Post by osiris on Aug 19, 2020 20:24:19 GMT -5
V1.091
A posse that can actually have a surprising amount of different builds, which makes it somewhat difficult to strategically design, and therefore I would not recommend this posse for beginners. The theme is a primarily melee oriented posse (not that you can't make it shoot, you can if you want to) with somewhat difficult to kill units that might be brought back once even when destroyed. Many units have effects to drain and take away options for your opponent as well. It's difficult to play even, with a wide variety of special powers and abilities, mastering the timing of each can be challenging. Still you could just play it as a straightforward melee posse and do very well, but there is a depth and subtlety to the abilities of the units that you would be missing out on.
Ok, I'm being too cryptic, let's just get on with it: Starting with the Boss - Marie herself is NOT a frontline fighter, but with a powerful short ranged shooting attack, and a short ranged bubble of both Sawbones and Curse of the Nazombu (the resurrection ability for nazombu units) she does need to be up in the thick of things. just keep some units in front of her. She comes with a free Hexalith, and can compel tainted units (which is extra useful after resurrecting units because their own limit is reduced). as mentioned, she should be nearby her combat units, as she gives them grit rerools and can bring back fallen nazombu. She's also shrouded, and the posse bonus will be granting more of that to your force. She has above average stats, but for her high cost, she better. She doesn't have her own grit reroll though, so at only Grit 6, keep units around her to block attacks, or at least take one for the team.
SLOT 1: Any Nazombu Unit:
There are 6 to choose from - Cemetary Kriminal, Cleo the Crone, Zora the Oracle, Opie (Creation VIII), the normal Nazombu Snakes, and Jaques Santiago
Cemetary Kriminal - a very unique unit, it has a unique ability to suck fortune chips off of non-legendary enemies within 6" (a very powerful ability as it can leave many enemies vulnerable to attacks), he may ALSO open portals. He can also resurrect fallen nazombu units, is an infiltrator... er I mean "Dispersed Deployment" and even is a gambler. This unit is meant to be in the front lines, slurping chips off enemies, and fighting alongside your front-line melee nazombu like Opie/Snakes or Jaques. He's shrouded, and will grant it to other units near him if you ahve 6 nazombu units in the posse. A unique unit, and should very much be chosen for this posse.
Cleo - Nazombu Crone - She is another Nazombu that has the ability to resurrect other Nazombu. Her leeched ability is only marginally useful, and she would need to destroy a unit with an exceptional ability to even use it. She has the typical hex bolt, which is a good shooting attack, and the staff, which is a mediocre melee weapon, but with good reach and disrupt, so great against machines and constructs. Her real advantage is tainted tunnels, however, it does NOT give you a free profane nest, it only allows you to BUY an extra one, and since the boss can already buy one as a strategic unit, and comes with a hexalith, this is only marginally useful as well. Still, she's a nazombu face so she counts towards the posse bonus, and she isn't too expensive.
Zora - Nazombu Oracle - Another portal generator, if you dont bring the Kriminal for some reason (or even if you do) Again, a decent shooting attack (this one with attuned, displace, and blast), and the typical fetish staff, as well as the curse of the nazombu power. Her main distinguishing feature seems to be fateweaver. Which can be nice to cycle through your opponent's action cards, or potentially kick out a good adventure card before the end of each game turn. She's partiularly nasty near some civilians, due to the auto-crit on her attacks.
Opie - Everybody's favorite murder snake. This thing is a nazombu, but it CANT be brought back by the curse of nazombu power, because it's a legendary. It already has hardy too, so it doesn't need to stay near the sawbones boss. It actually doesn't synergize well with the abilites of the other units in this posse, however, as it is a fast, and very good melee fighter, it's nice to have to add some in-your-face killing power.
Nazombu Snake - nowhere near as nasy as opie, however, these synergize well as frontline fighters, AND they're not unique, so you can have more than one of them. They can be given sawbones from the boss, and most of the nazombu faces can resurrect them when they die. also, with a mind of 1, they're easy to compel with dark council. plus they'll likely be shrouded due to the posse bonus, so they'll ahve a better chance of getting into melee. overall, pretty useful for this posse, take at least one to shield the boss with, another wouldn't hurt.
