Some of the long-time readers of this blog may know that I’m a big fan of The Songs of Ice and Fire miniature game and that I play the Targaryan faction. For quite a while this was a high-profile game in my local gaming group to the point that I was writing strategy articles on this site for the game. Unfortunately, the game sort of died a while back for us because frankly most of us felt like that while the core game was great, the balancing of the game in too many areas was atrocious. To such an extreme that it sort of sucked up all our desire and energy to keep playing.

Fast forward to 2024 and at the start of the year Season 4 of SOIAF has started with all new updates to all the factions, with lots of balancing and fine-tuning of the game. A perfect opportunity (hopefully) to get back into the game we know and love.

It’s a pretty big update and I thought it would be fun to revive articles on this blog that focus on strategy, tactics, list building, and the game as a whole.

Now mind you I’m not a competitive player, I play miniature games for fun, but I enjoy theory crafting and writing articles about my hobby so consider these articles to be from a guy who just likes playing games, less so a serious tournament player. I would imagine most competitive players would have a lot more to say, but I think most people who play this game are going to be more like me, excited fans rather than hardcore competitive players.

Today we are going to get very specific and talk about the base Targaryan Tactics Deck. The tactics deck is a key element of every army, a foundational advantage that dictates a lot of the very specialized things you can do and drives the strategy of your army. It’s, in a word, a key element of an army and to understand the strengths and weaknesses of any given unit you need to understand how that interacts with the tactics deck.

If you’re a Targaryen player, this article is for you! Let’s get into it.

Overrun

Overrun is a pretty niche card that plays well into the Targaryan army general strategic core which is driven by highly mobile units, especially calvary that outflank opponents to devastating effect.

In short, as a Targaryan player, you should always be the one doing the charging, not the other way around. In a way you know that you have learned to use the army well when you no longer find your mobile units getting charged in all but the rarest of circumstances.

Overrun plays off the assumption that you will be successful and in the event you wipe a unit off the table (hopefully a frequent occurrence), this card allows you to either make a second charge or perform a big march move to get yourself into position for a future charge.

If you have the horse NCU spot (which you should and will prioritize most of the time), you get the bonus of this card of being able to re-roll your charge dice allowing you to improve your odds of taking a riskier (longer-range) charge.

This card falls into the category of niche, but powerful. It’s niche because it requires a lot of very clever setup and a bit of luck to pull off. You can’t control the dice, so you’re never going to know for sure if your charge is going to yield the condition (wiping a unit) you need to play the card. Not only must you first destroy a unit to play this card, triggering a surge forth, but you have to have the opportunity for another charge or be facing in the direction you would want to march and be in a position where making a charge or marching somewhere is a good idea. All circumstances are difficult to control and very conditional on what is happening on the table.

My experience with this card is that the conditions to pull it off don’t come up that often and unlike many cards in the deck, you have considerably less control over creating the right conditions.

This means that this card is unlikely to be useful early in the game, turn 1 and 2, you will rarely kill any units outright, making this a turn 3+ card. Additionally, this card does not have any alternative effects like some of the cards do which means that after you draw it, to use it you need to create the rare circumstances to be able to play it and while setting that up which may take a couple of rounds, you are occupying that all-important card slot in your hand of cards.

This is a really good card don’t get me wrong but in my experience, the chances of you getting to use it to good effect that will have the strong impact it suggests is very slim. It’s a rarely played card and most of the time you are chucking it hoping to replace it with something more immediately useful. One of the core concepts of the tactics deck is that you should be going through it during the game. Holding on to cards is not a good strategy ever, you want to be smoking your hand and drawing a new one every round.

What is worse is that only one of the two calvary commanders gets this card in their deck (Khal Drago), as it is excluded from Jorah Mormont (Westerosi Tactician Cavalry) and it is for Calvary units that you want to play this card for as they are your best offensive weapons. Add injury to insult, The Mother of Dragons also loses this card, which sucks for those dragon lists.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars

While very strong when you get the opportunity to use it, its niche requirements are difficult to set up making this one of the weaker cards in the Targaryan tactics deck overall. The fact that you can’t combo it with key commanders makes it that much less useful.

That said I’m glad it’s in the deck. It’s kind of a strange circumstance because while you rarely get to use it, when you do, it can be a game-changing moment. I wish this had a draw card replacement effect so that you can chuck it when table conditions aren’t ripe for it. Suffice it to say I have won games on a single play of this card, so the impact when executed is very strong.

