If I were the King of Pigs. Part 2 🐖 🐖

So, my grand plan to wish list the crap out of Pig/Sooey. Let’s do some more of that.  One quick note though, for this thought experiment I’m not going to produce any cards or anything like that. I’d love to, I just don’t have the time.  Also if you’ve not read the first post in this series, You can do so here

I’m going to start off right at the top with my vision and purpose and generally guiding principle for the keywords:

1. Pigs should be good but inefficient 
2. Gremlins bring the efficiency at the cost of positioning and activation order

My intent here is to make the kind of keyword one might call an activation order puzzle. Mimic/elite do this in a very overt way (higher cost model boss around a lower cost one = draw a card), Family do this in a similarly overt way (higher cost model discards a card to make lower cost model take an action) and then keywords like Plague or Cadmus do it in a different way (put markers down, turn markers into summons etc). It’s a keyword design that places additional pressure on the already existing hard skill in the game of activation order, but one that offers rewards for doing so. 

So with the above in mind my idea is to give pigs much more actions that they want to be taking and specific Sooey models actions to make pigs take those specific actions for them.

No finer example of this exists in mind than the grow mechanic in Ulix. Yup imma gonna start there. Potentially controversial suggestion number 1, I would move the grow mechanic off of Ulix and onto all the pigs that are Sz1 and 2.

I’ll let that sink in a bit,

Obviously I need to provide more detail. I would give Sz 1 and 2 pigs a tactical action, with similar tn requirements to now, that require them to spend grow tokens as a cost. Pigs are your output models, you want them to be scheming, and moving and killing and not necessarily spending AP on getting bigger but having it as an option is impactful. That 3ss piglet on the flank is a lot more of a concern if it could be a wild boar. We see this in Nekima, that terror tot *could* be a young Nephilim, which *could* be a mature Nephilim. I very much like this in Nephilim and I want to steal it wholeheartedly both in feel and also in grow tokens.

So our pigs can make themselves grow but don’t always want to because AP is an expensive cost and I want Sooey to improve their efficiency. Well this would require absolutely no real change as Herd ‘em already exists and so does the hog whisperers Stick ‘em trigger. These two already perfectly fill the role of ap transferal, herd em may need the range reducing a bit, but here we have a perfect example of the synergy I want to create for pig efficiencies.

This I imagine prompts two significant questions from you:

1. What is Ulix doing with his AP?
2. Where are the grow tokens coming from?

Excellent questions both, and I will answer both with slop markers.

I propose both Ulix1 and Slop Haulers gain a shockwave attack that places a 30mm slop marker from which the shockwave emanates.  The initial shockwave a 2” area of mv duels for the enemy or gain Adversary (Beasts). You’ve been covered in pig food, pigs are going to want to eat you and oh look more efficiencies for piggies.  The slop marker itself would count as severe (beast models can ignore this. Pigs like mud, hmm flavourful) but are removed at the end of the turn. Mud holes dry up, food gets eaten.

A quick tangent to explain the next bit, in the recent Oni errata we saw two upgrade cards for the two variants of Asami that impacted what rift markers can be used for and I would propose the same here for both versions of Ulix as follows:

1. Ulix: Pig models that end a move on a slop marker may remove that slop marker to heal 2 and gain a grow token.
2. Ulix2: Slop markers gain the Hazardous (Burning +1) trait.

As such slop markers perform very different roles depending on title chosen but both are in keeping with the titles lore and theming.  I’d also like to see Penelope have the ability to move slop markers but that’s not a fully fleshed out idea. Ha! To be fair none of these ideas are fully fleshed out. 

So with the grow action now on the pigs, slop markers on the board and an action which means Ulix1 spends more time interacting with his opponent and board rather than just constantly targeting his own models we have a very different looking play style but the same theming and hopefully feel.  Turns would look like slop markers being put out early, pigs being herded to eat them and later activations in turn being more pig centred for combat and scoring.  Sooey sets the turn up, Pigs deliver.  If in later turns the pigs are separated from their Gremlins they can still be impactful but in a less efficient fashion. There is still the same card demands (because weaknesses make things interesting) and your opponent has a line of play against you (remove the gremlins/seperate the pigs).

One last thing. One last wrinkle before I finish this post. On the grow action itself (that I am calling “eat your greens, grow up strong”) I want the pigs to be able to sacrifice a gremlin model within 2” of themselves for a grow token. Why? Well for one I think it’s Incredibly flavourful detail. One of my favourite pieces of bayou lore is the cyclical food chain of Gremlins eating pigs and pigs eating Gremlins but it is in no way represented in the game so I want to add it. Secondly it allows for some early game nonsense to grow pigs fast, it also makes for some potentially devastating obeys from your opponent.

And on that note, until next time!