In the Court of the Goblin King - Rule the Roost Troupe Strategy

Continuing the theme of dominion royalty, first started by Diana queen of the fae, the Goblin King is now available to lead the goblins to victory! Much like his opposite, the Goblin King can take goblin trait models to a whole new level. This can include models such as the new Grub, or as he is now known, Herbert Growbottom. Then, when these models take too much damage or suffer a minor setback in that of death, the Mortician can be on hand to cure these ailments.

The Goblin King

Much like most goblins we have seen thus far, the Goblin King has some pretty pathetic stats. At first glance, these numbers would certainly not set him out as the king of the goblins. For a model who's only method of damaging enemies is melee, a stat of 3 is awful. This is further compounded by his status as a 'Weakling' and inability to deal slicing damage as well. However, the 2" melee is nice for avoiding retaliatory strikes in many situations. Evade is not great for a goblin at 0 and with only 7 wounds the goblin noble would appear to go down easily with very little effort. Finally, at only 3 energy the Goblin King has one of the smallest energy capacities of the entire faction. As always though with goblins, their raw stats are usually pretty abysmal, and its often elsewhere that they get most of their power.

Whilst the card would imply that the Goblin King has only 7 wounds, the reality is quite a lot different. With 'Royal privilege' the Goblin King effectively grants all goblins 'Bodyguard'. So whilst his card has 7 wounds, to get to those 7 wounds you will often have to remove the 30 or so other goblins worth of wounds around him first. What can the Goblin King do with this nigh on indestructibility though? Firstly, he can hold moonstones very effectively. Whilst the Goblin King himself is poor at harvesting moonstones with his 3 energy and weakling, other goblins are far more capable. After they have harvested the stones the Goblin King can restore their mobility by using 'Gimme!!' and gaining possession of the friendly goblins moonstone.

Keeping moonstones safe is great, but how else can the king leverage his toughness? He can get stuck into melee! Whilst his stats and weakling make him look poor in this area as previously mentioned, some abilities will help make up for this. The 'Sceptre of almighty power', whilst poor for slicing damage, is a great boon to impact damage at +2 impact damage. To top this off, the Goblin King has a phenomenal signature with 'Grovel, peasant!'. Although the additional effects against goblins won't trigger much, the damage will. Taking 'Weakling' and the sceptre into account, the minimum damage dealt will be 1 if the opponent high guards up to a crazy 5 if they low guard. Also, much like some pirate signatures, this has no ∅ damage. This makes the Goblin King a prime target for 'Suckerpunch' from Boom Boom McBoom. A 'Grovel, peasant!' with 2 'Suckerpunches' is certainly going to make an impact on the game with 5 minimum damage!

Last, but certainly not least, the ability the box is named after: 'Rule the roost'. Energy manipulation has always been a strength within goblins but this further augments these energy shenanigans with the ability to chain activate as well. In addition to stacking 2 more energy on a model such as the Firespitter or Ribald, 'Rule the roost' also allows them to immediately activate next. This activation is even allowed if the model has already activated. This means a Firespitter that has already activated, with no energy can still be a threat if the Goblin King chooses to reactivate it! 'Rule the roost' however has some caveats and intricacies that should be considered to get the best use out of it.

Firstly, the most obvious is that it deals 2 wounds to the target. If this is on a big model with a large wound pool like Ribald this should rarely be an issue. For a 6 wound model like Herbert, however, the 2 wounds will likely be a big problem. Here, having a healer on hand will be paramount to prevent these deaths as well as mitigate other wounds from 'Royal privilege'. Secondly, 'jog' actions are once per turn, not once per activation. So if you reactivate a model that has already jogged, it will not be able to do so again. Finally, the timing in the turn is also critically important for this ability. If used on a model that has not activated yet, you will "lose" an activation. This is as you can 'Rule the roost' a model that has already activated normally, but you can't do vice versa. This will guarantee your opponent having the last activation (if they have the same number of models as you), or even worse, will allow them to finish the turn with 2 back to back activations. Therefore its often better to hold back and use 'Rule the roost' later on a model that has already activated so an activation isn't "lost". This is unless a good opportunity comes up where you can stomach the loss of an activation. Such as the opportunity to get a kill using the ability which otherwise wouldn't be available.