Good, but hard to use card.

Sudden Retreat

One of the tactical cores of the Targaryen army is that you are really strong on the charge, but not great when it comes to battles of attrition. Targaryans are well-equipped to outflank, so after you flank-charge, a card that lets you escape once you have done your thing is very welcome in the deck and that is exactly what Sudden Retreat lets you do.

With this card you will never need to take more than one attack if you don’t want to once you get into a melee.

It’s a pretty easy card to use which is really great and especially effective thanks to the high mobility of calvary units which are usually who you will save this card for.

Unfortunately this card, like overrun, is the elimination card for one of two of your cavalry commanders. It particularly sucks that Jorah Mormont is the one that keeps it and it’s Khal Drago that loses it. It is in fact Khal Drago that would most benefit from this card as this is the best calvary commander at least currently for the Targaryans.

Fortunately this card combos well with other units in the Targaryen army, it’s fantastic on Pikemen, especially when comboed with Unsullied Officers for example who love to be charged, so you want to get them out of combat.

Verdict: 4 out of 5 stars

It’s a good card, but its purpose is escape, which doesn’t make it a power play thing, more of a utility thing. The fact that one of the two cavalry commanders (your best commander) loses it is a bummer but unlike overrun, it’s easy to use and useful in a lot of situations.

I like to keep this card when drawn in the early rounds and setup a situation to use it as post retreat you are often in a position an opponent did not expect you to be and most armies are not as mobile as yours.

Swift Reposition

This card can be extremely useful in a lot of circumstances, but in a Targaryen army very often it’s redundant thanks to your already amazing mobility. Frankly getting an extra 2-3 inches of movement is pretty amazing in a game where inches matter as much as they do in ASIOAF, I would imagine almost game-breaking in a lot of armies, but in a Targaryen army it’s handy, but not quite as impactful.

It can come in handy for getting that extra range for when you want to get archers into a better position or make a charge somewhere your opponent thinks you’re out of range to attempt or sliding onto an objective, or slipping out of the way of the line of sight. Lots of fun utilities that can create very nasty surprises. The problem is that you usually don’t have issues pulling things like that off with the Targaryen units anyway. You are already crazy mobile.

I find I use this card more often on infantry units, it’s particularly nasty on Unsullied Swordsmen. Most of the time I wind up using this card to slip into objectives

Verdict: 4 out of 5 stars

Even though Targaryans don’t need even more mobility options most of the time, this is an exceedingly useful card that your opponents are going to hate because it makes pre-measuring carefully and trying to avoid Targaryan charges and being outflanked that much more difficult.

It’s quite devastating against slow-moving armies and especially effective in lists where you out-activate your opponent.

Fire and Blood

I love cards with options, the flexibility to adapt a card to a situation rather than trying to create a situation for a card is so much more useful.

Fire and Blood is a straight-up “I get some extra shit” card that is focused on letting you do more damage, so it’s great. The fact that you get a bonus for horses plays into what you are going to be doing anyway, so most of the time getting the double benefit is pretty easy to setup.

Sundering and Vicious I think are the two best benefits you can have on a charge, especially when you are usually already outflanking opponents.

This card when used on a flank charge of a calvary unit with the horses is devastating, it all but guarantees the destruction of multiple ranks.

Verdict: 5 out of 5 stars

Versatile, easy to use and powerful with literally no drawbacks. All the good commanders get to keep it. It’s without question a top-tier card for the Targaryans, you will use it in every game. If it has any drawbacks it’s the fact that some of your units already get Sundering or Vicious anyway, but in a way that is also a plus as it means you don’t have to rely in those cases on the horse to get both benefits.

Field Control

This is a multi-use card with a lot of utility and it has a very sneaky bonus effect that isn’t written on the card.

The first part, using the horse NCU yourself effectively makes this an improved version of the horses, both when maneuvering and retreating, with a bonus effect on the retreat. Very useful.

The alternative effect; when an enemy grabs the horse NCU from you, it lets you perform a 3′ shift. The key here is the timing, as this shift takes place after the enemy resolution, so you effectively get to do an extra 3-inch move with a unit prior to taking your turn. This can be used to absolutely devastating effect when timed right.

