Following on my recent deep dive into Ampersand, today let’s take a really deep dive, all the way to the hadeopelagic zone.  The deep-sea creeps of the Banished keyword have returned, and woe betide the surface-dwellers who stand in their way.

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The Tyrant Meridion was long ago banished to a prison made from Malifaux’s ley lines.  Her servants, the ancient Sirens, slunk away with her, and in their long imprisonment twisted into something… else.  They slumbered in the depths until the dissipation of the Burning Man’s power cracked the locks on their prison.  Led by the Silken King, they have returned – though, after long years in the lightless abyss, they do not look like they once did.

The Banished keyword pressure opponents with powerful Raise effects, crushing them with thousands of foot-pounds of watery force.  The Silken King’s Title form, Colossus, makes use of unique Wreathed upgrades to curse opponents and leave them drowning.

The King Stay the King

Starting with the Silken King’s original form, Long Live, we’ll look at his crew card.  Rising Tide has a simple passive effect: any of your models can eat a friendly Scheme Marker within 2″ to put opponents on a -twist to resist any attack.  Negative twists to resist are quite rare.  Your opponent can still cheat, but this applies immense hand pressure, especially because of the variety of powerful raise effects your crew has.  Better yet, with the expenditure of a Soulstone you can eat an enemy Scheme Marker for this effect, which is just back-breaking.  Attacking and counter-scheming all at once!

The crew card action, Swept Away, is a nice little signature action everyone can take, even if it costs a Soulstone.  It’s a powerful attack – stat 6, 3 damage (although it being a magic attack means it can’t go above 3 damage with raises) – and for each raise, it lets you move the target up to 2″.  You can then teleport into base contact with the target.  You don’t have the Soulstones to spam this, but it gives every model in your crew some unexpected punch and mobility.

Silken King, Long Live

The Silken King’s original form has what you might call Archetypical Master Stats: 5/6 defensive stats, 14 health, and 6 mv.  He’s pretty durable, as Resilient reduces raises against him by 1; this is basically 1 point of damage reduction, with the upside that it is 1) not once per activation (like many similar abilities) and 2) able to cancel various non-damaging raise effects, but the downside that it is 3) sometimes completely blank.  His other piece of defensive tech, Coral Carapace, makes his Shielded tokens reduce damage by 2 instead of 1, which is great when you remember what Shielded tokens can reduce damage to 0.  His last front-of-card ability, Royal Escort, lets you burn a Soulstone to get a free 5″ move at the start of your activation alongside two friends.  This is basically “burn a Soulstone for an AP” and is thus great, with the added bonus of bringing other models along.  You will do this a lot.

His Sacrificial Dagger attack is very interesting – base 3 damage means it’s a respectable threat, especially with Maim and Critical Strike, and its raises give you Soulstones for each one.  This adds up very fast, and putting enemies on negatives to resist it will force them to cheat to avoid taking both a really brutal hit and feeding you a ton of stones.

Lost to the Deep, the King’s ranged attack, follows this theme: damage 3, and it costs the enemy a random card if you get a raise.  Random discard is brutal, so enemies will likely cheat to make this miss (or at least avoid getting a raise).  That’s a win in and of itself, though.  The triggers are neat: Arc lets you take the attack again (requiring another discard, potentially) while Shameful Disfigurement both moves the enemy and creates a Scheme Marker, setting up the crew card ability very neatly.

The King’s signature action, Storm Surge, just moves a friendly towards a Scheme Marker, which is a nice little piece of utility even if it is not impressive.  The TN is quite high, though, and the impact is often not enough to justify a cheat for it – unless you plan to use the double Soulstone trigger to make the target Charge, which is a ton of mobility and damage out of nowhere.

Urchin

Long Live’s totem, Urchin, has “totem stats” (i.e. 5s defensively and 9 health), although it shares its master’s Resilient and its Cloaking Veil will make your opponent burn a card to hit it a lot of the time.  It also has an attack that benefits from raises well, though the base damage of 1 is just not impressive enough to make this something worth burning resources for.  Its tacticals are what you want: Tap the Leyline is your standard totem-draw ability, trading off the guaranteed suits (and +1 net card) from Resupply for the chance of drawing high cards off the top of your deck.  Obscene Ritual makes a Scheme Marker within 6″ to set up the crew card ability, and also pulses out Shielded to keep his boss alive.  He can even hand out Hastened tokens for a little surprising speed.

