Update 6:
Another great Break the Siege battle report from Le Bar à Théo:
Update 5:
Massive update. Every single castle was looked at and almost all were changed to better differentiate between various point costs. 3 point legendary castles are similar to the generic castle wall with long range special abilities or abilities that trigger after the castle wall has been attacked or destroyed. 4 point castle walls have more powerful abilities that can sometimes reach across the battlefield. 5 point castle walls are very defensive, basically extreme mode for the attacker.
Seven new castle walls/cities were also added: The Twins, Moat Cailin, White Harbor, Lannisport, Ashemark, the Golden Tooth, and Oldtown.
Update 4:
Added High Hermitage and the Dreadfort (House Bolton).
Update 3:
Added Last Hearth, Ten Towers & Hellholt.
Update 2:
The guys over at Le Bar à Théo have filmed an awesome Break the Siege battle report. The report looks incredible with amazing graphics that make it super easy to track everything happening in the game. I was also able to use auto-generated English subtitles that worked very well. It's extremely cool to watch other people play Break the Siege and see that my ideas are working as intended.
I talked briefly with Thierry from Le Bar à Théo to help with some rules questions before the game. I thought it would be helpful to post a short FAQ that answers the questions I've received from various players.
Break the Siege FAQ
How should I align with the Castle Wall after a Successful Charge?
You may place your unit tray anywhere touching the Castle Wall after a Successful Charge. The unit tray must be able to align with at least 50% of its tray in contact with the Castle Wall. If the unit is unable to align at least 50% of its tray in contact with the Castle Wall due to enemy Combat Units or terrain, then they are unable to Charge the Castle Wall and a Charge cannot be declared.
If another Attacker Successfully Charges the Castle Wall, the unit(s) already engaged with the Castle Wall may realign so that all units have at least 50% of their tray in contact with the Castle Wall. No more than 3 units may be engaged with a Castle Wall at one time.
Can I target a Castle Wall with a Ranged Attack even when Line of Sight to the Castle Wall is being blocked by Combat Units/terrain?
Yes. When using a Ranged Attack against a Castle Wall only range matters, not Line of Sight.
What are the terrain rules for Break the Siege?
Break the Siege can be played without terrain. If both players would like to use terrain, follow the terrain placement rules of the Fire & Blood game mode with the additional rule that terrain must be placed at least 12" away from the Castle Walls.
Does a unit Surge Forth after destroying a Castle Wall?
No. Castle Walls are not units and do not grant the Surge Forth ability when destroyed. After the Attack is completed, the Attacking unit remains in place. The unit must make a separate Maneuver action to move away from the destroyed Castle Wall (you may pivot through the destroyed Castle Wall to move away from it).
Does the Castle Wall's Arrows Ranged Attack get Flank or Rear bonuses?
Yes. Measuring from the Defenders tray, if the Flank or Rear arc of the Defenders tray is predominantly facing Castle Wall, the Arrows Ranged Attack gets those bonuses. If this measurement does not clearly show which arc is facing the Castle Wall, always select the arc that will do the least damage to the Defending unit (Front over Flank, Front over Rear, Flank over Rear).
How do abilities that utilize enemy ranks interact with Castle Walls?
Castle Walls are considered to have 0 ranks for all abilities, so abilities like the Frozen Shore Chariot's Deadly Impact and the dragons Fire abilities get 0 extra dice.
If a Castle Wall has a once per game Ability and I have 2 Castle Walls in my army, how many times can I use that once per game Ability?
Twice (one time for each Castle Wall in your army).
If a Castle Wall is destroyed, does it still count as a Castle Wall for Abilities and effects?
Yes.
Update 1:
Added Sunspear & Starfall.
Development
After playing my most recent monstrous battle story, I was unsatisfied with how the 2 castle walls functioned. The Free Folk were supposed to be attacking the Wall, the legendary structure built by Bran the Builder to keep evil supernatural forces out of Westeros, but it felt the same as every other castle wall in all the siege scenarios I’ve done.
I threw together a Night’s Watch castle wall card (without speed, morale, and armor stats) and designed special rules and abilities to better reflect what makes the Wall so unique and cool. I quickly realized, just like with House Arryn, that I couldn’t help but go all out and design cards for a bunch of other legendary castles of Westeros. That led to Break the Siege.
