Vanguard Goblins: Warband abilities and spells!
29th Apr 2019
Rob Burman
Throughout the land. Underneath the land. In fact, all over the land you’ll find goblins. These small, malicious, mischievous and green-skinned individuals are typically overlooked - and not just because of their diminutive stature. Written off by the Basileans who fear the threat of the Abyss more keenly. Dismissed by the dwarfs as they fight against their brethren twisted by an unnatural lust for gold. Laughed at by the elves that see them as an irritant to their lofty plans. The goblins have been left to spread and plot their various schemes.
They’re green! They’re mean! They’re prone to scream! That’s right, the goblins are almost here for Vanguard. This is one of our biggest Vanguard launches yet, with new units, new rules, new miniatures and lots of exciting Vanguard content. In fact, the launch of the goblins really kicks off several months of amazing fantasy content from Mantic. We’ve got the goblins, lots of new Vanguard live streams, the upcoming Vanguard supplement Ice & Iron, Trident Realm and lots, lots more!
In today’s blog, we’re going to be giving an overview of the goblins. Later in the week, we’ll have a run down of the key units, plus some example warbands that you can build. Anyway, enough talking – let’s look at those wonderful goblins.
WARBAND SPECIAL ABILITY
Well, what did you expect from cowardly goblins? 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.
FACTION SPECIFIC SPELLS
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.
Slink is a typically goblin method of keeping your opponent on their toes and surprising them with extra activations and shenanigans.