Most of these royal abilities, however, come at a price in goblin wounds. So you'll need a healer on hand to alleviate this barrage of wounds...

The Mortician

With the universal arcane ability 'Healing' the Mortician clearly establishes himself immediately in the goblins as an alternative healer to Beaky Bobby. How then do these two differ and why should you ever use the Mortician over Beaky Bobby though? At first glance the Mortician as a healer is far worse. 1 less arcane and 2 less energy means he uses 'Healing' less often and is worse at using it. He is also 'Slow' meaning he won't be able to keep up with other models jog's or get to wounded models as easily. What the Mortician does bring over Beaky Bobby however is 'Rigor mortis' and, more importantly, 'Reanimate'.

'Reanimate' is a first in the game as it allows previously slain models to be brought back to life. It also does not specify any specific traits. So if you want to bring back a dead Gotchgut, a slain Belladona or a recently exploded Firespitter, then you can! This, of course, is even better if your entire troupe pivots around one of these models, as if they are slain, they can soon be brought back. This very powerful ability does come at a cost however. At 3 energy it will be impossible to cast with the Mortician's base energy alone. Therefore he will need help attaining that energy from someone such as Seasick Stu, Shabaroon or even the Goblin King. That is unless the round starts with any friendly models slain where 'Spirit link' can grant the Mortician additional energy to revive his friends.

So unlike Beaky Bobby, the Mortician can "Heal" dead models. So whilst his arcane 'Healing' isn't as good as Bobby's, his ability to "Heal" slain models is far better. This makes the Mortician a very viable alternative against some Leshavult and Human lists. As damage output is sometimes so high that there is often no window to cast 'Healing' on models and 'Reanimate' will be the only way to help them. Better against bigger and more damaging troupes also holds true for his other arcane ability.

The other arcane ability which differs the Mortician from Beaky Bobby is 'Rigor mortis'. Against bad evade, high energy models, such as an energy stacked Loubard, 'Rigor mortis' can be game changing. But much like 'Reanimate' the Mortician will need additional energy to cast this. However, when it does go off as planned you'll be able to effectively trade your healers activation, using most his energy to 'Rigor mortis', to prevent a far more impactful opponents activation. Judging when and who to use this on will be the key to gaining the most mileage, but when used effectively it can sometimes turn the tide of the entire game.

Herbert Growbottom

The first of a new type of model, Herbert Growbottom is a reincarnation of an older model. With 'Evolution[Grub]', Herbert cannot be taken alongside Grub as they are the same person. So what can Herbert offer over the already established goblin wizard? Much like his previous incarnation, Herbert brings mobility tricks as well as a ranged arcane attack. 'Whither' can deal X+1 magic damage for the cost of 3 energy, which isn't terrible, but generally not good enough a reason to justify taking him. Where things start to get a little more interesting is 'Passage of the seasons'. Unlike 'Wyrm hole' this will not drop moonstones, which may be a good or a bad thing depending on how you were using Grub before. It is also not infinite range, but it has different restrictions in that you must move from wooded patch to wooded patch. Mainly it's different: different prerequisites, different limitations and slightly different effects, that ultimately meet the same function. Herbert can teleport and get around fast.

What Herbert also possesses over his former incarnation is the Faerie trait and 'Verdant growth'. Although 'Verdant growth' has been seen before on Loci, Herbert makes completely different use of it with the dominion faction. One such use relevant to the wizard is placing these wooded patches to extend the range of his 'Passage of the seasons'. Leveraging these abilities in conjuncture, Herbert can travel great distances. In combination with another model that can move other friendlies around, like Gwendoline, Herbert can be a very effective hyper mobile moonstone carrier. For those pesky mobile models though that can catch up with Herbert, 'Verdent growth' can then see a more aggressive use. This can be in the form of putting wooded patches in awkward places to slow down such pursuing models.

With the Faeries trait, Herbert will be the first model in the game to take advantage of both goblin synergies and faerie synergies simultaneously. This can allow new mixed trait troupes where Herbert can gain energy from Seasick Stu then be given energy by Silvertongue. Of course, that is just one way to take advantage of both traits. With so many synergies within goblin troupes and within faerie troupes individually, the possible combinations are massive!