Jaques Santiago - this guy is great in this posse. hard to kill, really nasty in melee, easy to compel, AND can be brought back with curse of the nazombu! He should definitely be in the front lines fighting, probably near the boss, or at least near the Kriminal.
SLOT 2: UP TO TWO Nazombu, Spirit Apparition, OR Enlightened Face units.
This is a tough choice. One one hand, you can get TWO more nazombu to get towards your six needed for the posse bonus (well, five, really, since the boss counts as one). BUT there's some great synergies to be had from the Enlightened Faces Partiularly Wendell Lee, as he comes with Compel and Sawbones. Francis Tumbelty is another excellent choice, because of his dark council for compelling and a 2nd free hexalith, and his attacks aren't even bad. or even the potent melee creations that are available (since they will get shrouded within 6" of a face with the posse bonus. If you dont take two Nazombu here, I'd grab tumbelty and a creation (tumblety can resurrect them with carpathogen!) like John younger, Unger, or Creation XIII
Spirit apparitions are generally a poor choice, as they are fragile, and unpredictable due to split personality (you can't guarantee how many AP you're going to get in a turn, and if you dont draw any low AP cards to swap out, you might lose a good AP card activating one of them...) However, with the boss having spectral summoning, she can spirit bomb anyone who gets too close to her, and they DO have some potent attacks, even if they likely wont stay on the board for very long. they're cheap enough to include, but again I would ABSOLUTELY NOT waste this slot on them, since the boss can take a unit of them in her own slot. more than 1 unit of these is definitely a waste of points.
SLOT 3: A confederate FACE OR a Nazombu unit. Even if you took two nazombu above, you could still get Wendell Lee here, as he's a confederate. Most of the other confederate units are just combat units, which, while good, dont really synergize with the rest of this list, as they wont benefit from curse of the nazombu or anything. Still, if you want a specific weapon, like some juiced gatlings, a flying flamethrower, the thermite shredder, or some more unique melee, you could take the appropriate confed face here. See the Stonewall jackson posse analysis for a breakdown of each one available.
SLOT 4: an Enlightened Hands unit OR a Nazombu unit
In this slot or the next, you have a choice of either an Enlightened or a Confederate hands unit. you should probably take at least one of these to fill in your forces, they both have some slight advantages. Here the enlightened choices main advantage is that they are tainted, so they can be compelled with dark council. Seekers are the obvious best choice here because this posse will primarily be up close to the enemy, and their melee is better than the widowers for only a minor loss in range on their gun which is otherwise basically the same. The menials/henchmen choices, which cheap enough to take a huge swarm in a single unit, are much less combat effective, and since you dont have alot of room in your slots, you're better off with the abominations. Overall the Enlightened hands are less powerful in offense than the confederate choices below, but they're cheaper, so you can have more, and tainted so you can compel them. Dont worry about shrouded, as you'll be getting that free anyway due to the posse bonus (unless you wander away from the face units during play...)
SLOT 5: a confederate hands unit OR a Nazombu unit
The confederate hands do offer a bit more attacking power, with slightly better stats, and more shots per model from their guns (if you choose the scouts) While the scouts are the best choice for this posse (due to their increased firepower from medium to short ranges), they do have several disadvantages from the enlightened choices above. First, they're not tainted, so they would have to be compelled with a full compel, like wendell lee, and not the boss(plus their mind is 1 point higher making them only 50% likely to be compelled anyway). second, you may only take 6 of them in a unit, rather than the 10 that the seekers can come in above. Now, that 10 unit of seekers only costs 200 points (and gives you 10 shots) but the max unit of 6 scouts only costs 180 points and gives you 12 shots, so it is slightly cheaper to get slightly more firepower from the scouts. remember though there's only 6 of them, vs 10, so the unit can be eliminated with less hits. and while their fight stat is higher, their melee weapon loses reach and parry. a block of 10 seekers near the boss is probably a better choice, but if you want to have more upfront firepower, the scouts will do.
