Editor’s Note: None of this is really applicable any more. The S03 update in Greyjoys changed how the entire faction works, so you can stop reading now. I’m only keeping the post up as a reminder of what we’ve lost.
Hi, hello, and welcome. This post is going to be the first in a series that may or may not ever get finished where I do a written deep dive of the tactics cards for factions in A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF). We’re starting this with a look at House Greyjoy, because I happened to have already written the first draft as an exercise in trying to learn my cards and triggers quickly when picking up a new faction. This ended up being really long so it seemed a shame for it to go to waste, hence this article.
Keep in mind that all of this is a) just like, my opinion man, and b) that it’s all bound to change sometime in 2023 with the Pillage rework that CMON have talked about in community chats. When that happens, I’ll either update or replace this article with a new one, because I’ll have some re-learning to do myself.
Anyhow, buckle up - there’s lots to talk about.
House Greyjoy Tactics Cards Breakdown
I came to this faction with some preconceptions about their competitive viability that I would say with hindsight were less than charitable. Most of my experience with the faction was beating it with Starks, and most of those games were pretty one-sided stomps where a Tully Cav charge smashed a light infantry unit into the dirt in one action and the game just snowballed from there. Having talked with longtime Greyjoy stalwarts and done a fair bit of digging through match results on ASOIAF Stats, it’s clear that my subjective experience playing against the Ironborn previously doesn’t match up with what they’re truly capable of.
The Base Deck
The Greyjoy deck has an insane quantity of healing, a very powerful game-changing card in What is Dead may Never Die, a strong single use attack buff, a zone replace extra attack, and a permanent combat buff that synergizes perfectly with their bread and butter unit, the 4 point (as of this writing, anyway!) Ironborn Bowmen. While this sounds like a recipe for success, the deck does suffer from some overloaded triggers, and one card is utterly worthless in lists that don’t bring units with Pillage (which has a looming rework pending that will change everything about the faction as I write this).
Bless With Stone, Bless With Steel
BWSBWS is quite a bit better than it looks, but it can be annoying in the fact that it shares a “unit activates” trigger with Raiding Call, which can make for some awkward sequencing. That said, it is condition token removal in the base deck, as long as you have at least one of bags or swords, which you often will since you’re angling for those zones anyway.
In spite of the occasional awkwardness, there is at least one scenario where BWSBWS is a potential blowout: You hold swords, and on your opponents turn saved a unit with What is Dead May Never Die. That unit (because it didn’t die!) is engaged with an enemy unit that’s down a rank. In this situation, a Start of Turn Iron Price, Wendamyr token, or Drowned Men order plus BWSBWS means that unit that should be dead is actually attacking with full ranks. I’m going to give this sequence a name at some point, because it’s a common element of quite a few Greyjoy wins, and assembling it is one of the reasons that Rodrik Harlaw is such a strong NCU pick in the faction, for the huge degree of card selection he puts at your disposal.
Edit: I should mention, in case it’s not clear, that I’m not singing this card’s praises. It is solidly “fine”, and does something meaningful by removing tokens more often than it hits the ceiling of a huge heal for an engaged Infantry unit.
Finger Dance
The synergy with Ironborn Bowmen is very solid, but putting it on melee infantry is pretty high risk. It’s almost always absolute trash with any neutral cavalry you might bring, so don’t make that mistake. Basically, this card goes on ranged attackers - notably the 4 point Ironborn Bowmen, possibly the second best infantry unit pound for pound in the whole game - to help punch a few extra points of damage through. Assembling Finger Dance + Bowmen and positioning them in a flank nearly doubles their combat effectiveness against average infantry targets, which makes them a hell of a lot more reliable at helping your other units accumulate Pillage, or just killing things outright.
To put it in perspective, if the fix is in and you’ve got Finger Dance on some Bows that are firing from the flank and it’s your turn to go first with a We Do Not Sow in hand, the average 4+ armor, 6+ morale unit is looking at taking about 15 wounds spread out over those three attacks. It takes a ton of resources but a big part of the Greyjoy gameplan should be maneuvering one of these cheap but highly threatening ranged attackers into position to just go ham with Finger Dance if the cards come in at the right time.
Raiding Call
Raiding Call is another premier Greyjoy base deck card. You move wounds from your Bowmen onto a unit that’s taken a hit, and also put a Pillage token on something as long as either player controls bags. Ignore the part about moving Pillage tokens between units, because doing that with this card is a very rare exception rather than a rule. Likely the only time you’d do it is if you had a unit in Long range of the recipient that couldn’t move fast enough to get into a melee that was ongoing and wanted to juice the attack of the unit that was already in position. Apart from that, it is more or less purpose built for turning Bowmen models into Something Else (or just different Bowmen - moving 4 guys off a fresh tray to take a nearly dead one back to combat effective is common), and getting a free Pillage token rolling on a unit that hasn’t had a big attack yet or needs the second loot marker to really smash some face.
