The Noose Tightens
In my last blog I had some fun raving about the joys of playing the Ancestor Keyword (which you can read about here if you're curious), but I admit that I did primarily look at that crew through the lens of playing the more interact heavy strategies like Plant Explosives and Boundary Dispute. Yan Lo is awesome, but I do think he has clear strengths and weaknesses and he's not really my first pick for an all out brawl.
This gives me a bit of a problem as a relatively new Resurrectionist player, because I don't have a lot of other options. Luckily, I am a former Outcast player and one of my old 3rd Edition Masters has made the leap with me to the new faction and he is perfect for filling this gap in my line-up. I am speaking, of course, about everyone's favourite creepy hanged man. Jacky Jacky Jack Daw.
The Carnival of the Damned
Let's start with a really top-level overview. Just like the Ancestor Keyword, the Tormented Keyword is an upgrades crew. Unlike Ancestor, Tormented apply their upgrades to enemy models as curses to make those models weaker. Some models in the crew gain additional benefits when attacking cursed enemy models, so there's a nice witchy vibe of picking out cursed enemies for damnation and subjecting them to all sorts of wicked punishments.
Each of Jack Daw's titles have a slightly different set of upgrades. Annoyingly, these sets are broadly similar but differ in several small specifics. In brief, these curses will give the model with them new triggers that cause bad things to happen if they declare them. Spirit of Betrayal has four copies of the one curse that gives every action a Ram trigger to make the action fail, and also provide a Soulstone trigger to get rid of the upgrade. Ensouled has four different upgrades, one for each suit, that all make the action fail and do something extra for you, before being discarded if the model declaring the trigger discards a card.
I'd generally consider Ensouled's upgrades to be better thanks to their flexibility, which let you really screw with key enemy models that rely on specific triggers. Ram triggers are usually pretty good at dealing damage though, so Spirit of Betrayal's triggers are still excellent for messing with enemy beaters. And wouldn't you know it, the strategies where I want to play Daw are usually ones where beaters are pretty important.
As for the rest of the models in the crew, the general theme is that they have a lot of Incorporeal, a lot of good damage, and apply a lot of negative tokens like Slow and Staggered. Between the curses and these tokens, Daw can apply quite a lot of control effects to limit an opponent's options. Notably, the crew's attacks target a wide variety of defensive stats. It's pretty common for most models in the Keyword to have two different attacks, each targeting a different stat. Defence, Willpower, and Speed are all well represented, letting you carefully peel apart enemy crews by using attacks on the weakest enemy stat.
The Ghost of Malifaux
The two titles of Jack Daw can be broadly understood as "the ranged one" and "the melee one". I've also heard them referred to as "dry" and "wet" Daw respectively, but for this blog's purposes we'll stick to calling them Spirit of Betrayal and Ensouled.
As enemies draw closer, they'll get closer to his totem as well. Lady Ligeia sports the frankly mean "Betrayal" rule that requires enemy models to discard cards if they want to Cheat Fate anywhere near her. This goes a long way to denying enemies any agency over saving the model that Jack Daw just pulled in. She's also pretty dangerous herself, sporting a signature action attack that deals 2 damage, or 3 damage if the target has an upgrade.
If Spirit of Betrayal is my preferred title, Ensouled is probably the strictly stronger title. He is fast. He moves 4" when he activates. He's Speed 7. He has a signature action to move his Speed, ignoring models and damaging enemy models that he moves through. His melee attack has a Burst of Speed trigger for extra random movement. He's a bit tougher as well, with both Incorporeal and Terrifying, so long as you can avoid Ruthless models.
His totem, Jaakuna Ubume, also happens to have a Lure in case you want to try the whole "drag an enemy in and kill them" schtick as well. It doesn't threaten as far and it isn't as efficient as Spirit of Betrayal's kidnap (which damages enemy models as it pulls them in).
With all of that said, and considering that Ensouled also has the more flexible upgrades, this is definitely the title that can play in the broader number of pools. But I already have Yan Lo covering half the available strategies, and Spirit of Betrayal's kidnap potential is exactly what I want for a strategy like Recover Evidence, so sometimes it pays to be a bit more specialised and know when to run the other title.
