M2E+Willie


 * Willie, Arcanist Minion**

=__Overview__= Everyone's favorite madman with a wheelbarrow full of dynamite. Willie is the M&SU's demolition "specialist". I know words are a visual medium, but please take not of the quotes around specialist. A member of both the M&SU, the soulstone division, and the foundry, or the Rail Way division, Willie can see time with a lot of different bosses: Ramos, Ironsides, Kaeris, or Mei Feng can all call on the aid of this... misunderstood explosive engineer.toc

=__Mobility__= With a walk of five and a charge or six, Willie clocks in at about "average" speed, though he does get a little more utility from his walk than the normal walk five model. With the **"Wheel Barrow of Doom"** Ability, he's allowed to place a blast marker within an inch of himself that causes a TN 12 Df duel or the afflicted models suffer 2 wounds.

=__Offense__= As describe in his mobility section, even Willie's walk is offensive. (You see what I did there?)

But as for a typical model, Willie also has an actual attack action-

He chucks a lit stick of dynamite at you. Or he plaintively hands it to you. From range this model makes all kind of sense. From Melee, he's Wyle E. Coyote. The attack does ignore armor, and it //can// ignore line of sight and cover, though you have to suffer a -2 SH penalty because of it.
 * (1) Demo** **Charge** (Sh6 / Rst Df/ Rng SH10, ML1) Target suffers 2/ 3(blast) /4 (double blast)

//Triggers://
 * (Book) Slow Burn-** On a book "all models damaged" by Demo charge gain burning +1. This is great for any of the masters/models that synergize with burning. And if you focus then throw and cheat the damage, you'll be pretty guaranteed the straight flip.
 * (Mask) Fire in the Hole-** This is the one you want when you know you're going to hit someone close to a friend. For instance, say you have a bunch of Steam Arachnids swarming a model to bring his df down and you want to place blast markers and not destroy your helpful little spider friends, Fire in the hole says "After Succeeding, but before flipping damage, all friendlies within 3" are pushed 3" away from the target." This should open yourself up to place blast templates willie nilly (See what I did there?).

He's also got an interesting utility (0) action that does damage so I'll put it here- Until the end of the Turn, if an enemy model ends a move or push within 8" of this model, this model may discard a friendly Scheme Marker within' 3" of the enemy model to deal 2 damage to all models within 3" of the scheme marker." Can't you just see him standing there, explosion reflecting in his blast goggles, grin on his face only interrupted by the half lit stogie, finger on the remote detonator? I know I can. Take a bit of setup, but the purpose it mostly serves is keeping people out of a given choke point or two. If you've got a couple doors, you can place markers near each of them with other models, and stick him in between them, just waiting for their faces to show.
 * (0) Set Charge-**


 * Dropped Load**

[|(Blaze of Glory, Jon Bon Jovi)] When Willie dies (god forbid), his final ability **"Dropped Load"** goes off. It says this model flips a card, and then places blast markers equal to a chart: 1-5 is one, 6-10 is two, 11-13 is three, and a joker does four (red or black). You place the markers normally and then anyone touched by at least one takes 3 damage. it's a nice middle finger to the model who killed you, and a good chance at squeezing out just one or two more kills before you go.

=__Resilience__= Df 6, Wp5 (not too bright...), and an ability called **"****Ain't Nothin'"** which makes him immune to blasts damage- including his own. With 7 wounds, this puts him right in line with a 6ss model. He's harder to hit vs df, and a little soft willed, but still technically average. He's got one more ability that keeps him at all safe from anything else and that's:


 * (0) "You go Near Him..."** It gives him a TN to be charged- one of the highest TN duels in the game: "Until the end of turn, enemy models must pass a TN 17 WP duel, or the charge action immediately fails". 17. That's higher than challenge! I know it's only on charge actions, but I love the idea of this dude standing there with a backpack full of dynamite, a cigar, and a stupid grin- and no one wants to find out why he's smiling.

=__Tactics and Tips__= He's M&SU, so anything that affects them affects him, like hand picked me from Ironsides, and his slow burn on the demo charge can cause burning which gives him a place in a Kaeris crew, and he's a foundry member, so he can go with Mei Feng, even when she's moonlighting with the 10 thunders. He's a cheap, relatively fast piece that can attack laterally with burning and blast tokens.

Kaeris- He's an M&SU, so any upgrades you'll find with M&SU keywords on it will work with him. While he doesn't get to be affected by "Powered By Flame", he can use all of Kaeris' aura style buffs and tactics- for instance "**On Wings of Fire**" give him surprising mobility to combine with his free scheme marker (good for **set charge**), and **wheelbarrow of doom**. He's also able to potentially paint targets for Kaeris by giving them burning with the "**Slow Burn"** Trigger.

Toni Ironsides- He loves working with Toni, as he can stay in the group and mix it up a bit with his demo charges and give her some extra pushes- though it can get a little unruly. Mostly he loves that she can give him "**Hand Picked Men"** Which gives him better odds at hitting, and better odds at dealing moderate or severe damage for blasts and burning.

Mei Feng- The synergy here is a little more subtle, but it's got to exist for him to still be a foundry model. I presume it's in "Fire in the Hole", adding to Mei's mobility, letting her push out so she can railwalker away to some other battlefront. He's also, of course, got the ability to give burning out to allow Mei to do more damage.

Colette DuBois- Colette said her shows were always a touch more spectacular with some fireworks. Most of the synergy here comes from Set Charge- if you put him somewhere sort of centrally, and then fill the area around him with friendly scheme markers so that it's next to impossible //not// to end a walk near one. The question is, do you wait for the group to come in? How long can you wait before you spring the trap... She can also prompt him to toss //more// demo charges around, granting explosions everywhere.

=__Playing Against Willie the Demolitionist__= Don't try to kill him with blasts. Be aware of his 0 action for the turn- if he's done **You Go Near Him** he's going to be hard to confront in melee. if he's done "**Set Charge",** you can probably get to him, but be prepared to take a touch of damage to get there.

Engaging him from range might be the best idea, as it just plain the safest. Staying in cover from him will do you //some// good, as he either has to focus or he has to take a hit to his SH rating. Either way, it's reducing his potency.

If you can obey him, and cause him to walk, you get to place the blast marker, which can be pretty good, and since it's not an attack action, you can do it more than once per turn, and throw him way out of position while also keeping him the hell away from you.

Killing him from range has the added benefit of potentially minimizing "**Dropped Load**" from dealing too much damage to too many models. Beware of grouping while he's on the board.

Unless otherwise stated, all names and images on this site are property of Wyrd Miniatures, LLC. ([|Link])
 * __Ownership__ **