In Clay's last post, he told us why he had chosen the Enlightened faction.
So, now we're all ready, let's get started on specific models; the bosses!
Dr. Carpathian
Alright, the big man himself. Let me start this by saying that I might have a slight bias toward Carpathian as he is my favourite and go-to boss for Enlightened. This is understandable as he is everything the faction is, wrapped into one model.
His stats are pretty good overall; he's moderately fast, a good shot, and has decent armour. His Physical ability isn't great but he doesn't want to be anywhere near a brawl anyway. One of his outstanding stats is his influence of 5. That's a huge number and is currently one of the highest influence stats in the game. Most models bring maybe 2 with many bosses having 3. So straight off the bat when making a posse you already have an influence advantage, and that can really help your chances at success. Next are his weapons.
Carpathian is armed with a very useful and powerful gun and has a last-ditch effort melee attack. The main attraction of his weapons is, of course, the Atomic Blunderbuss which has an OK range of 24 but packing a fantastic pow and a huge AoE (Area of Effect). In addition, it carries the very deadly Irradiate attribute as well as thermite rounds. So this gun hits a wide area and hits like a truck, even the toughest models can be easily brought down when caught in this thing's blast. If someone does manage to survive the initial hit, chances are good that they will succumb to radiation when they try and activate. Due to this, and the huge blast radius of the weapon, it's usually a good idea to just try and hit as many models as possible when choosing targets. Unless there is an important target that you really want that power 12 thermite on, you can easily horribly mangle tonnes of models and spread around radiation and ensure that most won't be getting back up, or if they do they won't be around much longer.
While, more often than not, using the Blunderbuss is the best choice when making a shoot action, sometimes you really need an enemy to not be able to use any of those fancy RJ toys they might be carrying. This is where the useful little Ion Pistol comes in very handy. It's fairly short range and has an alright pow. The reason to use it is the Interference attribute which will cause all and any weapons with RJ-1027 on the hit enemy to not be allowed to be used on that models next activation. So, in a pinch, it can stop a rampaging Jesse James cold in his tracks. Finally, Carpathian has his Steel Fist, which if you're using this then things have gone very wrong. As a slight perk, it has decent pow and has stun so it can help Carpathian survive melee long enough for someone to come get him out.
The main ability, on Carpathians card to look at is Infernal Reanimation. This is one of the biggest reasons I use Carpathian more than other bosses that are currently available. It allows the Enlightened to bring dead models back to action and allows you to be a lot more aggressive with your big bruiser animations since you know you can very likely get them back into the fray without much trouble. Beyond this, he also has his two defence abilities; Steel Skin and Radioactive Presence. Steel Skin lets him excel at his backfield shooting role by making him a very impressive armour 4 when shot. Radioactive Presence lowers enemy strikes and chances of hitting in melee so they have a harder time taking the Doc out in that way.
So there he is. He is very straight forward; he likes to shoot his big nasty gun and reanimate models to help you with attrition. He's defensive at range and has some defence for melee though it's not the best. He is the definitive Enlightened leader type mode and, because of this, he is almost always my go-to Boss to lead my army of abominations.
F.R Caym
F.R Caym is another great boss and a lot of fun to boot. His stats are very similar to Carpathian with one minor change, the influence of 4. Caym is armed with quite a few weapons such as his Atomic Slug Launchers and his Cursed Dagger. The slug launchers are his primary weapon of choice and are very potent in their own right. While not outright powerful, like his Uncle's Blunderbuss, the slugs have a very lovely RoF 2 with 3" AoEs. This means that Caym can place 4 AoEs with a single shoot action and possibly deal some moderate damage straight out with the pure hitting power. However, the main draw is that they also have Irradiate, and those AoEs can just saturate the enemy with the stuff. It won't be blowing up huge chunks of stuff but being able to irradiate the entire enemy posse with little trouble is huge.
The Cursed Dagger is usually only used if, somehow, Caym gains interference or if you decide to jump into melee. Another key weapon is Caym's Smoke Grenades, which of course can greatly help models (such as Caym himself) hide from incoming fire. Caym can easily move up, dispense irradiated pain, and then hide behind a cloud of smoke. Or throw a few bombs to help cover the advance of his creations and other friendly models.
