Ultra Combo - Night Terrors Flock Hopping

I've been hearing a lot about night terror flocks at tournaments recently, and in particular how they are winning Ressers the objective based games, so I sat down with Mr Neverborn recently and theory hammered out their benefits. Straight after, I decided I needed to up my flock to four strong and here's why.




Keep in mind I'm the 'Aspiring' Ressurrectionist for a reason folks....

When it comes to maneuverability, the greater your flock, the further you can move. In a standard deployment you're looking at 24" of open ground between you and your opponent, assuming both of you setup on the 6" line.

With objective based missions you want to get a minion with the action points into contact with the objective, so you need to transport or push a minion around. Several methods have come to light for me over the last few months. There's the belle slingshot and the dead rider two step, but both are relatively short ranged transports. They'll get you to the centre of the board, but what happens when you want to get into your opponents deployment zone in turn 1? Exactly how can night terrors help and how many do you need?

The night terror flock seems to work on the guiding principles that they are fast moving at 6" per walk, they're spirits and have flight so they don't really have to worry about terrain, and they can flock together as a zero action. Flock together is a 6" pulse zero action that pushes all friendly night terrors into base contact with the active model. It requires multiple activations to pull off, and you have to ensure the active member of that flock doesn't get beyond the pulse's range. Here's how it works.

Activation 1 - activate Night Terror, move 6, flock together then move a further 6.

Activation 2 - activate a second Night Terror, move 6 and if there are more Night Terrors to activate, then flock together, or move 12 and flock the original model into contact.

With two Night Terrors you can move 18" in two activations
With three you can move 18" and have a single ap available.
With four you can move 24" and have a single ap available.
With five you can move 30" and have a single ap available.

The larger your flock, the further you can move, but the more activations it'll take to get you where you're going. The more activations, the more obvious your strategy. And that does seem to be the downside.

The upsides seem to be that it's all happening in turn 1. If you can score objectives in turn 1 then you can turn your attention to other purposes in turn 2. The relative strength seems to be in the flocks survivability. With hard to kill and spirit, your Night Terrors are going to be harder than average to kill, and as your opponent shoots or casts near you, you can always move closer using the 'Attracted to Noise' ability.

Lastly, and often in conjunction with attracted to noise come a trio of actions that can render your opponent unable to retaliate. These come in the form of the spell 'night falls', which will debuff their ranged attacks and the triggers 'cold darkness' and 'blind' which buff a terror attack or temporarily blind them.

Ultra Combos - Seamus's switcherroo

Ultra Combos is my way of noting down and acknowledging the synergies of my Resser Brigade, it'll form an infrequent set of updates that might help the Aspiring Resurrectionists out there to finally win a game.

Ultra Combos are things I've tried and have worked well for me, I only intend to publish here as I use some of the synergies of my crews, this isn't a tactica hammering exercise, everything here has been tried and tested.

So onto combo 1
The Seamus Swicherroo


Seamus and the copycat killer share one fantastic ranged weapon, the .50 flintlock. I've heard this branded as one of the best ranged weapons in the game and its damage output is certainly high at 4/6/7, there are other characters that can put out more damage, but that will all cost you more action points. In a single action, I'm struggling to think of a better ranged weapon, and with two of your crew wielding one, you have the opportunity to fell some fairly big opponents.

The downside however is the flintlock is a single shot weapon and its for that reason that this combo can be very useful.

What is the Switcherroo?
The Seamus switcherroo comes from the ability on the copycat's card to allow him to trade places with Seamus for a 1 action. Mistaken Identity is the CCK's only personal spell but is cast on a 9 of tomes, with no resist, it allows Seamus and the CCK to immediately switch places if they are within 15" of each other, which is almost half the board.

When to use
Using the Switcherroo is very situational, but for me there have been four circumstances where its worked well.

"I'll save you master!"
If you have something nasty bearing down on an injured Seamus then a shot from each, and a switch can keep Seamus safe. You'll likely be throwing the CCK under a bus, but hey at least he generates you a corpse counter, so he can come back as a belle or a dead doxy.

"Be a good boy and go be the bait"
A somewhat riskier proposition is to use the CCK as bait, team him up with some chaff to deter any charges and keep him out of enemy fire, then as your prey is bearing down, pull out the Dirty Harry and loose a shot, before switching places and sending Seamus in for the kill.

"Master, it's over here!"
Getting round the board can be a lot easier if you use switch to place Seamus exactly where he needs to be. You could run the CCK up to an objective, or into your opponents deployment zone, and they think you the fool for sending an insignificant totem to do their masters work, but then that 15" switch kicks in and Seamus is exactly where he needs to be with 3 AP to get the job done. This could be particularly useful for something like treasure hunt where it takes two actions to pick up!

"My little friend"
The Resser scheme My Little Friend requires the Switcherroo to be successful IMHO. You need to keep the CCK safe and then use him for the kill. What could be better than switching him into the right place when Seamus has softened up his victim?

Prerequisites
9 tomes for mistaken identity
2 Higher cards for hit and damage for the CCK when firing the flintlock
A high card and a soulstone or a focus action to get Seamus's shot over the line

Other Considerations
Remember both Seamus and the CCK have access to the one action spell 'live for the pain'. Whilst it doesn't have the damage output, inflicting damage will rejuvenate an equivalent number of wounds. Useful for a finishing combo and it'll help the CCK to recover the wounds he picks up from firing that big old hand cannon.