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Learn how to play Dagon's mighty followers...

With so many followers of Dagon, it can be a little daunting to determine which miniatures are for you. Thankfully the TTAgents are more than happy to discuss their Carnevale miniatures (especially if they're Rashaar). The following is written by TTAgent Job Berenguer-Webb.

In this article I will be discussing how the Adherents perform on the tabletop and how to list build with the models. Out of the box, they come to 79 ducats so for a normal 100 ducat game you will want to add a few more models from your collection to round the gang out. Keeping with the Church of Dagon theme I decided to go with two Dagon Officiants, from the Church of Dagon box, and a slave. This brings the total up to 105 ducats, which is fine but will mean I will have to give an ‘Ill Tide’ card to my opponent. If you haven’t played with these before they allow you to take your list over the permitted Ducat value by up to 10 Ducats but in exchange you have to give your opponent a number of Ill Tide cards that can be played on you to foil your plans! These can range from automatically failing a chain jump to receiving stunned counters. More information on these can be found in the Blood on the Water rulebook, plus you can buy the card pack which I highly recommend! In general, I find adding an extra model or upgrading one, to be worth the trade off.

My 100 ducat list was as follows:

Leader:

Thalidraur Cost: 26 ducats

Heroes:

Paliaa Cost: 16 ducats

Demagogue Cost: 15 ducats

Henchman:

Dagon Officiant Cost: 11 ducats

Dagon Officiant Cost: 11 ducats

Dagonite Zealot Cost: 11 ducats

Dagonite Zealot Cost: 11 ducats

Slave Cost: 4 ducats

Total cost: 105 Ducats

So far I’ve played a few games with this list, against Patricians and Vatican, and overall it’s performed very well! There are some good synergies in the list so I’ll go into some detail on each of the models and give my thoughts. Note that this list was made before the recent balance pass, now I would simply drop the Slave to make way for the revised Paliaa and take a flashbang grenade to help the Zealots disengage if needs be.

 The Thalidraur is an absolute beast and is really the centrepiece of this list. It is an out and out combat monster with fear -2, attack 5, +1 damage and -1 pen; and it should be looking at killing at least 1 model every turn! Although the 1 command point feels low in actual fact you’ll likely be regaining it every turn anyway if you kill an enemy. It will draw a lot of attention, so at the beginning of it’s activations I have always been spending that command point to activate it’s ‘Hide of the Deep’ command ability. It’s a very selfish and independent model and doesn’t need any help in general, however the Paliaa’s ‘Gift of the Gods’ command ability has been useful once or twice, as has the Demagogue’s ‘Prove Yourself to Dagon’ if your opponent has moved away from the canals! If you were facing a gang that plays a rooftop game though, the Thalidraur would struggle with it’s dex of 3 and movement 3 so bare that in mind! In all my games so far though it’s proved to be as much of a threat as I had hoped and I’m looking forward to playing more games with this beast! It’s great to have a leader that brings a different playstyle to the Rashaar. I’ve mostly used the Magi as a leader in the 4.5 years I’ve been playing Carnevale, and I still maintain the Magi is up there as one of the best Leaders in the game. Having a totally different and viable option though is great and will really make me think carefully when list building going forward. 

Although you may think the Thalidraur is in a precarious position, it survived the volley of pistol fire and proceeded to rip through all the pictured models…  

On the other end of the scale is the Paliaa. I love the model but this has proven to be a llittle disappointing so far. The ‘Gift of the Elder Gods’ command ability has been useful on the Thalidraur in a couple of games but other than that and taking an objective it hasn’t been very useful so far. It is however, one of the models due for a change under the upcoming balance pass, so I may have to revisit it in the future! Since playing these games though it has had a revision in the balance pass, losing the command ability that gives frenzy and gaining one that gives +1 attack to henchmen. It is also now Mage 1 with access to arguably the best spell list ‘Runes of Sovereignty’. I think this makes it a much more useful character to support the Officiants and Fanatics and I look forward to playing with this revised version!

The Demagogue is great and while the Thalidraur is the beat stick going off on it’s own, the Demagogue is the one whose Command Points you’ll be using to (hopefully) gain the initiative and to lead your henchman forward. The ‘Prove Yourself to Dagon’ command ability is very helpful for ensuring your Officiants get to charge first and as mentioned previously can help your Thalidraur move across land more swiftly if needs be. The Eldritch Incense isn’t something you can rely on to help but is useful, and the burning brand can really dish out damage on normal henchmen. The smoke from the weapon can come in useful occasionally, preventing the enemy model from being targeted by spells or from targeting others if they’re a spell caster or ranged weapon user.

Dagonite Zealots are fantastic and will be something I make use of in a lot of Rashaar gangs! With a dex of 6 they will be spending most of their time jumping and climbing, so plot your route across the rooftops and look to them for any of your agendas that involve doing this. With aerial attack and expert offense 1 they should always be looking to drop down from above to attack. One great tactic I found when attacking an opponent who is near a building, is to land within 1” of the building, that way you can use your second action to disengage, climb 3” up the building, then fall back into combat gaining the Aerial Attack bonus again! With a protection of 1 they will die very easily to ranged attacks so be careful with your positioning and try to use them to attack models that have already activated or are wounded so they don’t get attacked back. However, with that dex of 6 they can cover large distances with chain jumps so you can send them sniper hunting in a pinch! Being the same cost as Dagon Officiants you can easily swap them into a more traditional Church of Dagon list led by a Voice of Dagon, which I have also tried out, and they really do well with the ‘Blessing of Dagon’ granting them Expert Offense 2, and with gaining an extra AP to do 3 attacks in a round! 

No longer can your enemies hide safely on the rooftops away from the canals!

Anyway, that concludes my series on the set. Overall I think it’s a fantastic addition to the Rashaar, providing a very viable alternative leader and some great additions to the Church of Dagon! I hope you’ve found these articles helpful and please reach out to me if you want to discuss them further! Now go forth and Prove Yourself to Dagon!