Welcome back the Hiring Post.  Today we’re going to look at a member of the Demon faction that’s worth your time looking at.  We’re going to take a look at Foulques the Black.

Folques the Black is a 26-point Indepedent for the Demon faction.  He is, at first glance, very, very, slow with Movement of only 3.  He  has semi-solid combat stats  -Combat of 5, Protection of 2.  Sadly his Defense is only 3, and his 9 Life aren’t going to keep him alive for very long.

He’s got four skills that do make him more survivable than his stats suggest, however.

Defensive Combat:  This lets Foulques the Black “buy down” enemy Combat scores by lowering his own.  He can severely reduce the risk of being creamed by enemy heavy hitters by spending up to 4 of his Combat to lower their scores by 4 as well.

Man-At-Arms: This lets Foulques the Black force opposing models to re-roll up to 1 Combat die per turn.  Particularly useful after you’ve used Defensive Combat to reduce them to a single die, most opponents will cringe when their lone hit has to be re-rolled.

Protective:  This means that Foulques does not lose his control area, no matter how many enemies are attacking him.  This ability is sort of a trap – you don’t really want Foulques fighting multiple foes unless they are supremely weak and/or already near death.

Ricochet: Foulques, after reducing enemy Combat dice with Defensive Combat, and forcing them to re-roll a hit with Men-At-Arms still isn’t finished with the cruelty.  Ricochet deals 1 damage to anyone who manages to get a damaging hit on him.  Literally injury to insult.

So clearly Foulques the Black is a very tricky and potentially aggravating model to deal with.  Still, many opponents will still underestimate him because of his baseline stats aren’t all that frightening.  Now it’s time to take a look at his order, Hostile Surgery.  Our friend Foulques is a bit of an amateur surgeon, and when enemy models is killed within 8 fathoms of him, it makes him…well… excited.  +1 Movement, +2 Combat, +1 Defense and +1 Faith, in fact, bringing him from “not great” to “a lot more threatening”.  Plus his innate skills just get that much better with 7 Combat to play with.  And all for something you were going to do anyway – killing enemy models.

His Handsaw is the icing on the cake.  Remember how Foulques the Black only has 9 Life?  The Life Drain ability on his Handsaw is how he can best keep himself alive.  And look at the power curve – even when he reduces himself to 1 Combat die through Defensive Combat, he can still manage to score Life Drain 2 if he gets a single hit, thus stealing back 2 Life Points.   Foulques now has the ability to frustrate even the best Combat-score opponents, dragging them down to Combat 1 or 2, and then forcing them to reroll a hit each turn – all the while he is carving into them, 2-3 Life Points a turn, and healing himself on top of it.

Foulques the Black.  Be afraid of the Demon in Black.

That’s all for this episode.  See you next time when it’s time to talk more Saracens.

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