United We Stan For Stannis
With the death of Robert Baratheon, his brothers have both decided that they should be the next person to be seated upon the Iron Throne. They’ve each built an army, tearing the House in two, demanding that people swear loyalty to either Stannis or Renly. While any other House might never stand a chance if their resources were split in twain, House Baratheon has enough power that either Baratheon brother might still manage to take the Iron Throne by force. In this article, we’re taking a look at those that have sworn to help out the older Baratheon, Stannis. Let’s take a look at what resources he’ll be getting in the Baratheon Heroes #1 box set.
Like with the other Heroes sets, the Baratheon Heroes #1 box set comes with a wealth of new characters that players can use to customize their army to their specific play style. It contains Unit Attachments and NCUs aplenty. The unique thing about House Baratheon is the loyalty system. When building an army, a House Baratheon player must decide if their army is loyal to one brother or the other. While generic units can work for either, the characters in the army are dedicated to working for only one. As such, nobody who is loyal to Renly can be used in an army that’s pledged to Stannis. This can cause difficult choices for a Baratheon player as they might like characters who are loyal to different brothers. But with such choice can come creativity in army-construction.
For Unit Attachments, of course this set has Stannis himself. He’s one of the three new Commander options that comes in the box. He causes the unit in which he’s attached to become a R’hllor unit. This keyword comes into play with his Tactics cards. His unit also gains Fearless, never having to worry about becoming Panicked or taking hits to their Morale. Other attachments include both Devan and Davos Seaworth, with Davos also having a Commander version (he’s a rather versatile character in this box, as we’ll see). Devan Seaworth is adept at making sure the units he’s attached to are able to get into combat easily. Whenever they declare a Charge, the unit takes 1d3 Wounds, but automatically counts as having rolled a 6 on their Charge Distance die. Having such assurance that a unit will make it to their target is invaluable and certainly worth possibly losing a few troops along the way. Also, when attached to a unit with Loyalty, Devan’s presence means that they always count as having at least 2 ranks when rolling Attack dice. As for Davos, he has many incarnations. His Commander version gives the unit he’s attached to Pathfinder, which grants them +1 Speed and lets them ignore many negative terrain effects.
Moving to some of the NCUs in the set, we once more find a version of Davos Seaworth. In this version, he is given two Order tokens at the start of the game. Whenever a friendly unit rolls their Charge Distance dice, Davos’ player can remove one to reroll the dice. While not the guaranteed distance of the Attachment version of Devan, this doesn’t require the unit to suffer any Wounds and still makes sure that the unit is better-equipped to get to their target. Another NCU in the set is Melisandre. Whenever she activates, she causes an enemy unit to make a Panic Test. But, before the opponent rolls, the Baratheon player can remove 1-3 Wounds from one of their units to cause the enemy’s roll to suffer the same number from their roll and deal that many extra Wounds should they fail. This can potentially swing a battle without ever having to meet the enemy head-on.
This only scratches the surface of what options greet Baratheon players with the release of this set. Followers of Stannis Baratheon can also look forward to playing Andrew Estermont, Selyse & Shireen, and Axell Florent.
The Baratheon Heroes #1 box set will be available soon.
You can read more about the Baratheon Heroes #1 box set here.