ASOIAF Miniature Game
ASOIAF Miniature Game is a new rank and file wargame that's based on A Song of Ice and Fire. Despite being made by a company with a bad miniature system record but good boardgame record, it still manages to be a rather fun game. Also it is based on the book, so they can choose to not copy stupid shit from the show.
It received a resurgence on /tg/ but noone gives a fuck about it on the general. They were some fan-made factions early on (Greyjoy, Yunkai, Tully) but even those people fucked off.
Setting and History
Meh later i'll write condensed fluff
As this is CMON the game began with a [[1]kickstarter], and after that the game has had at least 2 dozen more releases with more factions added. The problem for CMON is, that Asmodeeus does all the distribution and that shit doesn't work. Most units had an initial releases, which prometly sold out, and then 4 months later those units were available again. Fuck that.
Atleast Duncan Rhodes says it is one of his favorites games.
Game Mechanics
ASOIAF is a rank and file system. Unlike Fantasy, you have alternative activation instead of I-Go-U-Go. So player 1 activates a unit, then player 2 untill everything is activated once. A combat unit can do one action generally, which includes pivots, movements, and attacks. The standart movement for example, is pivot, straight movement and then pivot. A march would be double movement and then pivots. Attacks are a number of dice based on ranks against your own accuracy. All hits are saved by the enemy units armour. If you suffer 1 wound, you have to do a panic test with 2d6 against your moral, taking 1 + 1d3 wounds if failed. Now add to all these some unit abilities.
Compared to Fantasy a lot was streamlined and made more fluid. You have a fixed rank size (4 in each row of 3), attack dice are based on number of ranks and health are just model on the bases for most parts Units usually have 1 or 2 abilities, which are normally easy to understand, and either give bonus actions and abilities or more dices/wounds. There is also conditions and shit but you will figure it out.
Now to the unique part: You have two unique aspect: the tactics board and tactics deck.
The tactics board is the political side of the battle. Here non-combat units (females) can influence the board. You have 5 spots, each with a unique ability. These can be healing, taking another attack or movement, forcing panic test and drawing tactics card. This gives another layer of strategy to the game.
The tactics decks are faction specific decks, which around 7 cards + 3 commander specific cards. These cards have bonus effects which can be played from your hand, some of them quite powerful like free movement, better charges or in case of the dirty Free Folk, respawns. A lot of these cards gives better effects, if you control certain spots on the tactics board, which gives another layer of decision making to the game. A big part of your thought process will be dedicated to make the best use of the tactics card in your hands in a turn.
Last point is objective: While killing a unit gives off 1 VP, you need 10 to win a 40 Points game. Most games are therefore played with a scenario.
Models
All characters are unique and for the most part pretty cool looking. Units are made from 12 dudes, with around 4 variataion in model sculpts + 1 Banner. So you have around some samey looks. Cavalry has 4 sculpts. Models are good to amazing and for the most part realistically made. The body are made from PVC, also shitty boardgame plastic but all weapons and fragile is made from normal plastic. So that is okay. Then the Baratheon showed up.
The Factions
Like all game under the sun, you will have different factions and playstyle. While this lead to widely different armament and technology in a unified realm, having all look the same would be stupid as fuck.
As of now there are Stark, Lannister, Night Watch, Free Folk, Neutral, and Baratheon. Greyjoy is the next upcoming faction.
Stark
The simple but honorful citizien of the cold north. These were one of two units introduced in the two-player starter.
As of now they are composed of the Houses Stark, Umber, Reed and Tully. In general you have more cloth and fur wearing units, while the tully side look more similar to knights and shit
Playstyle
Tactics card
Commanders
Lannister
Playstyle
Tactics card
Commanders
Night Watch
Playstyle
Tactics card
Commanders
Free Folk
Playstyle
Tactics card
Commanders
Baratheon
Commanders
Units
Tactics card
Neutral
Playstyle
Tactics card
Commanders
What to buy
There are three sizes: 30 for demo, 40 for normal player, 50 if you have to kill an afternoon. A unit cost between 5-10 points, a NCU about 3-5. A normal list will have between 7-8 Units + NCU in a 40 point game.
So to start off, you want the starter box for your factions. This includes 2 identical units, 2 * 1 another unit, 2 NCU, 2 Commander/Attachement, your tactics card, dices and all you need to play (shitty cardboard terrain). So in total you have 4 units and 2 NCU, clocking in at about 30 points.
If you want to go up to 40 points, another box would suffice. A unit box will just have the unit you want + 1 Attachement generally. Heroes Box usually contain 7 characters, which can be Commanders, NCU or Attachement. I recommend buying both, 1 unit box and 1 heroes box of the faction or neutrals.
Neutrals are the big outliner here, they don't have a starter box, the tactics cards are in Neutral heroes 1.