2021.03 Update for A Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures Game is here. We will analyse each faction’s changes to their rules and see how they will shake up the game. First, we will be looking into the poster child of honour; House Stark and their vassals of the North.
Base Deck
Changes – Winter is Coming, The North Remembers, and Devastating Impact rework.
Devastating Impact has some wording issues which is confusing players. If a one is rolled on the charge dice does that then prevent this card from being played since the charge is disorderly? I don’t believe this is how it works cause then the ability can never be used and, in the FAQ, just released this has been confirmed to be the case and allows the reroll. The card is now in a playable state with it no longer being a gamble. A great tuning for the base deck.
The North Remembers having +1 to Hit when controlling Swords improves the faction as a whole no matter who it is attached to. I see it being utilised more on units with two attack profiles like Crannogman Trackers and Bolton Bastard’s Girls. Truly anywhere this will have an impact but on the lower cost units it will shine like the Sword Swords.
Winter is Coming looks to have had a small nerf. It has kept its original trigger so it can go off to prevent orders like Set For Charge. It has also lost the reroll for a charge in place of highest attack dice value. Whilst the reroll is amazing and not something you frequently find; the highest attack dice value won’t be used as much. Although seeing a final rank She-Bear or Sworn Sword unit use this card will be neat.
The most important thing to note is that Devastating Impact and Winter is Coming can be played at the same time now which can be a very powerful blend of buffs.
Overall, some great changes for the Starks to help them actually get a benefit out of some of their cards.
Robb Stark – Commander
Changes – Added Enhanced Mobility to the Attachment and reworked the Hit and Run Tactics Card.
Enhanced Mobility is a very strong ability in the game, on Robb Stark it can be used to its maximum effectiveness with all his mobility high jinks. Usually, I see Robb in Crannogman Trackers, but with the change to Swift Retreat on them I imagine he will sit with the Bog Devils. This is just a great buff that makes him quite a good Commander Attachment.
On top of this, his Hit and Run no longer needs to be engaged to work and falls in line with other Hit and Run cards in the game. This is always going to be useful and plays into Robb’s playstyle of being super quick and hard to pin down.
I do believe Robb is one of the best Commanders for Starks due to all the tricks he can pull off in the game.
Rodrik Cassel – Commander
Changes – Martial Superiority and Press the Advantage Tactics Cards rework.
So, some reworks here based on an idea given to quite a few Commanders that rely on Token play. Martial Superiority now no longer needs a Vulnerable token to activate, however the -1 to Hit only affects Rodrik’s unit. So easier to play but slight nerf for non-Commander units.
Press the Advantage used to give additional effects depending on what tokens are on the unit, now you gain an effect and can grab additional ones per token on the unit. I think this is a huge buff to the card and will be popular with the Stark Bowmen which Rodrik tends to spend his time in.
Overall, a brilliant rework from likely one of the most underrated Stark Commanders. I think he will be played a lot more now.
Brynden Tully – Commander
Changes – War Cry Tactics Card rework.
Will War Cry make a big difference for Brynden Tully Foot Commander? I don’t think so, however with Stalwart on Brynden you were likely selecting his unit for this card anyways. But double tokens won’t matter much in the long run as there isn’t much to capitalise on both outside of Boltons which you might as well use a Bolton Commander at that point.
I was hoping for some changes to Brynden that added in benefits for Tully Affiliation units, but I guess he never really worked well with the Tully family so hopefully this is being saved for Edmure. A little disappointed that the Riverlands is still underrepresented.
Rickard Karstark – Commander
Changes – Taunt Tactics Card rework.
So, on the card in the Stream Fuelled by Slaughter was removed for Domineering Pride, however this is not in the change log and has not been changed in the War Council App. Rickard has never had this ability before which makes me wonder if this was something they were looking into at some stage and decided to remove it? Or this is a look into the future for Rickard. If this rule is added, it will be a nerf, as Fuelled by Slaughter is far better as a rule and works well with Loyalists, and it is rare to see a Commander work so well in their respective affiliation unit.
Taunt change is certainly interesting, it wasn’t a great rule to begin with however it was devastating having to charge into Karstark Spearmen from it. This is a positive change that will impact the game in some way. It could be as strong as War Cry when you were getting two tokens. If you use it when the opponent doesn’t want to attack or charge, you will get a huge benefit from this ability, but you can play it in a moment where the opponent would never declare a charge, such as only just being in Long Range of a ranged unit.
As a Tactics Card, I think it should remain at Long Range, but as an order on attachments this should be changed back to Short Range, otherwise you will have the same problems that you had with War Cry. CMON’s update for the update has changed all the non-tactics card Taunts into Short Range which is fantastic that they were quick to correct this.
Maege Mormont – Commander
Changes – Here We Stand! and Sustained Assault Tactics Cards reworked.
Maege has been one of the worst Commanders for Starks since her release as none of her cards really amount to much. Sustained Assault’s rework is great, but it is not massive to the entire game, it is just a reroll really, although it plays much better with Stark units that want to be less ranks for most benefits.
Here We Stand! Rework is the talk of the town. It is likely a honourable What Is Dead May Never Die as you need to attach it beforehand but can keep your forces in the game for much longer. If you can pull this card back with Sansa or find a way to burst heal once a unit discards this card, then the attrition game will forever be in your hand.
