Unfounded Brineblood Marauder speculation

[SaltTitan]

I thought I’d take a break from pressing F5 on the Privateer YouTube page to partake in some rampant baseless Brineblood speculation and wish-listing.

Firequill

Firequill seems like the best place to start with speculation since he’s the Scout Leader and has the most obvious (IMO) weaponry.

We know he’s a gunmage from Matt Wilson’s description on a podcast (The Meta I believe) and that he collects the magelocks of other gunmages he’s killed. His main weapon seems to be a magelock blunderbuss, which I’m guessing based on Bastion Falk’s Mk3 rules, the only other magelock blunderbuss we’ve seen so far, will be something like SP8 or SP10 POW 12. If the Marauders maintain Trollkin’s traditional access to Snipe/Far Strike from their animi I could see it being a SP8, but if they don’t I would expect SP 10.

His other hand and his belt are all traditional magelocks. We can spot a few different designs (including one that seems to be Iosian based on its color and resemblance to Garryth 1’s guns sans the hilt blades), but I’m guessing the gameplay implications of this will be that he has a second initial ranged attack, possibly with Reload to represent pulling another gun out of the bracer and firing it. For the sake of rule clarity, especially as he is almost certainly the Scout caster, I don’t think these will have different Attack Types than the blunderbuss and will probably stick pretty close to the traditional Magelock RNG 10 POW 10. We also see the starfish holding a gun, but I don’t think that will have any rules impact, though I’d be happy to be wrong.

As for spells I’m not really sure. I believe it’s been stated that Warlock-led Armies won’t have Spell Racks because Animi are basically the same thing. The Far Strike animus has been a staple of Trollbloods for years so I wouldn’t be at all surprised for that to pop up on probably the Reef Troll. For Firequill himself I feel like there’s arguments for a lot of different spells. Both Jarl (Trollblood’s only previous Gun Mage) and various pirate-themed Mercenary warcasters have cloud and/or wind-based spells so some control elements via LOS-blocking or push/knockdown effects seem possible. A battlegroup buff of some sort seems pretty likely based on the other 4 Mk4 Scout casters, maybe Fire Group?

One final thought is that the start box art does seem to imply a soul coming out of one of his guns. Whether this means he makes use of soul tokens or is just a visual reference to the fact that each of those guns was taken from a dead gun mage is unclear.

Admiral Boomhowler

I don’t have much speculation here, just hopes that she will be capable of getting in to the thick of things a bit and surviving. One of the things that kept me out of Winter Korp was the lack of a melee beatstick caster, but just because a caster has a big awesome sword doesn’t always mean they actually want to get into melee. Given her surname I’m hoping she is a Fell Caller and comes packing a bit of Grissel-esc tech, but I haven’t seen anything to confirm that she is or does.

Captain Shadowtongue

I honestly have no ideas here lol. Visually he is the warlock I’m the least interested in out of the three. He is the only albino (traditionally a sign of a natural-born magic user amongst the trollkin) and he doesn’t have a visible weapon so it seems a safe bet he’ll be more of a support or debuff caster. He does seem to be holding a soul and has a lot of heavy scarring so it seems like a safe bet that he makes use of soul tokens and possibly self-damage effects ala Naaresh?

Infantry

For the baseline infantry I’m seeing pistol and swords which to me sounds like something in the realm of POW 10 melee and ranged, maybe some combination of Dual Attack, Gunfighter, and Pistol. I’m guessing that like Winter Korp Infantry they’ll a be relatively cheap FA4 unit with the ability to customize their capabilities a bit with the two Command Attachments. Probably pretty mediocre defensive stats, plus Tough.

Depending on how much Marauders borrows from traditional Trollblood design philosophy though we could see a lot of buffs that can be layered on top of these guys. I haven’t seen evidence of anything like the Krielstone for Marauders, but we know they have two different CAs, a unit of cooks, and at least one solo that all could be augmenting their basic abilities.

Those are the most concrete thoughts I have. I feel like the beasts could be a lot of things and I don’t have a good handle yet on how modular cohort models are designed so I don’t really know what to expect. The other infantry I haven’t spent as much time thinking about, especially where most of it doesn’t have any public art yet.

What’s everyone else thinking? What are you hoping for?

[WarjackHamster]

Regardless of how they turn out, can I just say that I absolutely love the water creature mascot angle that the design team has went for here.

[SaltTitan]

Yea I’m really excited to see what sort of rules are attached to them since they mentioned in the new Primecast + that Admiral Boomhowler’s octopus has rules.

