I just noticed House Bolton is sort of interesting: it seems to depend on character control changes. I'm just wondering how to use them correctly in Joust? Like, for example, Steelshanks' Reserves (It reads during the challenge phase the active player gains control of it). Does this mean everyone can use it in turn? Also, if I want to use Stark with House Bolton, what's the basic strategy should I follow? Thank you guys very much!
Question regarding House Bolton
typically, yes, everyone will have control of them, but they will probably be knelt after the first person makes their attacks.
With bolton, strategy is tough. Typically, with that card you want to try and always go first. With others, in most cases, you want to try and not let them become controlled by the opponent. They are cheap and have very good strength to cost ratios, but losing them is a huge downside.
They are kind of hard to use. As Fieras mentions, you want to go first if possible when playing Bolton. A friend of mine uses a bunch of the Initiative boosting cards to help ensure that he can go first every round; I don't want to say anything else about his deck without asking him first.
One of the main problems is that you need to have multiple copies of the same character out. If you put out a Bolton Loyalist, The Flayed Men and The Bastard's Elite all at the same time you have some pretty high STR Characters available... but you can't attack with all of them, otherwise you risk losing every single one when you your opponent's challenges come about. You might not be able to attack with any of them if you fear them changing control since a clever opponent will figure out how to order his/her attacks so as to sieze control of them all one by one (he/she beats you in an Intrigue challenge and takes control of the Loyalist, then uses them to make a M challenge to get the The Bastard's Elite, then uses them to make a P challenge and grabs the other one). But if you put three of the same character out, you only need to worry about defending one challenge type. 3x Abandoned Fort is probably a must, but then your opponent can just use them defensively or for claim soak.
I saw a melee Bolton deck once... it was an hilarious mess of everyone at the table controlling the Bolton characters sporadically, except for the guy who actually owned them!
The Reek + Dubious Loyalties combo is pretty sweet though.
Skowza said:
They are kind of hard to use. As Fieras mentions, you want to go first if possible when playing Bolton. A friend of mine uses a bunch of the Initiative boosting cards to help ensure that he can go first every round; I don't want to say anything else about his deck without asking him first.
One of the main problems is that you need to have multiple copies of the same character out. If you put out a Bolton Loyalist, The Flayed Men and The Bastard's Elite all at the same time you have some pretty high STR Characters available... but you can't attack with all of them, otherwise you risk losing every single one when you your opponent's challenges come about. You might not be able to attack with any of them if you fear them changing control since a clever opponent will figure out how to order his/her attacks so as to sieze control of them all one by one (he/she beats you in an Intrigue challenge and takes control of the Loyalist, then uses them to make a M challenge to get the The Bastard's Elite, then uses them to make a P challenge and grabs the other one). But if you put three of the same character out, you only need to worry about defending one challenge type. 3x Abandoned Fort is probably a must, but then your opponent can just use them defensively or for claim soak.
I saw a melee Bolton deck once... it was an hilarious mess of everyone at the table controlling the Bolton characters sporadically, except for the guy who actually owned them!
The Reek + Dubious Loyalties combo is pretty sweet though.
Yeah, as you mentioned, I tried my deck of Bolton and it didn't work out honestly. But I'm just thinking for Joust play, maybe it's sort of useful to have some high STR Bolton characters to build a War deck, along with two copies of The Power of Arms plots. Anyway, low-cost-high-STR characters are very attractive at first glance, but they're very risky to use as well.
The Reek has a problem though: when I fight against Targaryen, the opponent can always use Forever Burning to reduce Reek's STR to 0 before I use Reek.
ktei2008 said:
Reek has a problem though: when I fight against Targaryen, the opponent can always use Forever Burning to reduce Reek's STR to 0 before I use Reek.
Even if he has no STR, you can still use his ability if you have him participate in an I challenge with another character.