Tactical Approach - House Stark

Winter is Coming

Season Three of the 2021 edition of ASOIAF is upon us, and with it comes a host of changes to nearly all factions. I don’t have the time to deep dive into everything, unfortunately - there are more than 200 changes across all factions’ tactics cards and units (some of which are just duplicates of a game-wide rules changes) which is just too many for me to tackle alone. Plus, I am an inexpert judge at best for what makes the cards in say Lannister or Night’s Watch better or worse, as I have no experience playing as either of those factions. So for the first edition of Tactical Approach in the new era for Song, I’m going to turn my attention to the faction I started with - House Stark.

Overview

At a high level, the Starks are an aggressive, agile, and hard-hitting faction that want to leverage maneuverability and decisive melee attacks to pull ahead and then trade units with their opponent as the game progresses, with the aim of having the last unit (or units) standing when all is said and done. They are comfortably able to reach 8 activations thanks to the Direwolf solos that they can bring, and some Stark lists can even stretch to 9 activations by choosing inexpensive, efficient units and bringing more than one Stark kid’s pet puppy. Many Stark combat units get buffs as they lose ranks to offset the loss of attack dice, and a large number of effects in the faction grant units attacks as though they had full ranks, which can generate very swingy attacks from Stark infantry that are on 2 (or even just 1) ranks remaining.

The Stark NCU lineup features some of the best 4 pointers in the whole game, with Arya Stark, Sansa Stark, and Catelyn Stark all competing for space in the roster. They also have a compelling roster of NCUs that don’t currently see a lot of play, whose relative value - or even points costs - have changed for Season 3. Notable among these are Eddard Stark, Hand of the King who was discounted to 5 points from 6, and Robb Stark, King in the North who came down to 4 points from 5. Stark lists genuinely have difficult choices to make now about which NCUs are best for their gameplan, which is a net positive change for the faction.

The Stark base Tactics deck focuses almost exclusively on movement and combat. It has very little in the way of control elements or interaction with an opponent’s cards or units directly. In other words, Starks generally cannot stop things from happening, and must assume a proactive, aggressive position to win games.

Stark Commanders flavor the base deck in a handful of different ways. Eddard Stark and Greatjon Umber primarily focus on dealing more damage, or making extra attacks. Howland Reed adds some control elements, with effects that trigger on an opponent’s turn. Rodrik Cassel is another more controlling commander, who has various interactions with Condition tokens. Rickard Karstark and Maege Mormont have different takes on a more durable, grindy way to play with Starks. Robb Stark and Brynden Tully, The Blackfish don’t add much in the way of offensive capabilities, but they do improve maneuverability or morale (respectively) with their contribution to the deck. Finally, the Starks round out the roster with a Cavalry commander - Brynden Tully, Outrider Commander - whose cards are entirely focused on making Cavalry more effective. The presence of “Horsefish” makes Starks one of only a few factions that can field a 100% cavalry army, if they want to.

The Base Deck

To understand the context of any commentary about the commanders, it’s important to see how they are going to be used in conjunction with the base deck’s cards, so we’ll focus first on the deck.

Assault Orders

First alphabetically as well as first in my heart, Assault Orders as a base deck card is one of the reasons to pick this faction. Nearly anything that grants free attacks off the Tactics board is good, and this card is definitely no exception. Some commanders in other factions have different versions of this card that allow a charge when it targets the commander’s unit, or that can also grant ranged attacks, but the Stark version is unique in that any unit targeted by it may charge if Swords was the zone claimed by the NCU.

This means that the Tully Cavaliers a Stark player pushes down the field with a maneuver and a march early in the round can still charge if the Swords zone is open. This means that Arya can move Eddard’s Honor Guard into a unit’s flank after it’s already activated, then get a charge and an attack against that unit in the same round, also healing four wounds to a unit in Long range thanks to Rally Cry. There are really just a ton of ways that this extra attack can be leveraged in Starks to tremendous advantage, so much so that beating Assault Orders (with Counterplot, Flayed Men Have No Secrets, or some other effect that thwarts the card) can be a critical part of the plan for beating Starks in general.

Assault Orders is central to the success of an aggressive faction like House Stark. Getting maximum value out of it is a must to ensure victory.

Devastating Impact

This is one of the base deck cards that got a major change in Season 3. Devastating Impact used to trigger “before rolling charge distance dice”, which meant you had to commit to the card before you knew the outcome of your die roll. Now, you have until you see the result before committing the card.

This is advantageous in both use cases. First, if you’re charging without control of the Horses zone, you aren’t wasting this on a charge that may ultimately fail: you are definitely getting the effect of the card. Second, if you do control the Horses zone, you can elect to hold the card back if for some reason you don’t need the tokens, conserving it to reroll a later charge. This change is an unequivocal buff to the card. Don’t forget, even if you roll a 1 on the Charge Distance Dice, you can play this card for the rerolls or just the effect. The charge is not considered Disorderly until after this trigger has passed.

The fact that Devastating Impact and Winter is Coming no longer share a trigger - and can actually be played on the same Charge action - is a subtle but important overall buff to the faction. The best performing factions in the game tend to have a Tactics deck that gets out of its own way, allowing its controller to cycle through it without repeatedly discarding unplayable cards. Overall a large and welcome buff.

