The second, and probably most obvious role, are characters who predominantly want to knock out the opposition. I resisted grouping these further into melee and ranged damage, as (generally) I find that most melee characters are able to get into attack range relatively easily.
That said, if you take more than one damage-focused Aristo you will want to be careful to balance it out. For example if you take Major Lunah, who has a minimum range, you might want to take some more melee focused as well to avoid too many targets that can be dazzled or engaged close up.
The damage-focused Aristos are:
Major Lunah
Miyamoto Mushashi
Wild Bill
Valkyrie
Senor Massacre
Murtair
Dart
Shona Carano
Koorie Queen
Hammerhead
Fiddler
Quite a few, eh? It’s almost like this game is dangerous or something. Right, now I will go through the list again, but this time in more depth and with more words and stuff.
Major Lunah
Main role: Damage
Secondary role: Control
Major Lunah is lethal. She does not care if you are in cover, as she ignores it, and she can use her own cover to make her attacks roll an extra orange die. Combined with her normal dice pool of a red, orange and an auto damage, she is more than capable of dropping many Aristos in a single shot.
Her cards are powerful and versatile. Only one of them is linked to her directly, and the other cards, such as holographic sight and ricochet allow her team to have longer range actions, and even ignore line of sight.
She can slow down opposing models, which is potentially more useful if you can’t guarantee or don’t want to risk missing the kill shot.
She has a 3 hex minimum range, which in Aristeia is a very long way indeed, so she has to be very wary of being engaged close up. Also, any Aristo who is able to dazzle her will completely shut her down. She has a low agility so if she is engaged she will find it hard to move away. This also makes her often a poor choice for holding scoring zones. Due to this, she can benefit being paired with characters who can do state removal and displacements.
Take her if you want to be able to threaten large areas of the board with powerful attacks, avoid her if she isn’t going to be supported with daze removal and displacement effects.
Miyamoto Mushashi
Main role: Damage
Secondary role: Scorer
Miyamoto is as dangerous close up as Major Lunah is from far away. As he can convert defensive results into damage he is able to turn any dice that he rolls into pain for the opponent. This flexibility allows him to confirm a kill reliably. He is fast, and after he has damaged someone he can displace himself, giving him even more speed.
Given the right cards he is sometimes able to take out a wounded or low health target, switch for another attack, displace and attack again. His speed can allow him to get to scoring zones, sometimes being able to move 5, attack, move some more and maybe even play a card to move further.
Most of his cards can be used on anyone in his team, notably he is able to play a card that can give an action point to anyone, which is extremely powerful and can be game winning.
He has decent defensive stats and health, but as he often switches defensive results into damage he can often be on low health. He benefits from having a support healer. Also, being a melee character, he can suffer from returning to the Hexadome from the bench. Characters like Pavarti and Mendoza will help with this.
Take him you want to have a strong and dangerous melee threat, avoid him if your opponent has lots of immobilize and speed de buffs that you can’t deal with.
Wild Bill
Main role: Damage
Secondary role: Support
Wild Bill, like Major Lunah, is very good at shooting things. He is able to take out models fairly easily, and can discard cards after rolling to allow a vital extra point of damage which can make all the difference. He can potentially make multiple attacks in a turn, but it is relatively hard to activate with switches. He has strong defenses from ranged attacks, assuming he is at least two hexes away.
His cards are what allows him to support the team. He is able to re-draw previously played tactics, as well as draw more cards with switch results. As such, Wild Bill is a strong choice if you want to have access to certain card combinations quickly, or if you want to play a certain card more than once.
He has a poor agility, and so will often be unable to disengage himself. Most of his weaknesses he shares with Major Lunah, except he has a slightly shorter minimum and maximum range.
Take him if you want to have an aggressive ranged threat and strong card draw, avoid him if he is likely to be dazzled and engaged close up.
Valkyrie
Main role: Damage
Secondary role: Scorer
Valkyrie has a very poor melee attack if she is unable to move, and a very strong melee attack if she is able to move 3 hexes first. Her attack has a two hex range, and allows her to diplace herself adjacent to the target afterwards, which can give her a small reposition. One of her cards, Valkyrie’s Cry, lets her take out a wounded target without rolling any dice at all.
Her defense is good, and her switch makes her a threat against low health targets in face to face rolls that they initiate. Her immunity to movement and displacement effects make her very good at holding a scoring zone and ignoring any control powers that might move her out of them again.
