We have brand new RUMBLESLAM models heading your way this week, and you know what that means: new rules!
The Furry Fury are about to get a massive amount of reinforcements this week! Not only is there a brand new booster box for the team, but they’re getting four new Superstars, and some little furry friends as well!
We’ve already taken a look at the updates to the Furry Fury cards, so let’s see what this new box is bringing to the ring.
The Rotten Rodents are on their way this Friday, and are going to spread Poison around the ring. That’s Poison with a capital “P” because this team has a whole new mechanic!
The Rotten Rodents
And who better to explain this new mechanic than the Ralchemist?
This new wrestler is strictly a support choice for your team. Her stats are rather low, and her 4 Stamina isn’t enough to keep her on the front lines.
Luckily, her whole deal is sitting behind the front lines and throwing things! With a colossal THROW 5, she can sit out of harm’s way.
The Ralchemist can throw Poison Bombs at people! You have two options with these: either throw them into an empty space to drop a Poison Token, or straight at your foe to hit them with Poison!
Poison Tokens are a new mechanic for the Rodent Rodents, and provide them with most of their damage dealing. A Poison Token goes on a square, and any enemy wrestler that ends their move on that square takes 1C of damage! Note that an enemy can move through Poison Tokens, but not stop on them. That means you have to use them carefully to make sure your opponent has no choice but to step on them, or Shove them into them!
The Ralchemist has a few ways to create Poison Tokens, using her Turnbuckle Ability and Crowd Pleaser to produce them as well. A successful Turnbuckle Ability makes one, and if you pass your Crowd Pleaser, you can double it!
Poison Tokens are useful in loads of ways, not just for stopping your opponent stepping on them. The Dusk Runner uses and makes them himself!
The Dusk Runner is possibly the single fastest model in the game. With 6MP he can cross half the ring in one go. And his Skitter ability allows him to move 3 squares at the end of the round for a maximum move of 9! And that’s before you take into account his Sliding Claw Smash which also has Jump (although Slide would probably be more accurate in this instance).
The Dusk Runner can make Poison Tokens with his special Claw Hold, and can then use a close Poison Token to add Poison to his attacks, adding an extra Copper dice of damage!
While we’re talking about using Poison Tokens, we have to have a look at the Mole-Rat Pugilist. This tough old bean is an honourable rat, preferring to spar in the old fashioned way! He’s actually surprisingly tough for a rat, which makes a nice change for the Feral Den. Add to that his Pain Insensitivity special rule, and he’ll last a long time: he can only take 1 Damage from every attack! Sorry, special abilities, you do nothing here!
But what about Poison Tokens? Well, he can suck them up when he moves over them, storing them on his card. Those that have been absorbed can be used in two different ways: to heal 2 Stamina for each at the end of the round, or using his Crowd Pleaser to deal Poison damage to every enemy wrestler within range – the more you absorb the further the range!
For a more nuanced use of Poison Tokens, let’s look at the Ring Rat.
Another support character, the Ring Rat’s primary function is Encouraging the crowd to be on her team’s side. While in the ring, you can choose what a Blank roll on a Crowd Pleaser counts as. Very useful for Heel wrestlers, but also for any others!
The Ring Rat can gobble up Poison Tokens too, and every one removed gives the team a free Endorsement re-roll. Early in the game you can bank a few, and later in the game when there are some out in the middle of no-where, you can recycle them into re-rolls which are much more useful! She even gains extra Endorsement re-rolls on a successful Crowd Pleaser!
Looking at all the uses for Poison Tokens, you’re going to want a fair few of them. And that’s where the Rodentia Bubonica comes in.
This is a WEIGHT 3 wrestler who fills a support role. In fact, he’s the only WEIGHT 3 wrestler with three Passive Abilities! Granted, one of them is just explaining Poison Tokens, but you’ll have a lot of them!
The Rodentia Bubonica drops a Poison Token where he moves once per turn, so even without doing successful moves, you’re already getting more. That’s not all though. Not only does he make them, but he also makes them better. Thanks to the Green Death ability, all your Poison Tokens are more potent while this fat rat is in the ring. Instead of rolling a Copper dice, you roll a Silver dice instead! That applies to any rat above that causes enemies to be hit by Poison too, so that’s a colossal amount of damage.
And if that wasn’t enough, he can explode Poison Tokens with a successful Crowd Pleaser, hitting everyone nearby!