Northern Ferocity

House Stark doesn’t have much access to the Vicious keyword natively, but Northern Ferocity does give them some capacity for attacking units through their Morale stat. It is also one of the four cards in the base deck with a Swords kicker, providing in this case a free Panic token to try and punch the extra damage through.

It might not be totally obvious, but this card turns all 3 of the Stark kids’ Direwolves into murder factories. Direwolves always have only 1 remaining rank, which means that Northern Ferocity’s condition for +2 Wounds on the Panic test is always satisfied when it’s played on them. Shaggydog may already have Vicious, but he is also capable of throwing 7 dice if he’s taken some damage already and forcing a gigantic Panic test on top of that. But you don’t need to be a solo throwing dice like a full infantry tray to benefit from Northern Ferocity: Summer or Grey Wind in a flank will happily capitalize on the free damage from Northern Ferocity as well.

The North Remembers

The classic “quest” or “revenge” card design got a bit of a change in Season 3 that I personally think is a critical buff that impacts the faction’s list building substantially. Look at this card. Notice anything missing?

If you said “The word melee,” you were right. This is the one and only card in the Stark base deck that buffs an attack but isn’t about melee attacks or charging. It still suffers from the design problem of a card that doesn’t do anything until or when drawn after a unit has already been killed, but this is a significant change to the effect and it’s important to analyze the impact of that change on the faction.

To appreciate the significance of this change, it’s probably worth assessing how important ranged attacks are in general in ASOIAF. In a word: very. Factions that have good ranged units (such as Ranger Hunters, Sand Skirmishers, R’hllor Lightbringers, and Lannister Crossbowmen to name a few) tend to perform better than factions that lack a reliable ranged option. Ranged attacks are inherently less risky than melee attacks, because most of the units in the game cannot “shoot back”. Some capacity to deliver damage without remaining engaged in melee is nearly essential to the success of a faction in this game, and for a long time Starks have almost completely lacked a credible threat of this kind.

Now, don’t get me wrong: this is not an over the moon buff. The card still doesn’t trigger when a Direwolf dies (which I think is a hangover from when Starks were legitimately broken in the early history of the game, which led to this card getting nerfed into its prior state), and it still suffers from the same problem that every other card of its type suffers from. But finally, there is a clear use-case for it that is different and more flexible than the rest of the Stark base deck’s total focus on melee engagement.

Some of the reasons to be excited about this change specifically I will go into more detail on later in this article, but at a high level it’s that Crannogmen Trackers got a fairly major buff, and Stark Bowmen might finally be a less than totally embarrassing 6 point ranged attacker. There are also major synergies with Bolton Bastard’s Girls, which are a favorite bunker for Rodrik Cassel and Howland Reed commanders. Rodrik in particular goes berserk with a unit of BBGs that have an active North Remembers while controlling swords. 5 dice hitting on 2s, followed by a charge for 7 dice hitting on 2s with Vicious, against a Vulnerable opponent? That’s getting into Ranger Hunters territory in terms of numbers of dice from a single activation.

The change is not without a downside, and some have even called it a clear nerf. The value of charge rerolls is pretty high, so I can see why they would think that, but even with only a couple of games under my belt with the new version of this card, I can assure you without a doubt that being able to make Crannogman Trackers hit on a 3+ is no joke.

Swift Reposition

Swift Reposition is unchanged in Season 3, but that’s OK, because it was already pretty great. House Stark really does pack in a ton of effects that move, reposition, and manipulate the location of units on the board, and this is just a reliable way to do that sort of thing with a very flexible trigger.

Swift Reposition makes your Short Range attacks have an effective range of more like 10” or 11” (or much more, in combination with Arya!). You can use it with control of the Horses zone to maneuver into an opponent’s flank for a better charge. It also allows weird plays in A Dance with Dragons, as the distance you move from Swift Reposition is not linked in any way to your unit’s Movement characteristic. It can be bought back with Sansa in the early game to give a significant speed boost to a unit (even two 2” shifts is a lot of ground covered).

Positioning and movement might be the most important thing to winning in ASOIAF, and this card is a positioning Swiss Army Knife. It can’t be discounted by your opponent. Failure to respect Swift Reposition will end in brutal charges or other disastrous positional problems for them. Great card, we’re happy to have it.

Winter is Coming

They can’t all be bangers. I am a fan of most of the Season 3 changes, but this modification to Winter is Coming is a little bit disappointing. There’s good and bad here, but overall I preferred the original, I think. Time will tell.

Ok so first of all, the effect has changed substantially. Winter is Coming used to grant charge rerolls and the first effect. Replacing the charge rerolls (which were redundant with Devastating Impact and part of the old effect of The North Remembers) with another effect, and making it modal with a choice between the two options or both with control of Horses is a great change.

The problem I have with it personally is the trigger. It used to trigger before rolling Charge dice, which did mean that a failed charge with Winter is Coming would mean a wasted card. The old trigger also stepped on Devastating Impact, which was a common problem and frequent complaint. But because it triggered before the charge actually happened, the effect - preventing enemies from being the target of friendly Orders or Tactics cards this turn - was active for the entirety of the charge action.