Enough rope to hang...
Normally I take a close look at the Unique models in a crew to get a sense of their playstyle, but for Tormented I want to centre the Hanged first. These models are the core of every list I write, and they're an enormous part of why I rate Tormented for the more brawl-focused strategies.
The front of the Hanged's card has some good rules on it, but let's just go with the idea that they're relatively tough and focus on the back of their card. The key things to note here are a) This model is Cost 8, b) For a relatively cheap price, you get a Damage 3 melee attack and a Damage 2 signature, and c) That signature also applies Slow. That "free" Slow is incredible. Some turns it'll be better for the Hanged to eschew melee attacks entirely and instead Toss the Noose on several enemy beaters. It's a magic attack, so you can use it to target models outside of the current melee, and
Like I mentioned earlier, this is a prime example of a Tormented model that targets two different stats with its attacks (Speed and Defence, in this case). This makes them pretty flexible on the table. They also have triggers to Stagger the target, making their Skl advantage against Speed pretty exceptional. And adding insult to injury, where many models would have a "Critical Strike" or equivalent trigger to deal +1 damage, the Hanged gets triggers like Foiled Plans and Mental Trauma. Your opponent gets some agency in preventing these from doing additional damage, but when they do go off the Hanged gets +2 or +3 damage instead of the regular 1.
The Hanged even get to build in Draw Out Secrets when attacking enemy models with Curses, so they randomly gain some scoring potential on scheme marker schemes. The Hanged are incredible mid-cost models and will be the core of your approach on any brawling strategy. They hit well above their price tag and control the enemy and they're on the tougher side for their price too. It's hard to ask for more.
But while we're asking:
Montresor is, in many ways, just a more expensive Hanged. He's got essentially the same attacks, but his Signature action is instead a tactical action to obey a Tormented model to do another action. He can use it on himself to make another attack, or on the Hanged to make them make another attack, and sometimes even on other models to have them do things. There's a potential here for pivoting to scoring, but the real advantage Montresor has over the Hanged is that he has the Devastating Strike trigger (built in if attacking an enemy with a Curse). This reduces his Raise Value to 3, and since his attack is Skl 7 against Speed and most Staggered models are likely to be Speed 4 you can pretty regularly expect a raise or two on his swings. Not a lot of models out there survive his attention, especially if they've first been dragged into Ligeia's bubble by Spirit of Betrayal's Head in the Noose attack. He's usually a little bit tougher than the Hanged too, thanks to his Demise and Terrifying and Df 6.
With Montresor leading two Hanged in the middle of your lines, your opponent is in for a rough time. They'll be taking an eye-watering amount of damage, and surviving models will be struggling to push through curses and Slow tokens to do any real counter-attack.
River Spirits
We have our pick of Damage 3 Masters, one of which has a Totem that often punches at Damage 3, and we've hired three Damage 3 models into our crew so far. So why not bring a healer who is also Damage 3?
Cost 8 puts Kari on the same bunk as the Hanged. I wouldn't hire them instead of a Hanged, but I can definitely fit them in alongside two Hanged. And I do. Notably, Kari's Stygian Hook attack targets Df instead of Speed or Willpower, so between them and the Hanged and Jack Daw we have high damage attacks targeting our choice of defensive stats. Make sure they each go into the correct enemy target and you'll be dropping enemies all over the place.
Like Montresor and the Hanged, Kari gets built in suits against cursed enemies. On top of that, Kari has a pretty good heal that also drops a Hazardous Aura into play and has a Soulstone trigger to have the target do a general action. Which can be a charge, in case you want damage as well as healing from a single action (provided you aren't engaged in melee or otherwise unable to charge). If you have stones to spare then Kari can also summon Drowned with the Soulstone trigger on The Toll attack, a signature action that moves enemies and gives them Staggered. Kari is, just like the other models we've looked at so far, very much capable of pivoting between different roles as the game demands it.
We've run out of Damage 3 models to hire at this point, unfortunately. A shame, but we already have 5-6 depending on the title you're running. The Ferryman is next on the list, and not as much of a must-hire as the other models I've listed so far in my view. That said, this angry boat does hit pretty hard.
