Take Command of Your Commanders

In GoT Winter is Coming understanding and effectively using your commanders can seem like a daunting task. You've got to deal with rank, quality, level and type. Not to mention the wide array of skills each commander possesses. If all this has confused you then you are not alone, and you are in the right place. In this article we'll break it all down.

If Commanders themselves were not complicated enough, the activity also effects how best to utilize them. In fact the activity effects how they function more than any other aspect of the game but on the bright side the game separates these into four neat categories. Alliance Trials, Rebel Leaders, Weirwood/ Training Ground, and Pvp Combat. The first and most straight forward, Alliance Trials.

Alliance Trials.

Every time you train troops at your barracks you may have noticed a group of symbols in the top left of the screen. This essentially says that Cavalry has an advantage over Infantry, Infantry has an advantage over Spears, Spears have an advantage over Cavalry, and Bowmen have no advantage and in turn no disadvantage. In Alliance Trials these advantages are heavily and I mean heavily weighted.

So to take maximize the effectiveness of your commanders you simply need send Cavalry Commanders against Infantry opponents, Spear Commanders against Cavalry opponents, Infantry against Spears and Bowmen against Bowmen. Do this correctly and you output three to four times as much total damage and in turn defeat more opponents in a single day. Which benefits your whole alliance. The best advice I can give is don't over think it.

Rebel Leaders.

Next up is Rebel Leaders. These function much the same as the Alliance Trials however you now need to consider defense. Where as in alliance trials the opponent's damage output is negligible; a Rebel Leader will easily take down all six of your commanders before it comes close to being defeated. To adapt to this, there are two things that must be done.

First is Sansa Stark. This should be a no brainer. Sansa heals everyone so she keeps the entire group alive for as long as possible.

Second, put your tanks up front. Commanders fall into one of three categories, Tank, Assault, or Support. Tanks have high health and defense(ie Command) like Rob Stark, Chris or Gorrel. Assault Commanders have high attack(ie Prowess) like Arya, Sorren or Sheila. And Support Commanders have high skill effects(ie Strategy) like Melisandre, Sansa or Tyrion.

Weirwood and Training Ground.

Third and in my opinion the most fun aspect of the game is Weirwood/Training Ground. These are the first activities that take full advantage of all of a Commander's skills and abilities. A lot can be said about strategy for these areas abut I will leave that for another more in depth post. For now I will go over the basics of commander's and how they apply to battles.

The first is the quality or color. Obviously gold is the best, followed by purple, blue, green and lastly grey. Quality effects the strength of their passive and active skills, which can make a massive difference in battle but not only in terms of damage. Skills have a wide array of effects and all of them are improved as quality increases. From Sansa's ability to heal to Sheila's Stun effect or Chris's ability to increase defense.

Next up is Promotion or Rank. This increases a commander's overall traits, such as health, defense, and attack. These traits are pretty self explanatory and help to define a commander's ideal roll in battle. High health and defense makes them a good Tank, while high attack makes them better at assault. Lastly those with strong skill effects are perfect in support rolls.

The last portion of a Commander's profile is their Level. This has a small effect on all aspects of a commander's profile but most important is that level increases regime size.

So what does all this have to do with Weirwood and Training Ground?

To put together an effective team of commanders you need to understand their strengths, once you do this it is up to your creativity to use them effectively. As a starting point I will explain a handful of team compositions that I use personally.

Team One: 3-2-1 Assault.

The first is rather basic and your bread and butter when it comes to Weirwood. I like to call it the 3-2-1 Assault. The front line is 3 Tanks, followed by 2 Assault commanders and 1 Support. For most battles I will use Chris, Rob Stark, and Gorell as my tanks, Arya and Soren as my Assault commanders and Sansa as my Support.

Then general concept is that your tanks absorb damage while Arya and Soren dish out damage and Sansa does her best to keep everyone alive for as long as possible.

Team Two: Shutdown.

For this one my only goal is to defense which comes into play mostly to defend your rank in the Training Ground. First I choose tanks that have the ability to stun, Rob Stark, Chris and Seg, are my preferred commanders. Second I forget about Assault and stack my back line with Support commanders. Typically that will be Sansa, Jeane and Kravras. This may seem like an atypical setup but that is because the goal of it is not to actually kill the enemy commanders, it is only to stop them from killing mine. In the Training Ground it is uncommon to reach the time limit but if time does run out the defending commander wins.

Team Three. Melisandre's Flash Mob.

This one is sort of the opposite of my Shutdown setup where I go for a sort of surprise attack. It is the most risky of all of my team setups and will either work out perfect or fail miserably. Still it is a setup that will hopefully will your mind to the possibilities. I start with my front line having only one Tank and two Assault commanders then I back them up with Jeane, Kravras and you guessed it Melisandre. What happens is my Assault commanders deal a bunch of damage in the first five seconds then die just in time for Jeane's passive ability to heal my tank. By then Kravras usually is able to stun the enemy. Once the stun is over Melisandre should have her ability. What happens next will surprise you. The enemy commander's all rushes your tank, and Melisandre's ability wipes them out.

Now where this fails is against anyone who stacks bowmen commanders, kills your tank before Jeane heals them or Kravras fails to stun. That leaves lots of room to fail but it will also allow you to beat commanders that are of better quality and rank than your own.

PVP Combat or Player vs Player Combat.

The last section is pvp combat which you might think is the most complicated but in my opinion it is the most straightforward. Sadly that also means that much of it depends on money and experience/time. There are two main commander skills that matter, the first is that little thing I mentioned earlier called Regime size. This effects how many additional troops you can deploy in your army. More is always better. The second are the bonuses the commander applies to your army such as infantry attack or defense. Both of these things are improved with quality and level which equates to experience/time.

The commander's with the best bonuses are another story, the best ones must be bought. Jon Snow and Petyr Baelish are the best in my opinion because they increase the entire army's health, defense, and attack. These are also two of the most expensive commanders around.

Good Luck.

-B Declan-