by Perrytom
After running a game of AGOT 2nd edition in Celesticon, I sat down to play a game of BoW. Sadly, I only have the core set but I haven't yet explored it completely so I have plenty of fun to have with just that.We decided to play a skirmish game, and we picked "Westerland Bounty", where you randomly pick one of your opponent's leaders and you secretly have the mission to capture that commander. We played a skirmish because we've played the first three scenarios and we wanted to try out some of the other commanders that don't show up much in the scenarios (like Tywin). It was our first skirmish so we still have much to learn.
I was playing Lannister, and I decided to take strong leaders. I took Tywin and the Mountain. My friend decided to take Karstark and Greatjon Umber in the hope that he would get better units. He did, though I got the most of my units' cards as well. We started the game when I placed the terrain hexes somewhat more effectively (my friend hadn't played in a while) but he certainly had the upper hand in terms of troops:
He had 13 units to my 12, and had three red ranked units including one cavalry unit. I had 2 infantry units that were red and the Mountain who is red. I know that he is slow, being on foot and having only one command token limit, so I placed him the front with a series of buildings. I placed Tywin in the back (I took it to be thematically correct, as Tyrion says that his father always leads an army from the back) with my other two cavalries and I placed my archers on forests in front of them. My opponent just placed his army in a row on the front.
Though I had momentum, he attacked first, sending forth his red cavalries which are notoriously hard to kill (after we exchanged some arrows from our useless green archers). However, luck was on my side. I had three red units who could move 1 and attack, including the mountain with his amazing re-roll ability, and I flanked his strongest unit to oblivion in the first round. Other than that he placed his kennel masters to attack and I drew forth my infantry to stand in front of my archers as cannon fodder.
Turns 2-4 were much more eventful and caused many casualties, mostly for Stark (to be quite honest, he had bad luck with the dogs of war). One thing we weren't fully considering when we chose commanders, is how good certain commander's command cards. Tywin's are absolutely awesome. They are also a great combo with the Mountain, as they both work on morale. After I eliminated a few of his units and he was in the red, I would threaten to win the game every turn with Tywin's card that allows me to role a die for each unused unit he has (given the incredible advantage that Tywin gives you with regards to momentum, it's hard not to be first with him). Tywin is great on all parts except face to face battle - you just have to keep him away from the actual fighting. The Mountain, however, is impossible to destroy and he kills anything he can put his hands on. He basically destroyed Umber's side of the board, leaving the Greatjon alone in his units to run away from further beating.
Karstark is a different story. Despite the fact he was my bounty, I gave up trying to take him - due to his toughness, it's extremely hard (even if you have a few attackers lined up, one of them is bound to force a retreat). We were not playing with coordinated attacks, which I think is a must. Instead, I decided to just kill as many units as I can and win with the most units.
This is the board somewhere in the middle of the game (I think turn 3):
By the end of turn 4 I was ahead 7 to 2, and his morale was flirting with the yellow. He yielded at the end of turn 4 but was a good sport, and we played another round where we each killed off another unit of the enemy and ended up with 8-3. Neither of us took any of the other commanders - Umber ran away and I couldn't chase him, Karstark was impossible to capture. Likewise, he couldn't really touch the Mountain and I kept Tywin away (he participated a bit in some flanking but then ran away).
The bottom line was that without coordinated attacks, the main point of the skirmish was lost on us because commanders were hard to capture and we were focusing on the bloodbath of other units. Dogs of war are pretty unreliable, they can be awesome but also not so great - even if you have red ranked dog units, they role a die to determine their rank for the attack and will more often than not roll green (which then makes it hard for them to kill any red units). Lastly, choosing commanders in skirmishes is incredibly important not only because of their ability and the units on their skirmish cards (that you lose) but also because of their command cards, which can be super strong and in the case of Tywin and the Mountain - form a strong combo.
Note: I tried posting these pictures to the game gallery but was denied in the claim that they were 'similar'. I don't understand how pictures of an idiosyncratic scenario could be too similar, but I would appreciate if someone told me more about the rules of submitting photos.