Like the Clockwork Queen, this form of the Silken King is not particularly complicated: he makes powerful attacks, forcing your opponent to be at -twists to resist them, and stacks up bonus effects on raises.  Every model is a threat with the crew card bonus, though you are going to run out of Soulstones fast if you are not printing them with the King’s melee attack.

The New Colossus

The Silken King’s title form, Colossus, has a unique play pattern that focuses on Crowns of Thorns, which I will describe alongside him.  His crew card, Coronation, gives all non-peon Banished (remember that restriction) the ability to summon a Gift of Thorns whenever they get a Raise in an attack on an enemy, once per activation.  Friendly unique Banished models gain the Cruel Promises signature action.  This costs a Soulstone, but has Range 12 and Stat 7 vs. Wp, making it very reliable.  It deals 2 damage and forces the target to take an action you control.  What’s the catch?  Well, to be eligible to be targeted, the enemy must have a Wreathed upgrade on them, and after the action resolves they get to take a TN 15 Wp duel to lose the upgrade.

So what’s a Wreathed upgrade? Well, there are three of them.  They all share the “GetItOffGetItOffGetItOff!” rule, which lets your opponent’s other models target the unfortunate curse-bearer with the Interact action to remove the upgrade.  Each one has a separate effect:

• Temptation puts enemies at a -twist during Wp duels and takes away their ability to cheat, practically guaranteeing that Wp-targeted attacks will hit (such as, say, the Cruel Promises attack).
• Stolen Life lets Colossus steals 2 life from the cursed enemy when it activates, healing Colossus for that much.
• Divulge Secrets lets enemies (that is, your models) declare the cursed target’s tactical actions while they are within 6″ of it.  Sometimes, depending on the target, this is very nasty.

So these are all pretty brutal curses, not least because they enable Cruel Promises.  How do we get them out?  Read on and find out.

Silken King, Colossus

Colossus’s statline is very similar to his base version, trading 5/6 Df/Wp for 6/5.  He is still Resilient, but loses his Shielded bonus, instead gaining the ability to simply drain a Soulstone to reduce damage by 2 (to a minimum of 0) – more reliable, but more costly as well.  He also has Drawn to Pain, letting him move 3″ towards enemies that damage him.

And you want him getting close, because his melee attack, Crushing Depths, is brutal.  Stat 6 with 2″ of range, it deals four base damage, a rarely-seen level of damage that hits a lot of nasty breakpoints when you start factoring in Impact tokens and raises.  It can injure enemies with Maim and, with Undeserving of the Crown, pitch Wreathed upgrades from the target to swing again.  Sure, you are losing the curse, but hitting them for another 4 damage swing means they will often just be, you know, dead.

Tidal Wave, the King’s ranged attack, is decidedly less impressive at Stat 5 Damage 2.  On a raise, it pulses out damage from the target to nearby enemies, but as a magic attack it doesn’t gain bonus damage from raises inherently.

If you get Injured on the enemy, The Weak Succumb trigger lets you cash it in for +2 damage, and you can even Knock Aside enemies if you need.

Colossus has two Signature Tactical actions.  Unshackled is just a 6″ leap – There’s no TN or anything, but it does cost a Soulstone, so you should consider when you really need it.  Leaping your damage 4 beater into a convenient spot is pretty nasty, though.  Hardened Husk just hands out Shielded to allies, which is simple and utilitarian, but it can also push them 3″ or let them make an attack (not just a melee attack) into a Wreathed enemy.  Note that you can Cruel Promises with this trigger, but you won’t get to make the enemy take an action because a generated action cannot generate further actions unless it is Charge.

Abyssal Anchor

The Anchor is an odd totem, with 7 Df but only 4 Wp – which will prove a serious liability in some matchups.  When an attack fails against it, it can Scuttle, so there’s some incentive for your opponent not to casually swing, but most Wp-targeted attacks against it won’t fail.  The Anchor serves as an “arc node” allowing your other models to draw range and LOS rom it when attacking Wreathed targets, which incidentally is not limited to ranged attacks and therefore lets Colossus take his beefy 4-damage swings from safety.

The Anchor’s melee attack, the amusingly-named The Claws, deals +2 damage from raises, but at a base damage of 1 this is not setting the world on fire.  It does have Grab On, so you can make enemies Slow at least.  Void Tide is a much more interesting attack – a 6″ range magic attack with just Damage 2, it generates a Soulstone for each Raise just like Long Live’s melee attack, and since it targets Wp you can hit enemies with Temptation on their heads and get a free Soulstone or two.