Break the Siege is a custom game mode that’s the result of all the siege mechanics I’ve developed over the years for my narrative scenarios. When considering what elements of a siege I hoped to embody in the game, I really wanted to create a strategic standoff. The castle walls should be vital to the strategy, but not essential to winning the game for either side. I wanted it to be challenging for the attacker, but still balanced and fun for both players.
This article will discuss the rules, custom siege units, and legendary castle walls you will find in the Break the Siege document.
The Siege Warfare rule was something I developed almost 2 years ago when I was creating scenarios for the Siege of Storm’s End, the Siege of Casterly Rock, and the Sack of Highgarden. The idea came from a simple premise: both armies should be fighting over something other than just the castle walls as it’s too easy for the defender to throw-up a combat unit barricade and turtle. I know the Long Night episode of Game of Thrones and Hollywood movies have made fighting outside castle walls during a siege a meme, but since this is a tabletop game I decided to put more emphasis on fun gameplay than historical accuracy.
With Siege Warfare (which was originally a longer rule that has been split into Siege Warfare and Supply Line) most of the fighting will take place in the center of the battlefield. The siege strategy cards you get to draw from controlling the center token are pretty ridiculous having been unchanged since the Kickstarter and clearly developed for a different version of the game. That being said, I think it’s better to use stuff people already own instead of custom cards that they would have to print. I also enjoy the drama of big, unexpected swings in momentum so I like that the cards are powerful. Yet even with the bonus of drawing the strong siege cards, the defender still would have been wise to keep almost all their troops back. This led to the creation of the Blockade and Reinforcements special rules.
The core castle wall rules remain unchanged with one exception: attackers can now target castle walls with their ranged attack to do 1 wound against the wall. I wanted the attackers to be able to incorporate ranged units like archers and the stone thrower into their strategy to make it feel more like a true siege (some historical accuracy is okay). I thought this was a good compromise. It’s true that you could bring 2 or 3 stone throwers and just sit in the corner and blast the castle walls, but if that’s the case, the defender can dominate the center of the board and activate the Reinforcements rule or hunt down the slow siege weapons (especially if they have a few cavalry units).
The main weakness of castle walls are auto-wounds, so defenders need to focus on giants and dragons (which is pretty accurate to the lore). Remember that castle walls do not have ranks, so certain abilities are much less effective against them.
The most difficult part of designing this game mode was finding the right balance for in-game scoring and costing castle walls. In the Storm of Swords game mode, the 3 castle walls cost 0-points and are worth 5 victory points when destroyed. This is balanced by having the defender hold half their combat units out until Round 3. I’m not a huge fan of holding off units or returning destroyed units, so my workaround was to give each castle wall segment a points cost. They are an activation, so I knew they should cost at least 3 points (though Varamyr’s Shadowcat threw a wrench into my thinking). They obviously are static, so if the attacker chooses they will have no influence on combat except as an extra activation to force the attacker to move first (as well as some legendary castles’ special abilities which have no range).
In the end, the points cost tied into the in-game scoring. I originally had the castle walls be worth more when destroyed and only worth 1 victory point when they survived until Round 6, but instead I made them worth less when destroyed (D3+1 VPs with a possible re-roll for the attacker), worth more when they survive (2 VPs), and changed the victory condition so that both castle walls must be destroyed to table the defender. These changes made the castle walls worth 3 or 4 points (really 6 or 8 points total). It also forced more diverse strategic list building and in-game strategy for both players, really differentiating this game mode from all the others.
For the rest of the article I'll discuss the custom units and legendary castles.
The Lannister Trebuchet is inspired by the Three Whores Joffrey Baratheon commands during the Battle of the Blackwater. The trebuchets are loaded with the severed heads of Stannis loyalists and launched over the walls to intimidate the Baratheon forces. That tied in perfectly with the games panic mechanic, so I designed these to be an on the field Melisandre.
I thought a Wildfire Trebuchet would be really cool, plus it tied in with a previous ‘what if?’ scenario I created. Working on its rules made me really appreciate the designers as I wanted to add so much extra text, but I was restricted by the limited space on the card. The 4 Wildfire Terrain pieces will completely alter how your opponent deploys and maneuvers their army. You also don’t have to get any hits against the unit you target to put out the Wildfire terrain, so you are guaranteed to put out 4 dangerous and horrific terrain pieces per game. I’ve had fun the few times I’ve playtested it, but it’s definitely better saved for casual/narrative play.
