2021.03 Update for A Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures Game is here. We will be going over each faction’s changes to Units, NCUs, Characters and even Base Tactics Decks. In this article, we will be looking into the Watchers on the Wall; The Night’s Watch.
Base Deck
Changes – No changes.
I am amazed that there were no changes to the Base Tactics Deck for the Night’s Watch. The power of having so many cards attached to a Unit buffing them beyond recognition is too much. It also doesn’t align with the Night’s Watch in the books, they are not hardened warriors that are well equipped and well trained. The attachment rules should be reworked back to only one per Unit with ways of attaching others with Commanders and Attachments. Right now, the Night’s Watch need to be brought down to the same level as the rest of the factions, but this is one of many ways they speed ahead which will result in something like what the Free Folk became pre-Mance Nerf.
Jeor Mormont – Commander
Changes – Remove Dauntless and Embolden abilities, and replace them with Stand Your Ground ability and Stay At Your Posts! order. Night Gathers Tactics Card rework.
A much-needed rework for the Old Bear. It now seems he might be in the running for the most defensive Night’s Watch Commander available with his new abilities. Stand Your Ground! Is a strong ability that I don’t think is given enough credit. Losing the rerolls when charging can be devastating, and I am one of the unlucky few who has rolled 10 dice and missed with them all on a charge into a Stand Your Ground! Unit. This ability will make any Night’s Watch Unit way more survivable.
Stay At Your Posts! Order is a brand-new ability that is incredibly thematic from the clash at the Fist of the First Men. A mini-Aemon healing effect that will help keep Units in the game. Whilst Dauntless and Embolden are great abilities, they do very little for Night’s Watch as a whole. Whereas now, Jeor’s abilities make him an anchor and a support role to the force.
Oberyn Martell NCU was a menace before this update, and his ability is incredibly like that of Jeor’s Night Gathers card. There is a possibility you may lose your rank before you complete your attack from the Hits generated from this card. Add this to the defensive buffs of Jeor or even something like the Shadow Tower Spearmen, and the opponent will have many reasons to not engage.
I think Jeor before was not even considered in any form, but now he is very much a contender for list building.
Benjen Stark – Commander
Changes – Remove Ambush ability and replace it with Stark Fury order on the attachment. Lying in Wait and Hit and Run Tactics Cards rework.
Benjen Stark was a quiet ace for the Night’s Watch, I have had several games with him firing off multiple shots from the Crossbowmen or Rangers. He hasn’t had the attention he deserves, and he is a good Commander to suddenly explode with actions in the middle of the game.
I always ran Benjen in Crossbowmen to give them the Ranger Affiliation so that I could get free attacks with Lying in Wait. Now you don’t need him in there for the free actions, but you could do it to get some free rerolls out of it. Due to this Benjen can now go somewhere else to bring a new Unit into the ranks of the Rangers or boost the Ranger Hunters further with his brand-new ability.
Ambush is a hard ability to pull off with an infantry Unit, so switching this for Stark Fury will be explosive. Having him in Ranger Hunter to give them Sundering and Critical Blow will be incredibly brutal, but this can be the same for Veterans or Spearmen too. This ability turns a Unit into a combat menace that can get out of harm’s way with the Hit and Run Tactics Card.
Benjen is a powerful Commander; I recommend Night’s Watch players trying him out.
Alliser Thorne – Commander
Changes – Add Threaten order to attachment. Price of Failure Tactics Card rework.
Alliser having Threaten doesn’t do much in terms of the synergies but makes so much sense for who he is in the books. Constantly threatening Jon Snow and every other recruit he wishes to intimidate is the basis of this addition. This will be used to ensure that you can get the maximum effects of some of his cards like Pathetic Attempt.
Price of Failure change is great, and I am sure it will be helpful here, however the Night’s Watch don’t need further help in combat as their Units are already amazing. I could see this being used on Ranger Trackers or Conscripts, both Units that don’t hit too hard.
I am unsure if Alliser Thorne is a great Commander and if these changes will help him compete against the other powerful ones.
Cotter Pyke – Commander
Changes – Pyke Aggression Tactics Card rework.
Why did Cotter Pyke need a buff? He is considered one of the best Commanders for the Night’s Watch and then gets a buff. It is a small change that I expect to fall in line with some of the ideas that changed the Price of Failure which is to reduce negative effects on cards. The developers have also mentioned at times they release things in a restricted state as to not introduce something that dominates the game, and then go back afterwards and course correct it. It just wasn’t needed here.
Ser Denys Mallister – Commander
Changes – Adaptive Methods and Tempered by Duty Tactics Cards rework.
Whilst Denys Mallister needed a rework, the changes to the Commander here are nowhere near enough to be even considered. Tempered by Duty and Denys as an attachment suck, and they are supposed to be the essence of the Commander that entices people to try the flavour but all they do is hand out benefits if you are engaged. The Tactics Card has been reworked to have a Short-Range radius rather than engagement but it’s just for tokens. Denys is just so boring and doesn’t even synergise with his own Shadow Tower Unit. Straight in the bin for me.