Like the Urchin, the Anchor has Tap the Leyline, and its Signature is Dark Bargain: deal 1 damage to an ally to make them Interact.  This ability is extremely strong in every iteration of this game and this one is no different; out of sequence Interacts are great.  The fact that it can hand out Shielded or Hastened is just the cherry on top, and the 1 damage cost is so marginal as to be irrelevant most of the time.

Gift of Thorns

I have to mention these guys now, since they’re so key to how Colossus plays.  You cannot hire them, only summon them, and you can only summon them if playing Banished, so they’re sort of like a second totem for Colossus.  They’re extremely simple: they’re Peons with worthless defensive stats (but Mv 8 Unimpeded for some reason) and Made to Kill, which lets them make a melee attack then they are placed (such as when they are summoned).  Their melee attack, The Joining, has range 3″ and stat 6 and does no damage.  It just kills the Gift and puts a Wreathed upgrade on the target.

These things are basically markers for the Wreathed mechanic.  90% of the time they are going to appear from the crew card ability, make their free attack, and either hit and instantly turn into a Wreathed upgrade or miss and probably get murdered as soon as your opponent activates.  There are some corner-cases where the fact that they are technically models that must get placed and make attacks matter, but a lot of the time you will place them and instantly remove them.

Plenty of Fish in the Sea

So let’s take a look at who else has crawled out of the depths, shall we?

Dynast Bram

The Banished keyword’s one Henchman, Bram is probably an auto-include on that basis, though he’s strong enough on his own.  At 9 stones he’s reasonably defensive between 10 health and Resilient, and enemies that fail to hit him gain Injured, which is a strong disincentive to take casual swings.  He also has some cute Shielded synergy that fits well with the rest of the crew’s various Shielded-granting actions: he can consume Shielded off himself to get both a +twist and any suit to his attacks.

This is a valuable add-on because his attacks are great!  Ancestral Blade is your standard Stat 6 3 damage swing, but it has three great triggers, including summoning a Gift of Thorns.  Note that you don’t have to be playing Colossus to do this (though you do have to be playing Banished, so don’t try OOKing him).  Long Live does not have Wreathed synergy, but the upgrades are plenty strong on their own.

Bram’s Signature attack, Biting Insult, only does 1 damage (with no more from Raises, since it’s a magic attack), but it is Stat 7, and getting a Raise gives you a free Scheme Marker near the enemy, ready to be cashed in for Undertow.  There’s a built-in trigger to summon a Gift of Thorns, but you can also use On Your Heels to teleport into base contact with the target, ready to swing with the Ancestral Blade and use that newly made Scheme Marker for Undertow.

Finally, the impressive-sounding “Weak, All of You” tactical action is sort of an upturned Heroic Intervention.  You slap an engaged ally for 1 point of damage, teleport into base contact with the engaging enemy, and then immediately swing on them with a built-in +twist.  And if you spend a Soulstone for the “Show You How It’s Done” trigger, this free attack – and all subsequent attacks this activation – do +1 damage.  This action is once per activation, so you can’t stack that damage bonus, but it’s still a nasty sequence to open with this, then hit someone with Biting Insult, teleport to them, and attack again with the Undertow bonus, with +1 damage to all three attacks.

The Colony

The Banished’s 10-stone beefcake, the Colony is a hefty mass of Resilient wounds that won’t go down easily.  Floating Mass lets it pass through enemies, and Trailing Stingers gives them Injured when it does, which is a nice little incidental debuff that will make hitting enemies with your various gnarly attacks easier.

Speaking of gnarly attacks, the Colony has a bog-standard Stat 6, 3 damage swing with both Critical Strike and Shove Aside for bonus damage and extra attacks, respectively.  Tidal Blast is not the world’s most impressive ranged attack (though pulsing out damage on a Raise is nice), but being able to punt someone off a point from 8″ away is not to be sneezed at.  Drift With the Tide is what you want on a signature action: an extra AP, with the extra frisson here of being able to move through enemies and Injure them.

Complicated?  No.  And ten stones is a lot.  But the Colony is beefy, hard to take down, and hits hard enough to make people sit up and take notice.

Silent Siren

After two big legbreakers, the Siren is a bit of a subtler tool.  She’s cheap at 7 stones, and Resilient will make it difficult to take out her 9 health in two swings (typically requiring 3), which is an important breakpoint.  If your opponent does kill her, you get a little burst of Shielded and Hastened to all nearby allies and two cards, which is a nice consolation prize.

