A Party of Parading Psychopomps!
With the Shades marching over the Horizon, now seems like a better time than any to look at one of the most unique and defining things about the faction: Psychopomps!
Similar to Boris’ Murder Bunnies, these mischievous little thralls can greatly benefit your troupe, both through their abilities and just generally getting in the way. Unlike the Murder Bunnies, the Psychopomps are a little weaker, but are far more numerous. They are also all unique individuals, each bringing their own unique skills to the tabletop, and summoning the correct one for the proper task can sometimes be a great boost in game!
How to Summon a Pomp
So, which Shades can bring these troublesome little blighters along and how do they do it?
First, we can look at the ‘Risen’ characters in the Shades. Of the Risen, Negroli, Greymair and Nanny can summon Psychopomps into the game. Similar to Boris, this is done simply by way of an Arcane ability. Cast a summoning ability, succeed in using it (or bluff!), and put the Psychopomp into play - simple!
Jerry Heir enters play with a 'Food Psychopomp', which at present is the Teacake of Torment.
The second large sub-faction of the Shades are the ‘Spirits’ and whilst they can also bring Psychopomps into the game, they go about it in a completely new way. Unlike Boris and the Risen, the Spirits bring these thralls onto the field through passive abilities. The most common examples of this are present on Sen'Ara, Jerry Heir, and Roary. These characters, quite simply, summon a Psychopomp in base contact whenever they enter play - including when they are deployed at the start of the game. This is great for energy efficiency, meaning they don't have to spend energy to bring Psychopomps into play. However, once the Psychopomp is slain, they don't have an easy summon to simply recast to bring them back. (Instead, the summoner would have to be slain, making a trip to the Deadlands and dragging their Psychopomp friend back with them when they enter play again via ‘reanimate’.)
The other slightly more esoteric summon belongs to Abra Cadaverous, who also summons Pomps via a passive ability, but not like the previous example. Instead, Abra Cadaverous can summon Psychopomps after he deals Wounds to an enemy in melee. Once again this requires no energy to be spent, but it does mean Abra must put himself in danger to summon his Psychopomps. The upside? He can summon a Pomp every turn leading to him creating hordes and hordes of the tiny terrors - and there's more! Since his summon isn't limited to a keyword, he can summon any Psychopomp in the game, giving him access to all 9 Psychopomps currently released. Nanny, in particular, can make great use of this as she often struggles to summon her third Babeling Psychopomp. However, with the help of Cadaverous, it can be brought on the board more easily, even if not by herself.
How Pomps Behave
"It might not be graceful, but look how fast it's running!"
Once the Psychopomps are brought into play they act slightly differently to normal characters. They don't activate themselves: instead, they are considered ‘active’ whilst their summoner is active. (Placing the Psychopomp’s character card under the character card of the model that summoned it is a great way to remember who summoned who!) So, if you need a Psychopomp to move, its summoner will need to be activate to give it commands so that it may take actions.
Whilst active, the Pomp performs like any normal character, except it doesn't generate energy - instead borrowing the summoner’s energy to take actions as if it were its own. This means, as well as the abilities on its card, Psychopomps can take actions normally available to any character, such as jogging. Other than normal restrictions on specific actions, such as the ‘energy required’ and ‘once per turn’, there are no specific limitations on what actions Psychompomps may perform. This means as soon as they're summoned, they're free to do whatever they like!
For example: Pomps can jog even if the summoner has already jogged and the Psychopomp has just entered play. There's no penalty for models who just entered play in Moonstone and as Jog is limited to once per turn on a character-by-character basis, the Psychopomp doesn't care if their owner has jogged that turn or not!
Getting in the Way
"You're worse than my cat! Move!"
Jogs are worthy of note and are a great action for Psychopomps to take as they cost no energy and allow the Psychopomp to move into potentially irritating spots for your opponent to handle! This is often the best use of the Psychopomps, getting in the way and forcing your opponent to spend energy to deal with them. Otherwise, Pomps generally bring abilities along to support their summoner a little or otherwise help in niche corner cases.
With so little power behind them, it'll often feel like they're doing nothing except getting in the way of your opponent’s models. This can usually be done by physically placing them in awkward positions, not allowing an opponent to move to a specific location or by abusing their melee zones. Despite their general incompetence in melee, a melee range is a melee range none-the-less! In practice, this means Pomps can be great for preventing jogs or harvest actions if they move base to base with a moonstone and completely cover it with their melee range.
Niche Uses and Boosting
Roary is an excellent addition to a troupe that revolves around Psychopomps.
As for the niche and corner case uses, you'll never know when a tiny heal from the Teacake may be just enough to prevent the death of Jerry Heir, or when Sprog pushing an enemy away 1" might be the reason they're now out of range. These usages are all great and will naturally come up in games on occasion, but is there a way to make this more potent and reliable you ask?
Enter Roary! If you want to get the best of your Psychopomps, Roary can be a great boost to them. With 'Conductor' Roary can make Psychopomps perform actions with three notable boosts:
One, Roary can use this on any Psychopomp even ones that aren't his, allowing them to use abilities without forcing their summoners to activate.
Two, an arcane and melee stat bonus making them far more likely to succeed.
Three, an action irrelevant of energy cost. This means Psychopomps like Flay can use their (2) energy actions for a single use of Roary’s (1) energy 'Conductor'. But perhaps more ubiquitously, this means they'll be able to harvest without spending extra energy due to weakling or feeble.
The addition of Roary can therefore allow a list built mainly around Psychopomps whilst giving them the huge boost of a now brilliant way to harvest stones!
A Final Thought
With all this in tow, Psychopomps can be terrible nuisances getting where the enemy doesn't want them and forcing them to spend energy where they don't want to. With careful timing or with help from Roary they can also leverage some excellent abilities to provide minor boosts to your troupe and cause some small problems for your opponent’s troupe. As long as the little guys stay away from area attacks like Fritz's signature and Beaky Bobby‘s foul gases or characters such as Striga Anya who get energy boosts for killing models, then your new pals from the deadlands should make even Chernitt himself proud!
Head on over to our webstore to grab a pack of Pomps, and if you’d like to find out a little more lore about them then read our ‘What are Psychopomps?’ article.
