ToMB Episode 1.2 - The Full Monty

Montressor – Outcast – Henchman – 9ss

Next up is the next ‘mystery’ model expected to be in the Jack Daw box set which is again named after a character from an Edgar Allen Poe story, Montressor. As discussed previously the rules would indicate he is a hangman of some kind, and being on a 50mm base he can officially be proxied by the Nightmare Hanged, which is what I am using for him (and painted by my own fair hand).

Weighing in at 9ss and having henchman status (cache 4) Montressor should be the ‘heavy hitter’ of the crew. Is he? Well let’s have a look.

DF is pretty solid at 6 and WP is poor at 4, 8 wounds and not incorporeal so nothing special there, and in fact looks a little fragile if anything. He is slow with WK 4 and is HT 3 which has its advantages and disadvantages.

So far, so underwhelming then.

The first thing of note is that he is nimble, giving him a free walk action and sticking with the theme of the crew being quite fast and maneuverable. He is also terrifying 12 to Living, which while not to be sniffed at isn’t fantastic.

Mocking Laughter is a 5” aura which puts enemy models at -1 WP (Jacks Suppressed Memories & Driven by Injustice are resisted with WP, Montressors attacks aren’t) ) and he also has The Choking Death which means all enemy models in base contact at the end of the turn must pass a DF14 duel or suffer 2 damage. Place Ligeia near him and an uncheatable DF 14 duel could be quite tough.

Attacks – String ‘em Up provides him with a nice meaty 3” range ML6 attack with 1/4/7 damage, Pull ‘em Tight triggers on the built in crow and pushes the target into base contact after damaging unless they discard two cards while if you add in another crow for Tangle it paralyses a model in base contact after damaging. Combine these triggers with The Choking Death and you are really seeing that Montressor want to be in base contact with as much as possible.

Toss the Noose is basically an identical version of String ‘em Up but with range 10 and without the Tangle trigger.

I’m always a bit dubious about models with a very high severe damage and a very low weak damage as in my experience you will be hitting weak more than severe. Unless, for example, you have a couple of high cards in your hand and something to stop the opponent cheating fate. The other upside of the low weak damage is the push, which means you can target your own models, cheat down to get weak and move them around, I always find this can be a little card intensive though.

His only Tactical Action is a (1) action Comfort in Fear, any model within 5” aura which succeeds on a horror duel suffers 2 damage. Stick him in proximity on things that are targeting hanged and this could be awesome, if there isn’t much terrifying on the table it’s probably not worth the (1) AP, if only it was a (0).

Upgrades

Montressor gets his own upgrade, Fearful Whispers (1ss) , and the other he can make use of is restricted to tormented models, The Creeping Terror (1ss) and to my mind both are going onto Montressor as auto includes, effectively bringing his cost up to 11ss (for an 8 WD model, I may reconsider this after a couple of games!)

Fearful Whisper adds a (0) action to his arsenal and forces all models within 5” pulse to pass a TN14 WP duel or be pushed into base contact, Tormented models are -2WP for this and enemy are also -1WP due to Mocking Laughter. It will be important to make sure you order the pushes correctly with this or there could be a bit of a traffic jam getting to him!

The Creeping Terror is great and I am so glad it isn’t restricted to Montressor. It adds the ability 'The Crawling Chaos' to a model which means that all friendly models within LOS increase the range of Auras and Pulses by 1”. Jack uses auras, Ligeia uses auras, so does Montressor, Jaakina, Ama and more. Putting this on Montressor at HT3 means you are more likely to be in LOS and that no cheat aura from Ligeia has just become 4” and not 3”

So my overall impressions of him aren’t great, but saying that I had a beta game with him a while ago and on the table he was awesome! I would definitely say he needs support from Ligeia, her no cheat aura could be the thing that keeps him alive because at DF6, WP4 and 8 wounds he looks pretty fragile. Ligeia will also help with The Choking Death DF duels.

I think to get the most out of him you will also need to run him with a Hanged in close proximity cause 2 damage from Comfort in Fear if anyone wants to target it. When I played my beta game I also ran Jaakuna alongside him and those little slices of 2 damage soon add up. However a block of Monressor, Ligeia, Hanged and Jaakuna adds up to 28 points!

What he can do well, continuing the theme, is move models. Toss the Noose with its range of 10” and built in push to base contact trigger could be great for moving models out of the way (or your crew towards you with the minimum damage being 1) and if you can get him to within 5” of a crowd he can use Fearful Whisper to suck them all into base.

But he looks fragile, very fragile and you need him exposed to make the use of a lot of his abilities. I’m simply not sure about him and it will require some table time to find out.