You’ve been very patient, and the doctor will see you now…

It’s so close I can taste it!

Okay, I’ll stop licking my copy of Blood on the Water, and tell you all about the Doctors.

As with every other faction, the Doctors are getting some brand new miniatures to celebrate the launch of Blood on the Water. And in addition, they’re getting a complete faction balance pass as well, to coincide with the 2.2 rules for Carnevale which are dropping very soon (and included in BotW).

Let’s not waste any more time and let’s talk rules!

Faction Command Ability

The Doctors have always had a very fluffy faction Command Ability. The option to turn Will Points into Life Points to heal themselves work thematically.

The problem is that it’s super unhelpful in game. So we changed it!

Nexus Link Reconfiguration sees a Doctor drain someone of all of their Will Points in order to recharge one of their Nexus batteries. This weird new ability has a lot of uses. On the surface it’s just a simple doubling of Will Points, which is insanely useful, particularly later on in the game.

However, it’s not quite that simple, since it completely drains one character to do it. Most Doctors only have 2 Will Points to start with, so unless you have two Madman that you’re constantly juggling Will Points for, you’re either getting 4 Will Points on a Madman, or maximum of 2 on a Doctor. As with the whole Doctors faction, this one is a bit of a thinker!

Command

We already teased the Doctor of the Mind in last year’s advent calendar, so we won’t waste time on her. She’s almost exactly the same as she was then anyway. Let’s talk Plague Doctor instead.

The Plague Doctor is one of the most iconic models in all of Carnevale, although has always struggled to find its footing in games. Now though, he’s had some changes and is ready to spread plague throughout Venice!

First and foremost, you should see that the Plague Doctor has a fairly solid statline – especially for a Doctor. With some decent magical potential as well, that’s a strong mixed character.

Purifying Ungents is a useful ability as it stops huge amount of your gang being Stunned. Doctors tend to have fairly low stats, so that’s really helpful.

Plague-infused Anatomy is the most exciting new skill though. A Plague Doctor will experiment on anyone that’s close by, and that includes friends and colleagues (and of course Madmen). Whenever anyone is killed within 6″, the attacked is Stunned! So that’s no Stunned counters for you, and loads for your opponents. Nice.

The Doctor is in

All of the Doctors have been looked at with a fine-toothed comb, and we’ve made a lot of little changes.

Not least of which is the Ordnance Doctor’s new name! Rather than confusing people with Arsenal/Arsenale, we changed it a little.

You’ll notice that all of the Doctors have become a little less jack-of-all-trades type characters. Each one has been given a more specific role. In laymans terms: they got nerfed. However, they’ve also almost all reduced in Ducats fairly significantly (the Ordnance Doctor used to be 17!).

The Ordnance Doctor is focusing specifically on his namesake: ordnance. He’s lost his alternate flamer fire mode, but has a longer-ranged Spirit Cannon instead. It’s also not Unstable anymore, and only costs Will Points when you want to shoot it more than once, which makes the Ordnance Doctor a lot more self-sufficient.

The Morgue Doctor is in fact the only fully-fledged Doctor that has gone up 1 Ducat. But with an increased Attack value, that’s not so bad.

The Morgue Doctor has also gained a much more useful Command Ability. Power Over Death now actually does what it claims to! You can literally bring your characters back to life, provided you’re close enough. That means the Morgue Doctor isn’t going to be able to hang back all game. But with Divinity magic, you have a character that can heal better than anyone.

Madmen

You thought we’d leave these guys alone? No way! Madmen are the centre of any Doctors gang. They provide Will Points to the Doctors who barely have enough of their own to do anything. But they were always such a drain on your gang.

So what about having them at 5 Ducats? :O

Madmen are cheaper than ever! Unfortunately that does mean they’ve had a few changes to offset that reduction. Each Madmen has 1 less Will Point (which is less of a problem with the new faction Command Ability) and 1 less Life Point. But they never last all game anyway.

The Madman’s stats and skills have been tweaked to better reflect their models. They can run fast, but considering they’re in straitjackets, they go down to Attack 1 and gain Limited Movement.

