Hello fellow Wyrdos! For your Monday Model this week we’re wading into the swamps to dig up information about the Bayou Smuggler.

For 6ss, any Bayou crew can hire this versatile minion, with a limit of two. They have the Keywords of Bandit and Infamous, so Parker and Zipp can hire them in Outcasts as well for the same cost.

Their profile is a solid standard for a 6ss minion: 6 Health, 5 Mv and Df, with only 4 Wp. No extra durability abilities except for Attuned allowing it to use Soulstones. But, archetypically, smugglers don’t generally guard an area or expect to take a beating. They transport their questionable goods from point A to point B, and pick up some new goods along the way if at all possible. The Bayou Smuggler is no exception. They are here to scheme and counter-scheme, and occasionally trick other models into believing their cover stories.

Life of Crime allows them to procure more goods and move along, removing a scheme marker of any alignment within aura 4 when they activate to gain Fast. Early game this can be used to essentially transfer an action from a cheap minion to the Smuggler by having the other model lay down a scheme for the Smuggler to use for Fast.

Changing Plans allows the Smuggler to adapt to new developments and altered deals, by altering them further. At the end of its activation it can move a friendly scheme in aura 3 up to 3″. This is really what I think is their bread and butter. For all the schemes that require markers in a particular place, many of them can be a bit tricky to pull off to such exacting measurements. Detonate Charges, for instance. Without the False Claim action, it’s often difficult to get two scheme markers within 2″ of the same model while still having them at least 4″ apart, not to mention timing their placement so they can’t be picked up or the target moved away. But, with the Smuggler those placements become much more fluid. So long as the Smuggler’s within about 5″ of the target and one scheme is already down near the target, the Smuggler can lay down the second marker and Concentrate or walk–so long as they stay within aura 3″ of the marker, and they move it so it’s within 2″ of the target. Even if that brings the scheme within 4″ of the other scheme it’s perfectly legal since the marker wasn’t placed there by an Interact action. Alternately, if the Smuggler can gain Fast from picking up another scheme nearby but not quite in position, it can then place a scheme within 2″ of the target, walk, place the 2nd one, and move it back close enough to the target.

Showboating, the final ability on the front of their card, while good, but at first glance feels a little out of place on the Smuggler. If they Cheat Fate from its hand during its Activation it can draw a card. It’s Zipp’s Infamous crew’s signature ability, which is why the Smuggler has it, but the Smuggler only has one action that requires a flip, which really puts it into a specific role to get the most quality use.

That one action is the Smuggler’s Paddle attack, which is one of the rarer 2″ melee ranges in the game–great for defending scheme and strategy markers–meaning the Smuggler has an effective 7″ charge threat range, or 12″ if they walk then charge. With a stat 5 vs Df with a 2/3/4 damage track, the Paddle is of average effectiveness, with some very useful triggers.

On a tome, Drop It! forces an enemy to drop a scheme marker in Los of the Smuggler.

A quick note: It specifies the target must drop an enemy scheme marker. According to the Friendly, Enemy, & Control section on page 26 of the final beta rules specifies “Every Ability, Action, and Trigger on a model’s Stat Card and Attached Upgrades treats the use of “friendly” and “enemy” from its point of view.” So the enemy target dropping an enemy scheme marker means it’s dropping a marker friendly to the enemy crew, not a scheme the target would consider an enemy–friendly to the Smuggler in this case.

On a mask, Knock Aside pushes the target 4″ in any direction. Moving enemy models out of position, possibly into hazardous terrain or into engagement with something more damaging is always good!

Finally, on a crow, Pilfer allows the Smuggler to steal an enemy Soulstone, provided the target can use them to begin with. This trigger is going to be pretty good against beefy Henchmen and Masters who rely on defensive tech beyond a low Df stat, or, more likely for the rest of the Smuggler’s role, other Attuned models. Look out Sonia!

These triggers are the entire reason the Smuggler has Showboating. It allows them to cheat the suit they need but draw another card to support the rest of the crew afterwards. Almost all of Zipp’s crew has this ability, so if they only cheat once per activation, they’ll always have a full hand.

Under Tactical Actions on the Smuggler, we see there are two, both Bonus actions, neither one requiring a card flip of any kind. First, Forage removes an enemy scheme marker in 2″ as its cost, allowing the Smuggler to draw the top card of its discard pile if the cost is paid. This pairs well with the Drop It! trigger, recovering the last flipped damage card after the attack resolved, so if you flipped that Red Joker, or even just a card of a suit you need, it’s in your hand now.

The other Bonus action is Tides of Fate. Discard a Soulstone to draw two and then discard two cards. Great for if you drew such a bad hand that turn that one Soulstone couldn’t help enough. Situational, but useful when you need it.