In other words: the card used to prevent Set for Charge from functioning, and now it doesn’t.

Winter is Coming still punches through Shield Wall, switches off Resilience, and prevents a whole host of defensive cards from functioning (The Shield of the Realms of Men, What is Dead May Never Die, and Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken just to name a select few), but now Set for Charge slips past the net. This is actually very thematically appropriate (Cavalry charges in real warfare certainly couldn’t just ignore pikes, after all) but it is a significant nerf to the card’s effect.

On the other hand, adding another source of attacking with maximum Attack Die values does make the charge more punchy, so in situations where switching off a defensive order is not necessary or you know your opponent doesn’t have a card to play, that extra damage is probably pretty nice. Overall, this is easier to play than it used to be, but the trigger change does hurt its power level a little bit. The degree to which this matters will vary depending on the relative rarity of Set for Charge in your local meta.

Winter’s Might

Last (and arguably least), Winter’s Might is also unchanged from the previous season. Unlike its cousin Northern Ferocity, this melee attack buff doesn’t really add much that the Stark faction can’t already get from unit choices. Adding Sundering isn’t something to sneeze at, of course - Winter’s Might and a flank charge enabled by an Arya token or Swift Reposition makes 3+ armor save units more than a little bit nervous. When you compare its overall effect to Ferocity, though, it just comes up a little bit short. That being said, it’s an important enabler for the Stark units that improve their offensive abilities when they’re down ranks, and re-rolls are great when you get them. It’s just not as good with the Direwolves without setup the way Ferocity is, since they all have Sundering already, and this provides them with no bonus at all when charging. Honestly this might be the worst card in the Stark deck, and that’s saying something because it’s still fine, if unexciting.

Commanders

Each Stark commander brings something unique to the table between their specific Tactics cards and their character attachment. All but three Stark commanders saw at least some changes with Season 3, but I will cover them all here anyway just for the sake of completeness.

Brynden Tully, the Blackfish

Not much changed with the Blackfish, just a minor buff to the War Cry card that gives the target both tokens if it’s played when Brynden’s unit activates. This is still pretty bad, frankly - War Cry as a card only provides an effect when a unit activates, which generally you want to do as late as possible in the round (with obvious exceptions). On top of that, the unit has to pass a morale test for the card to do anything at all. It’s just not good, there’s no other way to say it.

Refuse to Yield is fine, but it isn’t a game-winner. This is the sort of incremental/minor effect that sometimes denotes that one of a commander’s cards is absolutely cracked (see Howland Reed’s Bog Devil Ambush and The Threat Unseen), but alas for Footfish this is not the case. The only thing this does is make Tully Cav’s morale a 4+, or whatever unit Brynden himself is in a likely 3+, and grant a Vulnerable token or two. Not terribly exciting.

Set for Charge is Set for Charge, though. This is a good card, and Sansa means it’s a good card you can play multiple times off a single copy. Is that better than the other options in the faction? Probably not. For my money Brynden was one of the most “in need of work” commanders in House Stark, but got nothing like the kind of attention he needed to see serious play. In terms of playable units that can take advantage of his attachment, Mormont She-Bears are one obvious choice. Their innate War Cry goes to a 4+, which is a good use for Stalwart, and Stand your Ground also makes them really tanky compared to their base stat line. If you’re interested in breaking the game/annoying your opponent, there’s always Stormcrow Dervishes for the rules nightmare of Set for Charge + Swift Strike.

Howland Reed, Lord of the Crannogs

Swamp Dad sees two significant changes. One is a clear buff, the other - we aren’t sure yet. Howland is a skirmishing commander that gets to act on your opponent’s turn a lot. The most synergistic unit with his attachment’s abilities and cards is certainly Bolton Bastard’s Girls.

First, the unchanged card: Bog Devil Ambush. This rules. It is so good. Howland in Bolton Bastard’s Girls can shoot your opponent’s unit on their own turn and then charge them, rolling a big pile of dice and pinning them in place with a still-unactivated unit that has Disrupt and really great Morale. Always bring a second sink for this card in your Howland lists, though - you don’t want it being a dead card if he should somehow die before you’ve played them both.

The Threat Unseen went from being complete garbage to merely a little weak. The effect is unchanged, but the conditions attached to it have been reduced from the unit being

• unengaged
• in long range
• and not in line of sight

to merely in long range and unengaged. That’s fine, it makes the card playable. Cool.

Crannog Traps though - this is either a straight up nerf, or a subtle buff, or a change in its whole purpose depending on future FAQs/rulings. The old version of this card gave the unit that activated -1 move this turn if it was in long range of a friendly Crannogman unit, and you selected a piece of terrain that all enemies treated as having the Dangerous keyword until the end of the round. A unit miles away, or even an NCU activates? That weirwood your other unit is standing on is Dangerous now. The unit standing on the Weirwood activates? Bog Devil Ambush. Are you attacking me, or retreating?

