The first rule to cover on this card is one that you will see duplicated across all six Navigator models, Precise Calculations. Though previously similar rules like harvest markers only appear on their respective Guild card we decided to put this on every Navigator card to avoid coaches forgetting their rerolls. It also made sense since Precise Calculations effectively acts like a normal Character Trait. So yeah, with rerolling kicks and attacks suddenly this model starts to make a bit more sense. This means his lower TAC and lower number of KICK dice are MUCH less of a problem. This access to rerolls means that the impact of extra dice from charging, ganging up, and bonus time is increased. When Horizon charges he can much more reliably wrap given his +4 TAC and his access to rerolls. Remember, a die can never be rerolled more than once!

As important as this trait is there’s still plenty more to see.

His next trait, Don’t Get Cocky, means he is only worth 1VP to the enemy team when taken out instead of the usual 2. Suddenly the mascot amount of health makes sense. But wait, there’s more! When Horizon returns the pitch, he can treat the enemy team’s deployment zone as his own. Yes, you heard that correctly. Horizon gets taken out and can appear in your opponent’s deployment ready to steal the ball and shoot some goals. This means Horizon is constantly a credible scoring threat and just a headache for your opponent. When they finally take him out, the bounty on him is only a single VP. A lot of the time it just seems hardly worth it. But of course if you just leave him back there, he’s a constant threat for grabbing the ball.

Fly Casual

At this point we have seemingly addressed, explained and justified all the more lacklustre elements on the front of his card. His low movement makes loads of sense when he can just appear in your opponent’s deployment after being taken out, right? He’s a bit slow until then but surely that’s a reasonable trade-off for just appearing wherever he likes!? WRONG! He’s got more!

Stellar Navigation is his final trait and really makes that low MOV of 4”/6” a non-issue. Once per turn during his activation this model may make a 5” dodge. It doesn’t cost him anything, it’s just something he gets each time he activates. So realistically we are looking at a 9”/11” MOV model with 5” of that movement being dodges. This makes Horizon very hard to pin down, which can really make your opponent work hard for that 1VP for taking him out. Of course, at DEF 3+/ARM 1 with 8 HP, he’s right in the region where a lot of players can simply take him out in a single activation, which is the trade-off.

Don’t Everyone Thank Me at Once

The observant of you will notice some more Season 4 changes on this card. You will notice Stellar Navigation has a new icon next to its name. This is highlight this trait as an active trait. Previously in Guild Ball we have had to highlight via clarification which traits are active (and by extension an action) and which are passive (abilities that take effect the whole time). In Season 4 all active character traits will have this icon next to their names, and passive character traits will not. This should hopefully reduce rules questions and make traits more intuitive going forward.

The final Season 4 thing on this card you will notice that his card has the squaddie type listed at the bottom of his card. Squaddie was a new term that was brought in with the Game Plan decks. For those who are unaware squaddie refers to any non-captain and non-mascot model. With this change you don’t even need to know the rule, you just need to check for the squaddie keyword which is nice and simple.

While looking at the bottom of his card, you might also notice the Guild symbols attached to this model. Kept that pretty quiet, didn’t we? Yes, Horizon is a Fisherman crossover model, you will see this loveable rogue in Fish line-ups. Shark in particular likes him because it gives him access to another more unusual goal scoring threat that your opponent must deal with. In Fish generally your opponent takes out a player for 2VP after you have scored a 4VP goal, which seems like a good trade. It’s an even better trade when you score a goal and only give up 1VP for Horizon. Previously only those looking for Salt goals experienced such value in a VP trade but now you get this on a standard squaddie. This is a nightmare in a high tempo Shark team where you can’t afford to ignore any model threatening a goal, even a 1VP model.

With that we have navigated ourselves through the first reveal of a Navigators player. We hope those looking to charter the Navigators Guild and those already playing Fisherman are excited for the options he will bring to the table. Let us know what you think of him on our forums and on social media! If you think the Navigator’s Guild look like to be in shipshape form, you can pre-order them here.

Next week on the blog the shifting tides will reveal the next Navigators player, Fathom, the Wave Runner.