Using the original Flayed Men in the context of a Bolton Army

[Oakwolf]

This is house rule territory.

That said, i wondered what would be your stance (for casual games of course) if someone would ask to play with the original card from the Flayed Men in the context of "true" Bolton army? That means only using Bolton units with the exception of Neutral NCUs (such as Walder Frey or Littlefinger).

That second change to the Flayed just triggered me lol. I feel that the flayed men are treated as an "all factions" unit, which is fine...but in the context of a Bolton army, they -were- fine originally.

In any case...what's your angle?

[King_Kraken]

I think OG Flayed Men in the context of an all-Bolton army would be appropriate (sort of). I think no matter what they should not have a 2+ save, but even in the edition before these latest revealed updates I think they were just superior to every single cavalry option in the game. Even within the context of just Boltons, they feel a bit overbearing and liable to be taken over Blackguard and Bastard Girls. So externally and internally just to Boltons I think Flayed Men would have been the superior choice, to speak nothing of them showing up in so many armies. I'm fairly happy with where they're at now since they more closely mimic other cavalry units of their price group, though I think they should have kept another charge bonus like crit blow on the charge.

EDIT: meant to say crit blow on charge

[Lion=Heroes]

This is house rule territory.

That said, i wondered what would be your stance (for casual games of course) if someone would ask to play with the original card from the Flayed Men in the context of "true" Bolton army? That means only using Bolton units with the exception of Neutral NCUs (such as Walder Frey or Littlefinger).

That second change to the Flayed just triggered me lol. I feel that the flayed men are treated as an "all factions" unit, which is fine...but in the context of a Bolton army, they -were- fine originally.

In any case...what's your angle?

Well OP broken is broken not matter what army the flayed ones are put in. They still have a ton of utility and og flayed are over powered to the extreme. Having said that casual game every once in awhile or on my opponents birthday or i just hate myself that day sure.

[Gallahad]

Frankly, I think the changes were balanced. Even in an all Bolton list they were so clearly superior to other options.
I hope we see more diverse cavalry options on the table. Thematically, the Boltons don't seem like they should be the Cavalry Lord's either, so I'm happy with the changes.

[Oakwolf]

alright, seems i am the only one that's not happy.

[AlxRaven]

Personally, I see why they made the change. And they are still a tough unit to take down, just not as tough as before.

It’s your house, your rules. So play how you like!

I still think that in hindsight they should have balanced all Neutral units to being played in an all Neutral army. Then added a “tax” for taking them in other factions.

[Oakwolf]

Personally, I see why they made the change. And they are still a tough unit to take down, just not as tough as before.

It’s your house, your rules. So play how you like!

I still think that in hindsight they should have balanced all Neutral units to being played in an all Neutral army. Then added a “tax” for taking them in other factions.

Honestly, the changes didn't make that much sense from a Bolton player's perspective. Even CMON didn't think they were OP let alone broken.

The Bolton army had enough flaws as it was and it was nowhere near as competitive as Starks or Lannister including the same units. Remember the polls back then?

Then Night's Watch came in and all hell was loose with the Flayed Men. Now Dothraki cav-only armies bring in other issues for this "generic" heavy cavalry.

The game is great, but the one sore thumb of a white elephant in the room is how the Neutrals faction is treated. It is annoying as hell to see changes done to one of "your" units only because it can be used by all armies.

It feels like the Boltons came too soon into the game and these highly specialized units were shoe-horned in the "generic merc" camp and now they are trying to fix their impact without angering people who bought the boxes.

Imho? They should rework how neutrals are induced into armies...and they ought to make Boltons a faction of its own (They could make 2 sets of cards, one representing a Bolton unit, another being a generic merc so its a win-win.

[King_Kraken]

I'm not entirely sure Neutrals were ever intended to be a stand-alone faction, I think that they were made a playable faction to quiet the inevitable requests from players whenever neutrals/mercenaries are a thing to have an all-mercenary army. With the release of more neutrals over time, I think you'll only see their options continued to be shifted and rebalanced over and over again because of the potential for min-maxing within neutrals themselves and to account for the fact that every additional neutral unit can be taken by every other faction as well.

