Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who's the Rogue(est) of Them All?

The rogue keyword has been around since the very start of Moonstone.

Initially, it was limited to a few faeries and didn't really have any synergies. At this point in the game though, it's a fully fleshed-out trait with many great models of multiple different races. The latest Dominion box has granted this trait two more models with the gun-toting Claudia Duvel and the devious Creep. So what sorts of troupes can be built around this keyword and how does it operate?

Ratman

Muridae’s card.

Muridae is a character you will likely want to make use of in all your rogue troupes. With 'Honour Amongst Thieves' he will be able to support your entire troupe by just staying moderately close to them. The +1 arcane stat is hugely helpful to the rest of your rogues as all other rogues have arcane abilities and very good ones at that! His other passive abilities are some damage reduction for magical and slicing against him and a buff to his own piercing damage. The additional piercing damage won't help his signature, but his signature is not intended to deal damage. Instead of damage, Muridae's signature allows him to lock down nimble models trying to run away, models that are perhaps trying to get moonstones away from his rogue allies. This can sometimes be hard to use with his unimpressive 1" melee as most models with energy will probably try to avoid the gnome. This will be done by continuously stepping away from him to prevent Muridae from ever engaging and attacking. One of his active abilities however provides a unique solution to this problem...

'Squeaking' is an interesting ability in that reaction steps are not allowed to be performed in response to it. Muridae can therefore safely use this ability to bring enemies, which would otherwise flee from him, into his melee range before trying to 'Hamstring' them. Alternatively, he can target his trapped opponent with 'Robbery' and instantly take possession of a moonstone of theirs! Interestingly, 'Robbery' doesn't specify that an enemy must be targeted. Therefore, another possible use for 'Robbery' is to target your own models. This can be great for speeding up your troupe by removing 'Slow Carry' from all your models and stacking most of the moonstones on Muridae. But now that Muridae has all these stones how can he keep them safe? Firstly he can use 'Sneaking'. At 1 energy it's inexpensive and will provide him ample protection from arcane lure and moonstone stealing/dropping effects. If this isn't enough, Muridae can use 'Sewer Rat' once per game to hide from everything for a turn and then appear in a completely different part of the board later!

Your Money or Your Life

Foxglove

Foxglove’s card.

The first damage output model we'll look at is Foxglove. For passives, they have the standard 'Weakling' that most faeries have as well as 'Trickster' to generate a little more energy. Although risky, this generates enough energy for Foxglove to use one of their excellent arcane abilities an additional time. Speaking of Arcanes, Foxgloves first is 'Shelter of the Shadowglade' which can go a long way to keeping your otherwise flimsy troupe protected. The ability they are perhaps best known for though is 'Atrophy'.

'Atrophy's high damage of 2X is often held back by Foxgloves relatively poor arcane stat of 3. At 3 energy it can also only normally be used once. In a rogue list though these facts both change. With Muridae nearby, their arcane will be increased to 4 allowing a better chance at drawing higher cards and bluffing. There are also a couple of rogues who can donate Foxglove additional energy. All of this together means that Foxglove will have 4 arcane and two uses of 'Atrophy', or three if they bluff successfully!

Foxglove's final trick is their amazingly adaptive signature. Although they only have a melee stat of 3 if they draw a low guard then they can accomplish nearly anything they want. If Foxglove wants to be aggressive, they can steal the Fencers needlepoint, if they want to be evasive they can steal Creeps slip into shadows, if they want to stop someone moving they can go to Muridae. As every character mentioned here is either a rogue or faerie every signature move in this article is also Foxglove's signature move! Speaking of signature moves...

The Fencer

The Fencer’s card.

The Fencers card starts fantastically with the best base melee stat in the game. Where Foxglove can deal fantastic damage with arcane attacks, the Fencer does the same with melee attacks. This is brilliant for the rogues as they otherwise lack a dedicated melee character. As well as her brilliant melee stat the Fencer also has some great passives to aid in her combats. With 'Needle', 'Volta' and 'Spiteful' the Fencer deals increased piercing damage, reduces piercing damage and heals a wound every time she does damage. Unfortunately, the Fencer also has 'Weakling' like most faeries, but unlike most faeries she has a signature to deal with it.

The Fencers superb signature can't be reduced by passives, including her own 'Weakling'. This is also great at getting around enemy armour such as Baron Von Fancy Hat's 'Plate Armour'. It also does damage against every card meaning it also can't simply be blocked by a sweeping cut either like most thrusts! Fencers main problem is therefore her toughness, 6 wounds and no armour means you get slain quickly in combat generally. This is where her one and only arcane ability comes in. With rogues, she can rely more easily on this due to Muridaes arcane buff and so she will often want to use it on every enemy she plans on engaging. Alternatively, this can be great on a big melee threat your opponent has spent the turn stacking buffs and energy on to minimise the damage they will deal. 

