The Best Lady

Right let’s start at the top because the levels of synergies are huge and a proper understanding of how Reva2’s card works is the thing that explains absolutely everything else about this keyword.  So let’s start here, and let’s take some time.

Ok that’s it! See you next time! I jest of course.

Every single front of card ability is super relevant to R2s playstyle and you need to be familiar with them all to get the most out of her.  So in a slightly different order than what is on her card…

This is how Reva summons her totems. Thankfully this was changed so you no longer have to pitch a card to do, it just happens. You need a corpse or a pyre marker to do so (this will be a line of attack people take against you, to try and remove pyre and corpse markers so that you can’t do it.). As will become more and more apparent, her totems are super important to her playstyle and they will die a lot, so having a way of getting some more is invaluable. This just happens at the start of your activation, a canny opponent may try and move Reva about so she can’t do this. That’s the most stand alone one, now everything else…

This is R2s principle defensive ability, it’s is also a very strong offensive ability and it is also deeply flawed in some respects. Because of this the way you keep Reva safe (with this) is by dumping damage you don’t want to take on to models that you can afford to lose, as a result R2 tends to have a number of expendable bodies around her be that her totems, mindless zombies, ghost lights, enslaved spirits etc etc (there are other ways of keeping her safe, particularly when attacks are not all about the damage for example but this is the one on the front of her card.). If an attack does some damage AND a condition she’s still going to take the condition. If the the attack says “models damaged by this attack…” then she won’t. Got it? Good. Important distinction. So this sounds pretty last resort right? Dumping all the dmg from an attack to straight out kill a friendly sounds a lot. Well, you’ll be surprised how frequently this comes up. Some important distinctions here, it says friendly. It does not say friendly undead. I know! I was surprised too! Also you note that Reva is the one killing the model, why is that relevant? Well that’s because of…

This is a very common ability in Revenant and it does not say enemy anywhere in this ability. Again, you might think it does, but it doesn’t. So Reva can not take damage, kill a friendly , and as well as getting a corpse marker, you’re getting a Pyre Marker as well. Sometimes two if it’s a Corpse Candle (more on them later). So R2’s been attacked and you get  2-3 useful markers out of it. Value town! But I know the difference between place/drop/create and I know that when a marker is dropped it has no further effect on the game right? not so much….

So the markers been dropped and now we do the Reva wiggle. Anything within 2” of the dropped marker is getting pushed 2”, friendly and enemy alike. So even if the enemy attacking you came base to base, you can now put 4” of distance between the two models, hopefully wasting the rest of their activation. If only there was a piece of hazardous terrain to abuse here, oh wait! There totally is! Burning! burning for everyone! But burning is bad for friendlies right? Wellllllllll….

Last ability on the front of her card, burning can either be 1 dmg or 1 heal with a fancy worded once per activation clause. So either 1 point of ping damage (or beard damage as my lot call it due to my love of ping) or 1 point of heal. This coupled with a few models in Revenant gaining shielded from Pyre markers (looking at you Shieldbearers, more on you later) means bad things for enemies, good things for friendlies. Yay! 

So to recap, we’ve been attacked, taken no dmg, made a bunch of markers, shuffled a bunch of models about 2” in fire, healed friendlies, probably gained shielded on bodyguards and done extra dmg to enemies who are no longer engaging us. This is why I’ve previously described playing Reva2 as like reading “there was an old lady who swallowed a fly” to a toddler, there’s just a whole bunch of cascading effects that comes from these front of card abilities that all weave in and out of each other. The front of R2s card is nuts.

Also note Enkindle the cult doesn’t require dmg from enemy sources, you can totally attack her with her own models to trigger all of this. I’ll be honest, I do this a bunch. Just chucking mindless zombies at her to trigger all of the value above. Utterly hilarious.

Right on to things that actually use AP. I know! All of the above is just free abilities! I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.

Let’s start with her Tactical action, fan the flames.

This is the same as Kaeris’ ability of the same name with one key important difference which is an absolutely bonkers trigger. This is the action Sonnia2 is sorely lacking, the ability to push Pyre markers around. Firstly it only needs a 5 which is wonderfully cheap, you can force a whole bunch of simple duels to put hand pressure on your opponent, everyone touched by this is getting burning (see the implications of getting burning near R2 above). 

Then there is the crow trigger. 

Good lord.

