League of Infamy: Grand Larceny

This week I finished up the last of the League of Infamy villains and with them the whole set of models that came with the game and a few extra ones as well.

Firstly we have The Mother Infernal who is a fallen Abbess of the Basilean church. We saw a similar villain in the Drowned Secrets book by Ben Stoddard so whilst a rare event the turning of a once holy Abbess isn't a complete unknown. The Mother Infernal has an equal number of attack dice for melee and ranged but her War-pick gives her a chance to ignore armour in melee so that would seem to be her best fighting spot. She also has a nice re-roll a dice mechanic that can help smooth out a bad roll for her or a fellow villain.

Alaia used to be a Kraken hunter until her ship was wrecked and she was forced to take up alternate employment, as a Naiad she come from a neutral faction so is used to looking out for her own best interests. Much stronger at range than in melee she wants to stay out of trouble and shoot the enemy away, she has a chance to be able to drag enemies out of position with her harpoon though she probably wants to drag them into a waiting melee villain rather than into melee range of herself.

Barthamus's path to becoming a necromancer was set when his family was murdered and the League recognised the usefulness of having a master of the dead on their roster. He has a powerful ranged attack but also the ability to raise a recently slain defender to fight for him. He does need to stay close to the action to recharge his spells so will want to be careful about his positioning during raids.

Lat up we have Blaine, Mantic's interdimensional traveller who appears in all their games. He probably shouldn't be used in the game as he tends to be very powerful in any game in which he appears. It is nice to have the model for him and he could even appear to give the villains a bit of a slap as a bonus boss.

With all the villains complete I grouped them up for a bit of a team photo, it also shows the wide range of villains available to be chosen from. As I said before the villains cover the full range of archtypes so no matter if you prefer, tanking, DPS or support you should have someone you can pick. Without playing it's hard to know if you need to cover all the bases in order to be successful on a raid but I expect you can get through them without taking a 'one of each' approach.

I also gathered all the models together from the game and took a couple of big group shots as well. Considering the Kickstarter edition was only £140 you get a lot of models considering how many books, maps, & tokens also come in the set.

As we've just started playing some D&D it's probably going to be a while before these hit the table but hopefully we can play at some point and get the models out on the table.

League of Infamy: Yo Ho Ho

 ...And a bottle of rum. 

Our first couple of Villains have the same background, Ogre pirates. Mantic have said in the past that they won't be producing an Ogre fleet for Armada so we must assume that Ogre ships are pretty rare. The Bo'sun was recruited to the League when he was found aboard a Twilight Kin slaver ship and he seems to have risen through the ranks to become Captain. Reasonably fast with a couple of interesting interactions with furniture The Bo'sun should be able to get around the table easily and his Cutlass allows him to take on groups of defenders without penalty.

Bhetee is another Ogre and part of The Bo'sun's crew, he comes armed with the Howling Lute and takes on a Bard like role if recruited. As well as buffing villains and de-buffing defenders Bhetee can put out some decent ranged damage with the option for some AOE effects as well. He does feed the Keep Master an extra alarm token each round but then he is a rock and roller so that is only to be expected.

Chitter Twitchtail escaped from the Abyssal Dwarf slave pits at the same time as Sharpclaw, and he plays the sneaky thief to Sharpclaw's rampaging brute. He likes to attack from range and fellow villains should be aware that if he gets behind them he is likely to steal something from them. Chitter probably wants to hand around at the back and profit from the work of the other villains.

Gharka the Rowdy and her mawpup come as a pair, so whoever picks this villain gets an extra model to control. Gharka herself is an Orc fighter so wants to get up close and personal with the defenders, she has the chance to cause bonus damage on a critical hit (each dice has one critical hit side). She can also command her mawpup to either use her spare actions or use one of two free actions, attack or heel/heal. As the mawpup can carry an item and earns Infamy for Gharka this should give her a wide area of control on the board.

Lastly we have Odur / The Beast, again you get two models for this villain but only one of them can be in play at a time. You start the raid as Odur, mild mannered healer type (possibly former janitor) who takes reduced Infamy for killing defenders. Each turn you have a chance to turn into The Beast by rolling two orange dice (max score of 3) and add his current damage, you need 10+ to turn. As you can see you need at least 4 damage to have a chance to turn so Odur needs to put himself in danger to unleash The Beast. The Beast needs to stay in the thick of the fight to avoid turning back into Odur and concentrates almost entirely on killing, it also has a self heal mechanic.