So what does she actually do?  Well, Chitinous Claws is not a very impressive melee attack, even with Critical Strike.  Instead, you will most often be using Command From the Depths: a range 10, stat 6 Obey.  That is, for the uninitiated: an attack whose effect is to force the target to take an action under your control.  This one can’t target friendlies, as some can, but as some consolation it has no TN and allows the generated action to ignore engagement – letting your target charge or interact!  It even has good triggers.

Her signature action is Hardened Husk, just like Colossus – not super high impact, but the triggers here are great.  On Your Heels lets her use friendlies to jump around the board, so she can spend her AP Commanding instead of walking.  And Inescapable Current, despite costing a Soulstone, gives you that friendly Obey you can’t get from Command.

Coronator of the Crown

The last Banished unique is an odd one.  The Coronator has awful defensive stats but a shitload of hit points, especially for an 8-cost model.  It can be hired by either Silken King, but basically everything on this card points to Colossus.  For starters, when it ends its activation on Turn 1, you summon three Gift of Thorns within 1″ of it.  The dream, of course, is to summon them within 3″ of three different enemy models, but that will require placing a slow and extremely vulnerable Coronator in a very dicey spot.  Still, even if you can only end up near one enemy, you can get three chances to drop a Wreathed upgrade on them.  You also get three Gifts when the Coronator dies, which is funny and will making killing this thing in melee pretty uncomfortable.  Its last front of card ability punishes nearby Wreathed enemies when they cheat or empower, which is nice, but frankly if you are Wreathed then you sort of have bigger problems to worry about.

The Coronator’s melee attack, The Royal Treatment, isn’t that impressive, though the raise value of 3 is nice.  It has a built-in trigger to summon a Gift (and, remember, get that Made to Kill attack), and you can cash in a Wreathed upgrade from your target to get two Scheme Markers.  That’s rare and pretty impressive, though losing the upgrade from the target hurts.

The Coronator can also just spend a Soulstone to get two Gifts in base contact, and as a Signature action it can heal allies, with bonus token removal.  The triggers on his heal are nice too, letting your friend push to or attack a Wreathed opponent.

Overall, this guy is hyper-focused on getting those Wreathed upgrades out.  He might make too many Gifts of Thorns – I think it is very doubtful that you end up needing that many, but you will need some.  I would take him 100% of the time in Colossus, and probably a fair bit in Long Live if only for that very good heal.

Shorebound Sentinels

The first Banished minion, Sentinels are pretty durable for 5ss – 6/5 defensive stats with 7 health and Resilient.  They’re fast, too, at 7 mv.  Their melee attack isn’t great, even with critical strike, and neither is their ranged attack, although Shameful Disfigurement is a very good trigger.  They have Hardened Husk, but it’s not a Signature action and so you may not want to use it often.  Long Live’s crew card at least gives them a signature action, although they will have to spend a stone for it.

Overall, these are models you hire because you need guys to Walk and Interact and stand on points.  Not flashy, but they’ll get the job done cheaply and they’re not too easy to bring down.

The Crowned

The other Banished minion, these are Colossus’s friends.  More expensive than Sentinels, with worse Df, less health, and no Resilient, they’ll go down relatively quickly, but they’re probably more useful until they do.  They are like smaller versions of the Coronator, with his Under One Crown ability but only summoning one Gift when they die.  Don’t Turn Your Back is a strong rule, but they’re not really tough enough to make good use of it except against enemy scheme runners.

Their melee attack isn’t great, though a 3″ range is quite long and redeems it a bit and it has pretty good triggers on every suit.  Their signature action is what makes you consider them – Leaps are strong, even when they damage you, and this one comes with a free “interact” at the end.  If your gameplan involves more running and hiding than walking and standing, hire these guys.

And the Rest

In terms of versatile hires, you really like models with Wp-targeted attacks, since Temptation is such a brutal debuff – that’s Klaus and the Syzygy Sisters.  You could also reach oak into the Woe keyword for more tricks like that.

Banished is a bit more complex than its Starter Box sibling, but Silken King, Long Live is nice and straightforward.  Making Scheme Markers and cashing them in for stronger attacks is the kind of A/B gameplay that a lot of complex Malifaux crews have.  Colossus is very weird, and the timing issues will be tricky – often, your opponent will have an activation to try to get the Wreath off their guys before you can really punish them for it.  Picking isolated targets to curse will be key.

I hope this guide was helpful to those of you who dream of cyclopean blocks of star-quarried stone dreaming beneath the waves, in the lightless depths where unknown things await the stars coming right.  Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Meridion R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.

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