What IS a Butcher?

It has genuinely been a long time since we designed an ‘archetypal’ Butcher. When we created the core concepts for our original Guilds all those years ago, we made the first batch of players and then moved on to making some more complex players. We’ve been making new and unique players ever since, without ever truly returning to the well and making something that shows exactly what it means to BE a Butcher’s Guild player.

This is why we decided to return to the core concept of a Butcher when developing Veteran Gutter. She doesn’t have many character plays (or traits), and the ones she does have are very straight forward. Gutter has a [2”] melee zone and a simple playbook with all the hallmarks of a classic Butcher, a momentous tackle, plenty of momentous damage, and a slightly high and non-momentous knockdown. With a [6”/8”] MOV she is relatively quick considering that she has that lovely [2”] melee zone, and she has [14] health boxes, which is on the slightly lower end of health amounts for a Squaddie. Gutter is designed to be a staple Butcher player, one that will beat people up and generate a bucket of momentum while doing so.

That that in mind, let’s take a look at her one and only character play, Grapple Hook. Grapple Hook is one of the ways in which Veteran Gutter mirrors her Union player self. Instead of dragging enemies towards her with Chain Grab, Gutter digs her hooks into an enemy player and drags herself towards them! This gives Gutter a potentially enormous threat range with which to threaten the opponent. That said, Grapple Hook is not an ability Butcher coaches should expect to use every turn. A cost of [2] is not cheap, since ideally you’ll be spending those [2] Influence on more Attacks! Grapple Hook should be used to close the distance when an opposing team is playing cautiously, or to catch up with a wounded enemy trying to escape being taken out. Alternatively, Gutter could trigger Grapple Hook from her playbook to escape a melee (be careful of parting blows!).