[Oakwolf]

I'm not entirely sure Neutrals were ever intended to be a stand-alone faction, I think that they were made a playable faction to quiet the inevitable requests from players whenever neutrals/mercenaries are a thing to have an all-mercenary army. With the release of more neutrals over time, I think you'll only see their options continued to be shifted and rebalanced over and over again because of the potential for min-maxing within neutrals themselves and to account for the fact that every additional neutral unit can be taken by every other faction as well.

I agree with that. What bugs me is that it was obvious even back then...and i assumed that we'd see tighter rules to recruit them. Part of the issue is that Boltons are an iconic faction of the lore too, they were bound to attract players.

[DevlinBrightblade]

alright, seems i am the only one that's not happy.

Nope, your not the only one....

With new factions drip feeding out it was inevitiable that players were going to go to Neutrals to Bolster their armies, if CMON didn't want this then they should have released an entire faction with all units options in one go and ensured they had the Supply Pipeline for the demand, but they didn't so people play Neutrals... Then people whinge becuase everybody plays Neutrals in their armies, so Neutrals get nerfed, players with large Faction unit availability are happy and rejoice, people with new faction low unit availability despair... thus the game ends......

[Oakwolf]

Nope, your not the only one....

With new factions drip feeding out it was inevitiable that players were going to go to Neutrals to Bolster their armies, if CMON didn't want this then they should have released an entire faction with all units options in one go and ensured they had the Supply Pipeline for the demand, but they didn't so people play Neutrals... Then people whinge becuase everybody plays Neutrals in their armies, so Neutrals get nerfed, players with large Faction unit availability are happy and rejoice, people with new faction low unit availability despair... thus the game ends......

Honestly i am fine with 4 units in my army, all of them were designed during the KS (black guards being teased at).

I have 4xcCutthroats, 4xBlack Guards, 2xWar Dogs, 2xBarded horses heavy cavalry.

I didn't need more than that to create many kinds of armies with the Bolton theme. I didn't always field Flayed Men, but what i appreciated was that they had an entirely unique feel to them. They were not just some generic brown blokes, which they certainly feel like now.

[AlxRaven]

They don’t feel generic to me. They still fit really well in the Bolton Panic Theme.

Let’s compare them Lannister Cav.

Same speed, to hit, defense, and morale.

They have a good advantage on the number of dice they roll. FM rolling as many dice at one rank as the Knights do at full

They swap Crit Blow and Sundering for Vicious and Panic Token

They don’t have Lannister supremacy.

They only cost 1 more point.


To me, this makes them a similar unit with some significant differences depending on what best fits the build you’re going for. Do I want to go panic or direct damage? Etc...

What was happening before was people were looking at these two units and not seeing a comparison. The Neutral unit clearly out shown the faction unit, when Neutral should be more of a supplement/alternative option. Allowing either options for a different style of build, or filling gaps where your faction is lacking.

There were legitimately people running 4x FM lists in tourneys and out performing most other players based on stats alone, and no as much skill.

I agree it sucks any changes need to be made to any units. You would think additional foresight would have helped prevent major changes. But I get why they did it, and I’d rather they do something, then nothing at all.

[Gallahad]

Honestly they are still a great unit. They will be rolling eight dice on a three up for the majority of the game. You have to cause 18 hits to even take them down one rank!
They get a free maneuver and hit like a ton of bricks. Vicious plus a panicked token is pretty high odds the enemy is taking 3-4 additional wounds from panic on the charge.
On a slightly below average charge you will be doing 7 hits and 3 wounds from panic.

[Oakwolf]

They don’t feel generic to me. They still fit really well in the Bolton Panic Theme.

Let’s compare them Lannister Cav.

Same speed, to hit, defense, and morale.

They have a good advantage on the number of dice they roll. FM rolling as many dice at one rank as the Knights do at full

They swap Crit Blow and Sundering for Vicious and Panic Token

They don’t have Lannister supremacy.

They only cost 1 more point.


To me, this makes them a similar unit with some significant differences depending on what best fits the build you’re going for. Do I want to go panic or direct damage? Etc...

What was happening before was people were looking at these two units and not seeing a comparison. The Neutral unit clearly out shown the faction unit, when Neutral should be more of a supplement/alternative option. Allowing either options for a different style of build, or filling gaps where your faction is lacking.

