With the StarCraft Tabletop Miniatures Game‘s initial wave of starter sets now landing on doorsteps worldwide, fans’ thoughts turn to what comes next for the new smash hit wargame that’s Zerg rushed the scene these past few months. Well, we’re thrilled beyond words to exclusively reveal the future to you, on video, right here, right now!
Archon Studio’s founder and CEO Jarek Ewertowski has joined our Wargamer Direct video showcase for a world first reveal of the stunning miniatures in StarCraft’s Wave Two – along with an exclusive interview, explaining all the terrifying heavy hitters, and even teasing what’s coming after that. We’ve got the down low on all their in-game rules too, right here – but first, feast your eyes on this incredible show:
The reveals don’t stop there – not only can we show you those tasty minis themselves, thanks to support from our friends at Archon, we can tell you exactly how they’re going to carve up the battlefield and change your games.
1. Zerg Ravager
This big, bad, blasting bug is a living artillery piece, and with a healthy four shots and a potent D3+1 Surge against lightly armored opponents, it projects a respectable threat against enemy scouts and footsloggers. But it’s not a dumb beatstick – the Ravager has some surprisingly subtle uses.
Its main ranged attack lobs Corrosive Bile high into the air during the movement phase. You’ll place a marker to indicate where the nasty is going to touch down. Then, when it lands at the end of the assault phase, it deals five hits to any unit within one inch of the marker – two inches, if you purchase the ‘Bloated Bile Ducts’ upgrade.
This lets you turn a specific board area toxic, punishing static Terrans for squatting on an objective, and sneaking damage onto those ever frustrating Hidden Protoss. The ‘Potent Bile’ upgrade makes it even nastier, debuffing your opponent’s armor before they try and survive the hits.
Whereas other Zerg burrow in to protect themselves from enemy shooting, the Ravager prefers to throw out a Ravager Burrow token, which the unit can then teleport to at the end of the round, circumventing enemy screens and changing where they’re threatening to attack. If you want to be able to deploy your Ravager forward up the board, you can give them the Burrow Ambush upgrade familiar from other Zerg units.
And for one more nasty trick, the new Cocoon Tactical Card that debuts with the Ravager has a similar nasty surprise for your opponent: a once per game special ability to morph a friendly Roach into a Ravager. That bug over there? Now it’s a bigger bug!
2. Terran Siege Tank
The Siege Tank is big, to the tune of 14 hit points and the Tough (1) keyword. It’s so big that it isn’t allowed to move through scenery gaps narrower than three inches, so big it will steamroll flat any size 0 and 1 impassable terrain it passes over. It’s also pretty dumb: it’s equipped with an RoA 8 ‘Twin Cannon’ that, with Pierce Armoured 2 and D6 Surge against Armoured units, is going to delete enemy tanks.
It’s being released with the simple and effective Factory (Tech Lab) Tactical Card, with a reliable ‘Field Repair’ healing effect, and the damage-maximizing ‘Pound Em Flat! – this grants a stationary Mechanical unit’s first Ranged weapon attack Precision (2) for superior accuracy.
That’s the basic Siege Tank, but the Mode Transformation upgrade can unlock a whole host of extra abilities. This allows the Siege Tank to enter Siege Mode, morphing from battle tank into static artillery platform. This transforms the tank: it ramps up to size three, loses Tough, and can’t target units it’s engaged with, while the damage characteristic of its weapons ramps up to match the size characteristic of its targets.
Think that sounds dangerous? Well, we’re just getting started. In Siege Mode, the tank has an 18 inch range Shock Cannon which uses a Blast Template and has Surge against both Light AND Armoured units. This massive artillery gun can ignore normal line of sight and range as another friendly unit calls down a Coordinated Strike onto a nearby enemy.
There is some counterplay for your opponent – you’ll declare which unit is spotting for the tank when you activate it during the movement phase, and that unit must be unengaged at that moment, although it may become engaged before the Shock Cannon is fired during the Assault Phase.
Now, if that sounds like all you could possibly want from a gun platform, well, there’s even more. You can further upgrade Siege Mode with two special once-per-game munitions that can be loaded into either gun while braced. You can fire the Shaped Charge even against engaged enemies, and it gets an additional RoA 4. Meanwhile, if your spotting unit gets Zerg rushed, Smart Shells have a 24 inch range and Indirect Fire. Talk about a terrifying firebase…
3. Zeratul
The legendary Dark Prelate, Zeratul, is the most impactful addition in Wave 2, unlocking a whole new way to build armies through the Nerazim faction card. Fittingly for the sinister subculture of the Protoss, this turns the army into a force of lethal assassins. ‘Darkness Descends’ special ability lets you cloak a biological unit with the Hidden status, while the ‘Might of the Nerazim’ reaction lets a Hidden unit decloak explosively, gaining Buff Speed (2) and Critical Hit (2) to deliver a decapitating strike.
Zeratul’s Void Seeker transport appears as a Tactical Card, which can be used either to instantly remove and then redeploy an unengaged ground unit, or grant a unit the Hidden status until it takes another action. If you thought the core set Protoss were, somehow, not evasive enough, Zeratul is doubling down.
