A fight in the Snow

At the weekend I attended Battle In The Crimson Snow Tournament at Leodis games for a 3 game tournament of A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones), I had just got my last models painted up for it and was rearing to go!

As I’ve now been going to tournaments of A Song of Ice and Fire I’ve started to get t know a few people so it was nice to get there a little early and have a chat with a few of the people I’d met before, the community for this game really seem friendly! I think there was 18 people in the end and we kicked off into game one quickly, I got drawn against a chap called Matt I had note meet before I think it was his first Tournamet for the game for some some, I think he had said he had played pre-pandemic. He was using the Boltons, but was using the relatively new rules for them, so although I had faced Boltons before I had never see this form of them. He got a few units painted up to a really nice standard as well (below) and we had a good chat about how he had been unsure on the use of pink, but had stuck to it, thats how they are described in the book and was pleased with how they had come out, and in short order, I think he said he had smashed these out in 2 weeks!

The tournament uses a 2 list set up, so after seeing your opponents 2 lists and the battle being fought (Game of Thrones in this instance – a fairly standard 5 objective setup), it was time for me to pick mine. I ended up going for my infantry list, I felt the rangers might struggle with some of the armor on display in Matt’s lists. Matt also went for his all infantry list, which ended up seeing his 5 infantry units facing off my 3 and a war machine. The Boltons had 3 heavily armored holding units spears on my left flank, Blackguard (heavy infantry) in the center and on the right flank, and 2 units of lighter armored but hard hitting units between the center and each flank in the form of Cutthroats. I placed my vets in the center, rest of my infantry to the left and the bolt thrower to the right. Although I lacked numbers on the field of battle I had none combat units (3 to Matts 2) so I had a advantage from the none combat board.

The first battle round saw the Boltons take the flank objectives in there half with Spears and Blackguard, I mirrored the left flank taking my objective and the 2 units of infantry looking at each other through the wood. We both moved up the rest of our units to start contesting the center. The other main factor in turn one was my war machines, I had taken Othell on the none combat board where he could direct catapults from off the board to attack, I also managed to take the swords to allow extra long range shots from my bolt thrower. All of this was directed at the left hand side unit of Cutthroats as they where the least armored lowest moral unit, and this did very well, really knocking that unit down.
The next bit of note in the battle (in turn 2 I think) was Matt managing to get the uninjured Cutthroat unit right up in the face of bolt thrower ready to charge next turn, I’d positioned my vets badly so that the unit had got past their sight line. However I then drew a very handy card, “Watcher on the Wall” which allows a unit to move after a different unit is attached. So I ended up throwing my Sworn brothers (the middle infantry unit) froward to try and get them charged by the central Blackguard. The blood thirsty Boltons obliged, and this allowed my vets to spin around and charge the Cutthroats in the flank. The Vets ended up chewing up the lightly armed Cutthroats, and surprisingly the Sworn Brother’s coped really well being charged by the Blackguard, and held until my Vets could move back around and then tag team them down. Then press onto the Spearmen on the left flank with support of the other Sworn Brothers, 3 units against 1 was only going to go one way. So the game ended with my force dominating the field of battle but on Victory points It was much closer, as Matt had been securing both back left and right objective all game.
We had a good chat post game, as we where both surprised that the Blackgurad had not done more to the Sworn brothers I’d thrown in their way, we decided that the good moral of the Nights watch had been the key factor, as most of the damage from the Boltons come from moral. Over all a nice first game, my list worked how I had wanted it to, Matt was a great and really friendly opponent.

Onto Game 2 and it was by Nights Watch against more nights watch! This time run by Sam, Sam has played a lot of A Song of Ice an Fire and used a lot of different factions but I had not met him before. This time I went for my Ranger list hoping that the movability would be good against Sam’s lists both of which had a war machine in. Sam ended up using Jon Snow as Commander with Ghost his Wolf, Cold hands, a unit or Rangers on foot and and unit on horseback. And 3 None combat units, to my 2 in this list.

