A look at the Doctors faction and how to use them successfully with the new releases and character stat updates:
Hi fellow Sociopaths, it’s Chris and Scott here with an in depth look at the Doctors and how to use them to terrorise the streets of Venice to gain new subjects for ‘research’.
It has been quite clear that people have found the Doctors a challenging faction to play so far, a combination of madmen being too expensive considering their lack of uses, a lack of options overall and of course a general design idea that they work best at high point games.
With that in mind we’ve written this guide to help you all, and decided to give the Doctors some much needed boons with some stat changes and points adjustments.
New Characters:
Today we’ve released the new Box set for the Doctors, The Aether-Psychology boxset. This provides us with some much needed options for the Doctors, a new Leader, and a scary one at that in the Doctor of the Mind. A warden to protect our leaders, 2 nurses to heal our characters, something we’ve sorely lacked. (Doctors unable to heal, that was interesting.) And a new sculpt of a will point battery, I mean Madman.
Speaking of Madmen, we’ve given them a boost, a whole new Will point and they cost one ducat less. More magic for less money and just as much madness. For our Kickstarter backers who may have already owned Nurses and the Doctor of the Mind, we’ve given these characters a boost too, our Doctor gained more Parry, and our Nurses have a more powerful healing ability.
The Characters of the Doctors:
So now we have a wide variety of characters for the Doctors, let’s look at them in depth, there are a lot of synergy and possible combos amongst the Doctors and certain characters work best with particular characters alongside them, some ideally need to be taken in multiples, so let’s identify where these are:
Leaders:
Plague Doctor:
The Plague Doctor is a formidable mage with Expert Sorcerer (1) and Mage (2), he has access to Blood Rites and Wild Magic. He isn’t going to win many fights on his own with distinctly average 4 attack and a scalpel for a weapon, but he can give allies Penetration (-2) on their weapons, which is a significant bonus to anyone. They only have 2 Will points though, which is where the Doctors unique play style becomes important, without their will point batteries, I mean Madmen, they are not going to achieve their potential.
Essentially when taking a Plague Doctor you want one Madman to be his, and his alone. Due to this ‘tax’ we really recommend taking Blood Rites because this makes him a very strong damage dealer for the cost, spending 29 ducats for a support character is not often going to work well, however 29 ducats for a magic user who can deal a lot of damage, is worth it. Give him Krakens Breath and his Madman and watch the devastation. Also recommend Blood Drain and Mother Hydra’s Claws.
Doctor of the Mind:
The coolest sculpt in Carnevale (According to Chris) he is even worse in combat than the Plague Doctor, however he is Mage (3) and with Parry (3) he can afford to get into the thick of it more often. He syncs really well with the beasts, being able to give them fear and using his universal shielding to make them even tougher. He can again take Blood Rites but his other option is Runes of Sovereignty, this time we definitely recommend Sovereignty, though again with a Madman he’ll be 29 Ducats, with 3 spells and the powerful cantrip given by the Runes, he’ll dominate the battlefield.
Definitely take Madness, Walk Between Worlds and Ice Lock and you’ll be able to freeze the canals to get around, move your friendly characters where you want them and take over enemy characters. When needed you can boost your allies with Ethereal, Flight and Slippery. Paired with Wardens or the Beasts, this has ridiculous potential.
Heroes:
Doctor of the Arsenal:
This character gives the Doctors extremely heavy firepower, however since you need will points to fire, we recommend taking two, and sharing a madman between them. Just be careful of the unstable rule, don’t go after characters with high Dex with these guys. Use them to quickly kill the weaker characters, after all, they aren’t as much use alive.
Doctor of the Beasts:
With a Shock Staff and Hunter this is one Doctor who can give it out in melee. He also gives any beasts a good boost and with Runes of Sovereignty can be looked at as a smaller Doctor of the Mind. If taking Beasts with the Plague Doctor this character is a must take. For his spell, use Waves of Force for a more defensive option. Or take Walk Between Worlds to really boost those beasts into ridiculous killing machines.
Warden:
A great big Berserk Tank to protect your Doctors. Not so much to say for him, just use him to stun enemy characters who dare to get too close. Use magic to boost and move him as needed where available.
Henchmen:
Lab Assistant:
A melee character with Hunter and Stun, basically a citizen with a better weapon. Throw him into combat with reckless abandon.
Nurse:
Our healing Character, with her Healer special ability, she can boost her healing cantrip significantly. With 4 will points make sure you use this boost at the right times. Remember Companion has no range, but the cantrip does, plan who you want her to heal in advance rather than haphazardly.
Madman:
Let’s be honest, other than their 7 will points which they can give to the Doctor characters, these guys are pretty much useless, treat them like so. Burn through their will points and then throw them at enemy characters as the disposable tools they are. With some of the command abilities and spells you could make them slightly useful. However there are better uses of both command abilities and spells. Burn them and throw them, they can’t even claim objectives for you. (Though they can pick them up).
Lion:
Want something to die in melee? Throw the Lion at it, Expert Offence (3), Hunter (though he’s on a 50mm base already) and his ripping teeth, little stands in the way of the Lion for long. Can’t claim objectives, but that’s not why you want to use him, you bought a Lion to kill things. Keep him near your Doctor of the Beasts to really boost him up.
Gorilla:
Can punch things into next week and fly. With plenty of health points, use the Gorilla to fly over and drop down on people, and pick up Objectives to bring closer to your Doctors. Don’t fall into the trap of using him as a pure melee character, it’s not his main strength. Take advantage of the Flight Rule, the only (non magical) source of Flight for the Doctors. Grapple people off roofs, drop objectives to better places, drop down on people and get away again.
Example Lists:
Chris’s Doctor of the Mind List:
Exactly 100 ducts, thanks to the point drop for the Madman. For your Leader take Doctor of the Mind. He is escorted by a Warden and a Madman. Then add in a Doctor of the Beasts with a Gorilla and a Lion, with 3 Will Points and he’ll be mostly using a Cantrip the Doctor of the Beasts doesn’t need a Madman to himself for this list. We’ll also take a Nurse who can be attached to either group to add some healing. With Runes of Sovereignty we could always move her around to where she is needed the most. Plenty of characters to claim objectives and plenty of hard hitters. With the excellent magic abilities of the Doctor of the Mind, this list should do very well.
Scott’s Plague Doctor List:
Exactly 97 Ducats this time, this list relies on ranged firepower and the Blood Rites discipline from the Plague Doctor. Take the Plague Doctor as your leader, he has a Madman to himself and a Lab Assistant to screen melee characters getting too close. For firepower and damage we have 2 Doctor of the Arsenal’s, because we are relying on them to deal a lot of damage, they have a Madman each for will points. Because of the high risk of fumbles in this group they have a Nurse to heal any damage caused by those Spirit Cannons. Stay at range and shoot your opponent into submission. Take a Flashbang Grenade with this list so the Doctors can easily disengage if required. Also take some Bottle Courage to re roll that game turning dice.
Conclusion:
Hopefully we’ve helped you out and now you can see and understand the best ways to use our favourite bunch of sociopaths. Remember you can buy the whole Doctors range from here.
If you need any more help there is a fantastic Community group for Carnevale on Facebook and feel free to ask any questions here and we’ll do our best to answer them.