Good day, fellow Malifolks!

I’ve recently risen from a food coma, which is as close to an actual resurrection as I’ve come across these days, so it seems a good time to examine our first versatile model from the Resurrectionists, the Bone Pile.

Once again at 6ss, this Undead minion has no keywords, so offers no particular special synergies with any one crew, but provides some useful tools for every Resurrectionist’s utility belt. They also are an interesting piece to the puzzle that is the faction’s M3E version of a Corpse Marker economy, which I’ll touch on a bit here, but will cover more fully in a future article.

As expected, a pretty standard stat profile for a 6ss minion, but with a Resser twist: 5 Mv and Wp, with only 4 Df, but 8 Health, which is backed up by Hard to Wound. So like many Undead models, these are easy to hit, but rather durable, and we’re not done with the front of their card yet. Adding to their durability, they also have Numbskull, making them unable to gain conditions, and the unique ability Absorb Bones, which gives them the option to remove a Corpse Marker in a 2″ aura after resolving any action to Heal 2. They also have Ruthless, ignoring Terrifying and Manipulative as any good skeleton without a sense of self-preservation should. Unearth finishes up the front of their card, where, if it is Buried at the start of its activation, Unbury it in base contact with a Corpse Marker, which is then removed. Instead of following the default Unbury rule of appearing in your deployment zone if their normal Unbury conditions cannot be met, the Bone Pile is killed. But how does it get Buried in the first place? All in good time, dear readers.

On the back of its card we find a Sharp Claws attack with a 1″ melee range and a stat of 5 vs Df, doing 2/3/4 damage with two triggers. On a Mask, you choose a suit and the targets must reveal the next three cards from their deck and discard any of that suit. You get to place the remaining cards on top of their deck in any order. On a Crow, if you kill the target (and probably heal from its Corpse Marker), the Bone Pile gets a free Interact action. Not a bad attack overall, and while the Bone Pile isn’t necessarily designed for close combat, that Crow trigger makes it useful to finish off models when time is tight at the end of the game, especially to set up for the second point of Dig Their Graves.

They also have a 10″ range projectile attack called Bone Javelin, with a better stat of 6, also vs Df with a 2/3/4 damage spread. One slight difference, after damaging, the Bone Pile suffers 1 irreducible damage, having presumably just thrown its own humerus or femur at the target. This attack has a Crit Strike trigger on the usual Ram for a potential +1 damage, and a Dismember trigger on a Crow to drop a Corpse Marker in base contact with the target if it’s something other than a Construct. Another solid attack, allowing the Bone Pile to set up Corpses for it or another model in the crew to make use of at range

On to its two Tactical actions: First, The Enemy Down Below, allowing it to Bury if it did not Unbury this turn. Second, a bonus action called Throw ‘Em a Bone with a 4″ range to another friendly model and no flip needed. It can’t be taken while the Bone Pile is engaged, and causes it to suffer a point of irreducible damage. For all that, it gives you the excellent choice of the target either ending one condition or Healing 1/2/3. As the only versatile condition removal in the faction, this is going to be what the Bone Piles are known for.

With all those pieces put together, how does Dr. Bones here work? For starters, it can walk twice for 10″ and still have a 4″ range to remove a condition or heal a friendly model, and as doing so is an action, if there’s a Corpse Marker within its 2″ aura, it can then heal the one damage it takes, and an extra one on top of that if it needs. Alternately, it could throw its Bone Javelin 10″ at an enemy, cheat in the Dismember trigger to get a Corpse in base contact (for a possible 2 Corpses if the target dies), heal or remove a condition from a friendly, and then Bury, leaving it ready to Unbury at one of the Corpses 10″ away next turn, ready to interact or put out more damage, or condition removal/healing. While Numbskull means it can never gain Focus, it’s still definitely not bad for 6ss.

Now, whether you want to make the Bone Pile a cost 8ss minion with an upgrade is an excellent question, and like most we’ve seen so far, depends on the upgrades.

The Whisper is an excellent upgrade overall, and I expect to see this on most Resser masters. The Intuition it gives would be useful for knowing if the Bone Pile will be able to get a ranged Corpse out if you don’t have the crow in hand, but drawing a card on the off chance it kills something and putting enemies at a negative flip to Wp when targeting it both certainly seem like something to put on a more influential model, unless you’re really committing to having the Bone Pile be a finishing model to maximize the number of Corpses on the table.

Killer Instinct allows the Bone Pile to choose to not heal from a Corpse and instead remove it for a Soulstone at the end of its activation, which is situational but nice, though there are other models in the faction that can routinely use this as a Soulstone factory. The Bone Piles already have Ruthless, so that’s no more useful here, though the end of turn 4″ push from Deadly Pursuit is nice–assuming the Bone Pile isn’t Buried.

Grave Spirit’s Touch seems an excellent choice to really make the Bone Pile hard to remove. Adding Regeneration +2 to its other healing ability is going to ensure if it dies it will be from heavy focus from your opponent, especially since the Bone Pile would also gain Terrifying 11 from this upgrade. The other bonus action it gains is nice, removing a Corpse Marker to give friendly models in a 3″ pulse Focused +1, but it’ll be a nice extra rather than something to count on, I think. This would be the upgrade I’d give it in games where I knew it would be a key model, against Kaeris or Brewmaster, for instance.

Looking at the faction as a whole, as mentioned, many Ressers appreciate a few more Corpse Markers for various summoning or unburying effects. So, the Bone Pile’s ability to put them out at range when damaging an enemy is a great way to allow Nicodem or McMourning to summon something ready to help their cause, or Seamus to get the full versatility from his Cause For Celebration action.

Important Note: In M3E a model cannot perform an action or a trigger if doing so would put it at 0 Health or below, so the Bone Pile cannot walk twice and use its bonus to kill itself to place a Corpse Marker in a forward position, though it would be useful if it could. Make sure not to try and do this, or let someone use it against you accidentally.

Moving on, Kirai also appreciates a healer, as she users her own wounds as a resource in her form of summoning, and removing Slow from those summons is always a good thing. Reva likes a few Corpses around to attack through or summon her Corpse Candles from, or assist her Feed on Grief action, as well as removing any excess Burning from her crew that she’s not using to heal, or heal them from previous Burning damage if their Shielded was used for other damage. Von Schtook and Molly don’t have any use for Corpse Markers themselves, but their henchmen can make use of them in interesting ways.

All told, while they may not be the backbone of the Resser faction, they do plenty to help keep their friends upright and dancing to Thriller, and can serve as an impromptu xylophone if the need…arises.

What do you think of the Bone Piles? What’s a versatile model you’d like to hear more about? Next Monday we’ll be finishing up our first pass through the factions with the shadowy Ten Thunders, who have one of the widest versatile pools to choose from, and then we’ll be talking about a few groups of models at a time going forward.