SLOT 6: a Spirit Apparition, or ANY confederate, or a Nazombu Unit
Well, as discussed above, wasting this slot on a unit of spirit apparitions is a terrible idea. the big advantage here, is the ANY confederate unit choice. instead of taking a unit of hands above (or even in addition to possibly, if you didn't take any faces in the other slots, although that's probably a bad idea) this is the only slot that allows you to take a unit of Confederate Terminators, which are almost always good. Granted they dont have incredible melee, but they have medium to short-range firepower that is incredible. they're hard to kill, and they're tainted. and in this posse, they're likely to be shrouded. this is a FANTASTIC choice. Remember a unit of 3 does NOT have massed fire, so each unit will choose and fire independently.
How would I play this posse?
I'd start with Marie, slot 1 would be Cemetary Kriminal, slot two would be Jaques Santiago and Cleo , Slot Three would be Wendel Lee, Slot 4 would be Zora, Slot 5 would be Opie, and slot 6 would be a unit of 3 Confederate Terminators.
With the final 110 points, you could take a unit of 2 spirits for the boss to summon down on herself, but with the firepower already provided by her 'escorts' I would probably only take 1 spirit, and then use the strategic slot to buy either a small pack of civilians for use with Zora or a pack of 6 angry mob, to use as an early, in-your-face distraction to slow and possibly kill one of your opponents at the start of turn 1. (If you take only a 4 man civilians unit, you will be 25 points short of 1200, giving you a pretty good chance to get the extra adventure card on turn 1)
The boss, Cleo, and the terminators would only advance to hold an objective, while providing fire support. Jaques, Wendel and Zora would stick together to move to capture another objective. The Kriminal would have deployed forward, preferably behind LOS blocking terrain, and Opie would use his trailfinder move and raw speed to close the distance to get near the Kriminal ASAP (or portals if you make them). The kriminal would suck chips off an important unit (preferably an enemy boss) and then Opie would strike that unit. They can also be used to tackle dangerous shooters like Annie Mozee, Black Blood, Milo Jefferson, or large units of Gatling dogs. As a side note, if you really wanted a bit more melee, in slot 2, you could swap out Cleo directly for an extra nazombu snake.
This can be an extremely powerful and flexible posse, but it would take some careful maneuvering and positioning of units as well as timing your activations correctly, so it isn't for beginners, but I can see it winning alot of tournaments.
A posse that can actually have a surprising amount of different builds, which makes it somewhat difficult to strategically design, and therefore I would not recommend this posse for beginners. The theme is a primarily melee oriented posse (not that you can't make it shoot, you can if you want to) with somewhat difficult to kill units that might be brought back once even when destroyed. Many units have effects to drain and take away options for your opponent as well. It's difficult to play even, with a wide variety of special powers and abilities, mastering the timing of each can be challenging. Still you could just play it as a straightforward melee posse and do very well, but there is a depth and subtlety to the abilities of the units that you would be missing out on.
Ok, I'm being too cryptic, let's just get on with it: Starting with the Boss - Marie herself is NOT a frontline fighter, but with a powerful short ranged shooting attack, and a short ranged bubble of both Sawbones and Curse of the Nazombu (the resurrection ability for nazombu units) she does need to be up in the thick of things. just keep some units in front of her. She comes with a free Hexalith, and can compel tainted units (which is extra useful after resurrecting units because their own limit is reduced). as mentioned, she should be nearby her combat units, as she gives them grit rerools and can bring back fallen nazombu. She's also shrouded, and the posse bonus will be granting more of that to your force. She has above average stats, but for her high cost, she better. She doesn't have her own grit reroll though, so at only Grit 6, keep units around her to block attacks, or at least take one for the team.
SLOT 1: Any Nazombu Unit:
There are 6 to choose from - Cemetary Kriminal, Cleo the Crone, Zora the Oracle, Opie (Creation VIII), the normal Nazombu Snakes, and Jaques Santiago
Cemetary Kriminal - a very unique unit, it has a unique ability to suck fortune chips off of non-legendary enemies within 6" (a very powerful ability as it can leave many enemies vulnerable to attacks), he may ALSO open portals. He can also resurrect fallen nazombu units, is an infiltrator... er I mean "Dispersed Deployment" and even is a gambler. This unit is meant to be in the front lines, slurping chips off enemies, and fighting alongside your front-line melee nazombu like Opie/Snakes or Jaques. He's shrouded, and will grant it to other units near him if you ahve 6 nazombu units in the posse. A unique unit, and should very much be chosen for this posse.