[WarjackHamster]

The octopus and the gunslinger starfish are making me excited for sure.

[SaltTitan]

Tried and True is sharing some teasers from the Bokur Brawl and they look sick as hell

[Michael]

That is incredibly silly, and I love it!

[WarjackHamster]

@SaltTitan

PROTEUS?! Is that you?

[froo]

If we’re talking unfounded wishlisting, I’d like to see stuff that is just weird fun in theme (it is a game after all)

So given some of the more cartoonish poses we’ve seen, I’m proposing the following:

Brineblood Marauders get a unique command card, called “Pieces of Eight”. The basic idea is that it is deployed at the start of game (like defences) and whenever you roll a natural 8, you gain a token on the card. You can spend X tokens (just say 8 for the sake of the argument) to gain reroll a single die roll.

So mathwise, this works out to 13.89% chance of rolling a hard 8 on 2d6, 9.72% on 3d6 and 2.70% on 4d6. So taking 2d6, you need about 58 rolls on average to get a single reroll (if X above was 8), so you’d expect to see a reroll around midgame, where it’s going to be clutch.

Also, making it a command card makes it entirely optional gameplay.

I think Admiral Boomhowler having an octopus on her should give her the rule Octoplus, where you get the Pieces of Eight command card in addition to other command cards.

Anyway, I’ve now thrown out my dumb idea. Hoist the colours!

[DragonPup]

I hope the shockers have at least one eel pun in their rules, like Eelectro Leap.

[SaltTitan]

I’ve been thinking about the octopus having rules and I’m hoping it’s something like a Blind effect, maybe that helps her survive in melee? Like an action or weapon effect that Blinds everyone in melee range of her or something.

[gupp]

I wonder if these trolls have their sea legs (def 13, but lower arm)? I mean, a pirate army probably is going to have some aquatic rules too (amphibious). The old non-troll pirates relied a lot on their solos to buff thier mainstay unit. (we have maurauder crew units with at least a UA, and a surgeon and galleys crew. And one of the casters may have a heavy support theme…i’m thinking our fury 7 shadowtoungue)

trolls and dires are well… pretty much the same as before, but perhaps +1 def, -1 arm? a slew of weapon options and abilities, but we’ve seen so many dire and elemental troll variants that they just feel like those. but it’s not a bad thing, especially if coming from and army that wasn’t trolls already.

triton units look really cool. looks like we’re getting orcas, hermit crabs. and maybe some sort of manta-type thing. orcas- fast and higher def, melee. crabs, low def high arm, ranged? manta- solo? all with 8 hp.

Archipelogos- whoa a gargantuan! i think he’s like very high arm & HP, low speed & def, with a ranged AOE attack. decent in melee, too, but so slow that it’s unlikely he’ll get a charge. i think he might have a krielstone animus…not sure.

[froo]

Brine Crabston

Just need to add a little hat and sunglasses to him. He already has the goatee.

[Parlamento]

Wise commentary. The Eelectro leap one

[gupp]

in the meantime, enjoy this ambient fantasy pirate music

Seaside Town | D&D/TTRPG Music | 1 Hour

[SaltTitan]

Some new tidbits out of the August solicitations:

• Admiral Boomhowler is a Fell Caller and has Battle Plans

• Can make melee and ranged attacks in the same activation

• Cutlass has Magical and Grievous Wounds

• She has Flashing Blade

• Feat is “While in Boomhowler’s control range, friendly Faction models gain +2 DEF and Rapid Healing.”

• Deepborn has Amphibious, Regeneration, and Snacking (no surprises there)

• Animus options include Floodwaters, Rage, and Recoil

• Reef Troll animi include Elusive, Far Strike, and Lightning Strike

• Character heavy is “incredibly resistant to ranged attack damage” (no surprise there either). Also has the same three abilities as the base heavy.

[Dopesaw]

I’m sold even further now.

[SilentMunk]

I’m curious to see what this classifies as. Something like an arm bonus to range? Does it have the ability to close itself in it’s crab shell? Seems fun and themey to have it close up like a clamjack

[SaltTitan]

I assume it’s Carapace, which in Mk3 was +4 ARM vs ranged attacks. Not sure if it’s appeared in Mk4 yet.

[SilentMunk]

If that’s the rule name, it would fit

[gupp]

It was on most/all of the skorne bug units before, so yes, it did exist on bugs . I’m more curious about those claws. Critical Amputate? Pow+S 18 at least?