Semi-new to the game and I want to try House Bolton. Couple of questions:

1. Are they any good?

2. Are they hard to play?

3. What exansions should I buy?

4. Where can I find the best build?

Thanks in advanced!

heres my experience with house bolton: they're fun, but highly uncompetitive.

some house bolton cards are a good addition to you're regular army/siege/murder deck, but trying to build a deck centered around your bolton weenies? that won't work. I play on octgn, so I have access to all the cards. I've tried many times to build a competitive full bolton deck. sometimes I get lucky wins, but most of the times I end up losing all my guys, having my roose blanked or killed and generally failing all around. if you really want to try them out, I'll try to give the best advice I can, but seriously, they'll never be as good as king robb/army/siege.

die by the sword: you have many war crest, this event is just too good not to have.

reek+dubious loyalty = absolute trolling. attach dubious loyalty to your own reek. then, after you win a challenge in which reek participated, you get to trigger both responses. that means you steal a guy, they briefly get reek, but you get reek back right away. problem is, reek is unreliable and so easily killed. ally with 1 str makes him too vulnerable to burn, dissesion, jorah, oakheart, greywind etc.

abandoned fort is highly underrated imo. let's say theyre playing hyper-viper. dubious loyatly on viper, then whenever he is getting dangerous you jump him to their hand and he loses all attachments and power on him. with abandoned fort you can also jump some of your own weenies back to your hand and play them again to trigger dreafort. or, lets say your about to lose a challenge as the attacker and you will lose some of your guys, jump them.

fortified position : blanking your own text boxes is good and blanking your opponnet text boxes is also good. win/win

weeping water : it sucks

house of dream : either you house of dream dreadfort or you don't. I reccomend house of dreaming dreadfort, you need many many weenies.

bloody scourge : overpriced, situational card that you wont get to trigger that often. skip it.

steelshanks reserve oh boy. those guys. my opinion is as good as yours. if you do want to include them because of their sexy str and war crest heres how you can (hopefully) not have them backfire at you. abandoned fort can bounce them back to your hand, fortified position can blank them when you put them in play. otherwise, win that initiative, and make sure to kneel them before they switch control. once they are in play they trigger dreadfort like crazy.

high ground: standing armies is good.

refugee+winterfell castle: from the faq, you can trigger dreadfort with refugees. whenever possible, bounce them with abandoned fort and trigger dreadfort again next round with a zero-cost guy. ok thats a 4-card combo you'll never realistically make it happen.

desperate tactics: let's say you're about to lose an army to a power challenge. desparate tactic some other army. trigger dreadfort, dont lose your guys, gain a standing army. then, all armies go back to you're hand and you get to trigger dreadfort again next round.

frozen moat + frozen outpost: its better if you don't lose as the defender. if you have room for a non bolton guy, frozen outpost+greatjon is a 7 str tricon who cant get bypassed with stealth and can defend twice.

hodor and jumping catelyn: good cards.

cat of the canals: it's been a while since I included cat in my decks, I used to like her a lot but now i'm not sure. if you do want to include her heres how to use her: northern steel makes her a beast. rusted sword works too. also, if you like her that much then go for 3x endless endurance. with outpost, northern steel and endurance she can stop armys and doesnt afraid of stealth or deadly. be careful when you play fortified position, that's when they'll try to kill her.

roose: if you lose all your guys, you'll be happy to have have roose around. war crest intrigue is also good with outpost.

feigned retreat: when you really, really need to win that one challenge with roose that will turn the game.

rhymes with meek: since you already need some influence for feigned retreat it's not a bad idea to get meek as well. it might save your reek from forever burning or something like that.

bastard's boys: they're cheap when you have many boltons, but most of the time you won't get to trigger their response because your opponent will controll at least one bolton.

as I said, dont expect anything from a full bolton deck, I'm not sure but I don't think they ever won any tournaments. actually, scratch all that they only way to play bolton is the bolton troll rush.

bolton troll rush: lose all your guys on purpose. then, when your enemy controls many boltons, play as many steelshank reserves as you have in your hand. then play as many in ramsay's name as you have in your hand. you're only remaining guy is roose bolton, try to not get him killed (rhymes with meek, duplicate, bodyguard). steelshanks reserves claim power as they switch control. win a mil challenge with feigned retreat and roose, all the weenies claim power for each in ramsays name.

Thank you man. Looking forward to making this a fun deck