great Lion
Cersei Lannister – Queen Regent
This list is not a serious list due to the inclusion of the Brigands. The vast majority of people agree that the Brigands are very overpriced for what they bring and in this list I have made them 9pts each due to me being insane. But just look at how satisfying this list looks, it feels like this fits in 40pts. Two Mountain’s Men, Two Brigands with a Butcher each, the man who gave Gregor his orders; Lord Tywin, and the power of the Iron Throne at the time of Gregor’s rampage; the Queen Regent Cersei. This list feels good, looks good, and is quite lore accurate too. I will certainly have some fun with this list.
List 2: No Half Measures
Red Cloaks – Gregor Clegane – The Mountain
House Clegane Mountain’s Men – Mandon Moore – Kinsguard
House Clegane Mountain’s Men – Preston Greenfield – Kingsguard
Red Cloaks – Sandor Clegane – The Hound
Petyr Baelish – Littlefinger
Joffrey Baratheon – Lord of the Seven Kingdoms
Pycelle – Grand Maester
This list is designed to take advantage of all the free actions available for the list. With Gregor in the Red Cloaks, the free Attacks and Charges will trigger Lannister Justice forcing more morale checks for more chip damage. I did also include a second Red Cloaks with Sandor so that if we lose the Gregor unit we can still utilise the mechanics but also have more options with where to use the abilities. Since we need the Crown Joffrey is an auto include which resulted in me looking at the Kingsguard for buffs to the Mountain’s Men. I have settled on Mandon Moore to make one Unit hit harder and Preston Greenfield to help with the mobility of the army. Petyr Baelish has some interesting plays to open up with on the Tactics Board. You can essentially have free reign over what effect you want whether you have first turn or not, there is a different version of this list which removes one of the units for Lannister Crossbows and Bronn meaning Petyr synergises even more with the list. Pycelle was a difficult choice, with four points left and wanting a 7th activation I knew it had to be a NCU due to the amount of replacement effects in the army. Pycelle’s weakened token will help keep some of the units alive, but I will admit that there is a debate for High Sparrow, Tommen or Cersei.
Umber
“Catelyn would sooner Lord Umber had seen fit to stay sober, but telling the Greatjon not to drink was like telling him not to breathe for a few hours.” – Catelyn Stark
Who would have guessed that the greatest wound Greatjon would suffer would be from Grey Wind…before the War truly began. But, he only meant to cut Robbs meat so is it a war wound? Either way, in the books Umber is still alive and is kept as a prisoner at the Twins. I’m curious to see what might happen to him once things in the North turn on their heads.
The two giants of the game both come with Affiliation traits, that is no mistake. I feel like, although there is no specific rivalry between the Umbers and Cleganes, within the game I always see it as so. In terms of rules Umbers do come out on top. With the recent update boosting Greatjon into one of the best Commanders for the faction we now see him being played more than ever, however there isn’t much focus on the Affiliation aspect of the army, this is due to his cards not requiring this to be effective. Berserker Tactics and Lash Out hand out a Panic token each, and Last Stand gives rerolls to the attack. Not super impressive when you think about it.
Greatjon is the only character that hands out the Affiliation trait, I hope we get more Umber characters in the future like Crowfood. Umbers have two Units that benefit from Affiliation; the House Umber Berserkers and House Umber Greataxes.
List 1: Pure Umber
House Umber Greataxes – Greatjon Umber – Lord of Last Hearth
House Umber Berserkers – Umber Champion
House Umber Berserkers – Umber Champion
House Umber Berserkers – Umber Champion
Arya Stark – The Wolf Girl
Sansa Stark – Little Bird
Roose Bolton – Calculating and Cruel
I made this first list in the same sense of how I made the first Clegane list. It feels and looks good, with it potentially performing very well too. The Umber Champion is often slept on in Stark lists but I do think in the update they are amazing due to their order allowing the units to attack at the highest dice value, plus gain Vicious. The Berserkers have no keyword abilities to make their attacks hit harder, thus Vicious and Roose’s Panic tokens should make sure they throw a hard punch to their weight of dice. Arya to help with mobility and Sansa to pull out the better cards. I think this list is strong and utilises every aspect of the Umber’s arsenal.
List 2: Mormont-Umber Alliance
House Mormont Bruisers – Greatjon Umber – Lord of Last Hearth
House Umber Berserkers – Mormont Veteran
House Umber Berserkers – Mormont Veteran
House Mormont She-Bears – Umber Champion
Arya Stark – The Wolf Girl
Lyanna Mormont – Youngest She-Bear
Rodrik Cassel – Martial Expertise
A combo being used quite often is the Mormont Veteran in the Berserkers. Hardened helps keep the Berserkers alive when they are on their last rank, a place where they want to be for a while. So I decided to make a list mixing the Mormonts and the Umbers. The Umber Champion works really well with the She-Bears making them very strong on their last rank, plus with the addition of War Cry you could help the Berserkers do more damage with their Melee Attack due to it not having any keyword abilities. Lyanna can hand out some Critical Blow buffs to the Berserkers and Rodrik will be used to get more War Cry triggers, Incite triggers and possibly handing out extra Vulnerable tokens at the same time.
I think this list can be honed a bit more but I do think the Mormont mix is a good way to go with Greatjon.
There we have it, the first two Commanders that brought Affiliation into the game. Both just received new sculpts in their respective Starter Sets so it is a perfect time to play them. Sadly there are no more Affiliation based Commanders for Lannisters but I do plan to talk about the Faith Units in the next article as it’s pretty close to an Affiliation army. For the Starks there are quite a few more Affiliation Commanders with some of them being quite new so I will be talking about the Tully forces before they disappear into the woodwork.
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