Cleo - Nazombu Crone - She is another Nazombu that has the ability to resurrect other Nazombu. Her leeched ability is only marginally useful, and she would need to destroy a unit with an exceptional ability to even use it. She has the typical hex bolt, which is a good shooting attack, and the staff, which is a mediocre melee weapon, but with good reach and disrupt, so great against machines and constructs. Her real advantage is tainted tunnels, however, it does NOT give you a free profane nest, it only allows you to BUY an extra one, and since the boss can already buy one as a strategic unit, and comes with a hexalith, this is only marginally useful as well. Still, she's a nazombu face so she counts towards the posse bonus, and she isn't too expensive.
Zora - Nazombu Oracle - Another portal generator, if you dont bring the Kriminal for some reason (or even if you do) Again, a decent shooting attack (this one with attuned, displace, and blast), and the typical fetish staff, as well as the curse of the nazombu power. Her main distinguishing feature seems to be fateweaver. Which can be nice to cycle through your opponent's action cards, or potentially kick out a good adventure card before the end of each game turn. She's partiularly nasty near some civilians, due to the auto-crit on her attacks.
Opie - Everybody's favorite murder snake. This thing is a nazombu, but it CANT be brought back by the curse of nazombu power, because it's a legendary. It already has hardy too, so it doesn't need to stay near the sawbones boss. It actually doesn't synergize well with the abilites of the other units in this posse, however, as it is a fast, and very good melee fighter, it's nice to have to add some in-your-face killing power.
Nazombu Snake - nowhere near as nasy as opie, however, these synergize well as frontline fighters, AND they're not unique, so you can have more than one of them. They can be given sawbones from the boss, and most of the nazombu faces can resurrect them when they die. also, with a mind of 1, they're easy to compel with dark council. plus they'll likely be shrouded due to the posse bonus, so they'll ahve a better chance of getting into melee. overall, pretty useful for this posse, take at least one to shield the boss with, another wouldn't hurt.
Jaques Santiago - this guy is great in this posse. hard to kill, really nasty in melee, easy to compel, AND can be brought back with curse of the nazombu! He should definitely be in the front lines fighting, probably near the boss, or at least near the Kriminal.
SLOT 2: UP TO TWO Nazombu, Spirit Apparition, OR Enlightened Face units.
This is a tough choice. One one hand, you can get TWO more nazombu to get towards your six needed for the posse bonus (well, five, really, since the boss counts as one). BUT there's some great synergies to be had from the Enlightened Faces Partiularly Wendell Lee, as he comes with Compel and Sawbones. Francis Tumbelty is another excellent choice, because of his dark council for compelling and a 2nd free hexalith, and his attacks aren't even bad. or even the potent melee creations that are available (since they will get shrouded within 6" of a face with the posse bonus. If you dont take two Nazombu here, I'd grab tumbelty and a creation (tumblety can resurrect them with carpathogen!) like John younger, Unger, or Creation XIII
Spirit apparitions are generally a poor choice, as they are fragile, and unpredictable due to split personality (you can't guarantee how many AP you're going to get in a turn, and if you dont draw any low AP cards to swap out, you might lose a good AP card activating one of them...) However, with the boss having spectral summoning, she can spirit bomb anyone who gets too close to her, and they DO have some potent attacks, even if they likely wont stay on the board for very long. they're cheap enough to include, but again I would ABSOLUTELY NOT waste this slot on them, since the boss can take a unit of them in her own slot. more than 1 unit of these is definitely a waste of points.
SLOT 3: A confederate FACE OR a Nazombu unit. Even if you took two nazombu above, you could still get Wendell Lee here, as he's a confederate. Most of the other confederate units are just combat units, which, while good, dont really synergize with the rest of this list, as they wont benefit from curse of the nazombu or anything. Still, if you want a specific weapon, like some juiced gatlings, a flying flamethrower, the thermite shredder, or some more unique melee, you could take the appropriate confed face here. See the Stonewall jackson posse analysis for a breakdown of each one available.
