Avatar+Leveticus

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 * Leveticus, Avatar of Entropy, Outcast Avatar**

=Overview=

The fifth of the Riders faction (Pale, Death, Mechanical, and Hooded), Leviticus still suffers from wasting away but has employs the powerful cavalry forces to maintain his presence upon the field to bring forth the end of days.

After Manifesting, Leveticus is no longer reliant on his Hollow Waifs, and doesn't need to die and come back every round to get cards. Instead, he boosts and is boosted by Riders. Avatar Leveticus burns through cards like crazy to get powerful melee attacks, and can get more cards by taking Wd.

An Avatar Leveticus Crew is generally a wide-ranging hit-and-run Crew, with powerful melee attacks, a lot of speed, and significant card manipulation and healing/reincarnation tricks. Avatar Leveticus acts as a front-line general, killing enemy minions with his death touch and coming back again if he dies.

=Manifesting=

Leveticus has two Manifest Requirements: Be killed or sacrificed twice, and Summon two Steampunk Abominations with the Necrotic Unmaking Spell.

Getting killed twice is something Leveticus should be doing anyway. If you're doing it right, you should be ready to Manifest on Round Three. Summoning two Steampunk Abominations is possible by then, but unreliable: you may need to do something else during that time instead, and it's generally not worth waiting.

Avatar Leveticus uses a very different Crew than non-Avatar Leveticus, in that he wants to hire Riders (Pale Rider, Mechanical Rider, Dead Rider, and Hooded Rider), which work fine with his base Crew but don't have the same synergy as his traditional Crew (Steampunk Abomination, Desolation Engine, Ashes and Dust, Rusty Alyce).

If you've hired a lot of Riders, you'll do better to Manifest as soon as you can. If you haven't hired a lot of Riders, you'd do better not to pay the Soulstones for the option to Manifest.

=Mobility=

Leveticus has a horse now, which makes him a lot faster. He's got a Wk/Cg of 6/10, so he's much faster than he was before.

He can also die to move into base contact with a friendly Rider model. It's a risky maneuver, but since Riders often go off in different directions, killing off Avatar Leveticus may be a way to transport him across the board to another Rider quickly if it's necessary to complete your objectives. Also, while Avatar Leveticus can easily bring himself down to 1 Wd with a (0) action, and draw a lot of cards in the process, he doesn't have any abilities that will kill himself. One way to get around this: have a Hollow Waif do it, since they don't have much else to do.

=Offense=

After Manifesting, Leveticus becomes much more of a melee fighter. He loses a lot of his brutal spell tricks, but gains new options for Melee.


 * Melee**

Leviticus has only one attack and it comes with a MASSIVE damage curve. Weak does 0 damage, while Severe does 12, which will kill ANYTHING without Armor or Hard to Kill, and even those who have either will still find themselves VERY close to death.

Leviticus can push the chances of Severe to be quite high as well, as he may discard 1-3 control cards to get that many positive card flips (1-3) when determining damage. Note that he can only do this trick if he gets a Ram in his combat total, or if you have the Pale Rider in play. Rarely will you be flipping less than 2-controls cards on doing this, and will usually have a decent chance of flipping 3+ cards to REALLY boost your chance of delivering a "touch of death".

Avatar Leveticus is more likely to be making melee attacks. He's got a very good charge range, and doesn't have the kind of spell damage he did before Manifesting. If things are going well, he should usually be killing something with a 12-damage melee attack every turn, especially if Mechanical Rider is in play. Ideally, he'll kill something and gain a Soulstone from doing so.


 * Spells**

Avatar Leveticus has a different casting mechanic after Manifesting. Instead of a Dual Focus, he's got Ca 7 and can give himself and suits he'd like at the start of his activation. For each card Discarded, his Ca receives this suit. This can cost a lot of cards, but he can make this up by taking Wounds instead to draw new cards.

Instead of his previous arsenal of killing spells, Avatar Leveticus has only one direct offensive spell: **Necrotic Unmaking**. This is the same spell as before: Leveticus takes 1 Wd, the target suffers 3 Wd, and if the target is killed you get a new Steampunk Abomination. Without all the other options, this is more of a target of opportunity.

Leveticus has another spell, **Soul Harvest**, which is more of a resource-gathering spell. For the remainder of the round, he gains a Soulstone if a model within 5" is killed or sacrificed. This can be a massive benefit if you can put him into the middle of a group of living models who are going to die in a round, but you have to be prepared for it.