There were legitimately people running 4x FM lists in tourneys and out performing most other players based on stats alone, and no as much skill.

I agree it sucks any changes need to be made to any units. You would think additional foresight would have helped prevent major changes. But I get why they did it, and I’d rather they do something, then nothing at all.

I am not at all against change. I am unhappy about -why- they make those changes from my own perspective (the marginal Bolton theme player), and what they are doing is essentially admitting that the neutral faction is an afterthought...since all their options should not be specialized enough to be better at anything than what any full faction focuses on. It's mindboggling when you think about it.

As for the comparison with Lannister knights...

First 9 dice with critical blow and sundering, coupled with charge bonus is a universal killer. Nothing in the game can withstand this without being crippled. Don't forget that it will also cause a panic test in addition to the physical slaughter.

Compared with 8 dice, vicious and a panic token on the charge, it's not even close...the punch is entirely dependant on the target failing its morale check and getting a good roll on the casualty die, those 8 dice might not even make a dent for that to matter. 8 die is...bog standard for basic units.

Both units do -not- want to be engaged in melee, they both need the charge...so their stats without charging is not that relevant. 8 or 6 dice won't matter, 6 vs 3 die neither, it's trash for 9 and 8pts...why would you not retreat with either unit? Yet Lannister knights have Lannister supremacy and cost 1 point less?

Obviouly my throwing a fit here won't change anyone's opinion let alone CMON's...but i guess it's my way of expressing a loss of faith in this game which i have supported completely since the start.

[AlxRaven]

Looking at it across the board, I think they were also realizing that 2+ on stats was huge. Hence Greataxes also getting nerfed. I’m more salty about this one because I like Stark and the same data mentioned earlier did not give them a strong presence in competitive play. But I see why it was done.

Agreed that both cav units prefer the charge, but the difference is that the FM don’t need it as much. Both units are good defensively, so they can maintain melee for a bit, if needed. (3+ defense is no joke) The difference is that you want to get the Knights out of there to charge again because extra dice is huge. The FM can hang and swing with just as many dice if they need to pin a unit down or hold and objective. Just enough difference to provide a different set of options, depending on the unit you go with.

The FM are definitely still a unit to be feared and will cause an opponent to have to focus on or avoid them. It just won’t be like facing The Mountain That Rides with more HP...(shudder)

With how they have Neutral set up now, they forced themselves to have to balance them against a crazy number of combinations. That’s going to have an impact. It sucks, but there is no way around it really, without changing how they handle them now that more units are out. Here’s hoping they make that change in the next round, about a year from now.

[sacrilege83]

This is house rule territory.

That said, i wondered what would be your stance (for casual games of course) if someone would ask to play with the original card from the Flayed Men in the context of "true" Bolton army? That means only using Bolton units with the exception of Neutral NCUs (such as Walder Frey or Littlefinger).

That second change to the Flayed just triggered me lol. I feel that the flayed men are treated as an "all factions" unit, which is fine...but in the context of a Bolton army, they -were- fine originally.

In any case...what's your angle?

Abosolutely agree. The original Flayed Mend should be used so long Roose or Ramsey is the army Commander in a Neutral army. This latest version of the Flayed Men is not even worth 7 points let alone 9. Never bringing this unit to a tournament.

[King_Kraken]

I think the neutral faction is having a bit of an identity crisis right now. When it was just the Westeros-based factions, the Boltons being the only Neutrals felt fine (even if Flayed Men in particular were problematic for being just about better than every faction's equivalently priced and performing unit). Now, though, with the addition of Bloody Mummers and Stormcrows they're at risk of losing their identity as their own faction and are starting to have to worry about every Neutral unit added having a domino effect that ripples outward.

While I personally am in favor of utterly removing the Neutral faction as a playable faction and limiting the access of the other Neutral units to specific factions (e.g. Stormcrows only with Targaryens, Bloody Mummers only with Lannisters, etc.), I don't think that's strictly fair to people who have invested in all-Neutral forces and would suddenly make a lot of players' existing Neutral units potentially worthless since they're not allowed in the faction anymore.