Her strong agility, combined with her switch, make her hard to pin down, which is fortunate as she needs to move to make the most out of her attacks. Her cards are mostly geared around making her more of a threat, but at a pinch she can immobilize targets which both helps her control the board and do more damage in return.
Though she is immune to displacements, place and move effects she isn’t immune to immobalisation. This will make her very pillow fisted, as will dazzle which will affect her threat range.
Take her if you want a mobile and damaging threat with a little bit of control. Don’t take her if she is likely to get slowed down or immobalised.
Senor Massacre
Main role: Damage
Secondary role: Tank
Senor massacre is a melee- focused character. His primary attack only costs 2 energy, so with set-up he is able to attack twice in a turn. If the enemy is taunted by anyone, his damage significantly increases and he is able to effectively teleport adjacent to them from 4 hexes away. Combined with a switch that can cancel defensive results, with a little set up he is capable of doing a lot of damage close up.
With his switches and cards, he is able to taunt several Aristos at once, or potentially the whole team. This can help support any allies who are in danger of attack, but it is worth noting that Senor massacre is not particularly survivable himself. His defense stats are below average, and though he can regenerate slowly this will only help him from low damage attacks and not from being taken out in one go. Due to this if he taunts more than one target, or a powerful attacker, he is often best moving to cover or out of line of sight from them.
His cards give him more maneuverability as well as ability to take a killing blow and survive which can help him maintain his staying power significantly. All of his cards focus on himself only, so his way to support the team is to taunt key attackers as often as he can.
Take him if you want a high damage, mobile melee model who can help protect your team. Avoid him if your opponent has the ability to remove him from the hexadome in a single attack, or nullify his taunt state.
Murtair
Primary role: Damage
Secondary role: Scorer
Murtair is a high damage melee-focused character. He has high mobility to get into melee, with a fast move and the ability to place himself so he can avoid intervening spaces. When adjacent to an opponent his mobility drops to almost zero. His agility doesn’t let him move without the expenditure of cards or dice from other sources.
His bite attack does more damage if he is able to put more action points into it. Due to this if he starts adjacent to his target his damage output becomes probably the highest in the game. Due to this he benefits from any ally who can help him move, or move opponents into his range.
As long as he isn’t engaged he is very fast, and can jump over blocked spaces. This can let him get to a scoring zone taking routes that would normally be impossible. His cards add to his damage output and his speed.
He has high health but poor defensive stats. He gets higher initiative when he is hurt, and he has several cards that allow him to hurt himself to gain even more melee power. He will often want to use his health as a resource so he is vulnerable to chip damage. He is also at risk of being engaged at a bad time. Being immobilized, slowed down or dazzled also will affect his impact on the game.
Take him if you want a very high damage dealer who can kill most tanks in a single go, can keep him clear of states and help him with positioning. Avoid him if h is likely to be controlled, or killed quickly.
Dart
Primary role: Damage
Secondary role: Scorer
Dart is a high damage ranged attacker. When she is hidden, which she can do at the end of her activation for free, her damage output is very high and can poison her opponent. Combined with her cards, she is able to knock out a target with relative ease.
Her cards are a mixture of damage dealing, mobility and survivability. These can let her finish off a target or get quickly to a scoring zone and be virtually impossible to knock out.
She is very reliant on her hidden state and her cards to survive as she has very low defensive stats and health, tying Gata with having the worst in the game. If she is attacked in melee she is the least survivable Aristo in the game. As such she has to be very wary to keep this hidden state active. If she has it removed, or it is silenced, she is a very weak target. Also she has to be wary of any cards that can do damage without needing line of sight or rolling dice.
Take her if you want a high damage ranged Aristo who can have bursts of speed to get to a scoring zone. Avoid her against fast melee Aristos, or if you are likely to lose the hidden state.
Shona Carano
Primary role; Damage
Secondary role: Support
Shona is a melee focused hero, who is unusual in that her primary melee attack has a min/max range of 2. This makes her attack highly vulnerable to dazzle. Fortunately, her secondary attack and her passive ability allows her to displace more easily so she can use it. Also she is able to flip states on herself as a switch.
Her primary attack rolls less dice than some other damage dealing Aristos but it has two automatic damage, making it reliable. Due to this, she is very good at killing soft targets without having to roll well on her dice at all. Her attacks allow her to displace both herself and her target, giving her control abilities that many other damage dealers lack.
