House Baratheon of Dragonstone Expansion
- Shane
- Jul 18
- 3 min read
Finally, the Mannis gets his due. The House Baratheon of Dragonstone faction expands on the Loyalty: Stannis side of the Baratheons, keeping all the units and characters he had access to previously while introducing new units, attachments, NCUs, and commanders that expand on the faith of R’hllor, vassals of Dragonstone, and Stannis' exploits in the chilly north. This idea was initially inspired by the awesome artwork of the Driftmark Defenders from ASOIAF: Tactics. Truly, I was bummed at the thought they'd be released as Targ units. My Driftmark fights for Stannis, the Greens and Blacks be damned. So, as I tend to do, I created a whole faction.
This will be quite a bit shorter than my Ghiscari article because a good portion of the faction is simply re-skins of official releases. That being said, there's lots of stuff in the House Baratheon of Dragonstone faction document that I'm not showing here, including additional new commanders, so please check it out:
Also, please check out the Ghiscari article for notes on balance and artwork, as I get those questions often. Below I’lll preview a select few of the new units and characters.
CAPE WRATH SMUGGLERS: Ser Davos has been taking the men of Cape Wrath to smuggler school, and now they can help Stannis sneak his way onto the Iron Throne. This unit is all about its support abilities, very helpful to players who can leverage them into a big play to save a heavy hitter.
RED PRIESTS OF R’HLLOR: I discussed in the Ghiscari article that I don’t really like solo Infantry units like Freedmen or Drowned Men, so that’s why I created this more traditional unit based around the Red Priests. It’s a flight of fancy inspired by ideas from the books, like Pyromancers.
NORTHERN MOUNTAINS CLANS: I love Stannis’ adventures in the north and I wanted to be able to play games depicting every arduous step. I’ll likely make a Stark version of this unit in the future, but for now, the important thing for the mountain clans is not who they’re fighting alongside, but that they’re fighting against Boltons.
DRIFTMARK DEFENDERS: ...sigh... they’re so cool. I tried to do them justice by making them a defensive version of Stag Knights, representing the rising waters that protect their stronghold of High Tide.
KNIGHTS OF R’HLLOR: Though their name is a bit of an oxymoron, there’s nothing moronic about Stannis finally having his own cavalry unit. I also don’t love generic rider solo units, so I removed the Dragonstone Noble from the faction and used the art for this unit instead. Once I made that choice, it dictated a higher armor save and point cost for the unit.
ABEL’S SPEARWIVES: When Stannis joins Jon Snow at the Wall, things gets pretty wild, pretty quick, which is the inspiration for a lot of the more unique elements of the faction, including being able to take "Rattleshirt" and Free Folk units in your army. And this unit as well, based around fake Rattleshirt's undercover secret mission with a squad of washer women to rescue fake Arya.
ATTACHMENTS:
COMMANDERS:
NCUs:
TACTICS DECK:
One of the best things about this expansion is that Baratheon players already have most of these models at home, so it’s something that I hope people can get on the table and play with friends.
If you have any comments or suggestions, shoot me a message on the Contact Us page.