The Pulcinellas are back and making a mess of the place, let’s have a look see at how we can make the best of a boozy situation.

A whole new slew of characters are coming out for The Great and Noble Cult of the End of Days bringing with them their own fresh flavours of boozy beatdowns. Lets take a look at the new characters and see how we can get the most out of them (and maybe offset some of their single mindedness).

Characters

Lewis has already been through the changes to the existing Pulcinellas (and some other less pertinent characters), as that deserved an article of its own, so definitely check that out. With the Pub Crawl box we get access to 3 new characters, each adding a new type of beverage based belligerence.

Brute

If we had to give the Brute a favourite kind of drink, I’m fairly sure it would be Fight Milk, if it existed in the 18th century that is.

While the Brute is slow (compared to his other drunk friends), with a Move and Dexterity of 4, once you get him into combat 4 Attack, 4 Protection, and 14 Life means he’ll be able to get stuck in for a while. 4 Attack is good, but the Big Club makes it that much better, able to hit things 2″ away, with stun, and an additional point of damage, you can really go to town with something like this.

Getting the most out of the Brute won’t be hard, despite being slower than most Pulcinella’s, he’s still as fast as the average citizen, so should be able to catch up to them no problem. As your other characters will likely be faster than he is, they can get into combat first and tie something up for your heavy hitter. Like other Pulcinella’s is guy works better with friends. The more instances of Mob Rule you can stack the more damage you’re going to be able to dish out, pairing this guy up with a Pulcinella or two will be a very good idea.

Dealing with a Brute is essentially taking the things that will make a Brute strong, and making sure it never gets to use them. Any way of getting rid of their friends will help, chucking one of them into a canal will work, or teleporting them away with Gateway. If you have faster or slippery characters you can try to run circles around the brute, staying out of its way while taking potshots when you can.

Firebreather

The Firebreather is the new Henchman in the Pub Crawl box and would definitely know of an 18th century equivalent to Riot Juice.

The Firebreather is going to need some planning to use, or someone with first aid skills. Each time she uses her Fire Breath weapon she’ll be taking a point of damage. Though this is a fair trade off for a template penetration-4 attack. Throw some of her 4 will points into it and you have a potential of 5 damage off of that attack, not even including Mob Rule.

Bringing along a Mage with either Wild Magic or Divinity is advised (if you aren’t going for a pure Pulcinella gang) as that 1 damage from attacking will add up quick. Though if you’re going all out at the end of the world, taking another Pulcinella of some description will probably end up with a higher damage potential. The Firebreather works well with our next Pulcinella and both have an offensive weakness in that they both have black powder weapons. Send either into the drink to ruin their day and put a serious stopper on their antics.

Brewer

Out of the three new characters in this box, the brewer is the most likely to lean over the bar and drink straight from the tap.

While not as full up on stats as the Brute, the Brewer does still have plenty of Life as well as a couple of command points. I’m not sure how that works in a Pulcinella gang, but I’ve just got to assume alcohol is involved. Her weapons are both range 4, with nothing particularly interesting about her regular Bottles, but Flaming Bottles has something worth taking another look at. -5 penetration on a character with 2 attack may not seem much, but Mob Rule still works with this. If you’ve already got a couple of characters with Mob Rule in combat, throwing a flaming bottle can suddenly deal a lot more damage. Keep it Flowing may not see a lot of use all the time, but being able to drown someone under a keg of booze can be a handy way to win a fight without the assistance of a Firebreather.

A lot of the advice for the other Pulcinellas can be used against this one, keep her isolated and well away from anything on fire. She works in a somewhat odd range band, close enough to be charged by a lot of characters, but well out of any melee range, any range 5 characters will have no issue in keeping her in check and potentially locked in combat though.

How to Pulcinella

While Pulcinellas are some of the more straightforward gangs you can play they can still offer a bit of tactical flexibility. If you decide to include a gifted, they can benefit a lot from the varied skills they have to offer. If you want to add some long range damage Brighella can be a valuable addition with a 15″ Atrezzo Crossbow. Fadhilla can offer some much needed resilience to the gang between Mage(2) and her command ability that careful positioning can make a group of Pulcinellas very hard to kill.

Dealing with these drunkards means keeping them separated, a task easier said than done. If you have access to models on larger bases, throwing your weight around and using plenty of grapple actions can be a great method of crowd dispersal. Mages are also a great offence against Pulcinella gangs, they don’t have any way of dealing with magic leaving you the ability to cast with impunity. If you can isolate one of these ruffians, you need to jump on the chance to gang up on them and quickly get them off the board. If you don’t completely get rid of them they can still come back to bite you. Even a single low health Pulcinella can be a boost to another’s attack so make sure to finish them off whenever possible.

If these drunken louts seem like the kind of gang you want to play, take a look over on our webstore where the Pub Crawl box is up for pre-order.