The Iron Price
This is the worst card in the deck for 2021-S02. It turns Pillage tokens into a little bit of healing, helps attack with more dice, or charge better. Iron Price’s niche is that it does not share a trigger with Raiding Call or Bless With Stone, so a Pillage unit could in theory restore 4 wounds by paying the iron price, then gain another 4 wounds from Raiding Call or Bless to heal a whopping 8 wounds in a single turn before attacking.
The second and third modes of this card aren’t very strong, though there are times when it’s worth cashing in a Pillage token to ensure a charge succeeds.
The third mode of this card seems tough to know exactly when and how to use it, but with most Greyjoy units it’s pretty straightforward. For instance, if a unit of Silenced Men with 3 wounds and 2 Pillage tokens is going to be attacking a unit with a 4+ armor save and 6+ morale sitting on 4 wounds this turn, cashing one of those Pillage tokens in for a 7 die attack and keeping one to retain a -1 morale penalty would be the correct play (as you’ll average more than one additional wound with that play vs spending both tokens to heal).
Harlaw Reapers are the same, absent other modifiers, in terms of expected damage: generally going from 4 to 7 dice is better than going from 4 to 6 and holding on to a Pillage token in terms of damage output. But it is much, much closer. The difference is that low dice on the Reapers has a relatively high chance to do no damage at all, because it may not generate a wound to trigger a Panic test. The difference in expected wounds is quite small, but there’s a lot more variance, which means the safer/more reliable play is going to be to have the unit roll 7 dice. If you are planning to use the Reapers ability to heal wounds instead of cause extra, it’s a no brainer to just cash them in with The Iron Price instead, because you’re getting a guaranteed four wounds over a possible 3 healed back.
On the other hand, a unit that isn’t technically a Greyjoy but can use this card, Lysene Sellswords, absolutely NEVER would cash in a Pillage token to roll highest attack dice since it already does when it’s on 2 Pillage (with +2 dice on top of that, to boot). This card is one I expect either to change completely with the Pillage rework, or go from D tier to A tier instantaneously once every unit in the faction can now carry Pillage tokens.
The Kraken’s Wrath
Not much to say about this card. It’s an attack buff that cares what zones your opponent controls. Rerolls when they have swords is nice since that zone is often highly sought after, so pretty regularly you’ll get that effect. Don’t forget that if you have Petyr Baelish in your list it’s technically possible for both players to control bags at the same time if you have a need for some condition tokens, or you used Petyr to power up Bless with Stone, Bless with Steel earlier in the round. Rerolls, Precision, Panicked and Vulnerable from one card is a high-ish ceiling. That being said, using Petyr’s ability this way is considerably less powerful than using it to make sure What is Dead has maximum impact, so consider carefully whether it’s really worth it before committing to a line that does this.
We Do Not Sow
Ka-pow. One of the bread and butter Greyjoy cards, We Do Not Sow is some straightforward cheating on the action economy, which is always powerful. There’s a little healing rider stapled to it as well, which is best looked at as a nice bonus. In terms of raw healing output, We Do Not Sow is never better than actually taking bags yourself, but if your attacking unit is pretty safe you might bait your opponent into spending a bag heal somewhere else to set up a little bonus heal with it. This does work with ranged attacks, which is quite nice, since not only do Greyjoys like making extra attacks, a little bit of healing for Bowmen is sometimes necessary to keep them relevant after a big Raiding Call.
What is Dead may Never Die
The lynchpin of the Greyjoy faction, What is Dead can completely undo several rounds of work by your opponent, or it can completely fail to bail you out when you need it to. On its best days, this card with some followup healing from the many sources at the Greyjoy’s disposal can turn a game on its head. On its worst, you’ll fail the panic test after saving a unit with it and have it die anyway.
One of the chief problems with What is Dead is that any subsequent actions the unit performs result in it possibly dying anyway if you don’t control swords. This is problematic when it’s a swords attack from your opponent that pulled the card out of your hand in the first place. One way to address this problem is making good use of the ample healing at your disposal in the faction. Another solution is to take Petyr Baelish in your list, and use his once per game ability to control Swords on a critical turn.
What is Dead is best when you have other healing supporting it. Drowned Men, Wendamyr tokens, Raiding Call or BWSBWS all help get a unit that just cheated death out of the danger zone so it can take a meaningful action when you don’t control swords.
