This Pork Is So Raw, It’s Still Singing ‘Hakuna Matata’!

Boiler has a couple of subtle changes, and one big change. But overall, the main reason we chose Boiler to show off in this blog is that he is a good indication of what we’re doing with the Butchers generally. He also leads very nicely into some topics we’ll get onto a little later… but for now, let’s take a look at Boiler himself.

Getting the simple stuff out of the way first, all of Boiler’s stats, melee zone, and health points all stayed exactly the same as they were in S3. This is true for most of the Butcher’s Guild, their stat lines are actually fairly solid so there hasn’t been a lot of change there.

Boiler’s playbook has had a few small, but significant changes. While the Butchers will never be as proficient at knocking enemies down as the Brewers or the Blacksmiths, the Butchers still need to use the knocked down condition to help facilitate their take-out focused playstyle. Previously, the Butcher’s access to the knocked down condition wasn’t quite as good as it needed to be. So, we’ve shifted it down by one column on Boiler’s playbook. The other place we tweaked this was on Tenderiser, who increased from TAC 5 to TAC 6, while his knockdown result stayed where it is on the third column.

The second change we made to Boiler’s playbook is a more common change throughout the Butchers, and that is an increase to his top end damage results. Boiler’s momentous 3 damage has shifted down from the fifth to the fourth column, and he has gained a new momentous 4 damage result on his fifth column. We’ve already seen in recent blogs that we’ve been reevaluating playbook damage for certain Guilds such as the Farmers and the Blacksmiths. We also reviewed the damage on Butcher playbooks and decided that we could apply some of the lessons learned where appropriate. This has resulted in a few changes like this one to Boiler. Similar changes have been made to Boar, who now has a Momentous 6 damage result on his seventh column, and Tenderiser, who now has TAC 6, a six-column playbook, and a new momentous 5 damage result on that sixth column.

Moving onto Boiler’s character plays, we hit the one big change which is the removal of Swift Stance. It’s a big one, no doubt, but we have our reasons. Butchers are the ‘glass cannon’ Guild. Massive damage, high speed, low resilience. Being able to have a DEF 6+ Captain, or DEF 5+ and ARM 2 Squaddies is not something which fits this design. To this end, Tough Skin has also been taken off Captain Ox (and replaced with a standard ARM stat of 2 on that model). However, we have increased the Butcher’s offensive output in terms of how much damage they do, as well as their mobility which will help them chase enemies down and apply that damage. With all this in mind, we replaced Swift Stance with a new character play called Axe Throw.

Axe Throw is beautiful in its glorious simplicity. Short ranged and high damage, Axe Throw benefits from Crucial Artery, so if used at the end of a turn that’s a guaranteed 6 damage to an enemy model. Axe Throw also benefits from the huge variety of damage buffs available to the Butchers. Under The Owner, Get ‘Em Lads, and Tooled Up, Axe Throw will do 6 damage with a possible 3 more from the bleed condition, ouch! Axe Throw also adds another nice tool to a Fillet team’s arsenal by being able to apply damage and bleed to enemy models from range. This means that Fillet will have more opportunities to charge enemy models while benefiting from Smell Blood without having to apply the bleed condition herself. Models like Shank will also have more opportunities to benefit from Damaged Target.

Boiler’s second character play, Marked Target, has also had a few small changes which help it out quite a lot. Firstly, it is no longer a ‘once per turn’ character play. If Boiler misses his Marked Target, he can just spend more influence and try it again or even apply Marked Target to multiple enemies. Also, Marked Target’s range has increased from 8” to 10”, which is just generally useful for a character play for which the entire purpose is to extend the charge range of Boiler and his teammates.

If you count the ways that Axe Throw can trigger the extended charge ranges of models like Fillet and Shank, in addition to Marked Target, Boiler has two different ways of extending the charge ranges of his team mates. It is through abilities like this, rather than relying on increasing their defensive stats, that the Butchers will be able to combat teams that have previously been able to counter the Butcher’s Guild tactics.