The new effect no longer requires a terrain piece to have an effect (this is a good thing if you are in some benighted realm that plays with randomly selected or placed terrain), but the only actions it can punish are Maneuver, March, and Retreat. So instead of being a chokehold on a unit that’s committed, it is now meant to soften a unit up as it approaches. This is a clear nerf and I hate it, personally. Now there’s still some debate about exactly how this would interact with Cavalry or Solo Rider units - if Crannog Traps deals wounds to those units with their free maneuver, it is very powerful.

If that ends up being the case (via community consensus, a published FAQ update from CMON, or whatever), then Howland stocks are on the rise. Otherwise this is a net nerf, but it does leave the commander still-playable in spite of that on the strength and uniqueness of Bog Devil Ambush.

Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell

Eddard himself sees no changes in Season 3, but he didn’t need them. His Honor Guard picks up Go Down Fighting though which is a bit weird, on account of the fact that they were already very good for a 6 point unit. I can’t think of a list where I’d take Eddard and not bring his Honor Guard. They’re his, after all.

Northern Defiance is an incredibly good card. You hurl Eddard and his Honor Guard forward, they get chopped up good (dealing a ton of damage from their own attacks and now Go Down Fighting in the process), while healing up your other units. At some point they take a Panic test and you slam down Northern Defiance to automatically pass it and hand back 2-3 automatic wounds. Targeting units other than Eddard’s permits Panic test re-rolls (really strong), or grants an automatic pass if the unit is in Short Range of Edd’s. Just an incredible card. Keep in mind that this can help eke out a little bit of sustain in conjunction with the new Rally Banner on Tully Cavaliers by ensuring more morale tests get passed.

Lead by Example is pretty good. Claim Swords and attack with Eddard’s unit, attach Lead by Example to a neighboring combat unit. +1 to Hit is great, and +2 Morale is great. Lasts the whole round, too. This is another card that synergizes with those new Tully Cavaliers. Also has what I consider the best three words in all of gaming on it if you can’t use the effect this round or if Edd’s dead: draw a card.

Fury for the Fallen is just bonkers. This is an out of sequence attack that happens on your opponent’s turn. It has no restrictions on what unit the attack must target (unlike the Sentinel order, for example). Its kicker happens when the defender is destroyed, and it gives Eddard charge and attack rerolls. This card is straight up violent. Recycling it with Sansa is degenerate nonsense. Drew Fury for the Fallen in round 1 when nothing is attacking? Whatever. Toss it, and get it back with Sansa! Opponent triggered Fury for the Fallen for you and you charged them through a bog like it wasn’t even there? Awesome - claim Horses with Sansa and put it back in your hand.

Eddard is a dual use commander that has a lot of play against decks/factions that want to attack your morale, while also having the capacity for terrifying displays of offensive power. His Honor Guard are probably the best 6 point melee unit in the whole game - pair Eddard in there with more elite combat units in a 7 activation list, or go wider with a 9 activation look that is willing to sacrifice a unit here and there to trigger Fury for the Fallen. Just remember that like all commanders whose cards are somewhat “selfish”, Eddard dying early is very bad, and you need to avoid letting it happen.

Greatjon Umber, Lord of Last Hearth

Greatjon Umber has been generally considered to be the best overall Stark commander and honestly, I don’t think he’s going to be dethroned from that position in Season 3. That being said, the whole Stark setup is a little less one-dimensional than it was before, so there’s room for other commanders to make an impact I think without being completely overshadowed by Greatjon’s hyper-aggressive contribution to the Winterfell contingent’s gameplan. Greatjon is best in a very killy unit that either punches above its weight for its points cost - say Bolton Cutthroats, or even Stark Sworn Swords if you are spending your Neutral budget elsewhere - or in a unit that rolls an absolute avalanche of attack dice. Basically if you can potentially score a one-shot kill with its attack +4 wounds, it’s a good option for Greatjon to run around in. Greatjon absolutely loves the new Golden Company Swordsmen, for instance.

Berserker Tactics barely needs an explanation. The trigger timing on this card (after rolling Attack Dice) means you’re making a risk free decision about one-shotting a unit. Berserker Tactics is the go-to solution for solos of all kinds. Anything with less than 7 wounds is probably dead to this card when charged by a healthy Stark unit. The House Umber kicker on the card is fine, but not that important. This card almost single handedly kept Starks semi-competitive through Season 2 after the global nerfs to Hardened and War Cry cut the legs out from under the faction, so I doubt I need to go on at great length about it. One thing to watch for is that relying on Berserker Tactics is a very “all in” way to play. Effects that counter Tactics cards can absolutely ruin you if you run into one without a backup plan, so keep that in mind when you’re running the big man. Lannisters, Rodrik Cassel in a Stark mirror, any Bolton list, or Roose as a neutral commander are just a few examples of things that can trip you up here.

Lash Out is fine. Other people like it a lot more than I do. I find it’s hard to avoid the temptation to hang onto it for a big 4 wound swing but sometimes you just dump it for 2 wounds and move on. It depends on whether there’s a card you haven’t dug up yet, and whether you’re playing Sansa, but sandbagging this and then having your unit that is on 2 ranks get killed outright sucks, so make sure you’re not leaving money on the table and get it played before that happens to you. It’s weirdly strong with Crannogman Trackers, as they’re so physically fragile that getting charged is actually kind of likely to cost them two ranks to begin with. Trackers have also lost Swift Retreat now, so they don’t have an Order that conflicts with Lash Out any more. Keep that in mind!

