I, Gamin, Will Save Us!

Introduction

     Howdy folks, and welcome back to a new edition of To Be An Arcanist!  Hopefully my World of Warcraft buddies pick up on this week's title.  It's been a long year with a lot of fun and exciting things going on in my life, and I'm ecstatic to throw my hat back into the blogging ring.  I've had my gaming energy revived by the latest release, and I figured the best way to get the ball rolling again is to have a discussion about my favorite master in the game right now, Sandeep Desai!

Sandeep's box

     In Sandeep's box you'll find the mystic himself, his henchman Kudra, his totem Banasuva, and three poison gamin.  He comes with 11 upgrades, two of which are limited. His limited upgrades are "To Command Another Plane" which enables his unique summoning and powers up his mace, and "To Behold Another World" which allows the other half of his summoning and gives his mace the ability to paralyze.  His non-limited upgrades are "Unaligned Sage" which allows him to hire academics regardless of faction and gives him some more synergy with them, and "Enlightened Soul" which lets him play around with incorporeal through a 0 action and let's him recover cards by killing enemy models.  Kudra gets "Free of Mortal Shackles" which buffs her for being close to gamin and gives her a 0 action that outright kills a friendly gamin.  This may seem a little counterintuitive, but between the affects that many gamin have that go off when they are killed (not sacrificed) and the limitations by which Sandeep's summoning is constrained, this is an extremely useful option.

     The last collection of upgrades are all extremely important to Sandeep's summoning mechanic.  He has two series of three upgrades, each series matching up to one of his limited upgrades.  These series are the "Commands" and "Visions" upgrades.  They are gamin only and can not be attached at the start of the game.  When Sandeep successfully uses his summon ability you must take an upgrade from the series that matches his equipped limited upgrade (we'll go more in depth on this topic in the next section).  In the "Visions" series we have "Visions in Flame", "Visions in Earth", and "Visions in Wind".  "Flame" disallows this model from cheating fate, but gives the model don't mind me.  "Earth" prevents the model from being moved or pushed (but not placed) even voluntarily, but gives it a 6 inch aura where enemy models must discard 2 cards to declare an interact action.  "Wind" disallows the model from making attack actions, but allows it to interact the turn it is summoned.  In the "Commands" series we have the similarly named "Commands in Flame", "Commands in Earth" and "Commands in Wind".  "Flame" also prevents the model from cheating fate, but makes it immune to slow.  "Earth" also prevents movement and pushing, but adds 1" of melee and 3" of shooting range.  "Wind" also prevents attack actions, but gives other models in a 3" aura + to all attack duels.

     That's a lot to unpack all at once, so let's take a look at what he can summon and how these upgrades interact with the summonees.

Summoning with Sandeep

     The man with the plan can summon 6 different models.  An 8 of masks will get you Ice, Fire, Metal, and Wind gamin.  A 9 of masks will get you a poison gamin.  The big daddy of the gamin however, is Banasuva.  Banasuva cannot be hired, but with a 12 of masks and 2 damage to an existing gamin you get this 8 cost minion totem.  Due to the upgrade based nature of Sandeep's summoning you will only ever have three extra gamin out at one time, but by getting them killed off you can get the upgrade back in the pool and summon something new.

     Let's start with the ice gamin.  At first glance these guys have two great roles, grenades for summoning Banasuva, and complicated buffs to Banasuva's damage.  Banasuva can steal abilities and actions from friendly gamin that are within 8".  The plan is you use the ice gamin' bite of winter to add +1 to frozen heart models' damage profiles.  Later in the turn you activate Banasuva, have him steal frozen heart from the ice gamin, and boom you have a true combat monster. (Thanks to Fog on the forums for pointing this one out at GenCon).  When summoning you've got a great set of options.  "Commands in Wind", "Visions Earth", and "Visions in Flame" makes the lowly ice gamin enough of a threat to incentivize getting hit by the ice grenade.

     Metal gamin, wether you love them or hate them since they were allegedly needed into t certainly serve a purpose in Sandeep's crew.  Turning them into a buff bot with "Commands in Wind" and casting protection of metal paired with going defensive is great.  Either of the immobile upgrades are great for shutting down a zone, and they allow you to use a 16" snipe shot of two damage to constructs by casting magnetism without caring about the push.  When summoned, these guys are great at holding a zone, and Sandeep's upgrades only make them better.

     Now we have the fire gamin.  These guys are probably my favorite choices for an ever so slightly more punchy option.  Increased range on their spit magma means you can get burning onto models from a crazy distance away.  These gamin also punish the opponent for killing them off, so any of the upgrades that buff a zone will put the opponent into a weird position, and I love it.

     Wind gamin are my favorite choice for scheme runners.  They don't really rely on their attacks, so the wind upgrades (go figure!) are great on them.  A wind gamin summoned in on the last round, leaping and interacting to clinch a last minute VP is such a juicy proposition.

     I am not claiming to have unlocked the mysteries of gamin in general, but the poison gamin still leaves me scratching my head a bit.  I'm positive that there are situations where you will want to summon them.  The push at the end of their activation is nice, the extra wound is useful and poison is nice.  That all being said, I still prefer burning to poison as an offensive condition.

     Time for the main attraction.  Banasuva the big blue flaming ball of death is ready to rumble.  Melee expert and a 3/4/5 damage spread with the option for blast damage on a tome, burning on a mask, and the option for +1 damage from ice gamin shenanigans all add up to make this guy an absolute monster.  He can throw height 1 models in the same fashion as the ice golem.  I imagine a magical Christmas dreamland where an ice gamin has set up his buff, Banasuva 0's to gain frozen heart, melee experts his first app to punch something, second ap to punch and finish it off, and third ap to throw the gamin at another model (or two), killing the gamin to trigger an explosion and finish off what it was thrown at.  Lofty goals, I know, but a man can dream.  "Commands in Flame" and "Commands in Earth" are my favorite upgrades for him, but any upgrade that doesn't prevent him from attacking is a solid choice.  Just remember with the earth upgrades you can always use Sandeep's 0 to place him into a better position.

     One last note about these guys.  There are five different little guys that can all work together to summon a big blue superhero.  Each of the little guys is associated with an element (earth, wind, water, fire, and something only vaguely associated with an element heart/poison I'm looking at you).  Where have we seen this before...

Closing

     Again, I am in no way an expert on the game, these are just my observations.  I'd love for the conversation to continue in the comments, let me know if you think I'm full of tuna fish, or if I'm the best thing you've ever heard!  We had a pretty lengthy article on the possible uses of Sandeep's summoning, so no battle report or hobby section this week, but look forward to more as we enter the wild west of wave four.

     If you like what you saw this week make sure to follow me on Twitter @KFinchster, email me at ToBeAnArcanist@gmail.com, or even leave a comment down at the bottom.  Thanks again and I look forward to getting back into the rhythm of things here on the Internet!