Like the front of many Navigator cards, Fathom's card is a touch underwhelming until you remember she gets to reroll EVERY dice she rolls as part of an attack or kick. Let's bear that in mind as we explore this card.

Fathom has a 2" melee zone, for starters, what with her trusty oar proving an ever-present aid in times of trouble. The benefits of a 2" melee zone are many and numerous, particularly for models intended to play the ball, which Fathom very definitely is.

Her statline is pretty solid, she has average move (but just you wait Sonny Jim, she moves like the wind when she needs to), and low TAC but obviously gets those sweet sweet rerolls, so she's more reliable that you might think. A KICK of 2/8" is, with rerolls, effectively a 4/8", which is pretty impressive. DEF 5+ is because she's an agile woman, it takes a lot to pin her down. Finally, she brings a 2/4 INF which is bang on average!

Now, to her Playbook. This again looks underwhelming, with 1 damage on 1, a tackle on 2, a momentous dodge on 3, and finally column 4 is where it gets good. A 2 damage result OR the god result, a momentous tackle double dodge. Yeah. Yeah that's pretty sweet. On a model with a 2" melee zone and multiple ways of moving outside of activation. Now looking at that Playbook, you might be thinking "But Dev Team! Even with rerolls, she's unlikely to get to column 3 and generate momentum or dodge against most players."

That's true, but then we need to consider the interesting way Navigator Playbooks interact with dice pool modifiers. The Navigators are in a unique place with their rerolls where modifications to the dice pool affect them WAY more than other Guilds. So charging, for instance, is way better for the Navigators than for most other Guilds because each of those added dice is much more likely to be a hit. Equally, the Navigators don't like attacking models in cover or with lots of armour, because removing dice from the dice pool is much worse for them due to how finely balanced their Playbooks are.

So this paragraph is a long winded way of saying that if Fathom charges, she should be hitting that momentous tackle double dodge in a LOT of cases. It's also a way of saying that the rest of her card is exceptional and she needs to be balanced!

Looking at her Character Plays, we can see that she's good at a couple of different roles. Acrobatic is a very simple rule which lets her buy a 2" dodge when she needs it. Good for a dozen different things; it extends her threat on going for a goal run, lets her dodge out of somewhere she doesn't want to be, or lets her dodge out then back in to avoid a counter attack. Simple, clean, good.

Her second Character Play is Smelling Salts, which shows something of another role for her. She can also play as something of a support character. Often she's going to be hunting the ball, but she can also sit back and remove conditions from friendly models. Always a useful option to have in your toolkit. It's worth remembering, if that range looks short to you, that the AOE is now placed within that range, not centred on it! Season 4 changes FTW.

Finally, Fathom has 12 HP, which is right on standard for a model with a DEF stat of 5+, she's a bit squishy, but good at getting out of bad situations, so your opponent will have to focus her if they want her taken out.

How Far I'll Go