On Her Majesty's Secret Service: Previously Released Models to Aid the Queen

So, here’s to Titania being out and her information being available to the public, and here’s to not having to tiptoe around what I write about her anymore. Rejoice! The Queen is Risen! She is Risen Indeed!

                As previously stated, I’ve been amped for Titania since her first appearance during the Nythera event, and I’m anxious to get her on the tabletop to see her in action. I do, however, have some ideas of models from the Neverborn faction (and a mercenary) that work well with her. So, I thought I’d throw together a quick post to discuss some of these.

1)      Performers- I think you’re going to see these mercenaries hired into many Titania crews in the future. The Venn diagram of Performers and Dopplegangers overlaps in several areas and the ladies of the Star Theatre don’t bring Ill Omens, so there’s definitely some competition there. However, the reason you would want to take one of these is the Tactical Action “Seduction.” For the cost of a 7 out of your deck, you blow up a scheme marker (note: not necessarily yours, though you’ll have no shortage,) and every enemy model within 3 of it have to perform a WP test or get a double – to Df and WP flips for the rest of the turn. As someone who’s been on the receiving end of this in the past, I can tell you that this is not a lot of fun and your model is not likely to survive the turn at that point. Now, as people who have played a Terrifying crew can tell you, the real reason for forcing a large number of simple duels on the opponent is to drain their hand cheating to pass them, so you won’t want to count on the enemy getting the debuff, but either outcome will help the crew immensely. Give them a close look, and help me figure out how to make a proxy with a donkey head to represent Bottom from Midsummer Night’s Dream.

2)      Sorrows- This crew creates a lot of incidental WP duels. All of the Wicked Silence attacks go after WP. Any enemy models that activate in base to base with a scheme marker take a WP test. A New Harvest, An Audience with the Queen, Curse of Autumn…you get the idea. Lots of WP tests to potentially trigger a Sorrow. Their biggest weakness is that they’re fragile, and Titania offers them some protection by being able to tank for them. They’re worth looking at closely.

Teddy's the one on the left

3)      Teddy- I mean, he’s Teddy. He’s pretty good anyways. But the thing about Titania is that she doesn’t in and of herself deal a ton of damage. If you’re in a game where you’re going to do some smashing, you’ll need to hire one of the Neverborn’s big hitters to do the heavy lifting. Nekima is kind of the gold standard for this (and she’s a perfectly acceptable choice,) but I like the synergy of Teddy’s Smell Fear combined with all of the incidental WP duels for 2 stones less. One of his weaknesses is typically his lack of speed and low defense. Titania can push him around with The Queen Has Risen and can, again, soak up blows for him. I think Teddy can do some serious work in this crew.

4)      Barbaros- There’s a lot of buzz around including B with T to give you a pair of tanks rather than just one and, in fact, overlapping the two auras to punish models for attacking at all (you have to attack Barbaros because otherwise the action fails, and you have to discard 2 cards because you didn’t hit Titania, plus any additional damage Sorrows might inflict.) I have to confess not having tested this personally so I can’t really speak to its efficacy. It seems good on paper, though.

5)      Mysterious Emissary-  Here, at last, is a master I think can really synergize well with the ME. Titania crews aren’t built around speed, necessarily, so they’re less likely to leave the Emissary behind when rocketing up the board. Titania can fly over the hazardous terrain Hungry Land markers, and the ubiquitous Hard/Impossible to Wound makes it less likely to do serious damage to your models if they wander into one of them (though it also makes you more likely to hit a Red Jokered 6 damage. Thankfully, that happens to me every time anyways, so it’s no big deal to me.) The generic Mysterious Conflux gives + flips to attacks for any minions within 4” of the Emissary, and it’s likely that you’ll have at least a few of those between the knights, performer, and/or sorrows. Speaking of the Knights, their challenges can pull people through the hungry land markers. And, the Emissary summons Changelings out of scheme markers which, again, you’re likely to have a couple of those on hand. I think the big tree-man definitely has some potential in a Titania crew.

That’s all I’ve got for you right now, but let’s hope I’ve got some more on the tabletop (or Vassal) experience for next time or, failing that, at least some pictures of painted models. This is my project for the next several months (she is the Autumn Queen, after all.) So tune in for updates in the future.