Claudia Duvel

Claudia’s card.

The final damage dealer for the rogues, and the first human, is Claudia Duvel. Unlike the other two damage dealers, Claudia doesn't deal sustained damage but rather has one turn where she uses all her tricks before going back to moonstone manipulation. This is done with the ubiquitous 'Shoot Pistol' and 'Reload' and the new 'Brace of Pistols'. With 2 extra energy Claudia is able to: Shoot, Reload, Shoot, Brace and Shoot again! With 4 arcane, due to Muridae, this can be some amazing damage in a single activation.

As well as this fantastic ranged damage potential, Claudia also has fantastic moonstone manipulation abilities. Much like Muridae, Claudia also has 'Robbery'. Both also have 8 wounds which is more than every rogue and faerie in the game currently. Therefore, whilst they're at full health they can always use this ability on friendlies should their moonstones ever be threatened or if they need a mobility buff. If that wasn't enough, Claudia's signature also gives another method for stealing stones. It isn't as reliable as the opponent may elect to take wounds instead, but after enough damage, they will have to give up the stones! It also only costs 1 energy to make a melee attack and isn't limited to once per turn so you can attempt it as much as your energy allows!

Dirty Tricks

Creep

Creep’s card.

Our second human rogue is Creep. Unlike Claudia, Creep is suited to sitting at the back and avoiding combat as much as possible. If he is unlucky enough to find himself in combat he will have to rely on a pathetic melee stat of 2 and a range of 1". At a 1" range, Creep can rely on his trusty concealed dagger to deal surprisingly large amounts of piercing damage. If he finds his opponent outside his melee range he can rely on his amazing signature to save him from harm and to reposition. One of the other advantages of this amazing defensive signature is it gives Foxglove yet another brilliant signature to make use of.

Usually, Creep will be far away from combat though and will be using his brilliant active and arcane abilities to skew the game in your favour. The simplest of these is Victimise. For 2 energy Creep can increase a model's evade by 2. This will often be used before Foxglove and Claudia activate to give them more cards when they use their arcane attacks on the unfortunate target of 'Victimise'. Situationally it can also be used on friendly models to avoid abilities that target low evade characters like the goblin airships 'Sticky Tongue' and Dim & Dimmers signature. 

For his two arcane abilities, Creep likes to redistribute energy and wds around the board to wound his enemies and energise his allies. Both abilities have an 8" range and remove X wounds/energy from the target and move them to a friendly model within 8". As 'Incubus' deals wounds and not damage it can be perfect for punching through abilities like bodyguard, plate armour and protection. As it redistributes the wounds it can also be a nice, if not the most efficient, way of healing a few wounds on your own models. 'Vitality draw' has one advantage over 'Incubus' in that it can also target friendlies. This can be great at the start for removing energy from a rogue who has little use for their energy, like Fencer who is nowhere near the enemy. The energy can then be deposited on a rogue who can use the energy slightly more efficiently, like Claudia who can attack at range. This energy manipulation has a huge advantage over most energy manipulation in dominion as it can distribute energy to any model irrespective of trait. This can be perfect for getting Claudia 2 extra energy for an additional shot!

Silvertongue

Silvertongue’s card.

Another model which can lend the troupe some excellent energy abilities is Silvertongue. With 5 arcane, or 6 with Muridae, he is far more reliable than Creep but can only bestow fellow faeries with energy. This can be a great boost for faeries as most have 3 energy arcane abilities but only 5 energy.  For example, with an additional 1 or 2 energy Foxglove can use 'Atrophy' again. This is great for any faerie but particularly good for Foxglove as it gives them an additional chance to trigger 'Trickster' and with that extra energy a potential additional 'Atrophy'!

When Silvertongue isn't manipulating energy, he is busy 'Mind Contol'ing enemies and friendlies alike. This is usually better done later in the turn as it gives Silvertongue a chance to use 'Faerie Mischief'. This can enable him to use it twice or even thrice if he manages to trigger 'Faerie Mischief' twice! When targetting friendlies he can of course choose the standard actions of step, melee or harvest, but if he targets Claudia or Muridae he will have a few more options. For Claudia 'Mind Control' allows her to take the 'Shoot Pistol' action outside of her turn so long as she is not unloaded. Muridae on the other hand gets even more options!