Sam deployed centrally and right I did central and left, I chose to keep my Ranger on horse off the board to outflank in turn 1 or 2 while Sam put his on the table. I then had the choice of going first or second, and thats where I started making mistakes! I elected to go second so that I could deploy my out flanking unit in the top left corner (you can only deploy outflanking units when you are second player) thinking I could put the pressure on early, this ended up ultimately costing me the game. As what it really allowed was for Sam to take my army apart a bit at a time, so my Cav charged in killed Ghost, but where removed in return by the rest of the for that just stayed on the back line, while my army trudged up the field.

I then pushed my archer cav unit up to fast to far and Sam pulled them to parts as well, but not before I had run my vets over, splitting the rest of my force. I also ended up having to use my Sacrifice for the Cause ability (killed one of my NCU’s but stopped one of my opponents units for doing anything that turn) very early, which then meant I was down to 1 NCU against 3 for all support. Needless to say I lost heavily, below is a picture of my last vets trying to make a desperate last stand. The game however had been great fun, I’d gone all in turn 1 and it had just not paid off, Sam was a great opponent and we had a good chat about list construction for Nights Watch after the game different tactic options. As such I’ve made a little tweak to this list for the next tournament I’m going to (on Saturday!)

So last game of the event I was up against Joel who was rather new to the game, and was playing Greyjoys that seem to be having some problems as far as I can tell at the moment. Being relatively new to the game he had not been able to get much painted yet, but Newt which he had painted up was looking absolutely splendid!

The game more here was Fire and Blood, which is rather different to others as there are no objective, but you each mark up 2 units and score points for taking them out. This I feel gave me a massive advantage in the game, as I used my infantry list which basically has 3 heavy infantry units that are hard to kill and hit hard, and a war machine that should be away from the battle line. While the list Joel used consisted of 2 hard infantry on the left flank, 1 light hard hitting infantry in the center a unit of archers on the right and a little support unit behind the infantry. So I marked up the archers and the light infantry, knowing that if I could engage them I should be able to take them out. While my Vets (central infantry) and bolt thrower got marked up by the Greyjoys.

When I took this phot above I was feeling fairly happy and advanced the Sworn brothers on my right up into the faces of the archers ready to charge next turn, while just holding back on the left flank keeping just out of reach of those nasty heavy infantry units. However Joel manage to pull of a great little maneuver and ended up charging my Sworn brothers threating the archers in the flank with his central light infantry, this was a great little move, I had not seen it and there was nothing I could do to stop it, and the Sworn Brothers went down. But not before I had managed to get by Vets in the center to move around and charge offending Geryjoy infantry in their flank! The vets made short work of the light infantry and then went on to finish off the archers up in that corner taking both of the marked units out and giving me enough points to take the game, while avoiding the horrible heavy infantry on my other flank.
This game mod really did seem to favor the more elite fighting force that the Nights Watch are, which was a shame really as I think a different game mode may of given Joel a much better chance. It has actually also got me thinking more about making sure I know which list I would use for which game mode!

So the end of the tournament came around, I was very happy finishing 8th out of 18 players and even more pleased with a 3rd place in the painting competition for my none combat board, second place had gone to Tim playing Night Watch player who had made their won trebuchet! (sorry I did not get a picture) and first place went to some just outstanding paint of a cav unit and crossbow unit (sorry did not get the name of the painter or a picture 😦 )

I was also just blown away with the prizes everyone won, there was a table full and everyone walked away with multiple prizes, including boxs of minis cool Game of Thrones badges and tee-shirts, a picture of my winnings is below: a unit of spear men, a cav hero, a book a plate mate a badge a tee-shirt. And a very very cool little “dragon glass” arrow head thanks Thomas! So a massive thanks to the 2 companies that gave the prize support : Gaming Figures and Mirfield Miniatures!

Overall a great day, I can thoroughly recommend this tournaments run by Thomas and Paul, so thanks again guys!