What, you want even more Poison Tokens? Okay! The Sewer Rat is a tiny addition to the team. With 0AP he won’t do much. He doesn’t even have a Crowd Pleaser!
However, the Sewer Rat shares the Plague Carrier ability with the big guy, spreading an extra Poison Token each turn. For 25K, could you ask for more?
The Superstars
Oh you do want more? Well, how about further upgrading your Poison Tokens?
Introducing Dr Blight. This ratty doctor looks like someone ate too much cheese one night after designing new Carnevale characters and woke up with this idea. I cannot confirm or deny that’s what happened.
Dr Blight – like a lot of the Rotten Rodents – is a support character. While he can get some impressive ATT or GRP scores, 3C dice are wildly unreliable (much like his treatments). His Mysterious Injection is a great way to spread extra Poison Tokens though, and is especially good at targeting weaker wrestlers with its 2 DMG.
The Dr is mounted on a pair of Stilts for walking over the sick patients and also over the Poison Tokens themselves. He can simply stride over other wrestlers, giving his 6MP a real weight as he can go anywhere he wants!
Probably the most important thing that this Superstar is bringing to the ring (other than his Lab Rat) is the Doctor of Poisons special rule. While he’s in the ring (and not Knocked Down), his fellow rats upgrade their Poison Tokens, dealing -1AP in addition to their damage. With a successful Crowd Pleaser, that turns into -2AP, which can be severely debilitating to your opponent.
Oh I did mention his fellow Lab Rat, so let’s have a look at him too.
This hulking brute of a rat is another 25K Rookie. He comes in the set with Dr Blight, but you can take him on his own if you want!
Like the Sewer Rat, the Lab Rat moves fast but has 0AP. However, each turn you get to roll to see what kind of treatments the Lab Rat has been under. There’s a choice of three, either doing a fancy attack, gaining WEIGHT and getting a free Pin, or simply being a cosmetics tester and looking pretty. Although we don’t condone animal testing, that’s still a useful little rat!
We’re not stopping there though! We have the last Superstar teaser for you today. Rattenfänger is yet another support wrestler for you. Have you noticed a theme yet?
Rather than relying on Poison Tokens, Rattenfänger instead relies on his little pipe to play some songs and entice his rat friends to the ring. There’s no such thing as wrestler limits when half your team don’t really count as “wrestlers”!
Rattenfänger plays his pipe to various effects in game. For one he can encourage friendly wrestlers to move around the ring when it’s not their turn. If those wrestlers have the Skitter or Rodent abilities, they move even further, giving you unequalled mobility. He can also play happy or sad tunes! Each turn you can choose for friendly and enemy wrestlers to recover 1 Stamina or to gain -AP counters. This happens at the end of the round after Skitter moves, so you can carefully position him to take advantage of this ability.
This pied piper can also summon some Rat Friends! He comes with 3 in the set: a Gutter Rat, a Pack Rat, and a Sack Rat. Each are just as bad as the little rodents we’ve already seen, but each does their own unique skill as well.
The Gutter Rat is probably the most specific in its use, and is identical to the one we saw yesterday. Fleet of Claw allows you to swap positions with another Skitter character instead of them moving. This can be incredibly useful to get them out of harm’s way, or put them in the best position to start the next round. With 7MP, this little rascal can go pretty much anywhere!
The Pack Rat is on the other end of the scale, and is probably the most general! Junk Hoarder gives you an additional Endorsement re-roll at the end of each round. All you have to do is keep this little rat alive until then!
Finally the Sack Rat encourages your wrestlers to take a little micro-nap, replenishing their Stamina. Combined with the Song of Recovery you can get a lot of Stamina back in one go with a little careful planning.
All three of these rats are able to be summoned by Rattenfänger, but they’re also Rookies in their own right, so you can take them in your team regardless. Rattenfänger can summon them back at any time though, which means recycleable rats!
Those are all our rules for today! A lot there to go through, so have a read and start developing your devious schemes! The Rotten Rodents are a bizarre team. With mostly support wrestlers they rely heavily on Poison Tokens to deal damage. But with top speed and area denial they are able to control the ring from turn one. Just don’t get caught like a rat in a trap!
This new team and all our new Superstars are out for pre-order on Friday. We’ll have more info here on the day, or you can head over to the TTCombat webstore to pick yours up!