With 'Sneaking' Silvertongue can put additional evade on Muridae if he has already activated but now finds himself in need of some evade. 'Sewer Rat' also increases Muridaes survivability by removing him from the board for a turn but this must be planned slightly further ahead by keeping Muridae in a building. For other defensive uses of 'Mind Control' Silvertongue can look to disrupting his enemies instead. By doing things such as shooting enemies pistols at each other to unload them or using up their other once per turns, Silvertongue can massively reduce an opponents damage output. Better still, if you can use up a once per game like Mama Gimbles 'Mother Wrath' you can hugely blunt an opponent's whole turn or game!

Belladonna

Belladonna’s card.

Whilst the previous two rogues focus mainly on energy manipulation, Belladonna in comparison focuses more on movement and control tricks. Her control tricks come from a combination of arcane abilities and signature moves. The arcane ability in question is 'Drop of Nightshade'. Including the catastrophe, this ability has four different possible effects. Firstly, an energy-sapping ability, useful for stripping monsters of other strong models of their energy before they activate. Secondly, a wound dealing ability, useful for getting around magic damage reduction and other troublesome passives. If Belladonna's target has no such passives though her other arcane ability 'Acid Flask' will do more damage and has a greater range. Next for 'Drop of Nightshade' is a nifty ability to push the enemy target around and then force them to attack their friends in melee. Finally, if her other damage options aren't enough, she can play a catastrophe and auto-kill her opponent. This does come at the cost of Belladonna too, but at the right time against the right model, it can be game-winning!

For her signature move, Belladonna combines ALL the non-catastrophe effects of 'Drop of Nightshade' except the free melee attack on pinks. This means if she is lucky enough to be within 1" of an opponent and pull three high guards she can drain 3 energy, deal 3 wounds and move her opponent 6"! If the repositioning of friendly and not enemy models is called for though, Belladonna can rely on her single excellent active ability. 'Faerie Tricks' simply swaps the position of Belladonna and a friendly rogue of her choice, a simple effect that has many possible applications. If Belladonna wants to use this in an aggressive capacity she can jog up the board and then use it on a rogue who hasn't activated like Foxglove or Claudia to put them closer to their target before they activate. On the other hand, she can use it defensively on a model that has already activated. This can perhaps be to get a wounded model out of an enemies reach or possibly to move a model holding multiple moonstones near the board edge. These are just a few potential ideas though for this super flexible and powerful movement option!

Allies of Convenience

Gwendoline’s card.

As there are only seven rogues at the moment there are a lot of abilities that they don't cover. Two of the biggest ones are abilities to lure models in to help with the rogue's short arcane ranges and abilities that heal to help with their lack of dedicated healers. For these jobs faeries are preferable. This is as faeries can be targeted by Silvertongues 'Whispered Secrets' as well as Foxgloves 'Mirror of Mischief'. In addition to these synergies, they can also be targeted by friendly 'Robbery's more easily due to their lower wound counts.

With all of this in mind, Gwendoline can be a perfect addition to a rogue troupe if you find yourself lacking in either of these areas. With a fantastic heal and lure, Gwendoline will cover both of these needs more than sufficiently. Her only weakness in this area is that she can only use these abilities once in her turn with her base energy. Luckily this can be remedied by Creep or Silvertongue with their excellent energy manipulation allowing her to heal or lure twice. If you aren't fussed about the lure and want a stronger heal you could alternatively use Fraya.  Unlike Gwendoline, she can heal characters twice with her base energy and also, for fans of Foxglove, a much better signature! 

Overview

So where does all of this leave the rogues? With no armour, apart from the gnome, they are certainly flimsy and will not be able to take hits very well. They are also all cursed with 1" melee so troupes sporting a large number of 2" melee models can be a problem for them. Luckily, most of these models have defensive signatures which will be able to trigger even if your opponent is outside your melee range. As well as these evasive signatures they also have excellent evade too, the worst one being 0 on Muridae. However, this in isolation is misleading as it can be augmented to -6 off his base energy alone with 'Sneaking'.

When they aren't trying to avoid damage the rogues can deal it themselves rather effectively at range, killing or softening up targets for 'Robbery's. Their most effective tool though is their ability to steal and move moonstones about. With three models with the potential to steal moonstones, the ends of games can be critical. Going second on turn four and stalling out activations to steal stones at the end can quite often be game-winning. Before the end of the game though, the rogues can use their excellent energy manipulation and movement to avoid dangerous encounters. Opponents will then find their key models low on energy and moonstones, whilst the rogues will have plenty of energy and perfect positioning to keep them and their ill-gotten gains safe from harm!