Last Stand is the third of Greatjon’s cards, and it’s also extremely good. When your cards are all about trading your wounds for the opponents wounds, eventually something on your side of the table is going to die. Last Stand converts that inevitable outcome into a potentially favorable trade. Good units for Last Stand to fire on are Stark Sworn Swords, House Mormont She-Bears, or any other Stark unit that picks up a bunch of abilities while they’re low on ranks. Also on Shaggydog, who attacks with 8 dice when he’s making his Last Stand (he has zero wounds remaining, so that’s +4 dice). A Greatjon enjoyer having Shaggy charge with Northern Ferocity then using Berserker Tactics (which if you’re in the flank is likely to do 7 or 8 wounds against most targets, up to a maximum of 13 on its own) is probably trying to bait you into a Last Stand trade.

Or bluff one, I guess. Heh.

Robb Stark, the Wolf Lord

One of the bigger buffs of the patch, Robb Stark scratches his way out of the basement of the faction with a major glow-up on his attachment, and a single tactics card change. His attachment picked up Enhanced Mobility this season which is just insane, considering it comes at the low low price of free. Speaking of discount goods, Robb also brings the cheapest Direwolf you can get with Starks, since you’re not forced to spend a point for an attachment first before putting Grey Wind in your army. Robb’s harassing playstyle really suits a fast unit, especially if that unit has a built-in mechanism for taking retreat actions. The neutral Stormcrow Dervishes have long been a popular chassis for him, but for my money there’s no better home for Robb than the Starks’ own Crannogman Bog Devils.

What if I told you that you could charge a unit in an opponent’s deployment zone in round 1? Would you think that was cool? Because Robb in Crannogman Bog Devils can definitely do that. With a 10” deployment, there’s only 28” of open ground separating you from your opponent’s squishiest unit. Robb is guaranteed 8” at least on a charge thanks to Enhanced Mobility. That means you only need to come up with 20” of movement for a guaranteed charge on anything in round 1. Tactical Reposition, an Arya Token, and the Horses zone is 17”. Swift Reposition or using Rodrik NCU to refresh Tactical Reposition gets you the rest of the way. Don’t forget, either, that your round 1 deep strike can ignore Hindering terrain thanks to Scout Openings, and you’ll also have Precision when you do it, at a minimum. The other way to get it done is as simple as a march action, an Arya token, and an Assault Orders off of Swords. It’s probably obvious but I really, really like Robb’s attachment in Season 3.

And no, of course it’s not always or even usually a good idea to actually do this, but if you’re going to, a unit that Weakens the defender with their attack and gets a free retreat when hit back seems like an obvious choice for who to do it with, no?

His Tactics cards though are…actually they’re not bad. Superior Positioning is still pretty rough, but it’s at least fairly easy to play, and sometimes it’ll ruin your opponent’s day. Never, ever hold this in your hand. If you don’t get a chance to use it straight up, toss it immediately and keep digging for gas.

Sudden Retreat is also pretty good. It’s a good way to make sure your opponent can’t hammer and anvil your units. It’s particularly solid with Tully Cavaliers, because they just float away and then trample back into your opponent with an absurd pile of 3+ sundering attacks when charged.

Hit and Run, however, is the greatest success story of this rules update. Why? Because it finally grants a retreat whether or not the attacker started the round engaged with the defender. Previously, the free retreat required you to start the round engaged, which was inconsistent with other versions of the same card found on at least one other commander in the game and a constant source of major personal frustration for me. This is a massive buff. Again, heavy handed Tully Cavaliers benefit most: they will be able to use this card on an end of the round charge to tee off a second time on the top of the following round. There are very few targets in the game that can eat two lance charges and not fall over. It’s also great with Bog Devils, Trackers, or any other fast-moving unit you might choose, to try and draw the enemy out into making a positional error.

Robb is a big winner in this patch in my opinion, possibly second only to Maege Mormont in terms of “most improved”. Whether or not he is competitive versus all of the other factions or becomes a mainstay tournament choice I can’t say, but he went from trash to very playable with two simple changes.

Rodrik Cassel, Master-at-Arms

Rowdy Roddy Cassel has always interested me, but too many of his cards had the “does nothing without setup” problem for me to really give him a serious look. The Season Two nerf to War Cry made House Stark’s token generation very weak overall, which was a serious strike against a commander who had two cards that did essentially nothing without some spare condition tokens lying around. The other thing that was holding Rodrik back in my opinion was the lack of a truly good unit for him to exist in. All of the cheaper Stark units hit on 4+, and that’s not a recipe for success with Boldness and Courage. Actually most of the Stark 6 point units hit on 4+ too, apart from Mormont Bruisers. The Bruisers are bad, though, and on top of being badly statted for their cost they don’t actually drop tokens to feed Rodrik’s cards. No, the units Rodrik wants to go in are the ones that make multiple attacks (Bolton Bastard’s Girls) or some kind of Spears unit or the oft-maligned Stark Bowmen.

