Sir Hogswash
Sir Hogswash is a classic Commonwealth melee model with no frills attached.
Sir Hogswash’s card.
Of his four abilities on the front of his card, three are specifically to help him in combat. The other one is to help him against troupes with lots of arcane which he is often used to counter. As well as these abilities, Hogswash also has some great melee stats, keywords, and signature move.
‘Hunting Spear’
All of this combined leads to a melee stat 4 model with a 2" melee zone, some boosts for melee damage, and some damage reduction. The 'Hunting Spear' gives +1 piercing and slicing damage which means you'll always get +1 damage in melee as all melee cards have options for either slicing or piercing! More interestingly it also gives a further +1 damage against animals, making Hogswash an excellent choice if your opponent's troupe contains many animals. Similarly, 'Sun Shield' also plays very well against specific troupes notably cultists and faeries with their focusses on impact and magical damage respectively.
‘Chaaarge!!’
“Come, Trotters, we must away!”
When he wants to get into combat and start making melee attacks he can close the distance more quickly by using 'Chaaarge!!'. With 3 base energy Hogswash has enough to charge and then make a supercharged melee attack with +2 damage, or a mighty +4 including the 'Hunting Spear' if he attacks an animal! One counter to this is to simply step out of Hogswashes melee range if he charges. Then his next action can't be a melee attack so he will lose the damage bonus. It is therefore often a good idea to charge to within an inch of your opponent even if it risks retaliation from them. That way, they won't be able to immediately step out of Hogswashes 2" range and Hogswash will often be able to make use of his deadly signature which can only be used at 1" range.
‘Utter Swine’
As for models which can help support Hogswash, there are two main options, his soldier keyword or his animal keyword. For the soldier Keyword Sir Guillemot Poppycock and Eric the Squire can both provide +1 melee to fellow soldiers simply by standing near them. With this Hogswash can reach an extraordinary base 6 melee, meaning he would draw a whopping 8 cards when making a melee attack! In addition to this, Poppycock can move him around with 'Yell Out Commands' and Eric can gift him energy with 'My Hero'. On the animal front Hogswash like to lend support rather than be supported like with the soldiers. Joanna loves having Hogswash around to reduce the damage she suffers with 'Älskling'. On the other hand, Boris likes having Hogswash around to increase his damage with his signature. Boris can also summon murder bunnies which are perfect for wounding with Hogswash's 'Utter Swine'!