On the Importance of Petyr Baelish
Littlefinger is already the most widely used NCU in the game, but Greyjoy armies have more reason than most to consider bringing Petyr along for the raid. The most obvious reason is What is Dead May Never Die: you can always, always control swords when you need it to make sure your unit doesn’t die ignominiously. You can also use him to trigger bags without actually claiming it, which is a better than normal plan for Greyjoys since some of their tactics cards care about the opponent controlling that zone - notably, We Do Not Sow and The Kraken’s Wrath have situationally important effects that hinge on your opponent controlling the money supply.
Consider a situation late in a game where your opponent going first takes Swords to kill your unit, and you save it with What is Dead May Never Die. You use a Wendamyr token to heal two wounds at the start of your turn. You activate Petyr, block a zone that your opponent wants, and trigger Bags to bring your unit up to a healthy 6-8 wounds, and use Drowned Men on your opponent’s turn to heal two more wounds. That unit that should have died outright is now back nearly at full strength, and you’ve set up a situation for your opponent that is very short on actual good options.
If they activate their unit and attack, barring some cards they’re not likely to deal 8+ wounds on a single swing. Bags are still open, too, so any attack that isn’t lethal will be at least partially undone by that zone more or less immediately. On top of that, activating their unit is risky because if they can’t get the kill, you can potentially just retreat away to safety. If they take Bags, any attacks you make are now more threatening because they’ve got one less way to heal the damage back themselves.
Let’s say they elect to block Bags before attacking and What is Dead only left the unit with 1 wound when it was played. You used a Wendamyr token to heal 2 and draw a card, then bags from Petyr (blocking horses to take away another option) to heal 3, then Drowned Men to heal 2 on the opponent’s turn. That leaves the unit at 8 wounds. Your opponent elects to block bags before activating their unit, looking to secure a kill.
Now it’s your turn again and you have three cards in your hand. Is one of them We Do Not Sow? Great! Petyr uses his once per game ability to count as controlling swords, and you replace a zone with We Do Not Sow to heal 2 more wounds and attack at full ranks. Is another one the Kraken’s Wrath? Awesome! That attack makes the defender Vulnerable and gets rerolls and Precision. Is the last card Bless With Stone, Bless with Steel or Raiding Call? Fantastic! If your opponent doesn’t retreat, when you activate your unit they’re going to restore more wounds!
But if Petyr Baelish isn’t in the mix, the situation is much more bleak. You’ll actually have to claim bags for the heal, and any actions you take will deal you on average two wounds. It also leaves an important zone open for your opponent, and you don’t get the healing kicker on We Do Not Sow.
Tactics cards sequences like this off the back of What is Dead May Never Die are a huge part of the Greyjoy gameplan, and with Wendamyr and sometimes Rodrik Harlaw they have enough deck manipulation and raw card draw to sculpt hands that produce these sequences with higher reliability than other factions would be able to. They are only truly effective with the help of Petyr Baelish, however, so if you’re not planning to bring Littlefinger in your competitive Greyjoy army, you really do need a good reason.
Commanders
I am going to limit the discussion of in-faction Commanders to the ones I have hands on experience with or think have an actual compelling reason for use on this edition of the rules. Unfortunately, there are a couple of commander options for House Greyjoy that are flat-out bad (Asha Greyjoy and Erik Ironmaker) that if you’re playing to win you’re doing yourself a huge disservice by taking them. I’ve personally never played a Theon list, but I can envision some silliness with Theon in a unit of Bastard’s Girls and a whole pile of supporting Bowmen and Drowned Men being fun, if nothing else.
Baelor Blacktyde
Lash Out is good but not as good as Final Strike. Yes it’s automatic wounds, but it’s usually tough to have a unit lurking in the danger zone at the right time to guarantee 4 wounds of value from it. Blacktyde Conviction is a situational morale buff that takes way too much work to be reliably good and does nothing to prevent noninteractive panic bombing from effects like Melisandre’s influence early in a game. Blacktyde Resentment makes a unit on a single rank somewhat scary, but honestly the payoff for attaching this card and attacking at one rank remaining just isn’t very high. I frankly do not understand why Baelor has such a high in-faction Elo on ASOIAF Stats apart from the possibility that his attachment with Hardened and To the Last! is difficult for less experienced players to work around. I would personally never play this commander, but I had to mention him here because I think compared to the other options he’s actually a trap.
Balon Greyjoy
Balon is quite possibly the best commander in the faction right now. None of his cards are insane, but they’re all at least a little better than average and go some of the way to shoring up weaknesses in the faction. Acceptable Sacrifices is a fantastic morale buff that stacks with Embolden, and synergizes with Drowned Men (who can never suffer more than 1 wound from a failed Panic test anyway) to create a really strong mobile utility platform that makes your whole list more survivable. Price of Failure creates guaranteed damage from Bows, or even your Melee units if they have rerolls or are perhaps Fueled by Slaughter. The downside is just not that big a deal, and most of the time I’ll happily trade 6 hits at a key moment for a small amount of wounds anyway. The Old Way is somewhat limited in that it relies on spending Pillage, but the second mode is extremely powerful when you get to use it because it allows a reroll after Weakened tokens have already been spent. Balon’s attachment also happens to be great, bringing durability and sustain while synergizing with his own cards in the bargain.
