Greetings, welcome to my guide of the new Ser Boltyn Armory Deck. Boltyn was born into Nobility but sought a simpler life. Enchanted by his Grandmother’s tales of Solana, the City of Light and Knowledge, Boltyn, upon reaching his majority, left his family’s lands on pilgrimage. Read the complete Ser Boltyn Lore here.
I’ll be covering the gameplay mechanics you’ll find within the deck, a full deck list, my thoughts of the deck, playing as and against the deck, and finally, a few upgrade suggestions. Let’s begin!
Table of Contents
Boltyn Mechanics
Charge
From FaB Comprehensive Rules:
8.5.29 ‘Charge is a discrete effect. To charge a card, move it from the player’s hand to their hero’s soul.’
8.5.29a ‘The player that controls the effect is considered to have charged a card, and the card put into their soul is considered to be charged.’
8.5.29b ‘Moving a card to a Hero’s soul from a rule of effect other than charge is not considered charging.’
In simple terms, to Charge a card, which is often an additional cost to play, you MAY put a card from hand beneath the Hero card. However, this does not mean you HAVE to do this.
The Soul
From FaB Comprehensive Rules Glossary page 110:
‘A Hero’s soul refers to a collection of cards in the Hero Zone, placed face up beneath the hero card, but not considered to be in the arena.’
Solflare
From FaB Comprehensive Rules:
8.4.9 ‘Solflare is a label for an ability typically written “Solflare - When this is charged to your Hero’s soul, (EFFECT)”’
Basically, when a card with Solflare is put into your Hero’s soul, you get the written effect. Examples of this are on the Banneret cards (Courage, Gallantry, Protection, Salvation, Resilience, and Vigor.)
Initial Thoughts
Straight out of the box, this thing is amazing! Not only can you sleeve-up and play, no additions needed, but it plays fantastically, too. I got stomped by this deck while we play tested it. Stomped hard!
Unlike the Boltyn Blitz precon deck, the armoury deck contains Boltyn’s signature weapon, Raydn, Duskbane, which is very nice and works extremely well with how the deck is built. I don’t think a turn happened where Fez, who helmed Boltyn during the playtest, didn’t charge. This allowed him to not only attack with Raydn, but to get all the extra effects on many of the cards in the deck that get buffed because you charged this turn.
There’s a completely new set of 4 RAINBOW FOIL armour pieces, each uniquely Boltyn’s, at least until LLS release a new Light Warrior. Anyways, each new piece of armour allows you to charge when you defend with them, and you’ll want to defend with them (except the chest) for their solid defensive value of 2. The chest piece is an enabler, allowing you to, as an instant, banish a card from your Soul to make Yellow cards 1 resource cheaper for the turn, and there are a LOT of Yellow cards in this deck.
Included in the 60 cards is a full suite of specialisation cards, with 3 copies each of Lumina Ascension and V of the Vanguard, but also an entirely new card in the form of Saving Grace - a zero cost ‘Light Warrior Defence Reaction’, defending for 3, that allows you to charge, if able, and if you do, target attack suffer -2 strength. A very nice addition to Boltyn’s repertoire and a pain in the proverbial when it’s played against you. 🤬
Deck List
Hero / Weapon / Equipment
Pitch 1
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x Pitch 2
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x 
3 x Playing With the Boltyn Armory Deck
Boltyn is a powerful hero and has remained a solid pick for competitive play. Many of his Attack Action cards are free, costing zero resources. Most allow you to charge as an additional cost to play, giving you access to go again through Boltyn’s attack reaction ability, providing the attack played has a higher strength than its base stat. Boltyn’s other hero ability facilitates this by adding 1 strength to attacks blocked by Attack Action cards.
Playing Boltyn feels, to me at least, like you are a master swordsman, lashing out with a flurry of attacks, depleting your opponent's defensive options whilst buffing your attacks with every blocked attack. He typically has longer attack chains than the other warriors I've played and seen played and seems to care less about his weapon than other Warriors, Kassai specifically.
Also, when you kick a turn off with V of the Vanguard, oh boy, watch and giggle as your opponent weeps as you swing, react, go again, swing, react, go again, until you run out of cards. This card is excellent for finishing off games or just getting some decent damage through a turtling enemy. Yes, I’m talking about you, guardians!!!! 😜
To pop off, you need somehow to maintain a constant source of buffs to your damage. There’s a bit of this in the deck, using courage tokens. These are token auras that sit around on your board until you attack with a weapon or attack action card and increase the strength of the attack by 1. This allows Boltyn to use his hero attack reaction to give the target attack go again. This combo is the beating heart of how Boltyn plays, and when it works, you’ll leave your opponent devastated in your wake.
Out of the box, the deck is quite forgiving, and it's easy enough to recover if you misplay a turn. Boltyn’s play style isn’t especially complicated, but certain things need to happen in a certain order sometimes, which, if you misread a card, or like me, don't read all the card text, you’ll miss something. So, some shared wisdom: ALWAYS READ ALL THE CARD TEXT!!!!!! 😅
Playing Against the Boltyn Armory Deck
Playing against this fool is no joke. Hit him hard and fast. Try to get him on the back foot as soon as possible, or you’ll be in for a world of hurt as Boltyn rolls over you.