As to his Tactics cards: Combat Prowess doesn’t put out more damage, but it is a pretty strong control effect in a faction that usually doesn’t get them. This is similar to A Flayed Man Has No Secrets, in that it cashes in a condition token to cancel an enemy effect. The difference is that the Bolton/Neutral card can cancel effects that target any unit, while Combat Prowess is enemies only, and Combat Prowess must remove the token from the targeted enemy. So Rodrik wants a whole pile of token generation if he’s going to get his job done. It also has an additional mode that can just remove a Condition token from a unit. This is not often the best value for the card, but sometimes peeling off a Weakened token can net a couple extra wounds, which may be enough to turn a combat your way.

Martial Superiority used to require you to spend a Vulnerable token, but it always gave -1 to hit to the attacker plus the temporary Counterstrike effect. This was the source of some pretty funny meme lists where some combination of Syrio Forel, Howland Reed, and Grey Wind would team up to create situations where a unit with Counterstrike (Rickon and Osha in whatever, Mormont Bruisers, etc) would deal 2 hits back to an attacker for every miss. Funny, but not particularly good, and difficult to set up because without a Vulnerable token, it just did nothing at all. The Season Three version of the card removes the requirement of a Condition token, but now only grants -1 to hit when Rodrik’s unit is the Defender. This change recalibrates the sort of unit that Rodrik really wants to be in, at least a little bit - Counterstrike + Disrupt on a card is big business, and it’s a shame to be unable to play it if Rodrik is standing in the backline of your army.

Rodrik’s last card - Press the Advantage - used to be absolute trash. Now, it’s really good. Previously you needed a specific type of token on the target for each effect. A Weakened token would strip abilities, a Vulnerable token would grant +1 to hit, and a Panicked token would grant the attacker its highest attack die value. Now, you just get one of these, no strings attached. For each token - of any type - you pick one more.

I mentioned some ranged units earlier, but do you know what the real best vehicle for Rodrik might be? Yeah, it’s Golden Company Swordsmen. Rodrik in the newly anointed “best infantry unit in the game” (they’re actually not “the best”, but they are damn good) is a holy terror from the point of view of your opponent’s Golden Company Swordsmen. Their ridiculous hammer of a unit charges Rodrik, and activates Adaptive Style? No, remove a condition token and instead we’ll just cancel that Order. On the start of the Stark players turn, Rodrik’s Mark Target puts a Vulnerable token on the enemy Golden Company Swords before activating to hit them back. Press the Advantage and Adaptive Style then team up to put a horrific beating on the enemy’s battlecruiser unit, stripping away whatever abilities they might have left.

This also maximizes the effect of Martial Superiority by creating situations where -1 to hit and maybe a Weakened token combine to turn a Lance charge into 6 or 7 hits going the other way.

Also, don’t sleep on the combination of Rodrik as your commander and Eddard Stark, Hand of the King. With Eddard’s influence on an enemy unit and a copy of Combat Prowess in your hand, that unit is basically dead if you can hit it a couple times. No healing or token removal from zones or NCUs. Any important Order or Tactics card? Canceled. Add Sansa to recur those Combat Prowesses, and season to taste with a third NCU of your choice. Yeah, Rodrik is some good now. I look forward to trying him out.

Brynden Tully, Outrider Commander

Starks offer one of three commanders in the game with a Cavalry attachment. He hasn’t changed at all in season 3 and I am going to be honest, until we see the House Umber cavalry unit’s cost and stat line, I think Horsefish is not really worth a look as a competitive commander. He is, however, super fun, and the buffs to Bloody Mummer Zorse Riders give him a serious option for another 6 point Cav unit besides the unexciting but workmanlike Stark Outriders.

The issue that Horsefish has right now is that all of his Tactics cards are focused on Cavalry, so taking a non-Cav unit is kind of inefficient. That’s not in and of itself a problem, but it does mean that list building for him is pretty much on rails: Brynden in Outriders, Zorse Riders, Tully Cav, Tully Cav, and 12 points of NCUs. What he needs to break out of that lane is a strong, in-faction 7 point Cavalry unit. That will avoid the problem of stacking two Rally Banner auras and open up the option to put an attachment in one of your Cav trays, or pick a 5 point NCU like Tycho or Eddard Stark, Hand of the King. Alternatively, there’s a way to build an 8 activation Horsefish list if you’re willing to put a Direwolf in it and take Robb Stark, King in the North as one of your NCUs. This setup creates the space for a single 5 point Infantry unit which seems to me like a good place to stick some Crannogman Trackers. 8 activations might make up for the inefficiencies of the commander’s cards not buffing the Wolf or the Crannogmen.

Brynden’s attachment goes best in Outriders, because with Sentinel and Swift Retreat, he can take a “free” charge, then retreat if attacked and do it again while only activating once. Elusive Escape makes that retreat extremely powerful, leaving the enemy unable to pivot and Weakened in the bargain.

Ride-By Attack is a source of automatic wounds and an impossible to truly counter positional tool. It allows you to declare and execute a pivot and a march - even if engaged - which has some pretty obvious uses, such as marching directly through an enemy tray, or across the corner of it and into a flanking position. As an extra bonus, you deal automatic wounds equal to the units remaining ranks + 1, which is honestly just icing on an already appealing cake.

