So right off the bat, there’s a 2” melee zone right at the top of the card. Strong start, right? The model has a big ol’ scythe, so when we saw the render we immediately started the card with a 2” melee zone. Her statline is pretty strong, a 6”/8” MOV means she’s among the faster models in the game, and DEF 5+ means she’s generally going to be a pain to hit. A TAC of 5 is about average, a 2/6” KICK is right average for a Mortician, and finally she brings an INF stat of 2/3.

Her playbook is good for what she’s intended to do, with a momentous Tackle on column 1 giving her good options for ball retrieval, especially combined with her 2” melee and high speed. Momentous 2 damage on 3, and a momentous push/dodge on 4 round out her momentous results, and she has a non momentous 3 damage on column 5 just in case she needs to ping some higher damage on people.

So her statline is pretty good, but let’s be honest, we don’t play Morticians for their statlines, right? We play them for all the cool nonsense. And my oh my, Hemlocke brings so much cool nonsense!

She has two Character Plays, both with very different effects. Her first one is Blind. Blind is a Character Play on a few different players, Tentacles, Calculus, and of course, Hemlocke’s original Union version. As any coach who’s used any of those models before will know, Blind is a pretty reliable way of ruining your opponent’s day. Dropping an enemy’s MOV, TAC, and KICK stats by 2 across the board is just useful, no two ways about it. Use it on one of your opponent’s players before they go for a goal run, or before they come flying in to try and smash one of your players into the ground! Bonus points if you get to apply it to an enemy Captain, but let’s be honest, no one at all likes getting a bunch of their stats lowered.

The second Character Play Hemlocke brings is a biggie. Midnight Offering was previously only on Zarola, but Hemlocke’s affinity with the spirits has allowed her to tap into some of the feral abilities of the Hunters. Midnight Offering allows a friendly model to make a Jog. This is a great example of a simple sentence, and a simple effect to resolve. However, the sheer number of options this brings the Morticians is enormous. Morticians have always had the highest number of options and cool tricks in the game, and Midnight Offering brings them an absolute coffinload more.

You can do obvious things like using it as a straight threat extension on a model like Bonesaw for a goal run, or on Ghast to get up and engage the enemy team. Slightly more intricately, think of kicking with Scalpel, then using Midnight Offering on her. Scalpel can now be 14” away from her deployment line on turn 1, before she’s even activated! Finally, you have the option to do things like, well, say an enemy player dodges away from Casket just before he can get the final blow to trigger a Casket Time? You can Midnight Offering him into melee with them, then use Puppet Master to make an Attack and put player in the box even when he thought he was safe!

Midnight Offering can also be used defensively, to pull back a friendly player before they get beat up, or to move a model with the ball further away from an enemy striker. One of the coolest aspects of this rule is the sheer number of mind games a coach can play with Obulus and Hemlocke on the Pitch!

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