Her cards are all focused on herself. They can make her able to knock out anyone, even Maximus, in a single hit, attack multiple people at once and become very dangerous to attack at close range.
Due to her average defensive stats and health, she is best played aggressively. Whilst her agility is low, her ability to displace herself and her targets can allow her to seek out the right target. She benefits from smoke and cover to ensure she doesn’t get shot before she engages.
Take her if you want a damage dealing character who is able to displace targets when needed. Avoid her if she is liable to get slowed down or dazzled.
Koorie Queen
Primary role: Damage
Secondary role: Support
Koorie queen is a mobile ranged damage dealer. Her ranged attacks do less damage than others. Her attacks are useful due to their switches; she is able to make a secondary attack that targets a different Aristo. For this attack line of sight is not needed. This secondary attack can stun and do a little damage as a switch. Due to this she is able to target hidden characters who would normally be protected.
Her cards perform a similar function to her attacks; she is able to do a little damage to multiple targets. She is also able to reposition herself, stun multiple targets, and increase the damage against a single target.
Her defensive stats are low, but she is able to make herself hidden as long as she is not close to her attacker. She doesn’t function as a main damage dealer, but her ability to stun someone at ranged that she can’t even see is very strong. She is very vulnerable to any melee attacks, as they ignore hidden and she will be unable to re-hide herself. That said, she has a high agility, and her switch allows her to make herself hidden and displace herself.
Take her if you want a versatile and mobile model who can work alongside other ranged or melee damage characters. Avoid her if she is likely to get tied up in melee, or if you want a single high damage ranged Aristo in your team.
Hammerhead
Primary role: Damage
Secondary role: Scorer.
Surprisingly, Hammerhead is a ranged damage dealer. Although his sculpt has him charging through a wall, his charge attack functions like a ranged one, giving him a place move near the target afterwards. This can give him surprising mobility, a potential 9 hex move in a turn – more if he has poisoned himself first. Like many abilities, it gets even more powerful with Holographic sight.
His attack is low damage unless he uses his secondary ability – overdose – first. If he manages to do this he is a potent and mobile damage dealer. He has to be treated like a ranged character – if he is engaged with a target he will have to disengage first. That said, overdose also gives him a very high agility as well.
His defense and health is high, and as long as he deals damage with his primary attack he will be able to keep his poison status in control. If he fights a target with very high defense, or they are able to ignore or cancel some of his damage it could result in the poison damage building up. Like all ranged characters, he is highly vulnerable to dazzle.
All his cards are designed to help out Hammerhead alone. They all focus on maintaining his high damage output and attacking targets he can’t see.
Take him if you want a mobile ranged damage dealer who can get to places other characters can’t. Avoid him if he is likely to take early damage that risks his poison knocking him out.
Fiddler
Primary role: Damage
Secondary role: Support
Note – as of the time of writing Fiddler has only just been released, and I haven’t played her yet. As such, I welcome any comments on her. Well, I welcome comments anyway, but you get the idea.
Fiddler is a ranged damage dealer. All of her offensive power comes from making her vulkan jackbots attack for her. Their attack is of low power, but it can reliably set targets on fire. This attack command she issues only costs two action points, so she can command them to attack twice, potentially twice more if she rolls the right switches. Her switches can also focus her jackbots to boost their offensive power.
As her jackbots only have a single point of health they are vulnerable to being destroyed by a face to face roll, so she will probably want to use her other action to mark a target first, and use a second jackbot that is out of line of sight to attack for her. The ability to mark targets is strong, and can really help support other ranged characters.
Her cards allow her jackbots to be quickly repositioned, absorb damage or make flaming attacks significantly more powerful. This could make her work well with Mendoza to capitalize on this. Whilst her jackbots are relatively easy to kill, they might make unappealing targets and force the opponent to choose where to place their attacks, wasting them on jackbots or ignoring them.
Her defense is low, though faster when she has less than her full jackbot compliment. She should try and remain out of danger herself and use her jackbots to project her threat over a wide area.
Take her is you want to be able to threaten a large area of the board and you have other ways to maximise her flaming attacks. Avoid her if your opponent has lots of cheap attacks they can use to easily destroy her jackbots.
And that’s it! Quite a long post this one, but Damage-type characters are the most common in this game. As always thanks for reading, and please give me any feedback you can. You can talk to me here, on the Corvus Belli forums, on my facebook page or on twitter @Ihexadome.
Thanks!
Into The Hexadome 