Oakwolf
Member
If anyone has been reading my posts about Blackguards, you probably know my opinion on the Horrific Visage ability.
I've ran alot of statistic checks between a unit having Vicious and another having Horrific Visage.
I've concluded that Vicious is -always- going to produce better odds of panic test failures than Horrific Visage EVEN if you assume that, in theory, Horrific Visage will consistently double the number of panic tests.
Against a unit with 6 morale, arguably the most common value, a unit with Vicious has 58.38% chance of getting 1 failure. A unit with Horrific Visage, provided they inflict a wound ont their attack, have about 47% chances of getting at least 1 failure.
Now there is the wishful factor of getting 2 failures in both tests, but that's only 7% of the time. In compensation, the Vicious unit can generate more casualties per failure as it can reduce the dice roll to 0.
This net advantage for Vicious is kept throughout the distribution of morale values. The better the morale value, the worse it gets for Horrific Visage.
So in order to get the most of this ability, you must target units with average or worse morale (7+ to 8+). Considering the price paid for it, it becomes an issue (in my opinion of course) because there are many other units capable of tackling low morale ones, especially vicious units.
Another argument that could be made for Horrific Visage is that it could trigger more of the effects triggered “every time an engaged enemy unit fails a panic tests” that Boltons have. As we’ve seen, a unit with Vicious is more likely to get it triggered at all, especially against good morale units.
So the only argument going for Bolton Blackguards is that they have 3+ defense and 6+ morale, and they pay more for a subpar ability than say, Baratheon Wardens. Warhammer and Target Opening will be more reliable throughout a game than Horrific Visage, especially when facing elites, due to the built in resilience of the combo: every one has the same chances of rolling a 1 on a defense roll. Also, the fact they can switch Weakened tokens to Vulnerable can start a sort of loop where another weakened token is created by the use of the vulnerable token. Keep in mind that while for most units, we can't compare out of faction, this doesn't apply for Neutrals, who can actually be part of any faction except Free Folks.
Pro Vicious:
I’d like to test a variant for Horrific Visage when playing the Neutral faction: simply switch it to Vicious. The reason I don’t want to mess with other factions is that I assume the price tag is taking into account a certain Cercei/Tywin combo the Neutrals do not have. The Neutrals do not have ways to reduce the morale of the enemy units for Horrifc Visage to be worth it. The Reason Lannister Supremacy is feared is first due to its inbuilt -2, but then also due to the potential -4 with Cercei...and lastly (For guardsmen) with the certainty of it triggering with the Guard Captain.
But there’s another case of this ability, and the idea of the variant also counts for Bone Followers, who are (imho) also suffering from the Horrific Visage inflated cost just as badly, perhaps even more so than Blackguards (can't compare them outside the faction though, but vs Thenns, ouch). Even though they have a better attack profile (improving the chances of doubling the panic tests, and more casualties through regular wounds).
Giving them Vicious might help both those units...plus it removes an extra rule and streamlines the system so...win-win if it proves to be balanced.
For the sake of this discussion, keep in mind that i am a Bolton player, and i bought 4 Blackguards, we also have 3 Bone Follower units. The game is overall very good compared to many other systems, but units with Horrific Visage struck me as...a bit falling behind the curve. They are still relatively new so more data is needed anyway. Units like the Cutthroats, Greataxes and Berserkers seem to be a bit above the curve for their costs in comparison.
I've ran alot of statistic checks between a unit having Vicious and another having Horrific Visage.
I've concluded that Vicious is -always- going to produce better odds of panic test failures than Horrific Visage EVEN if you assume that, in theory, Horrific Visage will consistently double the number of panic tests.
Against a unit with 6 morale, arguably the most common value, a unit with Vicious has 58.38% chance of getting 1 failure. A unit with Horrific Visage, provided they inflict a wound ont their attack, have about 47% chances of getting at least 1 failure.
Now there is the wishful factor of getting 2 failures in both tests, but that's only 7% of the time. In compensation, the Vicious unit can generate more casualties per failure as it can reduce the dice roll to 0.
This net advantage for Vicious is kept throughout the distribution of morale values. The better the morale value, the worse it gets for Horrific Visage.
So in order to get the most of this ability, you must target units with average or worse morale (7+ to 8+). Considering the price paid for it, it becomes an issue (in my opinion of course) because there are many other units capable of tackling low morale ones, especially vicious units.
Another argument that could be made for Horrific Visage is that it could trigger more of the effects triggered “every time an engaged enemy unit fails a panic tests” that Boltons have. As we’ve seen, a unit with Vicious is more likely to get it triggered at all, especially against good morale units.
So the only argument going for Bolton Blackguards is that they have 3+ defense and 6+ morale, and they pay more for a subpar ability than say, Baratheon Wardens. Warhammer and Target Opening will be more reliable throughout a game than Horrific Visage, especially when facing elites, due to the built in resilience of the combo: every one has the same chances of rolling a 1 on a defense roll. Also, the fact they can switch Weakened tokens to Vulnerable can start a sort of loop where another weakened token is created by the use of the vulnerable token. Keep in mind that while for most units, we can't compare out of faction, this doesn't apply for Neutrals, who can actually be part of any faction except Free Folks.
Pro Vicious:
- More chance to cause failure
- More casualties for the same roll
- Higher maximum casualties for failure
- Less dependant on panic tokens (1 test will use 1 panic token)
- Don't feed the faith militant with extra tests for easy tokens
- A marginal to insignificant chance for more failures
I’d like to test a variant for Horrific Visage when playing the Neutral faction: simply switch it to Vicious. The reason I don’t want to mess with other factions is that I assume the price tag is taking into account a certain Cercei/Tywin combo the Neutrals do not have. The Neutrals do not have ways to reduce the morale of the enemy units for Horrifc Visage to be worth it. The Reason Lannister Supremacy is feared is first due to its inbuilt -2, but then also due to the potential -4 with Cercei...and lastly (For guardsmen) with the certainty of it triggering with the Guard Captain.
But there’s another case of this ability, and the idea of the variant also counts for Bone Followers, who are (imho) also suffering from the Horrific Visage inflated cost just as badly, perhaps even more so than Blackguards (can't compare them outside the faction though, but vs Thenns, ouch). Even though they have a better attack profile (improving the chances of doubling the panic tests, and more casualties through regular wounds).
Giving them Vicious might help both those units...plus it removes an extra rule and streamlines the system so...win-win if it proves to be balanced.
For the sake of this discussion, keep in mind that i am a Bolton player, and i bought 4 Blackguards, we also have 3 Bone Follower units. The game is overall very good compared to many other systems, but units with Horrific Visage struck me as...a bit falling behind the curve. They are still relatively new so more data is needed anyway. Units like the Cutthroats, Greataxes and Berserkers seem to be a bit above the curve for their costs in comparison.
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