From Panel to Play: Monsters Unleashed

On the night of the full moon, a team of supernatural commandos skulk slowly toward a castle on a hill. The thralls guarding the way are quickly dispatched so they can’t call out, which could notify the true threat. Despite the commandos’ best efforts, the master of the castle, Dracula, is alerted to their presence by his army of thralls at the heart of the castle. The inevitable showdown commences!

Werewolf by Night; Frankenstein’s Monster; and N’Kantu, the Living Mummy join the ranks of the Midnight Sons Affiliation to hunt down Dracula, the leader of the Thralls of Dracula Affiliation and member of the Cabal.

N’Kantu is built around Anubis’s Soul Harvester and Captured Soul tokens. He gains a soul when a character is Dazed or KO’d or when he does damage with Sever Soul. He can then spend those Captured Soul tokens on Living Death to heal, remove conditions, or gain power. Undead Empowerment allows him to spend Captured Souls to count fails as wild results. The additional access to wilds on his attacks increases the chance he can trigger the effects on Swarili Strike, his attack that represents his training as a warrior and chieftain of the Swarili people. Between his ability to gain health with Living Death and Alchemical Curse of Nephrus to reduce damage, N’Kantu is a very survivable 3-threat character. The wizard Nephrus cursed N’Kantu to live forever and sealed him in a sarcophagus, where he was trapped for centuries. N’Kantu’s resilience as a living mummy is enhanced by his Immunity to Bleed, Hex, and Poison.

N’Kantu agreed to serve Anubis in exchange for giving him a peaceful death after a period of servitude collecting souls. With Service to Anubis, N’Kantu can make an absolutely devastating area attack if he can collect close to 10 power and 3 Captured Soul tokens.

N’Kantu really shines when he can use his resilience to stick around while the rest of his squad fights. When he’s at his maximum of 3 Captured Soul tokens, he needs to activate as soon as he can to spend them so that he doesn’t miss the ability to collect more from any Dazes or KO’s that might happen.

Adam was stitched together by Victor Frankenstein out of the bodies of the dead and given life in an arcane procedure. Adam, also known as Frankenstein’s Monster and Frank, is built around limited power gain and otherwise powerful abilities. Adam is quite sturdy with 7 health on both sides of his card, 4 physical defense, and the ability to heal himself with Replacement Parts. He’s also surprisingly quick moving with a medium move on a 50mm base and the charge superpower. He hits quite hard with his 6-die attack that gains power, his Size 4 terrain throw, and his up to 12-die The Monster’s Fury attack. To top it all off, Adam has great control with Thick Skull to stagger for 1 power if he can sneak through damage. Immunity to Shock is only appropriate for a character brought to life with electricity.

Adam calls himself a hideous monster and is regularly quite lonely in his existence. When someone does show care and pay attention to him, he is willing to put himself on the line and protect them. Hideous Monster lets other characters spend power to have Adam become the target of an attack against them. Since Adam doesn’t pay for the card, it puts him positive on power if he takes any damage from the attack, possibly giving him access to more options on his activation. After he is attacked, he has the chance to damage and move the enemy character closer so that he can attack back.

Jack Russel’s family line has the curse of the werewolf, and he first transformed during the full moon around his 18th birthday. During the night of the full moon, Jack loses the ability to control himself and instead hunts as a monstrous werewolf. When it’s not the full moon, Jack has learned to willingly transform into a werewolf, and he retains his intelligence and control when he does so.

Werewolf by Night can leap around with exceptional speed. His 50mm base and medium move is already quite quick, but the addition of Pounce and the Leap trigger on Savage Slash have him move around quite a lot even without move actions. Between Savage Slash’s 6 dice and Pounce, he can also put out quite a lot of damage even if he starts without power. If he does have power, Lethal Lycanthrope is a savage spender attack with a guaranteed throw. Even if he doesn’t focus down his target completely, they may find it hard to attack him back with Midnight Massacre as a threat to finish Dazing or KO’ing them. If he doesn’t get to attack first, though, he still has a great chance of surviving against non-mystic attacks with 7 base health and good defenses. If he does survive, Healing Factor comes into play and removes damage from him. Unearthly Howl is also a great defensive tool. Draining power from the enemies near Jack’s target makes it harder for them to attack him back. A canny player might even be able to get Root or Slow onto an enemy character then use his excellent mobility to move away from them.

Phases of the Moon gives Werewolf by Night the ability to adjust his playstyle for the remainder of a game. At the start of any Activation Phase, he can play it to decide which moon is coming out that night. On a new moon, Jack’s animal instincts are dulled, but his clear thoughts give him the ability to better plan around and avoid enemy attacks. On a full moon, Jack’s savagery comes out, and he loses the ability to hold extracts. In exchange, his capacity to smell weakness and pounce on it is enhanced.

Blade, N’Kantu, Frankenstein’s Monster, and Werewolf by Night can all remove damage from themselves. Playing all of them in the same squad makes it hard for the opponent to make damage stick without fully Dazing or KOing their targets. That capability lets the monsters play against reactive abilities that do small amounts of damage on their turn exceptionally well. It also makes it awkward for the opponent to attack another character after Dazing one of the Midnight Sons on their activation since the damage from the additional attack will likely be healed up before they can capitalize on it. Using Blade’s leadership, Bump in the Night, to Place out of the attack range of enemy characters is also especially effective since it makes it more likely the Midnight Sons will not be Dazed or KO’d in one Activation, allowing them to heal back up.

Vlad Dracula was born in Wallachia in the 15th century as a prince. He was infected with vampirism as an adult and grew to become Lord of the Vampires. The experience Dracula gained through his centuries of existence as a warrior and commander of vampiric thralls has made him a master of swordsmanship and strategy.

Much like the rest of the monsters, Dracula has the capacity to regenerate from damage. Unholy Vampiric Immortality heals Dracula when he ends his activation around bleeding characters, and all of his attacks can cause Bleed. In addition, Dracula can heal during his activation with Blood Feast or outside of his activation using Eternal Hunger if he is attacked by a character within range 2. Yet another source of healing is the Mist effect of his Shapeshifting superpower, which also removes all the special conditions on him. When you go after Dracula, make sure to finish the job, or he will likely come back at least as strong as he was before. Dracula’s Shapeshifting also gives him additional mobility with Wolf, making his move among the fastest in the game, and Bat, giving him Flight to move over terrain.

Dracula’s damage output and ability to control his enemies are also outstanding. The 7-die Ancestral Blade attack is a very powerful baseline to build from, and the very easy to achieve Curse of Shadows trigger enhances that even more by giving out Bleed. A follow-up attack of Fury of the Vampyr would then be an 8-die reroll using any attack with an automatic Throw. That attack pattern is massively powerful if Dracula can start within Range 2 of his target. He can start within Range 3 instead if he has enough power to use Hypnotic Stare first, moving his target nearer. Of course, Hypnotic Stare is also a very powerful way to move enemy characters away from the fight to deny their ability to interact with Dracula’s squad.

Thralls of Dracula grants Dracula the Bloodlust leadership that he can use with any characters in his squad, offering an extremely flexible way to play. Bloodlust gives his squad the ability to give out the Bleed conditions Dracula needs to be at his best. If the enemy character already has Bleed, Dracula’s squad can regenerate from damage like other monsters.

That’s all for today’s installment of From Panel to Play, the series where we preview your favorite characters and how they translate to the tabletop. When you’re ready, these monsters and more are available for pre-order at your local game store or through the webstore today. Thanks for joining us!

Until next time, Atomic Mass Games signing off!