Zeratul is also a melee monster. Every model in this article has a big Devastating Charge attack, in most cases because they’re a two hundred ton tank – but Zeratul gets one purely because he has zero chill. His Master Warp Blade has RoA 4, Surge D3 against both Light and Armoured units, damage 2, and makes Instant attacks, preventing any defensive reactions from saving your opponent’s units. When you really need something dead, you can spend one Psionic Energy in the movement phase to give Zeratul Critical Hit (2) against an enemy unit that is ‘Sentenced to Death’- an effect that lasts until the end of the round.
Zeratul is going to bully enemy ranged units. They’ll struggle to shoot him on the way in, because – fittingly for a character whose first model was completely translucent – whenever Zeratul finishes an action, he becomes Hidden. And once he’s stuck in, his repeatable ‘Prophetic Vision’ special reaction grants him Evasion 4+ for as long as you can keep paying the Psionic Energy cost.
Zeratul can be placed six inches thanks to the ‘Blink’ Special Ability, extending his threat and really opening up attack lanes, as well as providing a panic button to get him away from enemy melee troops that might otherwise worry him. And if there is a threat you need to avoid rather than deal with, Zeratul can deploy a ‘Void Prison’ which creates a four inch wide zone of speed debuffs for the enemy.
The Nerazim’s elite variant of the Adept, the Nerazim Watchers, live up to their name – they have an innate passive that strips the Hidden status from enemy units within six inches. Unlike their standard variants, they really can’t be pushed towards melee attacks – with the addition of an extra RoA on their Glaive Cannon and the Pinpoint keyword, they’ll have no trouble shooting themselves or their allies clear from combat.
At this point you might assume that the Watchers also have abilities that allow them to become Hidden, maybe also some way to teleport? You’d be completely right. The Protoss really are the slipperiest faction in the game.
4. Protoss Immortal
If the Siege Tank was a big dumb brute of a tank hunter, then the Protoss Immortal is a big clever brute of a tank hunter. For example, instead of 14 hit points, it’s got eight hit points and six shields – and as long as it’s Shielded, it has a free special reaction to reduce the damage characteristic of an incoming weapon attack to one. Suck on that, Siege Mode.
The Immortal’s basic loadout is a pair of identical Photon Disruptors, each with a respectable RoA 4, long range up to 16 inches, D3 surge against Armoured units, and a very healthy damage two. They do suffer from Concentrated Fire, limiting each gun to a maximum of one kill per Assault phase. Specced like that, the Immortal is a very effective answer to enemy armor, equipped to melt single model units and survive their counterfire, but hamstrung against infantry.
If you want a more generalist weapon, you can upgrade the paired Photon Disruptors to Phase Disruptors, which ditch Concentrated Fire at the expense of losing range. Their basic damage drops to one, but – with Pierce Armoured (3) – this added anti-infantry power doesn’t detract from their ability to take down tanks.
The Phase Disruptors come with two passive abilities that are, frankly, a little disgusting. ‘Fury Unyielding’ grants the Immortal Critical Hit (1) when shooting at an enemy that’s contesting an objective the Immortal is trying to hold; and against enemies at the limits of the Phase Disruptors’ range, ‘For the Ancients’ grants it Precision (1). Nasty.
If you want to double down on the Immortal as a stubborn objective squatting road block, the ‘Shield Overcharge’ upgrade grants a special reaction which gives the Immortal Tough (2) against incoming shots – provided its Shield is intact. Similarly, the Robotics Facility tactical card gives a mechanical ground unit that’s still shielded Tough (1) and Dodge (1). This is going to be an utter bear to shift.
5. Lost Temple Ramp
The final model revealed at Wargamer Direct may not have a rules card, but it’s no less exciting for it. The enormous Lost Temple Ramp is StarCraft’s first official piece of size four terrain – the game’s biggest category, looming 3-4 inches up off the board and blocking line of sight for even the largest units (so far, at least).
Archon CEO Jarek Ewertowski tells Wargamer these chonkier terrain pieces were “one of the biggest requirements from fans, from the beta test we did” – but there’s more to this enormous jungly edifice than fan service. “It might create choke points,” Jarek explains, “and that’s what we want – choke points in StarCraft are very, very important”.
“Just imagine having your marines on top of the ramp itself, and some medics behind them, and waves of zerglings trying to reach them up the ramp, and shooting them constantly!”
And, naturally, this ramp is just the beginning, he says: “Lost Temple is one of my favorite maps from StarCraft, that’s why we started with Lost Temple terrain first – obviously we’re going to be adding more terrain to it.”
Wargamer – Win $200+ of brand new Starcraft miniatures
With that, we’ve come to the end of this stupendous salvo of exclusive reveals for StarCraft (for now) – but don’t go away, because you also have a chance to win EVERY model we showed off here, along with a full two player starter set! All you have to do is enter our giveaway above, by watching the video again (which you should do anyway); and you can get more entries in the prize draw by sharing it with your friends, joining the free Wargamer Discord community, following our social media channels, and more. Get involved now, or the Overmind will swallow you whole…
Source: Wargamer