So, all told, a solid addition to any crew for a scheme-heavy pool. Whether it’s Detonate Charges, Power Ritual, Breakthrough, Harness the Ley Line, Search the Ruins, or Dig Their Graves, any pool that contains a few of these schemes is going to be where you’ll find the Smuggler on the table. Most often, they’ll take a flank to scheme with a cheap minion to place schemes to give them Fast when they need it, and they’ll tie up or kill cheaper scheme runners. There will be times when they get a little closer to the center of the action to pilfer some Soulstones or prevent enemies with shorter engagement ranges from interacting. But without Don’t Mind me on the front of their card, the Smugglers don’t want to be engaged unless it’s on their terms.

Bayou upgrades are fun, but none of them really jump out to me as being a clear choice on the Smuggler for their cost. Twelve Cups of Coffee further adds to the Smuggler’s disruption mechanics with the Diversion aura preventing enemy Bonus actions within 4″, giving the Smuggler a third bonus action, this one removing all scheme markers within a 3″ pulse and gaining Focus for each one removed. This does require a flip, so it would be another opportunity to cheat a low card for Showboating to hopefully draw something higher. Finally it allows the Smuggler to move 1″ after any other model ends its activation, so long as the Smuggler is not engaged.

Tactical Trench Coat makes the Smuggler Sz 3, which is not a great boon for them, since it means no Ride With Me or Fly With Me, and of course, harder for them to hide behind things while they get their shady dealings done, though if they die you get to find out they were a Bayou Gremlin on even taller stilts the whole time! It does also give them Disguised to prevent being attacked after a Charge, but engaging them is still enough to limit their effectiveness in many cases. Even if they have a mask in hand for Knock Aside, that’s an action they’re not scheming. It also gives them a bonus action Sidearm, which is a ranged attack option to cheat for Showboating, which is a nice addition.

Inferiority Complex is the Bayou upgrade that I’d think they’ll get the most consistent use out of, when they take an upgrade at all. Ruthless to ignore Terrifying and Manipulative really opens up more targets for Pilfering Soulstones from–just imagine them slipping a stone from Seamus’ pocket without a care. Swagger gets them a free Focus for walking, which can be useful to help in getting the right suit on attacks if you didn’t have it in hand, or help them to survive a return attack. The minion-specific ability, Bully, allows them to gain a suit of their choice when targeting a model of lower cost. So, ultimately, this upgrade makes them universally better at everything they want to be doing: stealing stones from low Df Henchmen and Masters, and counter scheming against cheaper schemers.

On the Outcast side of things, Soldier For Hire makes them Hard to Kill so they can survive a little longer to steal more stones. This Will Fetch a High Price sounds good in that they can gain stones by removing enemy schemes, but since it has to be with an Interact it’s a bit counter to their two other ways to remove enemy schemes at a bit more range than base to base contact. Bounty Hunter lets them draw a card when they kill, another card if it’s a Henchman or Enforcer, and a third card and a Soulstone if it’s a Master. It’s a bit of a pipe dream. With support, they may kill another schemer or two, but not enough to warrant the price of this upgrade in most cases, I imagine.

Servant of Dark Powers helps their mobility with a 6″ move before the game fully starts, and boosts their survivability with a Terrifying 11, along with allowing them to heal 2 after killing an enemy. The move is nice in pools where they need to move quickly and there’s no Iron Skeeter free to ferry them, and Terrifying helps deter other schemers from attacking them. The heal is nice for the occasional kill they’ll make. Is see this being the most useful in a Parker crew.

Finally, Wanted Criminal allows them to draw a card when an enemy scheme marker is dropped within a 6″ aura, which they can force to happen with their trigger. Swagger for free Focus after a walk again is appreciated by a schemer like them on the move. The Expert Thief attack is a shorter range version of their Pilfer trigger with no need for the trigger, but no damage at all. I could see this being good to make them a card draw machine, or hilarious if Take Prisoner is in the pool and the enemy has Attuned Minions to target for that scheme, but that is a very specific circumstance.

Given that Bayou Smugglers are built around scheme marker based schemes, I’m not doing a breakdown of what they bring to every crew, as they will most often be hired for the schemes I’ve previously mentioned, and they’ll be seen in their keyword crews a bit more often for the synergies they bring there: forcing enemies to drop schemes in a Parker crew, and constant card cycling in a Zipp crew. The one neat trick outside of those I find worth mentioning is in a Mah crew, the Smuggler can work very nicely with a Soulstone Miner. The Miner makes an extra stone each turn, the Smuggler uses it to cycle cards, and between those two and Big Brain Brin in the crew, you should pretty much always have what you need, card-wise.

Overall, they bring some classic smuggler tropes to Malifaux in a cool mechanical way on the table: using enemy schemes to get them more actions to complete their own, stealing a few extra trinkets along the way where they can. A solid versatile addition to the Bayou and some Outcasts.

What do you think of the Bayou Smuggler? What’s a versatile model you’d like to hear more about? Next Monday I’ll be continuing through the factions—or is that ‘fascists’—no, I was right the first time—to the Guild, where we won’t be talking about a minion.