A funny thing that was happening was the card was being used on Hand of the King Ned to prevent him from dying with his trigger. This has since been changed. I hope this is enough for Maege to become useful and see more play.
Howland Reed – Commander
Changes – Crannog Traps and The Threat Unseen Tactics Cards rework.
Crannog Traps just became one of the most powerful cards in the game. It will likely stop solos dead in their tracks as D3+1 auto wounds for moving will instantly kill all of them. This is also something that will deter harder to break units like Flayed Men from wanting to move as well. So strong and so deadly that I will want to bring Sansa Stark to make sure I always have that card to play.
Some have said this is a nerf. The card was able to shut down a zone of the board from the enemy and it would also last for the whole round. I do believe this is a change for the better. Instead of seeing where the Crannogmen have left their traps and avoiding them, the card now has the opposing units stumble into the traps, and they can either slow down to remove them or brute force their way through the problem. It is more thematic.
The Threat Unseen has had the line-of-sight requirement removed from the card which means it is likely to be used more for the best target. Nothing with this card synergises with the rest of House Reed and is why I find it borderline useless.
There is however one situation I find to be useful which is with the Crannog Poison. If you have the panic token from this card on it with poison, then you will do an additional wound every time they take an action. I see no other use for this card.
Howland was already one of the best Stark Commanders and has received only buffs in this update. I suspect he will be one of the top performing Stark Commanders going forward.
Stark Bowmen
Changes – Rework secondary effect of Arrow Volley ability.
This change gives and takes from the faction. Before you could remove abilities for a unit and become weakened, but now it is just weakened but with more chance of causing this effect to happen. They also see their last rank increase. I do think this is a positive change, but there are neutral units that could easily replace the Bowmen.
They do seem to be a lot more useful when considering Vargo Commander to utilise the weakened token since you are likely to generate it more.
Tully Cavaliers
Changes – Morale increase. Remove Embolden and replace it with Rally Banner.
This is incredibly interesting for the faction synergy. Embolden wasn’t a huge deal as Stark units tend to have decent morale anyways. So, whilst other units lose out on the defensive buff, they gain a healing mechanic on the battlefield. Imagine combining this with a Dauntless ability, or forcing a morale on a unit in combat, you could manipulate this to be very substantial.
Recently I have been playing a pure Tully list and noticed that the Tully Sworn Shields are super tough to shift even from a powerful force like Heavy Cavalry. Adding in a natural way to heal them over time is going to make them even more of a pillar.
I see this a huge change that will result in lists being designed around the ability as well as seeing every Stark list bring at least one of these.
Crannogman Trackers
Changes – Remove Swift Retreat order and replace it with Mark Target order.
This is an interesting tweak from CMON. The developers said that Swift Retreat is not needed as Trackers don’t want to be in combat anyways, so the Order doesn’t get used much. I disagree entirely. They don’t really want to be in combat and Swift Retreat gives them the chance to continue being out of it when caught. I find the replacing of this Order to be a huge change to how this unit will be played knowing it isn’t to get out of the bad situation.
Mark Target does play into the unit being a support piece as you can mix this with the Hidden Traps Order. Using it to help a Tully Cavalier charge, or to increase the effectiveness of a middling unit like the Umber Berserkers is going to be an important aspect of the Trackers. It also makes them a bit better at doing damage with Hidden Traps or even their own weapons.
They will still see play, just in a very different playstyle.
Eddard’s Honour Guard
Changes – Go Down Fighting ability added to Attachment.
Random change. I suspect that it is only to do with the lore, that the Stark forces in King’s Landing didn’t go down without a fight. We are seeing Commanders becoming better with interesting new rules, and alongside this the specific Commander units are getting a lot better. This doesn’t change too much; I doubt it will have a huge impact on the faction.
Robb and Eddard NCUs
Changes – Robb NCU down to 4pts, Ned Hand of the King down to 5pts.
In a world without the passing mechanic, we may have seen Robb Stark NCU a lot more with Grey Wind. However, this is less likely to show up because people don’t want to play high activations unless it is quite high. A full Direwolf List could be this for Starks but how strong is that really considering at max it would be nine activations.
The Hand of the King however is going to be very powerful for denying the opponent their tricks. At five points he is pretty close to an auto-included in any Stark force and since you can’t bring King Robb with The Hand then this seals Robb’s fate as a NCU. Ned will appear in every list.
Summary
A lot of Commanders were changed for Starks and as mentioned by CMON you can tell there was a massive focus on this. Most of the low played Commanders saw a change of some kind that has made them more favourable when deciding who will lead your force.
There were very few changes elsewhere, however. No attachments were touched, only two NCUs, and not a huge deal on the units. Both Umber units really needed some sort of change for them to be usable again, it is the same for the Karstark units, as well as Tully Sworn Shields and Mormont She-Bears. A lot of the roster doesn’t look appetising in rules, but the models and the idea of the models are what people want to use.
A great update for the Stark faction by addressing a lot of Commanders that have fallen to the background and slightly tweaking a few other things here and there. CMON now needs to look at the units and find a way to make them feel good to use, as well as release some more Riverlands please!
Stay tuned for more articles relating to the update and what it means for the next season of the game.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