Ride Them Down is for punishing cowards that run from you, the overzealous that march too close, or the slippery that try and maneuver around you. Adding a Panic token and 4 automatic hits to a free Charge is a good deal. You want to use this with Brynden’s Outriders mainly, as their attack is only good for 4 or 5 hits anyway.

Marshal gives your Cav some extra sustain. It’s a good followup after a Ride By Attack the previous round: Ride By into a flank, Marshal to heal 3 wounds, and charge again to finish off your weakened opponent.

Anyway, I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for details on the Umber cavalry that have been teased a bit this year. If they are serviceable 7 pointers, a lot of things open up for this commander, no doubt.

Maege Mormont, Lady of Bear Island

What is Hibernating Never Dies? Sure, let’s do it.

Mage used to be without a doubt the worst commander in this faction. I mean it was not even close. Sustained Assault was a universally reviled card, as its old effect bordered on entirely worthless. Here We Stand was a completely different card that would prevent a unit from being destroyed for a whole round as long as you kept passing Morale tests, but didn’t actually prevent you from losing it at the end of the day. Support of Bear Island was the same, but the other two cards and Maege’s commander attachment (also unchanged) were so bad that nobody really bothered to pick her.

I personally think that is about to change.

So nothing at all changed with Maege’s commander attachment. She still has Battle Scars, and Battle Scars still has the problem of being an ability that your opponent can choose to ignore by not attacking your unit. Because Battle Scars requires you to get hit before it winds up, she wants to be in a unit that can shrug off those hits, but ideally doesn’t already have Vicious or Sundering. She also synergizes well with Stark units that have scarier attacks at low ranks, since if she can get to the third Order of Battle Scars, they’re going to hit like Mack trucks. Again though - your opponent will know this, and thus should be trying to avoid attacking her unless they think she will die in one or two swings.

I am going to leave Here We Stand until last, because I think we need the context of Maege’s other two cards before moving on to talking about why this card is absolutely cracked for House Stark. We’ll start, instead, with Support of Bear Island. This is Supply Aid, by another name, with a little bonus Weakened token if either the unit you put wounds on or pull wounds off is a House Mormont unit. Supply Aid has always been a strong effect, but on its own it wasn’t enough to put Maege in your army. How good an effect like Supply Aid is will always depend on the context in which it exists. Factions that have free chip heals (access to Rally Cry, for instance) love them some Supply Aid. Factions that have combat units that degrade very well - or not at all, even - that can work from long range also love Supply Aid, or effects like it. Raiding Call was a staple for Greyjoys before Season Three (and in fairness, will remain one going forward even though it’ll be less overtly powerful) because the old version of Ironborn Bowmen didn’t start dropping Attack Dice until they were down to only a single rank remaining.

Until Season Three, House Stark did not have a unit that was a good source of wounds to donate for a card like Supply Aid. But we do now, and they’re called Crannogman Trackers. Trackers having Mark Target and Hidden Traps is absolutely a buff to Support of Bear Island. 2-4 hits with a Vulnerable token comes out of these guys each round there’s a valid target in Long range whether they’re on 12 wounds or 1. That means they meet the criteria of a unit that is effective at range and degrades well. Add to that the change to The North Remembers giving a tiny bump to shooting in Starks, and this unit slots right in to a Maege list, supporting their comrades with donated wounds, by softening up targets to be charged and killed by the heavier hitters in the army, or by - in a pinch - firing 7 shots into a flank to maybe secure a kill.

Sustained Assault used to be absolutely awful. You gained very little for playing it, and it did more or less nothing at all unless you were already losing the combat. The new design is a lot better, because it doesn’t care if your target has more ranks than you, only that you started the turn Engaged. So, Assault Orders charge, Sustained Assault the following turn is a nice play. Get charged, then Sustained Assault the following turn is a nice play. It’s an OK card; not amazing, but it’s much better than it was before. Also, this card is part of the reason why I think that Karstark Spearmen are the clear-cut best unit for the Lady of Bear Island to operate in. If your opponent does decide to charge Maege in Spears, you can punish them severely with a Support of Bear Island to top her back up, then activate to slam them in the face with Hold the Line, and throw Sustained Assault into it to make sure it stings even more. She’ll also have at least Vicious after that first Charge, which is nice.

Finally, let’s talk about Here We Stand. Here We Stand is basically handing Starks What is Dead May Never Die. What is Dead May Never Die - for House Greyjoy - is a reactive card, that the heaps of healing the Greyjoy faction can generate will sometimes turn a surely dead unit into a fully healthy unit, undoing a pile of an opponent’s hard work. Starks at first glance don’t seem to have the healing support to truly take advantage of an effect like this, but there are some key differences that it’s important to unpack.

First - the trigger. Here We Stand triggers at the start of a friendly turn, and attaches to a unit. When the unit would be destroyed, you may discard it, and if you do, it’s not destroyed but hangs out on 1 Wound instead. At first glance, this seems like it might be harder to use than the reactive What is Dead May Never Die - and in one sense, that’s true. You do have to plan ahead with Here We Stand, and put it on a unit that you think is going to die before it actually does die.