I've been bouncing a couple ideas around in my head on how to tackle the issue of limiting the prevalence of Neutrals and making sure they still have their own flavor, and largely it revolves around giving Boltons their own faction since the aggressive, morale test-based playstyle and feel is pretty unique to Boltons and wouldn't step on any other faction's toes.

For other Neutral units, I think something as simple as adding a mechanic similar to some of the other honor guard style units/the Loyalty mechanic would probably help even things out a bit and stop a proliferation of Neutral units everywhere in all sorts of situations. For example, you could only take Stormcrows with Daario in your army and doing so precluded you from taking Bloody Mummers. Neutral heroes could probably stay as-is, especially the NCUs since that can represent any number of things.

Regardless, though, whatever ends up happening with Neutrals I hope Mummers are the last Neutral release we see. It'll be hard to balance so many units for the Neutral faction as a whole and the ripple effect of the Neutral roster being larger than most existing faction rosters. Plus, the more Neutrals that come out to make up for existing faction weaknesses the less those factions have an identity of their own so all in all I prefer that Neutrals be limited and start to either break off into separate sort of subfactions or become part of parent factions.

[King_Kraken]

Abosolutely agree. The original Flayed Mend should be used so long Roose or Ramsey is the army Commander in a Neutral army. This latest version of the Flayed Men is not even worth 7 points let alone 9. Never bringing this unit to a tournament.

Whether or not they're worth 9 anymore, they're certainly worth 7 and saying otherwise is a bit of a bad faith criticism of the nerf. Dothraki screamers are 6, and over Dothraki screamers you get:

Armor 5+ -> Armor 3+
7 Dice -> 8 Dice
Vicious + Panic proc on the charge

The same can be said about a lot of other baseline cavalry, not to mention infantry units of which Flayed Men still get an extra maneuver action. I think after these changes they should sit at 8 points comfortably, even if I think that at 8 points they should retain Crit Blow on the charge.

[sacrilege83]

Looking at it across the board, I think they were also realizing that 2+ on stats was huge. Hence Greataxes also getting nerfed. I’m more salty about this one because I like Stark and the same data mentioned earlier did not give them a strong presence in competitive play. But I see why it was done.

Agreed that both cav units prefer the charge, but the difference is that the FM don’t need it as much. Both units are good defensively, so they can maintain melee for a bit, if needed. (3+ defense is no joke) The difference is that you want to get the Knights out of there to charge again because extra dice is huge. The FM can hang and swing with just as many dice if they need to pin a unit down or hold and objective. Just enough difference to provide a different set of options, depending on the unit you go with.

The FM are definitely still a unit to be feared and will cause an opponent to have to focus on or avoid them. It just won’t be like facing The Mountain That Rides with more HP...(shudder)

With how they have Neutral set up now, they forced themselves to have to balance them against a crazy number of combinations. That’s going to have an impact. It sucks, but there is no way around it really, without changing how they handle them now that more units are out. Here’s hoping they make that change in the next round, about a year from now.

There's nothing to fear in this latest version of the FM. They can no longer sustain combat, they can no longer control objectives. You can no longer get more than 4 wounds in a panic test anymore, so panicked is nerfed. They are always targeted by weakened which reduces their charge attack. 9 points for now a mediocre cavalry unit. They should have never nerfed the 2+ save for the sake of other factions, instead they should be giving the other factions their own 2+ save/10 points unit. When dragons come out for Targaryens are people going to throw a fit when they're given a 2+ save, fly, and a devastating attack? Barded heavy horsemen should always be 2+. My question is how is it the insanely rich Lannisters don't have barded horses? Knights of Casterly Rock not being barded in the first place is not lore friendly.

Now I never bought units for their rules, but for anyone that is doing so are kidding themselves as the rules can change on a whim. You can't trust to build an army based on their rules and abilities.

[Oakwolf]

Flayed men out of charge context have a worse attack profile than 5 point units...so whatever "sustain" they say they have, or "keeping their power outside of the charge" is pure illusion. No one in their right mind is going to stay in melee with this 9pt unit and hope to change the course of a fight with 8-6 "nude" dice. Even on the charge, the dice don't even improve...all you get is a better odd at doing more damage with the panic test.

The unit is not worth more than Stark Outriders or very close to.