Reposting a post by FragMaster from this thread in order to generate some discussion about points brought up:

Richard Borg said:

As Colts Fan 76 stated - A Cattle Rider unit carries a blue banner. when ordered by a Mounted Charge Command card the Cattle Rider unit will in melee battle at +1d but the Mounted Charge card only allows red banner mounted units to move 3 hexes and battle. Some of the community have expressed a concern that Cattle Riders are rather weak, what the community is not aware of at this point in time is that a Cattle Rider unit has the ability to Bull Rush, an ability that was not detailed on the Cattle Rider rules or summary card but was always an intended ability for this unit, one that will be presented in the future.

FragMaster responded:

And that is why I still haven't lost my hopes for this awesome game. As each expansion was published, I enjoyed studying the new units and what the new possibilities are when using them. I have noticed a few of those Specialists were not so special after all. But one of the reasons I got into the BattleLore frenzy is the statement that the designer has playtested exhaustively the game in order to produce a well balanced game. I really like well balanced games and absolutely hate using house rules. So I had/still have faith in this game.

The problem was that as I used the new specialists some patterns begin to emerge. Some Specialists didn't seem as good as others. I was baffled.

For example, I still cannot find Goblin Slingers useful. Cattle Riders are another example. Axe swingers don't deserve to be 1 of your 2 Specialist card picks. etc etc.

Richard Borg's comment above made me happy. Why? Because I always suspected {hoped?} that there are things {namely abilities and rules} that are not revealed to us yet and waited to see them. I even posted about it in the old DOW forums whenever there was a discussion about weak specialists etc. That comment confirmed my suspicions and erased any thoughts about using any "dreaded" house rules in order to "fix" units I considered weak. I'm all about the "designer's intent" and I think knowing that BattleLore is being constantly playtested for balance is what keeps me still interested in this system despite everything that has happened with DOW and the lack of news from FFG.

{I guess my opinion about the designer's intent covers the subject regarding what I believe about the infamous HR/FF/RR cards... }

P.S. OK, speculation...

Bull rush! That will give Cattle Riders a needed boost. I'm expecting a similar "ability add-on" about Goblin Slingers, maybe Axe Swingers too. Or someone to give me insight why they are not so bad as they look...

Now our Call to Arms sessions revolve around Mounted Knights and Goblin Bands. There are some Specialist cards that never get picked and I don't like that fact. It means those Specialists are not as good/useful as others.

One other thing I've noticed is that some Specialist cards replace units and others add units. To be more specific the more powerful Specialists replace units and the weak ones are simply added. I thought that this was enough to balance the units but after a few plays this is not the case. I think that just adding numbers to your army is not that much of a bonus because of the victory conditions of the game... I can't write more about this subject because it's off-topic but some of the more experienced players could create a new thread regarding how much of a bonus is the "adding weak units" effect and compare it with the "replacing unit with stronger ones" effect. Hope that made sense...

it did

As a home rule we draw six cards and pick two from the six. It allows for a variety of things to happen, it is still your choice, but your choice isn't always the same game to game.

zefert1 said:

Yeah, I do the same for nearly every game with a choice like this. So with Runebound, for example, everyone gets dealt a few characters and they pick from there.

As we play in epic, we each draw 8 cards and keep a total of 4.

However, you first take a card from your deck, when echange with your opponent. you take 2 from your new deck, then echange again with your opponent, and finally take a 4th card.

With this situation, you can only take 1 card from your original 8 sp. cards in your hand, knowing that your opponent will take 2 cards from the 7 you will leave him. It produces a great deal of difficult choices because you don't necessarly want a specific card, but sometime you can't really afford to leave it too your opponent.

one of the best exemple I have seen is taking long bow (even I had only 1 archer) and leave him away 2 very good cards, just because he had 5 archers and it would have been suicidale to give him the long bows ^^

maybe draw 4, keep one and give one to your enemy?

As you can see from my picture i love the riders, if only for the fluff

TylerT said:

In a regular game, that seems a good way to do it, but in epic, i always felt that 2 specialists was a bit short ^^

tom-le-termite said:

same feelings here

But I think this is why I really like the CtA deployement/ specialist system. It allows you to use all the ingredients of the game the way you feels like. Some people don't like houseruling, but for Battlelore, I think it is one of it's good point.

tom-le-termite said:

And in cases such as "how many Specialist Cards to use" and "which adventures to use them in", it is only borderline houseruling. Variants of these sorts are encouraged by the game designer and some have even been suggested. The flexibility and variation built into this game are what will allow it to be vibrant for many years. Here's hoping FFG is up to the task

toddrew said:

Yeah, this seems to be more of a case of customizing with official variants than it is of house-ruling.

FragMaster said:

The problem was that as I used the new specialists some patterns begin to emerge. Some Specialists didn't seem as good as others. I was baffled.

For example, I still cannot find Goblin Slingers useful.

While I like the Goblin Slingers as is, there isn't much incentive to select their specialist card if free choice is involved. A tweak of their abilities that might make them more desireable is to allow them to use their battle at any point during their movement (same could be applied to the reflex bow). For example, during the movement phase the slingers could make their attack and then move two hexes or move one hex, battle, and then move one hex again (slide into range, hit, move back).