This is part of a group that we weren’t sure was going to be a great group because we generally all felt like we had more support based characters and without a strong attacking character we wondered how we’d hold up. It took us a little bit to get the characters figured out and really set-up to play them but now the group has become quite powerful.

The Quartermaster has generally become our tank character, though the Sawbones, can be a tank at times. The Quartermaster is the tank because of their ability to manipulate items that they have. So while they might end up having to burn a card or two, as long as they are discarding cards, they generally can keep a full hand. That’s very handy as it allows our group to get going longer and because of that, they don’t always need to be taking long rests and can keep the enemy distracted when other characters might be getting low on cards and need to be taking those rests.

The Quartermaster really shines when it comes to item use. Now, it doesn’t always have to be to get back cards, but by using items at the right time and refreshing the items, the Quartermaster can do a ton of damage. This is probably some of the reason that this character got off to the rough start because without the full compliment of items they can have trouble dealing out that much damage. They aren’t an extremely low damage character, but probably middle level damage character with not many attacks that focus on an area or do other negative effects. Building up that collection of items to make them higher damage or able to hit a larger area makes a big difference, especially as the monsters are a good amount tougher at the higher levels.

Generally, I feel like this character is fairly mobile around the battlefield, which you want for a character who can tank. This is especially the case as they aren’t generally the fastest character in terms of going in initiative. We did originally run into the problem with the group of characters, and with the previous group of characters, that we weren’t always the most mobile around the battlefield. I think with this group we’ve focused more in on that which has been quite useful in some scenarios where you need to make it to multiple points or make it in and then leave or even just maps that are spread out the extra movement from the Quartermaster and the other characters has been helpful.

Overall, this seems like an interesting character to play and eventually when coming back to this game or as we unlock more characters, I could see trying this character to see if you could tweak the build in another way that would still use items but might help the party with items more so than themselves and see if the Quartermaster can be more support character.

Complexity: Medium/High
Combat: Medium/High
Support: Low

Now, I didn’t play this one, but it was played in our games and was our first mercenary to retire. The Scoundrel is a rogue type of character that moves fast, hits for a good amount of damage and can get extra damage if the conditions are right.

The Scoundrel, like the Tinkerer (and I didn’t mention this in the Tinkerer review), had a lower number of hit points than some of the other characters. Where as the Tinkerer has 12 cards to play around with, the Scoundrel had considerably less with nine cards. This gives it a different feel in a game where your cards are generally what determine if you make it to the end of a scenario or not. Whereas the Tinkerer would end up with a lot of it’s cards in the trash, the Scoundrel’s cards didn’t give out as many experience points, and didn’t get trashed all that often. Those that did get trashed, our player never really had those in his deck with the exception cards that he could use without the card ending up in the trash.

One of the other differences that I saw was that the Scoundrel also had the disadvantage of being in the mix always. So with fewer cards and less health than some, they had to do other things to stay alive. As they got to higher levels, they started to get cards that would let them go invisible, but adding gear quickly was key for the Scoundrel. There other advantage was the amount of damage that they could do, and the speed that they could go at. The other two characters had basically a similar speed, but the Scoundrel had several single digit cards that generally allowed them to go ahead of the bad guys. Two things came form this, they were able to potentially kill a threat that would do damage to them, or it would allow them to hit the person they were next to and then run away.

A cool thing about the Scoundrel was how their damage would increase depending on the situation. There was at least one card that damage would go up for the Scoundrel if the enemy was next to an ally, so it would go from a base 3 damage to a base 5 damage. Then, if the enemy was next to none of it’s allies next to it, it would be an additional 2 damage added to the attack, so the base damage would be 7. Now, it sucked if the base damage was 7 and you got the damage cancelled, but because of how you can build the Scoundrel’s modifier deck, there was almost no chance of that happening or chance of pulling a negative card. While the Scoundrel was in place, I definitely left the Tinkerer more as a healing option versus the damage option it became later, because the Scoundrel was so good at fast damage.

We didn’t end up seeing some of the higher levels for the Scoundrel as they were the first character we had to get retired. I would assume that those cards would have continued to enforce the trend of acting fast and doing extra damage in various situations. I should also point out that the Scoundrel, as compared to some of the other characters we’ve opened, does not have a ton of area attacks or ranged attacks. It’s an  up close and personal fighter who deals their damage that way.

I think one of the things that can be the most fun with the Scoundrel is the speed. If I were to go and play the Scoundrel, that would be why. You get to set the battlefield, you get to hit for a lot of damage and determine who attacks who, because you go before everyone else. The more straight forward nature, seemingly, of the Scoundrel would also make it strong for a player who might not be ready to tackle a character with more moving parts. It’s also a good one for a person who plays more video games than they do board games and might need more time to learn a character. They are going to understand what a Scoundrel is doing if they’ve played rogue characters before.

Complexity: Low
Combat: High
Support: Low

Have you had a chance to play the Scoundrel, if so how did you like it? Do you generally like to play rogue type characters?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.