With the release of the La Grazia Reserchers boxset we take a look at the Doctors Faction and what’s been released and make up some gangs to cause chaos.. I mean…. Experiment and test on the streets of Venice.
Wait.. No… The Doctors care and help those in need, just ignore the death and destruction the experiments cause, it’s just a sad side effect of the treatment and research.
The Doctors have a lot of very strong options now, personally the La Grazia Researchers boxset plugged the very few gaps left in the faction. The Doctors are still a faction that take some work to master, but a lot of the previous weaknesses have now been plugged.
When designing Doctors gangs I personally think there are two ways of approaching gang building. Fire power and Agility. Agility is of course loosly used in comparision to really agile gangs such as the Guild. Essentially I mean make the most of the Unleashed Madman and Carrion, two characters that I personally think are massive releases for the Doctors.
I’ve done some example gangs for 75 Ducats and 100 Ductas. All of them use characters from the La Grazia Researchers, since it’s a fantastic set of characters in my opinion.
Let’s take a look at the gangs.
75 Ducats.
Heavy Firepower:
75 Ducats is probably the hardest size gangs to do for the Doctors, as much as our choice of characters has improved, the synergy between characters is really hard to fit into 75 ducats.
Leader:
Master of Zoology
Heroes:
Alchemist Doctor
Henchmen:
Electron Canoneer
Electron Canoneer
Lion
Exactly 75 ducats. So how does this list work? Well the Master of Zoology doesn’t need Madmen like the other Doctor Leader characters so we can avoid taking them. She can stay with the Canoneers and use her Command Ability to keep them from harm.
She is also capable of controlling the Lion, allowing the Lion and the Alchemist Doctor to cause destruction to enemy characters. The Lions Hunter ability allows it to hunt down any scary monsters that you may have to deal with. The Alchemist Doctor’s bombs are very powerful.. If a little unreliable.
The two Electron Canoneers give the firepower. remember to fire them into grouped enemies, and never within 3 inches of themselves else you risk causing yourself damage. The Master of Zoologys access to Divinity can help offset this, but you may want to use Runes of Sovereignity instead.
Agile
Leader
Doctor of the Mind
Heroes
Unleashed Madman
Henchman
Carrion
Carrion
Madman
Ok, let’s get something out of the way, you are not going to win the objective game with this list. Only your Leader isn’t Mindless. However, with two Carrion you can pickpocket Mobile Objectives right out of your oppnents hands. Since you need them getting all over the board consider using Runes of Sovereignity, however Blood Rites will give you more damage potential, choose wisely and dependant on your opponent.
Carrion and the Unleashed Madman get all over the board, you can even compete with the Guild at rooftop level for mobility, but be careful taking on any Capodecinas you find up there. The Unleashed Madman may be able to go toe to toe with him, but the Carrion will only want to get in and pickpocket before slipping away.
The Madman is there simply as a Will Point battery for the Doctor of the Mind. We mentioned before how the Doctor of the Mind should avoid getting too close to enemy characters, so position him wisely.
So how do you win with this gang? Well, short of killing everyone you see, you won’t. But remember, It’s not always about winning for the Doctors, it’s simply testing what happens when they do something, any result is a good result.
You can also Almost recreate this epic photo of the Doctors faction. Just pretend one of these madmen is a Carrion…
100 Ducats
Heavy Firepower
I have two gangs at 100 ducats for the Heavy Firepower options. Simply because I made two and couldn;t decide between them. The first is simply a continuation of the 75 Ducats gang however we add a Doctor of the Arsenal and a Madman:
Leader:
Master of Zoology
Heroes:
Alchemist Doctor
Doctor of the Arsenal
Henchmen:
Electron Canoneer
Electron Canoneer
Lion
Madman
A Flashbang Grenade rounds us up to 100 Ducats. Tactics stay very much the same, except you now have a Doctor of the Arsenal to boost the firepower up more, keep him with the main group with his personal madman battery and obliterate all that come close.
The second gang is, well, the defination of risky but with firepower beyond belief.
Leader:
Plague Doctor
Heroes:
Doctor of the Arsenal
Doctor of the Arsenal
Henchmen:
Electron Canoneer
Nurse
Madman
Madman
Madman
Some Bottle Courage rounds us to 100 points, that re-roll with this risk of fumbles is going to be used pretty early.
Lots, and lots of firepower, I’d give the Plague Doctor Wild Magic for this gang myself, a couple of those spells can help boost the main firepower block a lot. His Command Ability also means you can cut through highly armoured targets like a hot knife through butter. For best results stay as one block of pure destructive power.
Blood Rites certainly has it’s case too, and gives even more damage potential, again, up to you.
If you do clump together, you may, well you will struggle to control the board, if the scenario really calls for board conrol, there are enough madmen to split the gang up and go on seperate rampages. Blood Rites may be the better choice in that case.
The Nurse allows you to heal your characters, with the risk of fumbles with this gang, that is going to be crucial.
Agile Gang
Just the one gang, a continuation of the 75 Ducat Agile gang.
Leader:
Doctor of the Mind
Heroes:
Unleashed Madman
Warden
Henchmen:
Carrion
Carrion
Madman
Nurse
A Flashbang Grenade rounds brings us up to 100 ducats and gives us a guranteed crit on a disengage, use with a Carrion on that crucial objective that some enemy stupidly picked up first.
The Warden stays with the Doctor of the Mind as does the Nurse, that allows him to worry less about enemy characters as the Warden pummels any that get too close and the Nurse can keep everyone healed. The Carrion go and play fetch with mobile objectives and the Unleashed Madman picks off enemy characters around the board.
Expanding to more Ducats
Once you get past 100 Ducats you can start to broaden the gangs to mix the two schools of thought together, add some firepower to an agile gang or add some agility to a firepower gang. Or you can double down on the choice. Have two blocks of heavy firepower, have even more characters getting around the board.
I hope this has helped people make some decisions on which characters to take. And I hope this has helped to show the power of the La Grazia Researchers boxset, now avaialble to order on the webstore.