Leveticus' other two spells are both Rider synergy spells: **(1) The Foretelling** and **(2) Bring Forth a Rider**. The Foretelling is a handy Spell that lets all your Riders resolve their (0) Spell immediately. This can help heal the Dead Rider, help the Hooded Rider prepare for a ranged or melee attacker, or boost the Mechanical Rider's Armor. It probably won't help the Pale Rider much since you're not casting it during the Pale Rider's Turn, so at most it can help you switch between **Armor +1** and **Hard to Wound 2**.


 * (2) Bring Forth a Rider** is massive. It lets you summon a powerful new Construct late in the game. This is the most expensive spell in the whole game of Malifaux, so it definitely requires some setup. You should probably plan to discard a Mask and another card that fits the model you didn't hire so can meet the very high casting requirements, and you'll need to discard one of Leveticus' precious few Soulstones, and you'll need to have an expendible Construct around (probably a Steampunk Abomination) It's worth the setup, though.


 * Rider Bonuses**

Leveticus gets big offensive bonuses from other Riders.


 * The Mechanical Rider gives him **(+1) Melee Expert**, which helps with his new mission of death touching the world one enemy at a time.
 * The Pale Rider gives him **Cb +crow**, which is good because then he gets his **The Face of Death** trigger automatically again, which lets him get positive twists by discarding cards.
 * Avatar Leveticus gets a healing flip whenever a friendly Rider model kills an enemy with a melee attack. Remember that this definitely includes Leveticus himself!

=Resilience=

Leveticus has a low Df (4 or sometimes 5), a high **Wp 8**, and **10 Wd**, which he usually gobbles up himself like they're candy.


 * His New Cycle**

Leveticus doesn't need his Hollow Waifs after Manifesting. They don't go away, but they really can't do nearly so much and no longer tether him back to the world. What's more, Avatar Leveticus also doesn't need to die any more -- he can draw cards at the start of the round like anyone else!

However, Leveticus still has a new cycle of life and death. He takes 1 Wd at the end of the Resolve Effects step from **Slow Dissipation**, and if he is killed or sacrified during a turn, he's placed in base contact with a friendly Rider. Both take 2 Dg, which is not so bad (especially if the Rider has Armor, since that damage will be reduced.) He can heal this back by discarding cards or having a Rider kill an enemy model.

He doesn't get anything back from this Cycle specifically, other than possible maneuverability, and if he doesn't die and come back, he'll still be fine. Furthermore, he doesn't have any abilities that let him suicide anymore -- he still spends Wd for things, but not enough to kill him.

Leveticus' Cycle is much less complex after Manifesting. He can draw cards without dying, and he doesn't need his Waifs anymore. Instead, he just dies if he runs out of Wd, then comes back to cause more havoc.


 * Cards and Wounds**

Leveticus has a lot of Abilities that make control cards and Wd interchangeable. He burns through cards to get his powers going, then burns through Wd to get better cards, then either heals up or dies and comes back.

He discards cards at the start of round to gain suits for his Ca. This is most useful for spells with a lot of suit requirements, such as **Soul Harvest** and **Bring Forth a Rider**. He also often discards when he attacks, to fuel his **Face of Death** trigger.


 * Unfathomed Purpose:** He can filter through his cards to get a better hand: During the Draw Phase, once per turn, he can discard any number of cards and draw an equal number of new Cards. Hopefully, this will help him have a better hand.


 * (0) Arcane Understanding**: During his turn, Leveticus can draw any number of Cards at the cost of 1 Wd each. This can give him a huge number of cards if he's planning to die anyway.


 * (1) Rejuvenating Knowledge:** If he's not planning to die and has cards to dump, Leveticus can discard two cards for a Healing Flip. If Leveticus doesn't have anything else to do, or really needs the healing, he can spend time recovering with this.

Avatar Leveticus can also just stay in place, cycling through cards and taking and healing Wds to support the rest of his Crew by improving your Control Hand. In most cases, this isn't a great use of his time, though: while occasional hand improvements may help, the best use of Avatar Leveticus is to have him go out and kill things.