Playing Odur / The Beast will take some skill and finesse as you need to be Odur to loot items but he won't last long unless The Beast can be brought forth. He's probably someone the defenders won't like when he's angry.

League of Infamy: Fun Luvin' Criminals

 Quick mid-week update to show some more of the League of Infamy villains I've completed, despite my initial worries about painting lots of unique models these have been coming together rather quickly.

First up we have La'theal Bleakheart who used to be an Elven mage but who fell under the influence of the Nightstalkers during the Edge of the Abyss campaign played out a few years ago. This is a nice example of how the world is growing and gaining a history.

La'theal is one of the 'basic' four starter heroes from the base set along with Karzel and Melantha who I posted about last time and Glum who we will see today as well. Her playstyle is ranged dps/support with a handy drain life spell that can be used to both damage and heal and the ability to upgrade her ranged attack dice to cause extra damage. Her armour is quite low so she won't want to be the focus of attention in a raid.

M'win'daji is an Abyssal who specialises in hunting down Basilean priests, with no campaign involving the Basileans yet released she will probably need to find other ways to keep herself amused.

Equally adept at melee and ranged damage with a good move and a neat mobility skill she should be able to zoom around the field of combat. She does have low armour so again probably wants someone else to be the focus of attention.

Glum Slittercreep is your typical Goblin Ninja type, fast, squishy and always looking for a back to stab. In common with the previous two characters he doesn't want to be noticed and he is the fourth of the core villains.

Last up for today we have Darkskull the Cursed who was dug up from his barrow by one of the other villains I've not completed yet. He has a nice defence mechanic he can use once per turn to make him extra hard to kill, but with only 2 attack dice he probably isn't going to dish out much damage even with the chance of the AOE attacks. Being able to set defenders on fire is probably pretty handy, most people aren't keen on being ablaze.

League of Infamy: Hive of Villainy

Having completed all of the defenders for League if Infamy I've now started on the villains.

In LoI the players take control of the villains and have to battle the goodie defenders and each other to come out as the top dog. The game includes a good range of villains for the players to choose from covering the normal archetypes of tank, damage and support, each with a little twist.

First up is Karzel who is a mostly deaf Abyssal Dwarf with a love of firing his pistols in all directions. He's quite a slow character but can increase his speed by sacrificing some of his stealth to give the Keep Master alarm tokens. Alarm tokens are using by the Keep Master to purchase defenders to bring onto the board during the game, so the more the Keep Master has, the harder it will get for the villains to complete their mission. 

As a ranged damage dealer Karzel has access to his pistols as his basic weapons and the more he fires them the more noise he generates and the more Alarm Tokens the Keep Master gains. Karzel is not the ideal choice for a player that likes a subtle and stealthy approach.

Melantha is Vampire warrior and shares the love of blood that is common to her race, as such she should make a hardy tank as long as she can keep killing off defenders. It's worth noting that whilst the villains are free to kill the defenders being the good guys & girls only subdue the villains. This means even once a villain is down they aren't necessarily out of the game. Melantha has an ability which allows her to heal a downed villain, the price of which can be extracted from them later on. Melantha also has a weapon that increases her defence when attacked from the front, she should be able to wear multiple enemies down without being overwhelemed.

Sharpclaw is a Ratkin Brute, the Ratkin spent many generations enslaved by the Abyssal Dwarfs who they came to almost worship and whose style they still ape to this day. Sharpclaw is a straight up melee fighter, his weapons allow him to roll extra attack dice and he can re-roll attack dice at the expense of creating a little Alarm. If you like getting stuck in and ripping the opposition limb from limb then Sharpclaw is probably the villain for you.

Krink is the first villain I've painted who isn't from the core box, the game recommends using the 4 that came with the core box first as they are easier to play. Some of the extra villains have a more nuanced approach, Krink isn't one of them. 

Inside his armour Krink is that rarest of things, a brave Goblin. At first glance he seems quite weak as although he has decent armour his health isn't that high and his attacks seem rather low. His equipment does help out with this so he can boost his attack dice at the expense of loosing activations (villains get 3 activations per turn) and he has the chance to entirely ignore incoming damage and reflects melee damage back. He probably doesn't want to go toe to toe with many opponents but if forced to he should hold his own.

These villains came together pretty quickly so hopefully the others are just as quick, the sculps seem to be better over-all than the defenders with the detail more sharply defined, which I guess is what you want from the player characters in a game.