Tell Me, Do You Dance? You Will…

The back of Piper’s card has three abilities on it, each of which has a different use and focus. As we saw with Reverie, Piper has a clear focus on making his team score goals. The back of Piper’s card is really what allows him to properly facilitate those goals.

Firstly, we have Piper’s ‘dilemma’ mechanic, Haunting Melody. Haunting Melody was a lot of different things during Piper’s development; at one point it was even a character play. Eventually, we settled on Haunting Melody being something that Piper can just do once per turn without spending any resources. Haunting Melody also doesn’t require a ‘hit roll’ (TN test) of any kind. Quite literally, Piper just picks an enemy player within [8”] of him and says ‘choose!’ The opposing coach then decides whether Piper or the chosen player will move. Once the choice has been made, the Ratcatcher coach then moves the chosen player. It is important to remember that it is the Ratcatcher coach that moves the player, regardless of which one is chosen by the opponent.

Haunting Melody is a very strange ability, mainly because the Ratcatcher coach needs to accept that they will almost never get the option that they ‘really’ want. The opponent will likely pick which ever option is best for them. Therefore, a key part of using this ability is to make sure that both options are bad for the opponent, and that you can capitalise on whichever choice the opponent makes. When considering how best to employ Haunting Melody, it is important to remember that both options cause the player to Jog ‘towards’ the other player, and not ‘directly towards’. The difference being that ‘towards’ gives the Ratcatcher coach a huge amount of flexibility in how they can move players around. This opens up options like moving the player at an angle or even around corners rather than being forced to move in a straight line like the character play Lure.

Let’s take an example to make this a bit simpler. Piper needs to get the ball from an opposing player and do something useful with it. Piper uses Haunting Melody. If the opponent chooses for Piper to move, Piper can move up to engage the opposing player, tackle the ball, sprint away with it and score a goal. Alternatively, if the opponent chooses for their own player to move, Piper can move the opposing player towards him, bring it into melee, tackle the ball, then pass the ball to a friendly Ratcatcher and use Reverie to make them sprint away and score a goal! Options galore!

The second ability on the back of Piper’s card is a Heroic Play called Distracting Tune. Distracting Tune is a very simple effect with a lot of potential uses. Being able to move an enemy player [2”] at will may not seem very important, but remember what we said earlier about Piper using pushes to disengage friendly players for Reverie goal runs? Distracting Tune means that Piper can even do it without having to make an attack, although it will of course cost [1] momentum for being a Heroic Play.

Finally, we have Piper’s Legendary Play, Swarm’s Obedience. This is when Piper hits the crescendo of his song and makes everyone on the pitch dance to his tune. With a frankly enormous pulse range of [8”], Piper can potentially hit every player on the pitch if properly positioned. When he uses Swarm’s Obedience, Piper can reposition all those players. Remember that all push distances are optional, which gives a truly astonishing amount of flexibility. Swarm’s Obedience could be used to push enemy players away, ready for a Reverie goal run, for instance, or perhaps to bring some of your own players forward to surround an enemy player ready for a Scourge beatdown.

As you can see, there are a huge number of ways in which Piper can move both his own and opposing players around. Generally, Piper’s tricks are aimed at letting his team score goals, but they can be used to help the Ratcatchers score the occasional take out as well. We’re super excited to see what you all make of Piper, Devil of the Undercity. Join us again soon to see more reveals of this new and exciting Guild.