However, Nexus is also better than it used to be. It has a longer range, which means you can keep them further away from the fight. Unfortunately you now need line of sight to use Nexus, but Madmen no longer lose Life Points when they’re empty! These changes also carry over to Unleashed Madmen and Carrion (both of which have a few other changes and are much cheaper too).

All in all, worth 5 Ducats I think!

Beasts

“What about the animals? Won’t someone please think of the animals?!”

Well, we thought about them too.

All the beasts have also seen a fairly hefty Ducat reduction, which makes them useful even if you’re not going for a full beasts list.

Some have also seen a few other small tweaks. I wonder if you can see what’s changed on the Gorilla? No?

He’s no longer Mindless.

Sleepless Undead

Alright, that’s enough of that. Let’s talk about the shiny new toys!

There’s a new group in the Doctors, and they’ve figured out a way to bring things back to life. Sort of. I mean, I hope that’s not what these things looked like when they were alive.

The Husks are what happens when the Doctors have a whole pile of spare parts, stitch them back together, and bring them to life. They’re zombies. I mean, each one is zombies. Plural.

At 4 Ducats, don’t expect the Husks to be bringing much to your game on their own. They only have Dexterity 2 and 0 Protection. Oh and if you look at them funny, they’re likely to fall apart. Seriously, the Corpse special rule means that they just take even more damage than they should.

On the plus side they have Expert Grappler (2), so if you have enough of them you can pull your opponent round the board to go wherever you want! Still, this doesn’t seem like the best thing a Doctor could make with a bunch of corpses…

Ahhh that’s better! A Husk is essentially a zombie made from the right amount of spares. A Monstrosity however is what happens when there’s parts left over!

I don’t think you’ll find a cheaper Henchman on a 40mm base. Unfortunately the Monstrosity suffers the same drawbacks as the Husks: they’re easy to hit and easier to kill. However, that massive Rusty Blade that’s pinned through its arm? Well, you swing that with enough people nearby and you’re going to do a lot of damage.

All this begs the question of exactly how the Doctors can make zombies. And in fact, why Vlad is squaring off with them. Well, without going into story spoilers, the Doctor of Venesection might shed some light on things there.

This is what can happen when you’re a Doctor in San Servolo and “volunteer” for an experiment. The Doctors of Venesection are indeed Doctors, but they’re also Strigoi. They bite people, they drink blood, they do Strigoi things. But as Doctors they’re still smart, and therefore still useful. So the other Doctors cut off their arms so they won’t cause too much trouble. They can still aid in academic discussion, but they’re muzzled the rest of the time. A very Doctors solution to the problem.

They’re also very effective Henchmen! Although they’re often starved so go into stupors, they’re still incredibly handy for a Doctors player who wants to add some actual combat ability to their gang.

Now, the lady that made this all happen, and has pride of place on the cover of Blood on the Water! The Master of Necromantic Studies is a new Leader choice for the Doctors, and she’s super weird. And we mean super weird. Like, we don’t even know how much she’s going to change the faction. We’ve tried to figure it out, but we’re just waiting for all you Carnevale fans to do things we’d never even thought of.

Basically, the Master of Necromantic Studies has found a way to turn things undead. Using the Elixir of Death (that glowing orange goop), she’s used it on all her friends and co-workers. Much like the Plague Doctor, she’s not afraid of a little experimentation! In game this manifests as taking all Will Points away from the gang, and giving all those characters Frenzied instead. That means you can drain Life Points out of your Madmen. Or just out of yourself? She’s weird.

Looks like she might have used it on herself as well, as she’s not only a Mage (2), but she also has Vampiric Attack (2) as well! We’re very excited to see what people do with this character, and how it changes Doctors gang building forever.

That’s everything! We’ve now looked at the changes and new models for every single faction in the game! There are only a few short hours until everything goes live for pre-order, and we’re incredibly excited to hear what you all think! It’s been a long journey getting to this stage, and it’s now in your hands!

Let us know what you’re excited for, let us know which your favourite Doctor is. And don’t forget to head to the TTCombat webstore at 3pm to pre-order your copy of Blood on the Water!