So put it on Shaggydog, first of all. That’s the obvious thing. Put it on Shaggydog and recklessly hurl him at your opponent until he mulches something. Very straightforward, very easy, very strong even without a bunch of hoops to jump through on setup.

But what if you also are playing Sansa? Well, that would mean that each time that unit would die, the card is discarded, and you can just pick it up and replay it with Sansa. I don’t know about you, but even if it’s a little fiddly (as in your opponent will have a window in there to maybe kill the unit a second time) a soft lock in a game like this seems pretty damn powerful.

Now what if you draw them both? You can definitely attach them both to the same unit - Night’s Watch players do it all the time. The card’s effects, having the same name, don’t stack. But when Here We Stand is triggered, you may discard it. So you discard one of them, and keep the other. Your unit has to be killed two more times before it’s getting removed from play. That might be enough of a buffer to Sansa the first copy back and replay it.

Yeah. Potentially extremely hard to deal with. I am really looking forward to seeing people’s Maege builds, and I have tried a few myself already to really encouraging results.

Rickard Karstark, Lord of Karhold

Rickard was a commander I had a bit of fun with in Season 2, as a way to take a break from Greatjon and Eddard. Unfortunately, I think the global change to Taunt essentially killed him as a real competitive option in Starks.

His attachment is more than decent, and prior to the dawn of the Golden Company, Rickard in Umber Greataxes was a really cool way to cut holes in opposing heavy cavalry. Handing out the Karstark affiliation is important for two of his three cards to have their maximum impact. Fueled by Slaughter is in my experience vastly underpriced when it’s on a commander, and it synergizes with Superior Numbers by healing his unit up to benefit from the latter ability’s rerolls.

A Need for Vengeance is another name for Careless Aggression, with a +1 to Hit bonus if the attacker is a Karstark unit. Pretty powerful, but like all versions of this effect it can be disastrous if you don’t actually net a kill with it. It’s best used when you’re player 1 and had the last activation of the previous round, or actively want your opponent to take actions before you and for whatever reason don’t care what they are. So if you are playing 7 activations with Rickard into an opponent with 7 activations, and nobody has really taken any serious damage, you might throw out Careless Aggression when your opponent is Player 1 so that if your opponent does choose to activate an NCU “for free”, you’ll net the final two activations of the current round and the first activation of the next. It’s not easy to use well, because two back to back actions for your opponent can be hard to deal with, but sometimes it’s worth it.

Karstark Retribution is a rare source of healing in Starks. This card is a lot better when it gets the “Karstark” kicker, so Rickard is a commander that you do want to seriously have a look at his subfaction in list building. Basically sticking this to a unit you’re going to-to-toe with means that unit is going to struggle to win the war of attrition. If it’s Rickard’s unit fighting something with Karstark Retribution on it, that thing is sooner or later going to be very dead, thanks to the healing from Fueled by Slaughter, the additional healing from Retribution, and the rerolls that’s probably generating thanks to Superious Numbers.

Taunt is - it’s sad, now. I know that a lot of folks are really glad Taunt was changed, because the Order was either unplayable or totally broken, depending on the context, but for my money it’s a big net nerf to Rickard. The new Taunt gives your opponent far too many choices for far too middling an effect to be good. It’s in the same level of mediocre as War Cry as a tactics card. The way it used to work could break a game open for Rickard’s team. Forcing a unit to charge some Karstark Spears with Rickon and Osha in there was silly, and often ended well for team Ricky.

Wrapping it Up

I was going to include a breakdown of the units that changed this patch in the faction, but the important ones I’ve already touched on: we got some NCU discounts that are welcome on Eddard Stark, Hand of the King and Robb Stark, King in the North. Eddard’s Honor Guard got a minor buff they didn’t actually need and are still among the best 6 point infantry in the game. A change to Tully Cavaliers converted them from a way to mitigate Panic damage for your army to a small amount of sustain from healing when passing morale tests. Crannogman Trackers got a substantial buff in the form of Mark Target. Stark Bowmen got marginally better, but are still probably not “good”, elevated - at most - to role-player status in certain Rodrik Cassel lists that want to abuse Press the Advantage for 2+ to hit ranged attacks.

The very basic TL;DR of all this? House Stark got better. I can’t say how much, because so much changed everywhere else in the game, but they are unequivocally a better faction now than they were through 2021 Season 1 and Season 2. There are meaningful choices to be made between a half dozen commanders instead of two. That’s a huge improvement. The base deck suffers much less from an overloaded “before rolling Charge distance dice” trigger, and our “revenge” or “quest” card got a buff that while seemingly minor finally adds one card to the Stark suite of attack tools that does not require a charge or a melee attack to function. Maege and Robb probably went from borderline unplayable to serious contenders. I cannot stress this enough: Robb having Enhanced Mobility for free is absolutely ridiculous. Giving Starks - who are notoriously good at cracking back at you from 2 wounds with 7 dice, rerolls, hitting on 2s, with Crit Blow and Vicious - a version of What is Dead May Never Die that they can recur with a commonly played NCU is incredibly powerful. The change to Crannogman Trackers make what was already quietly the winningest unit in the faction even better.

Things are looking good for Direwolf enthusiasts, let me tell you.

PEACE
Craig