Guest Article: Brotherhood Commanders by Warfactory
“An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep.”
– Alexander the Great
Welcome bannermen,
We’re slowly approaching the end of our journey through the Brotherhood Without Banners Starter Set. It’s the penultimate article and we’re focusing today on two famous commanders of the Brotherhood Without Banners. Let’s start with Beric Dondarion, Lightning Lord!
He comes with 3 abilities. The first one of them is Order: Sentinel, which is invaluable in the Brotherhood army, where positioning is key. While Order: Sentinel does not see a lot of competitive play, we see a lot of possibilities here, given how many other tools they have to move around the battlefield. Remember, Beric can be attached to any Baratheon or Stark heavy-hitting unit which could make good use of this order.
Duty to the Crown. Remember that we mentioned this faction likes making Morale tests? This is one of the examples. If we maintain control of the Crown on the Tactics board (which is the best way to not let the enemy control it) we’ll usually restore 2 wounds. Nice.
Pathfinder is another skill which fits into the Brotherhood’s theme: they strike fast, strike hard and…strike in the place they want to strike. Any unit with Beric leading the way doesn’t have to be afraid of disadvantageous terrain ruining their plans.
Overall, this is a solid set of skills and now let’s move on to his Tactic cards.
Assault Order is a great start. This is clearly one of the best cards in the game (who doesn’t love an extra Attack action?) and for Brotherhood it has even more value. It allows us to control our beloved Crown but get the benefits of Swords or – in the case of Beric’s unit – perform a devastating charge .
“Fire consumes.’ Lord Beric stood behind them, and there was something in his voice that silenced Thoros at once. ‘It consumes, and when it is done there is nothing left. Nothing.”
“Beric. Sweet friend.” The priest touched the lightning lord on the forearm. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing I have not said before. Six times, Thoros? Six times is too many.“
– George R.R. Martin, Storm of Swords
We just love this card. Its effect is very powerful. With this card we can stop an entire enemy’s plan. Even if they gather enough resources to ensure that our unit will be annihilated, we can stay on the table with 1 wound remaining. And if we consider we have access to units with To the last! special rule…Well, they can be really hard to kill. The Black Knight from the Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to our mind. Or maybe we want to keep Umber Berserkers with 9 attack dice alive ? The second effect from this card is very thematic. Everything has its price. Fire consumes. We can’t target both friendly and enemy tactic cards and orders. That’s a really great way to show that with every death Beric loses part of himself.
And finally something connected with Beric’s flaming sword. Lightbringer gives us an extra tool against enemies with poor Morale. It could also be an excellent finisher. If our attack doesn’t eliminate the enemy unit we have another chance to cause extra wounds.
Next, we have Beric’s friend and loyal companion, Thoros of Myr, The Red Wizard. He comes with just one skill, but it is powerful!
Prayers to R’hllor gives his unit +2 Morale (which is always amazing) and 1 Faith token. We can receive more tokens after passing the Morale test. With +2 to Morale it should happen very often. Good to see such synergy.
What can we do with Faith tokens? We can spend it for two effects. We can add Sundering and Vicious to Thoros’ unit Melee Attack. This is a really powerful combo that doesn’t require any further comments, does it? We can also spend it to heal friendly units when our enemy fails Panic tests. It is important to mention that it’s not limited only to infantry or Brotherhood units. Both of them are very useful effects, giving us the flexibility we need.
Are you ready for Thoros’ Tactic cards?
Fiery Charge is a card we already know from Axel Florent, so we know how it works in practice. Guaranteed 6 on Charge distance roll and making enemy units Panicked is something every offensive unit will love.
Loved by Smallfolk. Well, it seems you don’t need to be a Knight of Flowers to be loved by commoners. It’s enough if you have just a flaming sword and win some tournaments.
This card requires some luck as enemy must fail Morale test first (fortunately, Thoros makes this test harder to pass) but the reward is great: Vulnerable and Weakened tokens.
The Last Kiss
“Thoros, how many times have you brought me back now?”
“It is R’hllor who brings you back, my lord. The Lord of Light. I am only his instrument.”
– George R.R. Martin, Storm of Swords
This is a nice way to keep our attachments alive or move it to another unit. You will need to wait for the next article but we believe you will want to use some attachment in your army, so you will appreciate this card. And even if you don’t want to use them you may just use the second effect to cycle through your Tactics deck.
We think that both commanders are interesting choices and will be played regularly. We love that their Tactic cards are very thematic and based on how they are portrayed in the books. It looks like designers put a lot of heart into it.
That’s all for today. See you in the last part.
Warfactory Team