Dagon will surely be pleased with all these new rules!
There are so many new character rules this week that we’ve had to split them up into three posts!
The Guild have got a new boxed set in the form of the House of Virtue, a bunch of harlots turned spies turned assassins that are deadly in the right hands. Meanwhile the Dagon Fanatics boxed set sees the Rashaar walk on land, dominating the streets and becoming a real pain, that’s for sure!
It’s time today to dive into some rules for the Rashaar’s servants in the Dagon Fanatics.
Dagon Fanatics
The Dagon Fanatics box is the first of its kind for Carnevale: an entire box made up of brand new characters, with not a Kickstarter sculpt in sight! While this box isn’t a gang in and of itself, it pairs perfectly with the Church of Dagon box to make a complete gang.
Anyway, enough preamble, let’s get to rules!
Starting with the most impressive looking miniature (subjective of course, but she’s my favourite), the Demagogue.
This Hero choice make an excellent secondary leader for Rashaar gangs. She’s not an all-out fighter like some other Heroes in the Rashaar, but she does some other things very well!
With fairly basic stats and no particularly exciting special rules (Brave is cool and Fast Swimmer (1) sort of useful, but nothing to write home about), it’s all down to her Command Abilities and unique rules.
With 3 Command Points (remember: she’s a Hero choice) she can use the Prove Yourselves to Dagon special ability to give First Strike (1) to all friendly Henchmen within 6″. At a 12″ bubble that’s going to be most of your gang, and for 1 Command Point you’re getting a lot of extra attacks!
Her Eldritch Incense is always in play, and makes a 6″ bubble of Fear (0) around her. While Fear (0) isn’t amazing on its own, the sheer number of Mind rolls you can forcing with that bubble is pretty great.
Finally let’s talk about the Demagogue’s weapon. Or, weapons I guess. The Brand can be used as either a Burning or White Hot version, but it all depends on who you’re attacking. The -3 Penetration version only works on characters with 3 Protection or less, and the +2 Damage but +1 Penetration version only works on characters with 4 Protection or more. Basically the brand can burn straight through light clothes, but against proper armour it takes a bit longer to work. Although if it does work you’re basically boiling your opponents inside their own armour!
The Enforcer is our second Hero choice, and is a real brute!
She’s definitely not as tricky as the Demagogue, more of a blunt object to throw at your opponents. Which is quite fitting considering her massive blunt Iron Mace! In the hands of someone smaller than this suspiciously large woman the Iron Mace would likely be two-handed, but she swings it with ease. +1 Damage isn’t anything to sniff at, and this is one of the only ways for Rashaar players to gain access to Stun!
Otherwise she’s fairly standard but extremely reliable. Expert Offence (2) and Expert Protection (2) means she’s excellent and protracted combats. Don’t let your opponents run away from you!
Finally it’s worth nothing that she’s on a 40mm base, so if she’s in the water not only does she swim faster but also will gain +1 attack when Drowning characters on smaller bases. Nice.
Next on our roster of new characters is the Handler. This is a new Hero choice who has a very specific role.
He’s a little more dexterous than most Rashaar, and his Herding Spear does decent damage at a 2″ range, allowing him to stay out of combat. He’s Brave in combat though, so don’t worry about Fear tests!
Speaking of combat, the Hunter special rule gives you excellent Penetration against things on larger bases which – if the Enforcer and Escort are anything to go by – are becoming more and more prevalent.
The Handler is brought to battle to help coral the monsters of the Rashaar forward, and he’s good at that! The Herding special rule means friendly Monsters gain +2″ Move if they start in Herding Spear’s distance. Very handy when your Water Creatures get stuck on land.
Our final character class is the humble Urchin.
These diminutive characters are a measly 8 Ducat Henchmen choice, putting them as the second-cheapest character choice the Rashaar have access to (second to Slaves, obviously).
They move fast, are very dexterous, but have barely any Life Points and basically no Protection. So don’t get caught!
To help on that front they have Slippery (3), so they can run away easily. And that’s what you’re going to be wanting to do a lot. With Pickpocket they can steal Objectives and Will Points from their opponents (although with Mindless they’re going to have to give those Objectives to an adult), and combined with Slippery and their great Dexterity they have a very high chance of doing so!
The big draw for them though is the Unassuming special rule, which allows them to make a free Attack of Opportunity if they successfully disengage from an enemy. Something they’ll be doing all the time! It also triggers if friendly characters disengage from the same enemy too, so run them with other characters to offer help and really mess with your opponent. Who should they attack? Who knows!
The Dagon Fanatics box is available to order right now on the TTCombat webstore, and later this week we’ll be looking at a few ways you can build your Dagon gangs, even adding some big monsters in there for good luck!