Dagmer Cleftjaw
There is no other way for me to say this: Dagmer Cleftjaw slaps unbelievably hard. Or at least he can. Coordination Tactics + all the Greyjoy Pillage nonsense can create some truly absurd attack profiles. Of course like any combo related playstyle the risk of not drawing the right pieces in the right order is there, but when it works look the fuck out. You haven’t lived until you’ve used Coordination Tactics and Lust for Glory to attack with a unit of Harlaw Reapers that have:
- +3 wounds/+3 healing for a failed panic test
- Intimidating Presence
- Vicious
- Fueled by Slaughter
- Set an Example
- Martial Training
- Gang Up
- Precision
- +1 to hit
- 9 attack dice
For argument’s sake let’s say Gang Up is active too, so it’s 10 dice that hit on 1s with all those abilities. The attack calculator at More Or Less Killy says that should average 13.5 wounds against a typical infantry unit, and is 86% likely to one shot them.
Delicious. Oh and then you use the two Pillage you almost certainly generated with the first wombo-combo to buy back Coordination Tactics with Knowledge Paid in Iron to do all of that again. Dagmer’s a good time, give him a try.
Euron Greyjoy
Spooky Squid has some interesting cards, but I think the power level just isn’t quite there to make a strong case as the control commander in the faction. Some popular Euron lists completely eschew the Pillage mechanic, which is something he is uniquely qualified to do because Devious Methods gives you a potential use for The Iron Price when your list has zero Pillage units in it apart from the end of round discard. Whether that’s “good” is another question entirely.
Typically Euron gets slotted into a unit with Vicious to synergize with his Intimidating Presence, and the goal is to have Sow Discord break a game open with a lucky Morale test somewhere along the way. Cunning Ploy gives the already mobile Greyjoys even more ability to cover ground, and can convert otherwise ‘useless’ activations like Drowned Men or a unit of Blackguard standing on a center objective into useful positional plays for more offensive units. Mind Games is a really flavorful and cool card, but I am not sure that it has enough impact.
Honestly, I think everything you want when you take Euron as your commander you can get a better version of with Roose Bolton, but Euron’s kit is pretty good overall and does have a very unique playmaking possibility thanks to Devious Methods. Some very, very good players get a lot of mileage out of the Crow’s Eye, but for my money in a meta where you often find yourself facing Qhorin Halfhand foolishness, Roose is the higher percentage bet for the role in your list.
Victarion Greyjoy
Victarion is the smash face Greyjoy. He’s not particularly good, but he is very straightforward. Playing a few games with this big dumb idiot and his “Axe meet face” approach to problem solving is a good way to get a grip on the base deck’s triggers as you learn the faction.
Rush of Aggression is basically Reckless Heroism with upside in card form, which is pretty good because you can bluff it or surprise a careless opponent with it. Assault Orders means 4/20 cards in your deck say “make an attack” on them which is legitimately pretty good. The only downside - and it is a major downside - is that Sustained Assault is just not very good. This is a card that is bad everywhere it appears, and Victarion is no exception. Vic’s attachment is also decent, featuring Overrun and Furious Charge.
Honestly when I look at Victarion, I think “Wow, this Commander would be pretty good in Starks”. I mean apart from having a duplicate in Assault Orders, all of his abilities and cards really want him to be charging, and the one thing the Stark deck does well is charging. Vic being a starter set commander I think is one of the reasons his Elo remains low - a lot of his games are recorded by players that are newer to the game or competitive play. But more than that there’s just no really excellent chassis to stick him in. With the Pillage rework allowing some units to be a bit more front loaded and good even before they acquire their loot (and maybe a buff to Sustained Assault!) I could see Victarion’s stock rising substantially in the near future.
Conclusion
By the Drowned God, that’s a lot of words. If you made it to the end of this monster of an article, thank you. I hope there was some wisdom in here. It’ll be interesting to revisit this once the update is released and put things in context of Greyjoys 2.0. It’s an exciting time to be Ironborn!
Having gone through this exercise with House Greyjoy, I might go ahead and make House Stark the subject of the next one, but that might want to wait until S03 or version 2023 or whatever CMON calls the upcoming balance patch. Purportedly it’s a much more sweeping set of changes than what we saw back in March of ‘23, and the intent is supposed to be making niche commanders easier to use. If there’s one faction for sure that should benefit from an update like that it’s House Stark.
