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hammerklak:start

Hammerklak

Leading a force of ravenous and destructive creatures from below the soil, Hammerklak is considered a leader of a group referred to, for obvious reasons, as Subterrans. Resembling moles in aspect and methodology, yet utterly brutal and with no regard for the natural world, Hammerklak has proven to be a menace as great as Rogzor or Gorghadra. Able to tunnel with unnatural alacrity and emerging to destroy his foes, Hammerklak has a fierce temper, and few can withstand his drills during his berserk rages.


Destroyers - This model may be played in any list with the Destroyers agenda

Faction - Subterran Uprising

Model Type - Monster

Special Rules

Alpha

Action: Sprint - During this models Activation, this model can spend one Action Die to perform a Sprint action. Advance this model up to three spaces, even if it has already advanced this turn.

Cloak - This model cannot be targeted by blast attacks made by a model more than two spaces away.

Crunch - When you roll a super strike on an Action Die on one of this monster's attack rolls, that attack does super damage.

Side Step - If this model is missed by an attack, after the attack is resolved this model can advance up to three spaces.

Tunneler -Other allied models that begin an advance within two spaces of this model gain High Mobility during that advance.

HP SPD DEF High Mobility
10 ⇒ 6 7 8 Yes
Attack Type RNG Dice Weapons Rules
Brawl 6 + 4
Power 6 + 4

Hyper

Action: Sprint - During this models Activation, this model can spend one Action Die to perform a Sprint action. Advance this model up to three spaces, even if it has already advanced this turn.

Crunch - When you roll a super strike on an Action Die on one of this monster's attack rolls, that attack does super damage.

Energy Cycle - If you roll two or more Action Dice on an attack made by this model and the attack hits an enemy model, after the attack is resolved you can move one Action Die from your Unit Pool to your Monster Pool.

HP SPD DEF High Mobility
5 ⇒ 0 7 9 Yes
Attack Type RNG Dice Weapons Rules
Brawl 9 + 6 Power Gorge - When this attack destroys an enemy model, you gain one additional Power Die.
Power 9 + 6 Power Gorge - When this attack destroys an enemy model, you gain one additional Power Die.

Strategy

Hammerklak has two core strengths that make up the backbone of his gameplan: he's blisteringly fast with his base seven speed and Action: Sprint, and every attack he makes has a 17% chance or better to randomly do Super Damage with Crunch. The benefits of these capabilities are twofold. First, it allows Hammerklak to put on a great deal of offensive pressure. Because you can move ten spaces using only one action die to Sprint and can incidentally accrue free extra points of damage throughout the game, you almost always have a line in on any monster that isn't screened on all four sides, regardless of where they are on the board. This additionally has the psychological benefit of pressuring the opponent; even if you're unlikely to Crunch on every attack they need to respect the potential for you to do so, and play to their breakpoints as if you are guaranteed to get it or run the risk of being blown out.

The downside to Hammerklak is that aside from some additional dice efficiency, his hyper plays more or less identically to his alpha. He still has the 7 speed, Sprint, and Crunch, but while that kit is very scary in the early game, when it runs long and Hammerklak is in the 1v1 home stretch it doesn't measure up to some of the more consistent hyper forms in the meta. Because of this, it behooves you to play as aggressively as possible. You want to get into the action fast, do as much damage as possible, and then get destroyed and get out of the way for your partner to clean up and close things out. Destruction Junction is a fantastic map for Hammerklak for this strategy, with its open layout, high number of midfield doubles, and lack of screening pockets, you can pretty consistently put an opposing monster into a double collision on your first monster activation from second position, especially if Hammerklak is backed up by a partner with power generation capabilities like Demolisher or Rampager.

Finally, here are some important numbers to keep in mind. These are your odds of successfully triggering Crunch at each action die total:

Attack Dice Odds to Hit
1 16.67% (1/6)
2 30.56% (11/36)
3 42.13% (91/216)
4 51.77% (671/1296)
5 59.81% (4651/7776)
6 66.51% (31031/46656)
7 72.09% (201811/279936)
8 76.74% (1288991/1679616)
9 80.62% (8124571/10077696)

As you can see, even if you're throwing the maximum number of allowed action dice and eating up your whole turn 'fishing' for a Crunch trigger, you're still only going to get the activation roughly 4/5s of the time. It's important to not assume you can rely on Crunch to close out a game, but rather appreciate it as a nice bonus when it happens. You're better off planning turns as if the rule didn't exist and throwing attacks with standard dice distributions and getting the super damage on 2-3 attacks per game than taking suboptimal turns in an attempt to improve your odds. Just let RNGesus take the wheel. Live by the Crunch, Die by the Crunch.

List Building

Listbuilding for Hammerklak is mostly straightforward, he doesn't ask for any sort of unit or building skew so he can be inserted into most pairing without much stress. His unique Tunneler special rule allows him to grant high mobility to any allied model, including monsters, that begin their advance within two spaces of him, which may be synergistic for certain pedestrian partners, but its limited range makes it difficult to take advantage of beyond the first turn.

Rules Interactions

Because Swat power attacks are two separate, discreet attacks that use the same dice in play, each half of a swat will independently fire special rules and triggers. This means that if Hammerklak is in hyper and he performs a swat with two action dice, Energy Cycle will trigger twice, returning both dice spent to your monster pool.

hammerklak/start.txt · Last modified: 2023/05/26 16:34 by tekkactus