ToMB Episode 1 - I'd Rather Jack!

Well here it is, the blog that you’ve all been waiting for, Episode 1 of ToMB proper, may I introduce……wait, whadd’ya mean your just going to read the cards yourself? no, wait, keep reading, its good, honest, its, ah shit you’ve gone. Nevermind I’ll write about it anyway. Up first is the main man from the boxed set, which I’m pricing at $40 and saying contains Jack, Ligeia, Montressor & 3 Guilty.

Jack Daw – Outcast – Master

OK so lets have a look at Mr Daw starting with any stats that stand out. DF4, WP7 – oh dear Jacks gonna get hit quite a bit, he’s hardly a tank of a model. This however is balanced with high wounds (13) and the ‘Oldest Magic’ ability which put hit and damage flips against him on negative (and allows him to ignore terrain when moving) but this would indicate that he’s not a beatstick! Walk 5 and charge 7 aren’t too shabby and he’s off the bat with a low cache of 2 which doesn’t bother me as stones are nowhere near as important as in 1.5

Master of Torment allows him to hire Tormented models from any faction and then we come to one of his more interesting mechanics, Daw’s Luck and Sin Eater.

Daw’s Luck allow Jack to attach 2 ‘Cursed’ Upgrades that don’t count toward his upgrade allowance at the beginning of the game, there are currently 3 to chose from which I will look at later. Jack has triggers on his attacks that attach these upgrades to the target after damaging providing some pretty nifty de-buffs. Luckily these upgrades don’t affect Jack when they are attached to him. All the upgrades have the ability for anyone suffering from them to basically use a 2 action to nullify the effects of them so Sin Eater allows Jack to take the upgrades back to dish out again at the cost of discarding a card. Sounds fun to me but I’ll look at this in more detail when I cover the upgrades.

Attacks – His attacks output a poor damage spread, both are CA attacks and have a CA of 7 which means they will be hitting quite effectively. They are all resisted with WP.

Suppressed Memories is range 8,  1/3/4 damage and has a trigger for every occasion! A Tome (Repression) forces a card discard after damaging which is handy to have but nothing special. A Mask (The Ghost of Malifaux) allows you to place Jack in base contact after damaging which sounds awesome to me, Jack just became very fast! And this is a place, not a push, so no restrictions on movement etc. Finally there is a built in crow (Final Fate) which allows you to attach a ‘cursed’ upgrade to the target after succeeding (not after damaging) so with a CA of 7 that should be pretty easy to do.

His close combat attack (Noose) has a range of 2”, which is always nice, and a 2/3/4 damage spread. It also has the crow built in for the Final Fate trigger which allows you to attach the cursed upgrade just as Suppressed Memories does and the second trigger is on a double crow (Remember Injustice) which allows you to do 2 extra damage to a model with a cursed upgrade, remove that upgrade and reattach it to Jack.

He also has a 0 attack action ‘Driven by Injustice’. This also casts with a 7CA and requires a 6 to meet the TN of 13, it does no damage but has a whopping range of 16” and allows all Tormented models within 8” pulse to be pushed 4” toward the target. I have visions of a poor flanking model being menaced by the entire crew suddenly pushing towards him!

So, he’s definitely no beastick then. He will hit often, but with little damage, and this will allow you to access his core mechanic by attaching the cursed upgrades to them. The ‘Ghost of Malifaux’ mask trigger on suppressed memories which allows the place into base contact could be mega useful and my first thoughts are this is the only trigger that it would be worth burning a stone for. But, with DF 4, I would be careful about over extending him.

Driven by injustice could be a great way to move you crew up quickly, move your crew toward or away from threats & scheme markers, it could also be used to move your models out of melee so they can get rid of cursed object and the like. It can also move enemy models that you have made tormented (there are numerous ways of doing this) away from key points. All in all I like it, a lot.

So what are Jacks’ attacks about? Quite simply I see them being about accessing his core mechanic of upgrade transfer and movement, lots of movement. Which is nice. I like movement.

Finally Jack has one tactical action, Last Whisper, which is a 0 action that allows you to place a scheme marker in base contact when a non-peon model within 6” aura when it is killed. Not an enemy model, any model and 6” can cover quite an area. It’s not an interact action so you can drop them next to other markers. Line in the sand anyone?

Upgrades

First let’s see what Mr Daw gains from his upgrades, of which there are three specific to him (which I will cover here), one of these, Twist and Turn, is limited.

Betrayer – 1ss. Makes Jack terrifying 13 to Tormented models. Quite handy for 1ss but you need to make the enemy tormented to get use from it. And what I don’t quite understand is the Hanged are the most terrifying models in the game requiring a terrifying test when you even think about targeting them and yet Jack Daw, mega hanged, boss of the hanged, has to have an upgrade to make him mildly terrifying to models that are tormented! Well I suppose balanced rules override the fluff.

Writhing Torment – 2ss. Allows Jack to push 3” when another Tormented model within aura 6” activates and makes Jack immune to paralyse.  More movement, an auto include for me I think.

Twist and Turn – 2ss. Gives Jack 2 extra attack actions both with CA8 and a TN of 14/15 respectively and have range 8. Feel their Torment allows Jack to take a (1) action with target  tormented model, no triggers etc while Twist and Turn does the same thing to a non leader model but doesn’t require the model to have the Tormented characteristic. I’ve not played a lot with crews that use obey so I will need to test this one out, there are some synergies with the Cursed upgrades.

Cursed Upgrades – Jack can chose two out of the three available to start with, they all have a 0ss cost and start attached to Jack, flipped face down. When attached face down these upgrades have no effect but when Jack attaches them to other models they all attach face up. When attached face up they all give the model they are attached to the Tormented characteristic and they all give the model a (2) action Penance, discard a card to attach this upgrade face down, basically negating the effects of the upgrade. A pseudo paralysed if you like. I can see no reason why one model cant have more than one cursed upgrade attached to it, nasty! Still with me? Let’s have a look at what they do.

Firing Squad Injustice. The model suffers 2 damage if it declares an attack action and suffers 1 extra damage from an attack.

 Drowning Injustice. The model suffers 2 damage when it declares a tactical action (other than penance) including walk, charge etc. Also suffers 2 damage when it fails a simple duel. Simply awesome!

Guillotine Injustice. When the model activates if it is a minion or peon it must discard 2 cards or be killed. Will be coming with me against swarm crews for sure!

So, if you’ve made it this far I bet your thinking thank fuck he didn’t go through the entire crew! It ended up being a bit longer than I expected but it’s a useful exercise, writing about the models has given me a greater understanding of them than I could have achieved from reading the cards.

All in all, what is Jack? Well he’s a fast moving buffer / de-buffer. If he is able to single a model out I think he is able to cause it serious problems, no matter what that model is and yet he gains a lot of benefit from being quite close to his crew. He’s no tank but can probably last a couple of turns if isolated and he’s an objective grabbing machine if needed. He also adds movement to the rest of his crew which will give them a great help in achieving strats and schemes. Theoretically he could be in the opponent’s deployment zone in trun 1 (yeah damn right I’m gonna try it and see what happens) but if he gets swamped he’s going down.

Tomorrow’s post, which will be a lot shorter I assure you, will have a look at what his Totem, Lady Ligeia, brings to the table.

TTFN