Shadow Tower Spearmen
Changes – Increase Armour Save.
Shadow Tower Spearmen didn’t need a change, they were a great Unit but were surrounded by others that were way too much. The armour change is nice, and it gives them an edge over the other choices, but they shouldn’t have been buffed, other things should have been nerfed. The Spearmen are fine on their own, but they turn into something incredible when they have a character in them. That is what I think the Night’s Watch should be, a bunch of Units that are okay but when adding in characters they turn into something much better.
Sworn Brothers at 5pts but lose martial superiority and worsen some of their stats, but when you add characters like Jon, they become worthy of 7pts as they are now. It just feels better this way whilst representing the books correctly.
Ranger Hunters
Changes – Ranged and Melee Attack Dice value increases, and Ranged Attack to hit value decrease.
Ranger Hunters needed to be nerfed. They are used in close to every single Night’s Watch list and due to Quick Fire put out an insane amount of damage. Under the developers own reasoning, the Unit is over performing and needs to be addressed.
Their answer was to worsen the Attack Dice a little bit and make them Hit a little worse at range. That’s it. This changes nothing and the Unit will be played the same amount, although with other Units getting some buffs they might be competing for the spotlight.
I don’t know how many times I have said it but get rid of Quick Fire. This was left in the game after the lethality of the game was reduced and they were everywhere, now they still will be due to how much damage they can dish out in comparison to every other Unit. You could at the very least make a change to it just like the Crossbowmen and make the Quick Fire attack be on lowest attack dice only. This is a big misfire by the developers.
Ranger Trackers
Changes – Melee Attack Dice value increase, and Melee Attack Dice to hit value increase.
It is weird to see the faction considered to be the best get so many buffs, but it is even weirder when a frequently played Unit gets buffed in the wrong place. The ranged cavalry choice for the Night’s Watch has been seeing a lot of play since it was reduced in points cost. Being able to dish out a token whilst playing around terrain with no negatives is a very luxurious tool for the faction. The one place it falls off on is combat as you don’t want to leave it there doing very little. It’s the Unit’s one weakness.
The developers said the reason for this change was that the Night’s Watch rangers are still hardened soldiers of the Wall so should reflect this in their combat stats. Look I get wanting to make things like they are in the books or reflective of their skills, but there is a time and a place. Jaime could duel almost anyone and kill them but I don’t see an auto destroy attachment on him.
This is just an odd change to make on a Unit feature in some of the best Night’s Watch lists in the game.
Veterans of the Watch
Changes – Add Precision ability.
Did Veterans really need a buff? They were a tough cookie to crumble with their abilities and they do have some play defensively. Precision will allow them to become a bigger threat in combat at the very least. This buff feel like it was done for the same reasons as many others in the faction. Ranger Hunters and Sworn Brothers are great, and we should buff the rest of the faction to their level, when in reality they should have nerfed those good Units down to the level of the not so played ones.
If the developers want the Night’s Watch Units to become elite fighting warriors over time by attaching vow cards to them, then the Units shouldn’t start off as some of the best in the game. This is just another reason why the developers were out of touch with the game when looking at the Night’s Watch.
Builder Stone Thrower
Changes – Rock Volley rewording and add a fourth ability.
The Stone Thrower wasn’t taken that often, and when it was there were some fun lists designed around it which did not hamper the fun of the opponent as the Unit was well balanced. CMON have added a new ability so that if you didn’t do wounds to the target of the attack, then they still need to do a Panic with some negatives. I guess this was done to alleviate the ‘feel bad’ potential of missing a lot of the Stone Thrower, but it is just another unnecessary buff for the Night’s Watch. Now there is no downside to this Unit, it is likely to do some form of damage every time it slings a rock.
Builder Scorpion Crew
Changes – Increase Ranged Attack Dice value and rework Bolt Thrower ability.
This is not a huge change and is probably needed for the Unit to be somewhat relevant in the Night’s Watch. The Unlimited Range ability still isn’t going to hit that often so an extra dice for a try is fine here, the real problem is when you are within range for a normal attack. It is quite likely Monsters and Cavalry will be chewed up in no time with these, and that is before any Scorpion Modifications or Spotter abilities are considered.
We will need to see the true impact of this change on the game because it will do nothing against infantry only lists but will be crucial if you fight against a giant list.
Coldhands
Changes – Points increase to 5pts. Melee Attack Dice value increase. Armour Save increase.
What is going on? Coldhands was so good before this update as the 4pts activation was key for keeping Night’s Watch in the game even after he would die. The points increase was done with the right intention to nerf the character, but points changes do not solve the issue. To represent his 5pts cost, the developers have made him hit harder than most other 5pts Units in the game.
