Terrifying Tiamat!

She’s here! And scary:

Thanks to Marv Cole for the photos!

Actually, she doesn’t look so bad …

Thanks to Marv Cole for the photos!

Oh, I stand corrected. Actually, I crawl away corrected. She’s huge! Just in case the size difference is still too subtle, here’s one more shot from above:

Thanks to Marv Cole for the photos!

Ok, she’s going to be a very intimidating figure when she’s fielded against your forces. Let’s see what she brings to the table:

Tiamat

She checks in at a gigantic 84 points, easily beating the previous maximum value of 60, set by the dracolich, Maurghoros. She’s also the highest level so far, checking in at 20! Her Primary Weapon attacks are a range 3 Bite in the forward arc and a range 3 Tail attack in the rear arc.

Let’s talk about her stats. First a PMV of 6, which we haven’t seen since Calamity, an Agility of 0, which makes sense for a dragon of her size, 10 Health, and 3 Armor. You’re going to have to bring Upgrades that penetrate armor if you want to hurt this lady, and probably quite a few of them!

Her unique ability is pretty sweet:

Instead of attacking normally, Tiamat may make 2 Bite attacks. If she does so, she rolls -2 attack dice during each attack this round.

So, with no Upgrades, she can charge and perform two 5 dice Bite attacks!

She does get to use Upgrades though, so let’s look at what she can equip. Tiamat comes with 3 Dragon Upgrade slots, 1 Divine Upgrade slot, and 1 Arcane Upgrade slot.

As one might assume from looking at her, Tiamat is a dragon of many flavors. Her card shows the Acid, Cold, Fire, Lightning, and Poison element types. This means she gets a free dodge against each of these elements types! She also comes with Breath Weapons galore, including the cone attacks, Fire Breath, Cold Breath, and Poison Breath and the line attacks, Lightning Breath and Acid Breath.

Five Breath Weapons seems a little silly right. I mean, it’s not like she can equip them all … what’s that, Dragonfly? She can?

Wow. Dragonfly has just pointed out that Tiamat can equip Queen of the Evil Dragons, which costs 5 Legion Points and says:

Your Breath Weapon Upgrades do not count against the total number of Dragon Upgrades that you can equip.

So, after equipping Queen of the Evil Dragons and all 5 of those Breath Weapons, Tiamat can still equip 2 more Dragon Upgrades!

Tiamat is so special she comes with her own reference card. Let’s look at that next.

• For card text purposes, Tiamat is considered a “Red Dragon,” Blue Dragon,” “Green Dragon,” “Black Dragon,” “White Dragon,” and an “Ancient Dragon.” She is also considered to have a “large base.”
• During SetUp for 2 players, Tiamat can be placed anywhere within Range 1 – 3 of her starting edge.
• The “Crush” Upgrade is considered an Area Attack when used against Troops.

So this verifies that Tiamat can equip all those breath weapons without having to pay any extra for them (though it will still cost 35 LP to equip them all)! She is too big to fit in the normal start area, so the rules give her a little more room. Finally we have the Crush Upgrade, which counts as an area attack against Troops. I wonder why …

After you move, if you are in the air and your Creature Base overlaps one or more Creature Bases that are smaller than yours, you may discard this Upgrade to crush those Creatures, ignoring all Creatures of your size or larger. You and the crushed Creatures must remove your altitude tokens, receive Ground Tokens, and then cannot change altitude again for the rest of the round.
Make a 5 Dice Attack against each Creature that you crush, and then move your base backward along the top of the template until it no longer overlaps another Creature. You may still attack normally during the Combat Phase.,

Does that do what I think it does? It looks like Tiamat can basically just drop on other Creatures, including those in the air, knocking them to the ground, preventing them from taking off again, and also making a 5 Dice Attack against each of the Creatures she has overlapped. Keep in mind that she sits on a 6 inch by 6 inch base, so that’s a lot of space to overlap! Keep your Troops away from her!

So, that’s two of the Dragon Upgrades filled, what’s next?

Oh, Poison Tail. That sounds lovely. What’s it do?

You may equip the Deadly Venom Upgrade as if it were a Dragon Upgrade.
Attack: Disable this Upgrade to make a Primary Weapon Tail Attack against a Creature at Range 1 – 3 in your rear arc. Roll +1 attack die during this attack. This attack is considered a [Poison] attack.
Must be Tiamat to equip.

Ok, so don’t get in front of Tiamat and her 2 Bite attacks or get behind her and her 7 Dice Tail attack. Deadly Venom, for those of you who do not remember, adds a Continuous Effect that forces a Creature to turn a random face down Damage Card face up! So if you don’t want to equip Crush, you can add Deadly Venom instead!

We’re out of scary Dragon Upgrades now, but Tiamat also comes with two new spells. First is Power Word Kill, a level 17+ Arcane Spell Upgrade:

Attack: Discard this Upgrade and spend your Target Token to inflict 2 normal damage against 1 Creature at Range 1 – 2 in your forward arc.
The target does not roll defense dice. This attack penetrates Armor.
If the Creature receives lethal damage from this attack, remove it from play immediately.

No dice (attack or defense). Spend your Target Token, discard the Upgrade, and deal 2 damage (unless your armor cannot be penetrated … I’m looking at you, Calamity, and also, sometimes, you, Maleborge). If the damage is lethal, the Creature is removed immediately. No retaliatory strike. Previously, only Maurghoros had the ability to remove a Creature as soon as they did received lethal damage, and it caused a damage to Maurghoros to use that ability.

At level 17, only Tiamat, Maurghoros, and Vakka can cast the spell (so far).

Finally, the last spell is Regenerate, a level 13+ divine spell:

Action: Place 3 [DT] on this Upgrade to bestow the Continuous Effect below on yourself or 1 other non- [Negative] friendly Creature at Range 1 in your forward arc. You cannot attack this round.
Continuous Effect: At the start of end End Phase, the affected Creature may choose to remove 1 face down Damage Card or flip 1 face up Damage Card face down. When this Effect ends for any reason, discard this card.

A new kind of healing for the game, this Upgrade allows you to heal a Creature for up to three damage, removing one damage at the end of each turn for three turns.

So, if Tiamat takes the full kit, she can equip everything she comes with for a grand total of 140 Legion Points! That’s Totally Tiamat (84) + Queen of the Evil Dragons (6) + 5 6LP breath weapons (30) + Crush (6) +Poison Tail (5) + Power Word Kill (5) +Regenerate (5).

A slightly less busy build, with just one breath weapon and the rest of the upgrades except for Queen of the Evil Dragons, puts her at a much more manageable 111 Legion Points. That’s Tiamat’s Taste Test (84) + Poison Breath (or your favorite for 6 LP) + Crush (6) +Poison Tail (5) + Power Word Kill (5) +Regenerate (5).

Or drop Crush and Poison Tail and take 3 Breath Weapons for a total of 112. That’s Triple Threat Tiamat (84) + Acid Breath (6), Fire Breath (6), and Poison Breath (6) + Power Word Kill (5) +Regenerate (5).

(Edited to add the links now that they’re working! Queen of the Evil Dragons functionality coming soon!)