SLOT 4: an Enlightened Hands unit OR a Nazombu unit
In this slot or the next, you have a choice of either an Enlightened or a Confederate hands unit. you should probably take at least one of these to fill in your forces, they both have some slight advantages. Here the enlightened choices main advantage is that they are tainted, so they can be compelled with dark council. Seekers are the obvious best choice here because this posse will primarily be up close to the enemy, and their melee is better than the widowers for only a minor loss in range on their gun which is otherwise basically the same. The menials/henchmen choices, which cheap enough to take a huge swarm in a single unit, are much less combat effective, and since you dont have alot of room in your slots, you're better off with the abominations. Overall the Enlightened hands are less powerful in offense than the confederate choices below, but they're cheaper, so you can have more, and tainted so you can compel them. Dont worry about shrouded, as you'll be getting that free anyway due to the posse bonus (unless you wander away from the face units during play...)
SLOT 5: a confederate hands unit OR a Nazombu unit
The confederate hands do offer a bit more attacking power, with slightly better stats, and more shots per model from their guns (if you choose the scouts) While the scouts are the best choice for this posse (due to their increased firepower from medium to short ranges), they do have several disadvantages from the enlightened choices above. First, they're not tainted, so they would have to be compelled with a full compel, like wendell lee, and not the boss(plus their mind is 1 point higher making them only 50% likely to be compelled anyway). second, you may only take 6 of them in a unit, rather than the 10 that the seekers can come in above. Now, that 10 unit of seekers only costs 200 points (and gives you 10 shots) but the max unit of 6 scouts only costs 180 points and gives you 12 shots, so it is slightly cheaper to get slightly more firepower from the scouts. remember though there's only 6 of them, vs 10, so the unit can be eliminated with less hits. and while their fight stat is higher, their melee weapon loses reach and parry. a block of 10 seekers near the boss is probably a better choice, but if you want to have more upfront firepower, the scouts will do.
SLOT 6: a Spirit Apparition, or ANY confederate, or a Nazombu Unit
Well, as discussed above, wasting this slot on a unit of spirit apparitions is a terrible idea. the big advantage here, is the ANY confederate unit choice. instead of taking a unit of hands above (or even in addition to possibly, if you didn't take any faces in the other slots, although that's probably a bad idea) this is the only slot that allows you to take a unit of Confederate Terminators, which are almost always good. Granted they dont have incredible melee, but they have medium to short-range firepower that is incredible. they're hard to kill, and they're tainted. and in this posse, they're likely to be shrouded. this is a FANTASTIC choice. Remember a unit of 3 does NOT have massed fire, so each unit will choose and fire independently.
How would I play this posse?
I'd start with Marie, slot 1 would be Cemetary Kriminal, slot two would be Jaques Santiago and Cleo , Slot Three would be Wendel Lee, Slot 4 would be Zora, Slot 5 would be Opie, and slot 6 would be a unit of 3 Confederate Terminators.
With the final 110 points, you could take a unit of 2 spirits for the boss to summon down on herself, but with the firepower already provided by her 'escorts' I would probably only take 1 spirit, and then use the strategic slot to buy either a small pack of civilians for use with Zora or a pack of 6 angry mob, to use as an early, in-your-face distraction to slow and possibly kill one of your opponents at the start of turn 1. (If you take only a 4 man civilians unit, you will be 25 points short of 1200, giving you a pretty good chance to get the extra adventure card on turn 1)
The boss, Cleo, and the terminators would only advance to hold an objective, while providing fire support. Jaques, Wendel and Zora would stick together to move to capture another objective. The Kriminal would have deployed forward, preferably behind LOS blocking terrain, and Opie would use his trailfinder move and raw speed to close the distance to get near the Kriminal ASAP (or portals if you make them). The kriminal would suck chips off an important unit (preferably an enemy boss) and then Opie would strike that unit. They can also be used to tackle dangerous shooters like Annie Mozee, Black Blood, Milo Jefferson, or large units of Gatling dogs. As a side note, if you really wanted a bit more melee, in slot 2, you could swap out Cleo directly for an extra nazombu snake.
This can be an extremely powerful and flexible posse, but it would take some careful maneuvering and positioning of units as well as timing your activations correctly, so it isn't for beginners, but I can see it winning alot of tournaments.