Try to remember that Boltyn’s hero ability attack reaction only applies on attacks with strength greater than its base. Frailty tokens and strength debuffs work wonders here.
Break his attack chains by either not blocking or blocking with ‘non-attack’ action cards. Defence reactions are amazing for this.
Dominate and Overpower will also help you to beat down some of Boltyn’s more defensive cards and possibly force some of his equipment pieces out of the fight. Also, the card Blanch, from Part the Mistveil, which strips a chosen colour from cards played by your opponent for a turn, could help, as many of Boltyn’s charge cards synergise with yellow pitch cards.
You know you’re in for a rough time when either of the included specialisation cards hits the table. Lumina Ascension is the lesser evil of the two. It grants weapon attack +1 Strength and ‘If this hits, reveal the top card of your deck. If it’s a Light card, put it into your Soul and gain 1 life; otherwise, put it to the bottom of your deck.’ The Strength buff allows for Boltyn’s hero ability to be activated, granting Go Again for banishing a card from his Soul, which synergises with the second effect of Lumina Ascension; if you’ve charged this turn, you can make another weapon attack. Cards like Censor and Chains of Eminence can stop a named card being played, but they’re only delaying tactics.
You are truly in for a bad time whenever V of the Vanguard hits the table. Costs 1 resource, hit for 3, blocks for 3, all standard so far. Then the effects trigger! ‘As an additional cost to play V of the Vanguard, you may charge your Soul any number of times.’ and ‘Attacks you control this combat chain gain +1 strength for each Light card charged this way.’ The horrible thing about this card is that it buffs itself, turning a hit for 3 into 5 or more. Then there’s the rest of the attacks, especially if V of the Vanguard was played from Arsenal. Expect a wasted turn after this card is played because you’ll need to block with at least 1 card to every attack being thrown at you, or it’ll be game over very quickly. This was used to close a number of games during playtesting.
Upgrades
Straight out of the box, this deck is already fairly competitive, but let's make it more so. 😆
Upgrade 1
IN:
Not cheap, but arguably the best card ever printed. Every suggested deck list I’ve seen for just about every Hero has this card suggested, and always 3 copies.
OUT:
Yes, it buffs your attack and yes, it makes a courage token if you Charged this turn, but there are better, less resource dependent cards.
Upgrade 2
IN:
Yellow, hit for 4, blocks for 3, if charged to the Soul, create a Courage token. All good things! Cost 1 resource. Not terrible, but free is better.
OUT:
0 cost, hits for 3, blocks for 3, if Charged to the Soul, the next action card you defend with gets +1 block. It’s bad when the best thing about you is that you’re free. 🤣
Upgrade 3
IN:
Hits for 4, blocks for 3, and creates a Quicken token if Charged to the Soul. Nice! Cost 1 resource. The free Go Again the Quicken token grants your next attack, which makes up for this.
OUT:
0 cost, hits for 3, blocks for 3, grant 1 resource if charged to the Soul. Not bad, but the Quicken token from Gallantry is better in most situations.
Upgrade 4
OUT:
I like this card, I really do. A free 4 block reaction that lets you bottom deck a card, then draw a new one. Shame to see it go… however.
IN:
Yellow, auto Charges itself when the Combat Chain ends, blocks for 6! 6!!!! 🤯 The downside? Costs 2 resources. 😤 Still, blocking 6 more than makes up for that.
Other Upgrades to Consider
The following cards are some more cards that jumped out at me, but I couldn’t decide what to swap out for:
This is a thematic ‘non-attack’ action card. Not only is Bellona mentioned in Boltyn’s backstory, but this card buffs your next attack by 2 strength, allowing Boltyn to use his attack reaction to go again. It also allows you to potentially charge, facilitating the go again ability. These are all good things in my eyes.
Another thematic card. It’s legendary, so you can only have 1 copy in your deck, but if you Charge with it, it puts itself on the battlefield. It allows you to play Lumina Ascension as an Instant, expanding your tactical options.
An attack reaction, for the times when your opponent doesn’t block or blocks with ‘non-attack’ cards. 🙄
Buffs target attack by X, X being the number of cards banished from your soul. X cannot be 0. Also allows you to search your deck for any action card that costs X or less and bring it to hand. A buff, and it replaces itself. Marvellous! It’s also a Yellow card and costs 0 resources, so bonus points!!
Ok, this card is crazy! 0 cost, has Go Again, hits for 7! To make up for this ludicrous number you have to banish 3 cards from your Soul as an additional cost to play it.
Another attack reaction, this one lets you banish up to 3 cards from your soul and choose that many modes. The modes are:
- ‘Target Light attack get +2 Strength’,
- Target Light attack get “When this attack hits, draw a card.”’
- ‘Target Light attack get “When this attack hits, it gets go again.”’
A buff, card draw, go again, is a Yellow card and costs 0… ‘nuff said. 😆
Final Thoughts
Straight out of the box, this is an amazing product. It has all the pieces needed to be low level competitive and the framework to make it tournament competitive. It plays well and has a low-mid skill level, making it suitable for newer players wanting to get out of Blitz and into CC. It's thematic and evocative and really brings Boltyn to life as you play. All round, the Classic Constructed precons have been a win, minus the tiny print runs. Now, when can I get my hands on Azalea?
Pick up the Boltyn CC Armory Deck and all things Flesh and Blood TCG right here at Gathering Games.