The Ghostly Ram signature action essentially lets the Ferryman be really mobile for scoring purposes, or make three attacks in a turn if your want to deal some damage. On the whole not a model I'm often reaching for, but the real tech with this piece is the "Pulled In My Wake" rule that lets you drop an unactivated Montresor right up the table for a Soulstone. Unfortunately, I feel the Ferryman is quite stone hungry if you want to get the most out of it, and I don't often bring that many with Daw. Still a phenomenal piece for unpacking your crew if you can afford it.
A carnival of cursed cadavers
Jack Daw has three more Minions he can call upon in a pinch. The Drowned, which we've already mentioned in the context of Kari, are low cost annoyance pieces. While I've mostly been talking about Tormented in regards to playing Recover Evidence (where Drowned are too easy to kill and thus open up too many scoring avenues for opponents to be worth summoning or hiring), Informants is also quite a brawl-heavy strategy and the Drowned are great there with a spiteful little ranged attack that pulses damage and pushes all damaged enemies away, potentially dislodging several enemies from a strategy marker with a random summon.
The Guilty, meanwhile, are the classic squishy "Onwards" Minion designed to let a brawl-focused Keyword also work in the more interact heavy strategies. I usually end up regretting bringing them over something like a Bone Pile for the cost on the strategies where I do play Jack Daw, but I tend to think it's good that they exist to help newer players just starting the faction play more easily until they can get their hands on a Keyword more suited for the likes of Plant Explosives or Boundary Dispute (and may I recommend Yan Lo for those services?).
Finally, Crooked Men have a weird little kit halfway between supporting the brawl and focusing on scheming/anti-scheming. They're pretty decent, able to teleport around to markers as a signature action with a relatively high TN, or tossing little AOE pulse attacks into the brawl to hand out a lot of Staggered. Their Tremors attack does really suffer though for being Skl 5 against Speed. It applies Staggered, but you're working uphill to hit first. Skl 5 against Speed is pretty close to being equivalent to Skl 4 against Defence or Willpower, so it's not ideal. They do apply Staggered unresisted though if enemy models take damage from Hazardous near them, and while that doesn't work well if it's the enemy models' activation (since they'll end their activation and the Staggered will go away immediately), there's a fair bit of moving enemy models and a fair few sources of Hazardous tokens and such in the Tormented crew so they've got some cool combinations.
Darkness closes in
Broadly speaking, I tend to think of Tormented as a pretty straightforward Keyword. The models are all solid and just want to fight whatever is in front of them, but there's a few different aspects of skill expression that are quite fun between tailoring your upgrades to the triggers you know your opponent will want to declare (or worse, already have built in), to identifying which enemy models most need to be Slow and Staggered this turn. Behind all the hitting power are a fair few control effects, and control playstyles always reward in-depth knowledge of a game and in particular a good understanding of how an opponent's crew works. This can make them a little deceptive and hard to unlock their full power until you have a firm grasp on the game. Until then, Hanged swinging for 10+ damage or Montresor doing something even worse will still carry you pretty far!
There's a pretty broad variety of Versatiles that work nicely with the Tormented as well. Incorporeal models take healing well, since it's the only common source of damage reduction that isn't once/activation so it will take more effort for the opponent to remove that health than it takes for you to heal back. I tend to feel this is one of the crews that Asura isn't actually that much of a boon for, since the crew has comparatively few attacks targeting Defence compared to most Resurrectionist crews and no real use for Remains markers, but it's not like she's ever a bad hire. Other than that, I think there's a fair bit of space for some flexibility with hiring what you need for specific opponents. If you bring two Hanged, Montresor, and Kari into every game, you've spent 33 Soulstones and gained a lot of hitting power which leaves you with enough to hire another 1-2 Versatiles or OOK models to plug any match-up specific holes you might have.
Tormented has a ton of flavour built into its mechanics, so it's endlessly fun to play. You just might have to get a bit of a thick skin against the moaning of opponents who for some reason don't think it's fun to be assailed by a wall of Damage 3 attacks while being rendered near-incapable of fighting back. They'll learn it's a just punishment for their sins, we hope.
Catch you all next time!
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