Boris, Bunnies and Beasts
I've recently seen a lot of love for the new Leshavult model, Boris the Bunny Summoner. I've also been wanting to write about one of my favourite troupe compositions from my time playtesting the Leshavult. Luckily, both of these happily coincide with each other. So without further ado, let's crack on with the Leshavult’s furry friends.
Whispering to Wild Things
Gloom
The crux of the Leshavult animal list is the hypermobility one model can gain and the huge energy spikes one or two models can achieve as well. To this end, Gloom will likely make an appearance in every such list due to one very powerful active ability. With 'Whisper to the wild things' animal traited models can be catapulted up the board to wreak havoc on unsuspecting models. Alternatively, Jackalopes and Beast's can be pulled out of dangerous positions or retreated when they are carrying precious moonstones. In a pinch, it can also, of course, be used to move murder bunnies around. Whilst a murder bunny hopping an additional 3" will never be as threatening as a Jackalope, occasionally the right bunny in the wrong place will cause massive problems.
Beyond 'Whisper to the wild things' Gloom will often be harvesting low depth moonstones or occasionally using 'Smothering darkness' on models that get too close. Although weakling makes Gloom bad at harvesting, he more than makes up for this with his ability to keep the moonstones he harvests safe. With his signature allowing him to place within 4" and 'Shadow walk' also allowing additional places, Gloom can cover tremendous distances without the need to jog. If harvesting isn't required and no animals need to be repositioned, Gloom can try to whittle down nearby enemies with his arcane attack. As well as using 'Smothering darkness' as an offensive ability though, Gloom can also turn its use on friendlies. By targeting models that will resist most of the magic damage he can reduce friendly evade stats. Or with a little more luck he can injure himself with the catastrophe to drop a model's evade by 2! With this, even the largest Jackalopes can be safe from arcane attacks with an evade of -1.
Chubs
As Gloom provides great speed to animals, Chubs can provide large amounts of energy to animals. With 'Rouse', high threat models such as the Jackalope and the Beast can be elevated to a whole new level. The Jackalope can utilise the additional energy to simply buy more attacks. Or, if the Jackalope needs to reposition quickly, it can buy an additional 'Hop' with 2 extra energy. Meanwhile, the Beast will happily make use of the extra energy to buy additional attacks and make more use of 'Intimidate'. The +2 energy for the Beast can sometimes even become +4. A 4 energy Beast is a massive threat and so your opponent might have to target him in an attempt to mitigate him. Doing so will trigger 'Awake the beast' and generate him even more energy.
'Rouse' can also target fauns, but as the main aim of the list is to utilise animals, this often won't be the case outside the first turn. During the first turn when animals will struggle to utilise the energy Gloom can happily take additional energy. With this, he can help get animals into range with an additional 'Whisper to the wild things'. Boris also can make great use of +2 energy as it meets a specific energy threshold for him, but we'll get onto that later.
Outside the use of 'Rouse', chubs has lots of utility at his disposal. 'Healing' is never a bad thing to have whilst using so many defensively weak models. 'Shoot bow' can be useful for finishing off weak enemies and threatening any airships. Finally 'Misdirection' can be useful for pulling enemies into melee with dangerous models such as the Beast or the Jackalope. As mentioned earlier, however, Chubs will generally be making use of 'Rouse' throughout the game. Of which such targets for this can be Boris who makes fantastic use of 2 more energy on turn 1.
Watership Faun
Boris the Bunny Summoner
The bunny summoner is the first of his kind in moonstone, a summoner. So unlike most models in the game Boris generally won't focus on collecting moonstones, killing enemies or supporting anyone either. Boris's unique skill is instead to spawn more models throughout the game for you to have at your disposal! The most common arcane ability he will therefore be using is his 'Summon a murder bunny' action. For 3 energy he can attempt to bring a brand new model into the game. As he comes with a base energy of 4 he can normally only attempt this once per turn. However, with the previously mentioned Chubs, Boris can easily be brought up to 6 energy. With 6 energy Boris can attempt 2 summons during his activation which will pay dividends the following turn.
