Gremlin dissection: Francois Lacroix

In the second dissection of the gremlin crew we have Francois Lacroix. He’s the only henchmen in the La Croix family so he’s the second on my list.

The stats

He is a cost of 7 and has a cache of 6. Which means that when he leads a crew in smaller games he gets 6 soulstones from the start. He has the living, rare 1 and henchman characteristic. He also is a gremlin and he’s kin, which ties in with Ophelia’s  abilities.

He has a DF of 4, which is average for a gremlin. He has WP 7 and that’s a very good stat. He has 10Wd which is also good. A Wk of 5 and a CG of 6. He’s also HT 1. Overall he’s pretty decent statwise. He is not too high costing and he can use soulstones, which gives him some more survivability and he can use his tricks a little bit better.

The skills

He has companion, which lets you activate after a friendly model ended it’s activation within 6’’. It’s handy to have especially when you need to do some extra damage to a model before it activates.

He also has the ability Reckless, which gives him an additional AP at the cost of one extra WD. It gives him the ability to do some additional shooting or perform an interact or something else. You have to plan it out though, because you can only do this at the start of this model’s  activation.

The last ability he has is Squeal, which is a defensive trigger and needs a mask. You can push away 4’’from a Ml Attack after you received damage. You can potentially stop a second attack on a charger or stop a Flurry action. You can cheat in the mask with the use soulstone ability.

The actions

He has 2 Attack actions. He has the Dueling Sword and the “Rough rider” Attack.

The Dueling Sword is a ML of 6 and a ram. It has a Rg of 2. It does 2/3/5 damag and can be doubled with the Dumb luck trigger, which is already build in. The downside to the trigger is that you receive half the damage you do when you declare the trigger. The use soulstone ability can help you to prevent some of the damage you do. All in all this is a great attack and can be intimidating with the potentional to do 10 damage in one swing.

The “Rough rider”   shooting attack is a 5 and a mask and has a range of 10. It does 2/3/4 damage and has two triggers. On a ram you do the Dumb luck trigger, same like the Dueling Sword.

 The other trigger is on a crow( Loose Trigger) which let you make the same Attack action again. You have to damage your enemy and it will cost you one wound. Again, you can cheat in the crow with the use soulstone ability.

He also has a casting action (Gremlin Menace) with a Rg of 6. You can push 5’’ toward a model. Your targets a condition which gives him [-] to attack actions when targeting Francois.

He also has a (0) action (Showdown)  which is also a ca of 5. You need a TN 10and a tome. When it succeeds you can discard cards to gain a [+] for that duel.

The tricks

Out of all the upgrades I would choose dirty cheater. It gives him some more survivability and combine that with the damage prevention from the use soulstone ability and you can potentially let him hang around the board a little bit longer.

The upgrade team work is an ability that lets you place this model into contact and then push another model out of harms way.

If Francois is your leader and you are playing against something like Pandora, you can use liquid bravery to give yourself and models around you a boost to their WP. This combined with the high WP makes him a good candidate to take this upgrade.

The looks

He has the same feel and abilities from 1.5. he looks the same as well with the cigarette in mouth. I like this look and maybe get him when the new box comes out.

If you need a good support piece for the Ophellia crew or another gremlin master, I think Francois is the gremlin you need. He has a lot of damage potential and some movement tricks as well (via upgrades that is).

The playbook

I use him primarily as a potential threat and damage dealer. With his loose trigger skill he can dish out a lot of damage if you have some high cards in hand and some soulstones to burn. You can get around the board fairly quickly and has some nice synergies with other models in this Ophelia crew.

With the current schemes you can use him as a Scheme marker – dropper. Or, when you have the scheme frame for murder,  start the game aggressively and then kill a model. You can bait your opponent in killing your model and because he’s a henchmen you’ll get  3 VP.

So I’ll play him aggressively and in that way your opponent has to divide his attention between Ophelia and him. Two great shooters are better than one.

Link to the artwork: http://coolspyro17.deviantart.com/art/Day-72-Dissection-348092579