A Song of Ice and Fire: House Bolton

I received my A Song of Ice and Fire Miniatures Game kickstarter pledge a few weeks ago, and so far I've played two battles against grownups (a few against my 4yo son though) and painted the House Bolton forces.

Here are some characters you might recognize.  First up are Ramsay Snow and Reek.

The gameplay is really smooth and definitely elevates the good traits of rank & flank combat games while ditching a lot of excess baggage that could have otherwise made it more of a slog.  So far, I'm most excited about the Boltons (which is why I've painted them first!).  The Hand of the King pledge came with the Bolton Bastard's Girls (mixed archers and hounds) and Flayed Men (heavy cavalry).  I added on a unit of Bolton Cutthroats so that I could have a bit more variation in my forces.

Here's Varys.  He's a Non-combat Unit (NCU).  Song of Ice and Fire has a 'tactics board' that NCUs can claim spaces on to represent wheeling and dealing off the battlefield.  Many characters have an NCU and a combat version, like Eddard Stark or Roose Bolton (below Varys) for example.

To paint my Boltons, I decided to do a pink that would look a little bit like flayed flesh.  I'm doing speed painting for my Song of Ice and Fire stuff (because I've got 5 units each of Stark and Lannister and then a ton of characters), so it's very table quality, but I could always fill in some extra detail later if I want.  The pink is Cadian Fleshtone, Carroburgh Crimson, and a drybrush of Screaming Skull.  Metals are Leadbelcher with Nuln Oil wash, and the basing is just Stirland Mud with a drybrush of Karak Stone (plus some GF9 static grass).

The guy on the right is a kickstarter exclusive alt sculpt of the Bolton Lieutenant (I think that's what he's called?).

and the guy on the right here is the regular Bolton Lieutenant sculpt.

Below are the Bolton Cutthroats, Flayed Men, and Bolton Bastard's Girls.  One neat thing about this game is the movement trays.  They have notches on the corners for checking line of sight and charge arc, as well as a little arrow in the center of the tray for measuring ranges.

Infantry units always have 3 ranks of 4 models, and the unit degrades as it loses ranks.  Cavalry do the same thing, but with 2 ranks of 2 models.  Also, so far, each of the cavalry units they've released thus far has 3 wounds per model.

The Bolton Bastard's Girls makes good use of this mechanic by having mixed archers and hounds.  You can organize the models however you want on the tray, it doesn't matter what specifically gets removed, the unit card just checks how many partial ranks remain.

I'll try to get gameplay pictures during my next battle so I can post a battle report.