After Boris has 2-3 Murder bunnies out he can start to shift his focus away from summoning to other things. When Boris starts the turn with Murder bunnies in play he will generate additional energy and will therefore not have to rely on Chubs anymore. So what can he do with this energy? Firstly, he's not a weakling and can, therefore, make an excellent harvester. He can do all the harvesting himself or can just drop moonstones to low values for other models, such as a murder bunny, to claim and run off with. Normally this is the best thing for Boris to do with his extra energy, but within the animal list, he has another option.
With 2 melee and no access to slicing or piercing damage, Boris is sure to look like a pushover in melee. He brings a 2" melee range, bonus impact damage and some niche damage reduction, but this still won't be enough to make him a traditional melee threat. His signature says otherwise though. In a list built with many animals 'Rabbit punch' can easily attain +4 bonus damage before even factoring in his 'Shepard's crook'. The bunny summoner also has a totally unique way to approach melee with his own bunny army which activates simultaneously with him.
Murder Bunnies
Unsurprisingly one of the best features of Boris is the murder bunnies he brings along. So what can they do? They generate no energy, have weakling, +2 damage on rising attacks (+1 with weakling) and can jump over terrain. Nothing too impressive. They can use Boris' energy as if it's their own and so could make numerous melee attacks if desired. With 5 (4 now) wounds though, they are also likely to die quickly in most melee's. This is compounded further with their also dreadful melee stats. In reality their best feature is not a rule printed on the card, board presence.
Even though a murder bunny acts differently to most models in the game it is still a physical model on the table. With that it has a melee zone, it can block line of sight, it can get in the way of movements, anything any other model can do. Murder bunnies are therefore perfect to throw the enemies way to block line of sight so models like the Firespitter or Flintlock can't shoot your more flimsy models. They can be thrown at models like Baron von Fancyhat to reduce his threat range so he can't melee Boris. Finally, they can help with melee in a different way to the norm.
As enemy models can't move through them, murder bunnies can jog their way into melee's and pin enemy models against walls, models, terrain and other items on the board to prevent them from moving. They will also receive -1 melee for each model engaging them if an attack is ever initiated. Boris can then, unlike other contemporary beatstick models, jog in hordes of bunnies to prevent a victim from moving. From there, if his opponent has a 1" melee he can attack with impunity. If they have a larger melee then Boris can rely on all the negative melee modifiers the bunny has laden his opponent with. Fighting like this means Boris can take on even the biggest threats in the game, such as Loubard, by reducing them to a pathetic melee before 'Rabbit punching' them to death. In the case of Loubard, this works even better as 'predictable combatant' on a low melee model means Boris always knows what's coming!
Jackalope
The Jackalope is the other model that Boris can summon. Although hard to summon, it is a useful ability to have if you ever find yourself short a Jackalope and don't know what to do with Boris' plentiful energy. This ability offers a choice though, do you take the Jackalope in your starting troupe or risk summoning it later. If your gameplan revolves around the Jackalope or its use turn 1 then you likely shouldn't rely on a risky summon. Otherwise, if it's not integral to your plan or you need it late game, then 'Summon the Jackalope' is for you! 'Summon the Jackalope' is a very traditional Leshavult ability. It boasts a higher than base energy cost as well as an advantageous catastrophe as a backup if you don't see any 3's. But however the Jackalope enters play, how does it work once it gets onto the table.
Jack(alope) of all trades, master of none, though oftentimes better than the master of one. The Jackalope is never going to be better at dealing damage than Fritz. It's never going to be faster than Grub. It's never going to be better at harvesting than Morris or as durable as the Revenant. But it will completely outclass all of those models in everything but their speciality. This is mainly to say that the Jackalope is a straight forward well rounded model who can accomplish many tasks well with a little support.
