Hey, everyone! Before we jump into today’s Insider, I just want to wish you all well during this strange time, and I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy.

Normally on Wednesdays at 10 a.m. PST, Oz and I host the Developer Chat livestream. If you’ve never watched it before, it’s a show where we talk about what is happening in the wild world of rules design and development for the games we make. You can normally catch us live on Twitch or go back and watch videos after they air on our YouTube channel.

Due to recent events, we aren’t streaming at the moment, and today was supposed to be a really fun Dev Chat. Today, I was going to show all of you the final Riot Quest rules for the Wastelander, Four Horseymans, and Flubbin, along with the Riot Gear cards that come with each. As has been tradition, I was also going to show you the current in-testing WARMACHINE rules for these models as well.

So, with no stream available at the moment, its time to break out that ol’ chestnut…The Insider!

Just pretend Oz is sitting next to me while I write this, staring at me disapprovingly, and it’s basically the same experience as the normal stream.

Quick reminder before we jump into the spoilers: the WARMACHINE rules for these models are not 100% final. Things are subject to change before final printing.

All right, then, let’s go!

Wastelander

The Wastelander hails from the ruins of the Skorne Empire. He’s one of only two heroes who have successfully made the trek across the Stormlands after the apocalypse (the other being the Terrorizer). With his trusty mekitana, this ronin efaarit is willing to work for anyone and do any job as long as the loot is good.

As you can see, shooting the Wastelander or anyone near him is a real bad idea. You’re very likely to just shoot yourself in the face instead. If you’ve ever wondered why some ranged Heroes have a weaker melee attack available, like Dez, for instance, this is a good example of why.

Who doesn’t like extra speed, or the ability to move through enemies, or counting as a Rogue for bounties and treasure chests? No one, that’s who. Slapping this Gear onto Helga on Wheels can be particularly fun since she can run twice a turn, unlike other Heroes. Nothing beats moving 10 spaces in one activation!

In WARMACHINE, the Wastelander is a melee combat solo with some distinct support options. Just by himself, he’s a MAT 8 POW 10 weapon master with Decapitation. That. Hurts.

However, he also has two unique rules: Deflect and Take a Bullet.

Take a Bullet works almost exactly like Shield Guard with one major difference: it changes the target of the ranged attack and occurs before your opponent rolls to hit, unlike Shield Guard, which moves the successful hit over to a different model. This is important because of Deflect, which says if you miss the Wastelander with a ranged attack, you shoot yourself instead. It’s the ranged version of the ability Whiplash, which you might be familiar with.

At DEF 17 against ranged attacks, your opponent will think twice before shooting any targets near the Wastelander.

Four Horseymans

The world might have gone to ruin, but that doesn’t mean everyone is having a bad time. Take these four neigh slayers, for example—they’re having the time of their little demented lives. Individually, each horseyman would be a tiny terror, capable of wreaking massive havoc. When they ride together, they bring the full might of their sadistically adorable “apocawypse” down on any poor soul in their path.

The Horseymans bring something new and terrifying to Riot Quest: a forced discard mechanic. This is brutal at all stages of the game, whether you are forcing an opponent to discard their best Riot Gear early on or removing that last card they were holding onto for just the right moment. Throw a Fell Charm Gear card onto these little monsters for two attacks a turn, and watch your opponents’ Riot Gear just evaporate.

Ledfoot & Tredz first introduced us to the Ride Along ability, allowing them to pickup a nearby ally and drop them off wherever L&T finished a run. Well, Knapsack offers the same experience for your enemies. This is a great way to snag an enemy holding an important bounty token and then drag them as far away from their intended destination as possible. Also, sometimes, you just want to grab an enemy and plop them right next to your Black Bella or Butcher…for fun.

In WARMACHINE, the Four Horseymans are a versatile melee solo capable of debuffing enemy models, creating cloud effects, or just hitting really, REALLY hard. Thanks to Ancient Shroud, they take exactly four hits to put down, so cheat fate and play them with Twilight Sisters for some healing!

Also, the Starve effect on the Famine ability is very likely changing to become shakable, much like Blind or Shadow Bind. We’re still finishing up the final tests to determine that, but I think it’s a strong possibility. We are still testing to determine which Grymkin theme forces we intend for the Four Horseymans to go in; it is currently looking like we will update Bump in the Night to accommodate this model.

Flubbin

Gubbin’s adorable baby sister shares his love of all things that explode, but she does so with a bit more style and sass. Gubbin just throws as many explosives as he can, but Flubbin is all about the perfect BOOM! She floats high above the battlefield, talking to her explosives as if they were her favorite pet, and then cheers for her enemies based on how well they can take a gravity bomb to the dome.

Flubbin has a lot of weird things going on with her stats and abilities. First off, she’s the only Hero that has a ranged attack with a range of 1. That doesn’t initially seem like much range at all, until you look at Flyby. This ability allows you to break up her movement and attack, which, when combined the freedom of movement the Flight ability provides, means Flubbin can hit-and-run like no one else.

She also takes a variety of Riot Gear very well, whether you’re increasing her speed with things like Hyperspring Boots or just making her hit harder with Bang Rounds.

Lead Balloon is a tricky piece of Gear, and it does a lot more than you might first imagine. The first half of this card is basically the same as Dez’s High Density Armor, which is great on maps such as Hullgrinder where you can block off opponents from accessing parts of the Arena.

The second half, though—“can only suffer damage from enemy attacks”—has a wide variety of uses. It makes you completely immune to things like Black Bella’s Dirty Fighter ability, damage from Wrist Spring Holsters on your enemies, or damage from certain treasure chests or bounties. You can ONLY take damage from enemy attacks, and that really does limit a lot of what can hurt you in the game.

In WARMACHINE, Flubbin is a cheap ranged solo that just drops a TON of AOEs onto the board. Don’t miss that she has two gravity bombs, so she gets to make both of those attacks each turn. Each of those attacks generates two additional AOEs, which she is luckily immune to, thanks to Sky-Dropped.

Flubbin has a very specific role: lay waste to light infantry and be a cheap flag holder in Steamroller. Her pair of POW 12s are fine, but it’s really Swift Hunter and additional carpet bomb AOEs that define how she operates. Flubbin wants to float near a single-wound infantry unit around ARM 15 or lower or just make a ton of blast damage rolls to try to soften them up.

Well, I hope you enjoyed today’s look at these upcoming releases. We’ll be back to our regular Dev Chat streams just as soon as we can. Until then, be well and take care of yourself. See you soon!