For the low low cost of a 5 of crows you chose two models in base to base with the targeted pyre marker (please do note this is in italics, so choosing is a cost that must be paid at the trigger declaration step and therefore prior to moving the pyre marker, don’t let anyone tell you different!) and after the marker has been pushed you place the models into contact with the marker. This has so many glorious applications. With the size of the markers and the 4” push this is up to just under 8” of movement before you take into consideration base size and you’re doing it to two models for one ap. I’ve done this to friendlies to push them into contact with strat markers, to get them into or out combat including Reva herself, I’ve used it to bring models closer to Reva so she has body guards. The scoring positioning and friendly model repositioning potential for this is phenomenal but even more so is the potential to kidnap enemy models with them having absolutely no flip in response.  No defence. None. Just a 5 of crows and you’re kidnapping whatever you want that’s in range. It is….glorious. I struggle to think of a better kidnap in the game purely down to the fact that you only need a 5 of crows, and your opponent gets no flip to respond.  As my good friend Tarquin Sweetbiscuits put it “I made the mistake of walking Nekima forward once, and then she was gone”.

Sorry Kaeris. You don’t get this.

R2s bonus action is just a great way of changing where burning is. After using traverse the flames to move my models around, they do have a tendency to be very on fire. And whilst they’ve healed from this or gained shielded they are ultimately still on fire. Very on fire usually. Fortunately we can take all the burning off models we don’t want to have burning and give it to something we do want to be on fire. What do we want to be on fire? Well enemies are good obviously, but also lampads (as they can make use of it, more on them later) and at a push corpse candles (because they don’t take burning dmg) are both good friendlies to be on fire but realistically we like this on enemies. I’ve not massively played around with the ram trigger (I need to experiment more with it as making Visions of Fire Pong for 2dmg instead of Pinging for 1 merits investigation, as does a 3/4/5 sanctified crossbow on Vinny) as to be honest things usually end up very dead soon after because of…

You’ve got your enemy target to 5 hp with chip dmg/other attacks/burning damage etc, you’ve stacked a bunch of burning (5+ preferably) on them with Lantern’s light/pyre marker wiggles/other model attacks and now you’re just going to whomp them with 5 dmg and turn them into a lampad. Two model swing. Dead opponent model summoning one of the best models in your keyword in return. I spoke in my previous blogs about Sonnia1 how much I love killing models for incidental summons on Sonnias card, and in many ways this is much better. Whilst this does have a once per activation restriction, and Sonnias does not, this ability absolutely doesn’t care about the targets value. You can summon a Lampad off a bayou Gremlin, a malifaux Rat or even a 1ss Runaway and the Lampads hp is not determined by the targets hp.  Turning a 1ss model into an 8ss model is a monstrous swing.  Cheap enforcers & minions are both favourite targets of mine but that’s not to say you can’t use this on Henchmen or even Masters, it just needs more setup. Fortunately, with the Carrion effigy/emissary you have access to decaying aura and suddenly your opponent can’t stone the damage away. The Effigy even has accomplice!

Lastly her melee attack which is a solid “fine” if you’ve nothing else to do with her ap. Some chip damage, some burning (with everything that goes along with that) that mask trigger doesn’t say enemy so feel free to cheat low masks and punch zombies for free pyre markers. That trigger doesn’t say once per activation and it doesn’t say enemy only so go ham if you’ve nothing better to do. In fact this is a perfect example of that I think the design philosophy of the mechanics on R2s card. 

So few things say “enemy only” or similar on her card that you can often find really corner case situations for her to take advantage of and a lot of the trick with her is finding these acute uses.  Hopefully the above gives you an idea of how all these cascading abilities interlock with one another. These are just the synergies on her own card and there are many, many more to come from her crew.

What does this all mean? It means R2 has a very versatile toolkit, that summons through killing, can heal and reposition her crew, that her defence is also her offence, and that she is full of nonsense.  It also means you have to be able to hold all of these mental triggers in your head and be able to respond appropriately when called upon, that you must keep her protected and threatening at all times to get the most out of her, but in short she has a permit to do anything.

What doesn’t she want to see? Anything that can’t be moved around (laugh off etc) anything that is immune to hazardous terrain, flambourne models or anyone that doesn’t take dmg from conditions, incorporeal etc, things that drop impassible markers can be a real pain as they stop you pushing pyre markers around. Marker removal, no pyre marker = no pyre marker bullshit, and hard to kill can slow the efficiency right down. So if everyone could not bring those against me, that’d be great. 

Until next time! (I need a better outro)