The sneaky effect of this card is that your opponent is going to want to steal that horse NCU spot from you since you gain so much benefit from it in your tactics deck, it’s a common action taken at the start of a round when your opponent goes first. I find that players often don’t think about the existence of this card, make a very calculated move to position themselves for some future move, and then boom out of nowhere you have a calvary able to do a 3-inch move, then on your turn, that same calvary makes a 6-inch free maneuver and then they can move or march or charge another 6 to 12 inches. You can potentially charge a unit with relative ease up to 15 inches away and march as far as 21 inches!

It’s bonkers and you will find that when an opponent see’s such a move one time they will never feel safe again.

Verdict: 5 out of 5 stars

This card is a combination of an improvement of an NCU spot and a swift reposition built into one card and can even be combined with a swift reposition to get a unit a free 6-inch move before your opponent can do anything thanks to the timing of the card.

When people say the Targaryans are a mobile force, this is what they are talking about!

Unstoppable Advance

This two-part card is sort of the Targaryan middle-of-the-road card.

For the first part of the the card, re-rolling charge distance dice, while nice in niche situations, the truth of the Targaryen armies is that as a general rule, charge distance is not normally a problem. Most of the time you are just trying not to roll a 1 so you don’t lose your bonus and I suppose it helps in that situation. There is some use occasionally for it, especially when using infantry units or neutrals. It’s a luxury item and not really what makes this card pop.

The real juice of the card is the surge forth ability. A +3 to maneuvering is huge but the secondary part, weakening everything in the short range is golden. Not only can you get the unit into the action but you are going to be facing an enemy force full of weakened conditions.

Surge Forth requires you to make a kill, which means it has the same problem as Overrun so not a great card to draw early.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars

Decent card, I docked it because the first ability is only marginally useful to Targaryans and the second ability has a pretty specific trigger that you don’t have full control of and doesn’t come up that often. Most of the time when you draw this card you are probably going to toss it unless the table situation has circumstances that might allow you to leverage it.

When executed, it’s devastating much like overrun.

Blood of the Dragon

I love “start of any turn” triggers as they are extremely easy to use and easy to plan your actions around.

This card is great to draw early in the round but tends to be considerably less useful in later rounds, but it comes with two effects and you are almost certain to lose units in every match to collect the bonuses.

An additional attack die is always welcome as is the -1 wound from failing panic tests. It’s a straightforward card, not powerful but not weak, kind of a middle-of-the-road bonus. The only trick to it is to simply get it into play as soon as possible.

It is a shittier version of a tactic card other factions have like Starks which has a kind of “feel bad” to it.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars

Decent card that gives you a couple of basic bonuses, a consolation prize for losing a unit. If the bonus is stacked with additional tokens this card would be a lot better, but as is, it’s best described as easy to use with a decent effect. Nothing too extraordinary.

Conclusion

The Targaryen tactics deck has always been universally considered to be one of the weaker, if not THE weakest deck in Songs of Ice and Fire in the past and looking at the updates they have made since launch, I’m fairly sure that is still true in such a comparison.

Looking at the tactics deck cards in isolation, the effects are great and they work well with the general core concepts of the Targaryen army, creating strong synergies and sticking to the theme.

It’s only when you start comparing the Targaryan deck to other factions is when you realize just how weak the effects are comparatively and I think it’s here that the Targ deck’s reputation comes from.

When speaking to the balance of the game as a whole, I’m not sure a comparison of tactics decks is particularly useful however and I have always felt like this reputation, while technically probably true, didn’t really say much about the game.

The Targaryen army is very strong in my opinion and very competitive, but it’s filled with subtle complexity which can be difficult to get your head around. As such I find it performs generally far below its strength when looking at stats as it is a lot less forgiving of mistakes and it’s unique in a lot of ways, meaning usual tactics associated with other armies don’t perform well when applied to Targaryans. They have a very different and very specific way they must be played and the tactics deck is built around that specific playstyle.

The point here is that the Targaryan tactics deck is very strong, in the Targaryen army and while it doesn’t appear as strong when tactic decks are compared, within the Targaryan strategy, these effects are very potent.

I think if you asked any player of any faction what they think about their tactics deck they would all come up with a list of winners and losers in their deck. I think the Targ deck is unique in that there are no outright bad cards. There are cards that are niche and very situational, some cards that can feel redundant some of the time, but generally good all around.

I have my beef with some of the commander tactics cards, but that is for a future article. As far as the Targaryen season 4 tactic deck goes, it gets a nod of approval from me. Well done!