Mantic: Goblins Have Snuck Their Way Into Vanguard
The mischievous green-skinned creatures are found throughout – and under – Mantica are coming to Vanguard. Mantic gives us a peek at what they can do on the battlefield…
The goblins have one of the most useful (and potentially most irritating abilities in the game). Flee allows them to run in the opposite direction if an enemy attempts to Charge them. “But why is this useful?” asks a sceptical player (probably a rubbishy Basilean fan or something).
Firstly, it’s good at keeping your key units alive! Goblins aren’t exactly the strongest units in the game, so any opportunity to avoid combat is good. If a Snow Troll charges your Biggit, then you’ve got the option to Flee and hopefully stay alive for a little bit longer. Unfortunately, it does leave the model Fatigued but that’s a small price to pay for survival.
Secondly, it’s a wonderful way to bait your opponents. Leave your Biggit or Wiz out in the opponent and then when your foe opts for a Charge, you can just run off in the opposite direction. With the enemy unit now in the open, you can unleash with some well-timed spells or ranged attacks.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, we’re introducing the Stinggit. The Stinggit is a new Command option for the Goblins that can use Flee even when Fatigued or Activated – making him extremely tricky to pin down. Theoretically you could use Flee as normal, which would Fatigue the Stinggit, but there’s still the option to use Escape! later in the round.
As with all the other warbands, the goblin have two unique spells: Slink and Shrivel. We’ll cover the latter first. Shrivel is a good defensive spell that can be used to weaken your opponent’s heavy hitters. Use it early in the Round to ensure you get the most benefit. Also, don’t forget the Wiz has Cackle, so you can target two different enemies with the Shrivel spell. Take that Snow Troll Prime!
Slink is perhaps the trickier to use but it has HUGE potential to mess with your opponent’s plans. Basically, Slink allows you to reactivate an already activated model. However, the key thing to remember is that a model can be reactivated MULTIPLE times. For example, you activate your Goblin Biggit, pay 1 power and immediately activate your Wiz to cast Slink. Assuming it works you can now activate your Biggit again. Later in the Round you activate your Biggit again, then Force Fatigue your Wiz to cast Slink and remove the activation counter from the Biggit – giving your Biggit another potential activation. That’s potentially THREE activations for a single Biggit (assuming the Dice Gods are kind to you, of course). Now imagine you’ve got more than one Wiz in your warband.
The designers took them for a test drive on FB live yesterday – take a look at them in action!
Pre-Order your Goblins today!