Take Lannister Guardsmen, 6 dice on full ranks and 4+ to hit. Coldhands is 6 dice always and a 3+ to hit. Guardsmen have a 3+ save, Coldhands has a 3+ save and can have -1 to hit. Guardsmen lose 4 wounds and are dropped a rank stuck in combat with something they probably don’t want to be in combat with, whilst Coldhands is removed and placed back on the board in a better position. Add on to that all the cards you can attach to Coldhands to make him better.
All these changes to Coldhands were ill-thought out entirely or were drenched in favouritism. It is hard to look at the changes to the Night’s Watch and not ponder whether the developers love the faction and made them better at every turn. We now must wait for another 6 months to see a change to Coldhands and even then, will it be substantial like the Ranger Hunters?
Qhorin Halfhand – Attachment
Changes – Points decrease to 1pt.
No number of changes to the Attachment will ever see Qhorin being played on the table until his NCU is addressed. The fact that the FAQ has exempt him from losing out on his abilities after being cancelled is so frustrating. Battle Scars and Go Down Fighting make a lot of sense for Qhorin in terms of the story and will be quite strong in a defensive Unit like the Veterans and Spearmen, both received a buff this update.
But no one will take the Qhorin Attachment unless they are deliberately avoiding the NCU due to its power.
Eddison Tollett – Attachment
Changes – Points decrease to 1pt.
ASOIAF Stats explained on Tourney Ground that Eddison was taken 7 times before the update. That is abysmal. Thus, the point change is very much needed, but it is not enough, there are many other more valuable places to spend this point. The internal and external balance of the Night’s Watch is a shambles that makes buffs like these so obsolete.
Grenn – Attachment
Changes – Rework Taunt order.
Taunt has become a much better ability and might see play in the Night’s Watch with Grenn if it will be impactful to the rest of the force. It is likely being used to defend a fragile Unit like the Ranger Hunters for example. I can see Grenn being played, but there isn’t much space for him in the best Night’s Watch lists as they just don’t need him.
Denys Mallister – NCU
Changes – Rework to Time May Yet Come NCU ability.
No longer a useless NCU, Denys might be a strong NCU to keep your Night’s Watch Units hitting at full potential. The only problem is that there are too many amazing NCUs more impactful to the game than Denys. Maester Aemon, Bowen Marsh, Donal Noye, Qhorin Halfhand, and Othell Yarwyck all feel way better than Denys, and whilst one saw a nerf the others remain at their best. Sorry Denys, it is not your time.
Craster – NCU
Changes – Added once per game ability, and rework to NCU ability.
Craster is brilliant in Free Folk but suffers from the same issues as Denys. This change to his abilities are good, but they are just not better than the vast majority of Night’s Watch NCUs. Thus, he will be left on the shelf until these NCUs are reduced in power.
Othell Yarwyck – NCU
Changes – Removed additional effects based on Tactics Zones.
Othell NCU gives you a free attack on a Unit by replacing a Tactics Zone, and depending on which Zone, you take you also get a buff. The change to remove the Zone buff from the attack is an improvement to Othell rather than a nerf. I assume the developers did this to nerf the Vargo combo you could do, but now you aren’t worried about taking a specific Zone early on, so you are not blocked from a benefit. You can leave Othell until a more opportune time. So, another buff for the best faction in the game before and after the update.
Jeor Mormont – NCU
Changes – Rework NCU ability and once per game ability.
The same again, Jeor NCU has had a great change that will amount to nothing as he is not better than several other NCUs. Not to sound like a broken record but these changes were necessary if they were brought alongside a rework of the faction. Until the Night’s Watch is reworked or nerfed, most of the changes won’t matter.
Summary
It is so hard to not be negative and put down by how the Night’s Watch were treated by this update. They have received endless buffs and the nerfs have not felt or really been nerfs. This update needed to address the brothers of the Watch creeping past everyone in strength and halting them rather than favouring them into a different game. We are now seeing the Night’s Watch become the 7th edition Eldar from 40k. People don’t want to play against the Night’s Watch as it is a waste of time, the game is no longer fun, unless the Night’s Watch player deliberately runs the worst they have to offer.
So many times, throughout this game’s lifespan, the developers have felt out of touch with their community and more importantly with how the game plays, and it is no more evident than it is right now. You can take a brief look at the standings for the factions on ASOIAF Stats and see that the difference between the Night’s Watch in 1st and whoever is in 2nd is more than double the score.
Night’s Watch needed a rework or an outright nerf to prevent this distancing from the rest of the game, they did not need endless buffs which a lot of them are obsolete due to the overpowered aspects were not addressed adequately. I hope the developers take this failure as a learning experience and grow from it. I also hope they do not take 6 or more months to fix it as Event Organisers have been debating banning certain aspects of Night’s Watch if not the entire faction.
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