The Martells are finally being revealed by CMON. Some images have appeared showing the new starter set on display at GenCon and an article has been released online on the official website. We are getting closer and closer to having the most anticipated faction in the game. Here is what was shown at GenCon.
“The arms of House Martell display the sun and spear, the Dornishman’s two favored weapons, but of the two, the sun is the more deadly.” – Daeron I Targaryen
The Models
The starter set for Martells is shown off in its orange plastic glory at GenCon. Within the box there is a Unit of Sand Skirmishes, a Unit of Sunspear Dervishes, and two Units of Martell Spearmen. All three units are gorgeous and well designed. Praise has been spread about the bows of the Skirmishes due to how accurate they are to real world bows; others have praised the cultural designs added into the models like the Dervishes Kukri weapons. There has been criticism towards the Spearmen due to the poses being very similar from one another but in my opinion, they at least look better than the Highgarden Pikemen.
There are four characters within the box: Doran Martell, Ellaria Sand, Oberyn Martell, and Areo Hotah. Doran clearly out matches the other two characters with chairs (Walder and Eric Ironmaker), Ellaria is more emotive than other female schemers, Oberyn is dashing this model will be the most popular in the box, and Aero Hotah is poised with a incredibly unique axe.
How They Play
Thanks to the CMON article, we know the playstyle of the faction. ‘House Martell is a faction very much about movement. Like a slithering serpent, they bob and weave back and forth, deftly avoiding attacks and stabbing at enemies from unprotected quarters.’ – I love that they are based around guerilla warfare which is how they beat Aegon when he came to conquer Westeros.
‘Their Tactics deck often employs attaching cards to enemy units, hampering them in all ways. Others focus on disrupting enemy movements. If the enemy simply cannot get where they need to go on the battlefield, House Martell is already at an advantage in positioning before combat is truly met.’ – Again, this is extremely lore friendly, in the ASOIAF books the Martells are scheming behind a lot of people’s backs to push their agenda often being the ones on top due to this. But it also talks about how the opponent cannot get to where they want to go on the battlefield, in the books when Aegon tried to take Dorne he found them never in their towns and cities, they always fought the Targaryens on their own terms, in the places they wanted to fight them. Thus, I hope ‘disrupting their movements’ and ‘advantage in positioning before combat’ reflects this.
Rules
“Words are like arrows, Arianne. Once loosed, you cannot call them back.” – Doran
Doran Martell is bringing the NCU Commander Rules back. On the back of the box there is a card called ‘Lord of Sunspear’ which talks about taking Doran NCU as your Commander, but you need to pay points for him. This is like Mag the Mighty for the Free Folk. The way this differs is you bring Aero Hotah to represent the Commander on the field of battle. I adore this rule, it seems like it could turn other Commanders that were once NCU Commanders back to their previous incarnations with the balance of paying points for them still.
The boxset also comes with a new Tactics Zone. Like how Pyat Pree brings the House of the Undying, one character in the box will bring the Water Gardens Tactics Zone. You cannot see the rules for this card; however, it is said that if you control the zone, the opponent does not control any zones in terms of abilities and tactics cards. This is huge and can completely neutralise the opposing army, especially Lannisters.
The entirety of the Sunspear Dervishes can be read from the box, with Swift Retreat and Elusive Escape, they act like other dervisher units like the Thorn Watch and the Crannogman Trackers, albeit they are more effective with Precision, and Critical Blow if the defender has not activated.
The only other rules we can make out are two Tactics Cards. Doran Martell has a card which allows a friendly NCU to replace a zone with every enemy combat unit becomes vulnerable. The other card is an Oberyn Martell card called Intercept Orders, this is like Counterplot where you get an effect if you roll a 3+ on a die, with a reroll if you have the crown. However instead of stopping a Tactics Card, this is for when a unit is targeted by a Tactics Zone. If you succeed on the 3+ the opponent must target another unit with the zone.
Contents
7 Attachment Cards
3 Non-Combat Unit Cards
26 Tactics Cards
3 Special Rules Cards
The 3 Special Rules Cards are likely, the Poison Card which I think would be for Oberyn’s rules, the Lord of Sunspear card for how you use Commander Doran, and the Water Gardens card.
26 Tactics Cards means we have two Commanders in the box. When you subtract the 14 cards for the base Martell deck you are left with 12. We know Doran Martell is one of the Commanders in the box, the other is going to be Oberyn as we know another version deemed a more diplomatic version is coming in the Heroes 1 box. It would make sense for the one to be geared up would be the Commander variant.
3 NCU cards are Ellaria Sand, and then two versions of Doran Martell, a Commander variant and a standard variant.
7 Attachment cards. There are three unnamed attachments in the box, 2 Martell Spearmen Captains and 1 Dervish Captain. With the 4 cards left this would be Oberyn and Hotah, Commander and Non-Commander versions. So, this should confirm that Hotah does not always need to be taken with Doran.
Stay Tuned
CMON have said in their article ‘More news and an in-depth looks at the faction will be coming soon, stay tuned!’ I expect that CMON will reveal the entire box set at GenCon and perhaps even more from the boxes to expand the faction. As soon as it is revealed we will have an article covering it.
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Thank you so much for this!