Dangerous Delves, Preview 1

Welcome to the first Dangerous Delves preview! Hopefully, by now, you've gone out and gotten a few of the new Player's Handbook Heroes, Series 1 packs, downloaded the stat cards, and started to flesh out new ideas for warbands.

Many of the stats for Dangerous Delves were originally developed for the Feywild set by Peter Lee (who is co-credited as Lead Designer), with Guild members Stephen Hagan and Michael Domezio contributing additional design and development to the set.

When we first started putting the set together, we decided to keep the strong Feywild theme from its progenitor set, and the final icon—designed by Joel Broveleit for the Guild—is our take on what Feywild's might have been.

You might also notice the new round corners—the print-on-demand service we're using to print our stat cards offers rounded corners on its printed cards, which both help with wear and tear and look better.

It's hard to pick among the figures in this set, but the uncommon Berbalang comes closest to being a "favorite child" for me.

Included in its 40-point cost is mediocre damage output, except for a burst with auto-Dazed. It's hit points are shockingly low—until you see the Berbalang Duplicates power.

As an amalgam of the RPG version's Summon Duplicate, Absorb Duplicate, and Psychic Deflection powers, Berbalang Duplicates allows the Berbalang to absorb damage and keep on ticking, with a free teleport to boot. The secret to using the Berbalang effectively is to manage enemies' attacks on it, and force them to spend "extra damage” on destroying it. Four times.

Peter Lee already previewed the uncommon Yuan-Ti Fangblade, but here you can see its skirmish stats.

The Fangblade is a brute, with all the characteristics you've come to expect from the role—high damage output, low(ish) defenses, high HP, and moderate Attack bonuses. Due to its damage being spread across two attacks, one of which includes ongoing damage (which doesn't stack, of course), the Fangblade is encouraged to seek out help from figures that Immobilize multiple enemies at once.

Its Zehir's Fang is the first glimpse at one of my design directions for this and future sets—encouraging themed warbands. This aura requires the Fangblade's Yuan-Ti brethren to stay nearby, but helps overcome their generally lowish Attacks.

That's it for this week! Next week: Bluuu-d!.