When dealing damage the Jackalope will have to rely on +2 piercing damage and a nasty signature if anyone strays within an inch. When it is hit back after a gore, it can sometimes avert a little damage if it's hit by impact type damage. Otherwise, 10 wounds should keep it mostly healthy until a healer can help. In terms of raw combat potential, the Jackalope is therefore not hitting as hard as most giants and not as resistant to damage. The way the Jackalope will outclass these models is through it's superior starting energy, energy availability from models like Chubs and speed.
Unlike most other monstrous creatures in moonstone, the Jackalope is blessed with a relatively large amount of speed. As well as Glooms 'Whisper to the wild things' the Jackalope is also equipped with its own movement ability 'Hop'. 'Hop' allows a 4" obstacle and terrain ignoring movement for 2 energy. Most importantly this is not a jog and not affected by 'slow'. Why is this important? It means that the Jackalope can maintain high mobility whilst holding moonstones. This gives it a great excuse to use 'Burrowing claws' and occasionally harvest a few moonstones.
Beauty and the Beast
The Beast
In contrast to the Jackalope, the Beast is a lot less straight forward. With only 2 energy to his name, he's not likely to tear through entire troupes on his own. This is, of course, assuming he's not been targeted by an enemy arcane or melee. If so, at 4 energy, he will be fully able to utilise his phenomenal melee skills to kill as many enemies as possible. With Gloom support, he also won't have to waste any energy moving in and can be launched into melee before he even activates! Aside from this scenario, Beast can generally lend support to some models as well as threatening models who dare to get too close.
Through virtue of having the animal trait, the Beast is able to help power up Boris' signature move. He can also lend some unique support which synergies well with Boris' melee plan. Using 'Intimidate' on a model that's been pinned down by Murder bunnies means that models targeting the unlucky victim will have to deal with fewer melee cards and will be able to see them all. This naturally works especially well with Boris as this is his main melee tactic. In a somewhat passive role, the Beast can also position himself in awkward places that opponents are expected to move into. By doing so he can potentially sap the energy of enemies moving nearby with 'Quite terrifying'. This can help bunnies pin down energy depleted models more easily.
Gwendoline
Gwendoline is the first model which is neither a faun or an animal in this list. What she does grant outside of direct faun and animal synergy is an additional heal as well as more movement abilities. Although 'Scry' is unlikely to see much use in this list, 'Rejuvenate' and 'Ethereal alure' will see lots of use. Much like Gloom, Gwendoline will spend most of the game moving other models around. Unlike Gloom and Chubs, however, Gwendoline has no restrictions on targets for 'Ethereal alure'. This gives her flexibility such that she can use her actions to pull enemies into the Beasts melee to drain their energy and endanger them or just as easily pull a friendly Jackalope out of danger.
Gwendoline is just one choice for an additional healer. However, any healer which provides some additional movement can prove useful too. This can include Brother Daniel with his useful 'Plant the placard' which can move multiple models and hordes of murder bunnies. Daniel can also generate additional energy for other models which can mean extra attacks for the Beast or the Jackalope or even more bunnies summoned for Boris. In the future, Mr Toodles may also prove to be a valuable addition to the list as he provides similar support. He will play especially well with this list as he will be able to take advantage of Chubs' 'Rouse', unlike other Leshavult healers at the moment.
Overview
The animals will generally favour supporting one or two hyper threatening models in the early turns of the game. Support can come from Chubs' energy bonuses as well as Gloom and a Healers movement abilities which can be used to slingshot animals in and out of the fray. Beyond the first couple of turns, the animals can look to Boris to utilise his bunny army in order to kill troublesome targets or harvest moonstones. This can all lead to a very balanced gameplan on the kill models vs aggressively harvest moonstone front, with the animals finding it easy to adapt to whatever plan is needed at the time. The main difficulty for the animals comes from lists which output large amounts of damage. Against overwhelming damage, the animal's fragility will soon become an obvious issue. Learning when to use your support to move models out of danger will ultimately prove to be a key in mastering the fluffy fiends.