The Free Folk Turtle is mentioned in A Storm of Swords, so I thought it would be a great addition. It's maybe not totally necessary as the Free Folk already have giants, but a lot of the legendary castles don't auto-wound the engaged attacker like the original castle walls, so a savvy defender can really neutralize a giant's attack by ignoring it. I thought about adding a Stark battering ram as well (which is used during the Storming of the Crag), but I couldn’t find artwork that I was happy with. Maybe I’ll add it in the future.
Generic Castle Wall / Free Folk
I did a quick redesign of the official castle wall card and added 2" of range to the Tar & Pitch ability. The very first design for the castle wall was actually on a Neutrals card:
But they changed this preliminary look to a generic black card by release.
Since the Free Folk have no coin beyond the wall to hire Neutrals (or build castles), I made their legendary fort very similar to the generic castle wall.
Neutrals
Harrenhal’s ability may seem very powerful, but remember that it only activates once your opponent has already scored D3+1 victory points.
The Dreadfort ties-in with the Bolton’s panic focus. The Flayed Skins rule honors the old Bolton tradition of hanging the skins of their enemies upon the battlements to deter any attackers.
Starks
The castle walls I designed are either very famous castles (like Winterfell or Casterly Rock) or tie-in to a narrative scenario I’ve made (such as Deepwood Motte). And yes, I know that's an image of Ironrath from the Telltale Game. Artwork for Deepwood Motte and some of the other castles was scarce.
I made Winterfell only 6 wounds since it's been captured during the story (by a very small Greyjoy force) and doesn’t have any very famous defensive features like some of the other castles. On the plus side, you have the insanely strong Winter Storm ability which you may utilize 2 times per castle wall segment, so 4 times per game (as long as a castle wall segment isn’t destroyed before the ability is used).
Riverrun is a good example of how I’ll be able to use castle wall cards to add more flavor to narrative siege scenarios and remove some convoluted stuff from the Special Rules section. For example, in the Battle of the Camps scenario I was able to remove the bogs around the castle wall as this card’s ability will replace the bog's role as the waters surrounding the castle.
Lannisters
The Crag was added because of the Storming of the Crag scenario, one of the first I created. I also like how ASOIAF:TMG visualizes some of the more obscure stuff from the book, and the Crag would definitely fall under that category.
King’s Landing was the second castle wall I designed as I originally thought I might add them to my 2 huge ‘cinematic’ scenarios, Battle of Blackwater Bay and Watchers on the Wall.
Casterly Rock is one of my favorite castle designs and I really love this artwork from Ted Nasmith. Since the castle is considered pretty much unassailable in the lore, I designed it to suffer 1 wound for every 3 hits (instead of the typical 2). That, coupled with its healing ability, make it extremely difficult to take down. Its weakness will be ranged units and auto-wound abilities.
Night’s Watch
Castle Black is not really a defensive structure, which is reflected in its low wound count. What Castle Black does have is the Builders, who can repair damage during a battle. Castle Black also gives the Night's Watch more healing (which they definitely need).
The Wall inspired this whole idea and I wanted to reflect the sense of awe about it. Since this is a 5 point castle wall the Night’s Watch force will be forced to scale down, reflecting their dwindling numbers. Maybe in the future I’ll make a Horn of Joramun Attachment so that Mance Rayder can bring the Wall down from across the table.
Baratheons
These were some of the most fun to design because of the loyalty mechanic. Storm’s End is the general Baratheon castle, available to both Stannis and Renly, while Dragonstone is Stannis only. Highgarden is another castle whose abilities allowed me to reimagine scenarios like the Sack of Highgarden and hopefully make them more user friendly.
Targaryens
Meereen was fun to design because most of Dany's enemies are inside the walls. While there are drawbacks, note that you could possibly dish out 12 wounds over the course of the game (from both castle wall segments combined) to any unit on the table, including solos. It also modifies how your opponent will play the tactics board.
Greyjoys
Pyke was famously besieged and conquered, but it did take a powerful coalition led by King Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark to breach its walls. Hopefully they'll release Thoros of Myr soon so I can make a Siege of Pyke historical custom scenario.
I didn’t add the House Arryn castle walls to the Break the Siege document since it’s not an official faction. Instead, I added the Bloody Gate, Gates of the Moon, Waycastles, and Eyrie to the Attack the Vale document.
Please let me know how if you try out the game mode, the siege units, or any of the legendary castle walls. I love to hear suggestions for improvements or what you’d like to see next.