Powder Monkey

Powder Monkey Mercenary Sea Dog Privateer Solo

On a busy pirate ship, the sea dogs that crew the vessel come and go, particularly in hostile waters. Oftentimes ships find themselves short on crew and are willing to consider unconventional solutions. A well-trained monkey can be just as useful as the average half-drunk sea dog for many tasks, including running powder to cannon crews and warjacks. Teaching one to light a readied cannon or even to fire small pistols is well within a monkey’s capabilities. Whether or not it’s actually a good idea to hand a torch to a monkey who sits atop a powder keg is another matter.

Basic Info

Powder Monkey
Missing Info
	COST {{{cacost}}} UNIT SIZE {{{casize}}} FA {{{cafa}}} Warcaster 0 BASE Small SPD 6 STR 3 MAT 5 RAT 5 M.A. N/A DEF 13 ARM 10 CMD 3 ESSENCE {{{essence}}} FOCUS N/A FURY N/A THRS N/A HP 1 F. Field N/A WJP {{{wjp}}} WBP {{{wbp}}} IHP {{{ihp}}} FA 3 UNIT SIZE N/A COST 2 N/A N/A N/A Warcaster 1 COST N/A N/A Understanding the Statblock

• Mercenary - Powder Monkey will work for Cryx, Cygnar, or Khador.

Abilities

• [Privateer Warjack] Ancillary Attack (★ Action) - RNG 3. Target friendly Faction {{{1}}}. If the {{{1}}} is in range, it immediately makes one basic melee or ranged attack. A {{{1}}} can be targeted by an Ancillary Attack special action only once per turn.
• Catastrophic Explosion - When this model is disabled by an enemy attack, choose a point 2d6+3˝ from this model and roll deviation from that point, with direction 4 on the deviation template pointing directly toward the rear edge of your deployment zone. Center a 4˝ AOE on the point of impact. Then remove this model from play. Models in the AOE suffer an unboostable POW 12 fire damage roll and the Fire continuous effect.
• Empower (★ Action) - RNG CMD. Target friendly Faction warjack. If the target warjack is in range and it was suffering Disruption, it is no longer disrupted. The warjack also gains 1 focus point.
• Monkey Bite - While in melee with this model, living enemy models suffer -2 to melee attack rolls.

Weapons

• Pistol - 8" range, POW 10 ranged attack
• Bite - 0.5" reach, POW 3, P+S 6 melee attack

Theme Forces

• Mercenaries
  • The Talion Charter. Powder Monkey gains Sacrificial Pawn [Sea Dog trooper] in this theme.

• Other Factions
  • Mercenary models can be hired by other Factions. Normally those Factions' themes will have a limit on how many models they can hire. Refer to #Other Theme Forces, below.
  • Aside from that, there are a few themes that will change what Faction this model counts as (and thus what "friendly Faction only" buffs it can receive). They are:
    • Infernal players can use this model in the Hearts of Darkness theme.

Thoughts on the Powder Monkey

Powder Monkey in a nutshell

The Powder Monkey is an explosive new support solo for the privateers. This monkey provides an exceptionally cheap 'jack support tool that frees up a lot of the focus load from your 'caster. Primarily, he brings Ancillary Attack to Privateer 'jacks (please note the specific typing on this ability!) and Empower. Secondarily, he... uh, blows up. Yes, that is a feature. At two points for the model the Powder Monkey is a bargain and possibly cheap enough to be considered a theme bonus.

Combos & Synergies

• Any merc jack likes empowering and an extra attack (Notice that only Privateer Warjack get the extra attack)
• Notable are the Galleon and the Swabber under Bart, as they can get multiple out-of-activation shots with Broadside and Ancilliary Attack, which can allow you to drag multiple enemy models into their melee range.
• the Swabber deserves extra special mention as it can make the monkey immune to blast damage and knockdown while in base contact and use shield guard vs small arms fire to keep his hairy friend alive.
• Shae and Rahera struggle to cast all the spells they want to, leaving very little for their warjacks. Empower gets around this issue.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Its CMD range is criminally low, meaning it has to stay close to a jack to apply its buffs, which makes it liable to being fried by e-leaps, blasts, ect.
• It's combat profile is basically non-existant. Combat is not what you take it for though, so that's barely a downside.
• It's only available in Talion Charter and Hearts of Darkness.
  • Technically it can work for a few other Factions but its main abilities, Empower & Ancillary Attack, are same-Faction only - making working for others almost entirely pointless..
• very easy to kill at range it has 5 hp but even an electro leap will kill it on an average roll.

Tricks & Tips

• Ancilliary Attack is amazing on a ranged drag - as with the Galleon or the Swabber
• It's not bad on other ranged attacks, as with the Mariner
• Remember that you can have three Powder Monkeys fuelling a single warjack - you may only use one for Ancilliary Attack, but the other two can Empower it so your caster can use their focus elsewhere.
• Ancillary Attack works on Privateer jacks only. Empower works on non-Privateers.
• Ancillary and Empower only work on friendly Faction warjacks (ie Mercenary warjacks). So there is little point taking a monkey in a non-Merc force.
• Remember that monkeys are eligible targets for Dougal’s mini feat, Grogspar’s aura and Rockbottom’s coins. (But Doc Killingsworth will do nothing for them as they don’t have tough)

Other

Trivia

Released at Adepticon (2019.03)

Other Theme Forces

Cryx (Edit)

• Black Industries
• Dark Host
• The Ghost Fleet
• Scourge of the Broken Coast

Cygnar (Edit)

• Gravediggers
• Heavy Metal
• Sons of the Tempest
• Storm Division

Khador (Edit)

• Armored Korps
• Jaws of the Wolf
• Legion of Steel
• Winter Guard Kommand

Rules Clarifications

Rules Clarification : Ancillary Attack      (Edit) You can't generate bonus attacks (such as Berserk) from an Ancillary Attack, because those bonus attacks are limited to during the attacker's activation. Or, at least, I can't think of a single example which isn't limited.

Rules Clarification : Catastrophic Explosion      (Edit) Roll the 2d6, then pick a point, then roll deviation. You can't pick a point before you know the result of the 2d6. (Locked Thread) Pick a point 2d6+3" away from the edge of your base. Measure directly outwards from your base edge, not at a tangent or other weird angle. Once you've picked that point you deviate from there, then center the AOE on that new point. (Infernal Ruling) Rules Clarification : Fire      (Edit) If you deploy in fire hazard terrain (Burning Earth), then you get set on fire before the game starts. Deploying a model in a hazard counts as being "put into play" in the hazard. Being put into play counts as "entering". When you enter a hazard, you trigger the hazard. Moving into "Shallow water" standard terrain does not cause continuous fire to expire. It's magic fire. You can always use non-standard terrain if you agree with your opponent before the game starts, however. A weapon can inflict continuous fire without itself being a fire damage weapon (for example, the Helios's fists). In this case, the attack can hurt models with Immunity:Fire it just won't apply the continuous effect. In terms of which player's clock is running down during the Maintenance Phase: The active player will roll for expiration of all the continuous effects. Then the inactive player will roll for all the damages of the continuous effects. (Judge Ruling)

Rules Clarification : Empower and/or Recharge     (Edit) A warjack can benefit from this ability multiple times. A warjack cannot go over its normal focus limit (which is 3 for most jacks) as a result of this ability. Refer to the Cortex rules.

Rules Clarification : Monkey Bite - None yet. (Edit)