 * Other Resilience Tricks**

Leveticus hangs out at 1 Wd fairly often. He's got **Hard to Kill**, which stops his damage at 1 Wd, and he stops dissolving at 1 Wd too. Hanging out at 1 Wd doesn't give him much to use for other abilities, though, so sometimes he'll want to die anyway, so that he can burn through Wd for more cards.

Leveticus has a few passive damage-shields in play that may discourage wounded enemy models from attacking. Enemy models that charge within 10" of him take 1 Wd after resolving the action. If the Hooded Rider is in play, models that hit Avatar Leveticus with a melee attack suffer 2 Dg.

Avatar Leveticus has a few ways of healing himself, which help keep him around. He heals whenever a friendly Rider kills an enemy model with a melee attack -- this includes the Pale Rider using Final Moments at close range with Gunslinger. He also gets **Regeneration 1** when Dead Rider is in play.

=Soulstones=

Since he's up close and in melee more often, Avatar Leveticus needs his Soulstones more. He's got a decent way to gain more Soulstones: **Soul Harvest**, which gives a new Soulstone any time a living model dies. Against Living Crews, this gives him a lot of power if he can set it up.

=Tricks and Tips=

When using Leviticus' melee attack, don't forget you can cheat. Discard control cards to get yourself to a Straight flip, then throw down a 11-13 value card and take out the enemy. Don't use a Red Joker for this. Its not really needed, unless your target is fully healed and does have Armor.


 * Riders Explained**

Avatar Leveticus has a lot of interaction with Rider models, and if you're playing Avatar Leveticus, you should plan to hire many Riders. In most cases you'll want to hire three Riders and Summon the Third, but you can also hire all four and then just bring one back if they all die. Or you can use fewer than all four Riders, which cuts down on the Rider synergy but gives you other options (including other Undead and Constructs, hiring Collodi as a Henchman, or hiring some of Leveticus' favored minions like Rusty Alyce, Jack Daw, or Ashes and Dust.)

If you decide to Summon a Rider early in play, usually your best bet is to summon the Dead Rider, since he's the most expensive model. If you plan to hire Lazarus (who has some excellent synergies with Riders), you can't hire the Pale Rider, but can summon it during play.

Leveticus has three key synergies with his Riders: Each Rider gives him a different ability. He gets a Healing Flip when a Rider kills an enemy model with a melee attack. If he dies, he comes back into base contact with a Rider.


 * Pale Rider: A ranged fighter with very good range, which heals a little when he kills with his ranged attack. The Pale Rider helps Leveticus get his **Face of Death** trigger, which seriously improves Leveticus' melee attacks, but can cost a lot of cards.
 * Mechanical Rider: Extremely fast but fairly fragile. She has great Manueverability and is an excellent Objective grabber. She also gives Leveticus **(+1) Melee Expert**, which helps Leveticus carry on the good fight and gets into the thick of Melee. Keep her out of trouble -- she will die quickly under concentrated attacks.
 * Dead Rider: The strongest and most expensive rider. It can drag others around, moving enemies into bad positions and staying out of the fight. It's got some decent resilience tricks, but if caught in the open, it can die. A great hit-and-run piece. The Dead Rider also gives Leveticus **Regeneration 1**, which is a little helpful.
 * Hooded Rider: The weakest of the four Rider minions, but still a maneuverable model that does a lot of damage. It can tune its abilities to handle either ranged or melee enemy crews. A decent hit and run fighter, and fairly fast, but it doesn't have much resilience or recovery. The Hooded Rider also gives Leveticus the **Wreathed in Flames** ability, which can discourage wounded attackers.

=Avatar and their Crew=

Avatar Leveticus relies on synergy with very high soulstone cost models. You'll usually only see Leveticus take this option in a very high-soulstone game: 45 soulstones or up, usually. Less than that, and Leveticus has other better options for Crew.

Obviously you want the Riders, as every time they kill something it heals Leviticus - and given he is slowly wasting away you will want to do this to restore whatever health he can gain. Furthermore each Rider in play gains Leviticus some additional abilities. The Dead Rider for example somewhat neutralizes Leviticus's Wasting Away by letting him regain the wound lost each round.

The Riders are expensive and Fragile, so don't leave them out in the open because they're a prime target.

=Playing Against Avatar Leveticus=

Kill his Riders first! They're more fragile targets, and if you can get rid of them, Avatar Leveticus is easier to kill and won't be able to come back.

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