His abilities are another very interesting aspect. The major thing you'll notice is his Rocket Pack ability, which really lets him manoeuvre around the board easily. Combined with his flight ability he can spend 2 AP to jet ANYWHERE within 15", which can easily get him out of harms way or into prime firing position. Wing Strike is a cool bonus action where he can attempt to cut off a model's head with his jet pack. It's a way to get a pretty potent melee attack on a single model and is great to catch an opponent off guard.
Blurred Target is always nice on a mobile model as it can help keep them from getting gunned down (as they tend to always move to activate it) and Father of Hellions is a great way to bring cheaper Hellions to your posse. Caym is a fast and deadly boss and loves to have a fast and deadly posse. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the ability to reanimate any dead models so his posse does need to be mindful of how often they will get shot. But, overall, Caym is able to dart around the board and get to where he needs to in order to spread Irradiate and Smoke Grenades.
He can turn any Enlightened posse he leads into a super aggressive flying circus.
Countess Byron
Countess Byron is a new model yet to be released, so this is all based on her card without any gameplay to back it. That said, she looks to be a very potent Boss and fits in just fine with the last two bosses covered.
The Countess has similar stats to Caym and Carpathian, except she is better at melee, and has a low influence of 2. But she has more armour and strikes placing her as the first front line melee boss I have covered. Her weapons are pretty intense as she has her Galvanic Discharge and her Manicured Claws. Her ranged attack, the Galvanic Discharge, is fairly short ranged but is a 9" shotgun template so, if you can line it up right, you can easily shock multiple enemies at once. This thing hits like a truck, pow 15 is one of the highest in the game, and to really make sure they've learned their lesson it also causes stun AND interference! Anyone who survives the attack will be severely hampered on their next turn, which gives the Countess plenty of time to saunter up and tear people apart with her manicured claws. At pow 10 with Infected Blade they are a very solid melee attack. Cementing the Countess as a front line bruiser.
Now, what about her other abilities?
Well, to start it off she is the second boss to have Infernal Reanimation meaning, like Carpathian, she can hang out with a bunch of animations and bring them back to fighting shape rather easily. And speaking of animations, the Countess is one herself! So not only can she bring back the dead but she herself can be brought back! This means she can really get up into the thick of things and just go berserk. Other than those two main abilities she also has Fear which causes her to force courage checks to enemies close to those she rips to shreds, and her two other interesting abilities.
Electric Shield and Static Charge are both very nice to have if not a little hard to truly capitalise on. Electric Shield allows the Countess to spend AP if she did not move to gain a bonus 2 armour bringing her to a massive 5. In addition, Static Charge causes any enemy to move into her halo to take a physical ability test of her zapped with a pow 10 fire stun hit. They are handy but mostly if the Countess can get into a good area to just shoot her Galvanic Discharge a lot and not worry about being gunned down. Also, if she is in a good spot it can force enemies to take inconvenient measures to avoid getting shocked by her shield.
So the Countess is going to load up on big nasty animations to charge the enemy with and from there just rip her enemies to pieces or shock them dead. She's durable enough and can hit extremely hard making her the perfect boss for someone who wants to have a very brawler focused list.
Gustav Eiffel
Eiffel is a model I do not own but that's more of a personal preference than anything else. Before Countess Byron graced us with her presence, Eiffel was our melee boss. He's fast, he's durable, and he can deal some pretty hefty damage.
First off, his quickness is an astonishing 8, and he is quite capable with booth melee and shooting. He also has great armour and health. His ranged weapons are the Web Launcher and Spider Cannon. Both have a moderate pow and some helpful attributes like tangle and stun. These are helpful as they make models Eiffel is approaching unable to fight him off as he engages them in melee where he really excels.
For melee weapons, he has the Mechanical Mandible and Steel Legs. The Mandibles are again a moderate pow 8 but Infected Blade brings them up to very solid damage output. And his Steel Legs are a monstrous armour piercing 12. For the most part anything he reaches in melee he should be able to put down without much trouble.
His abilities are where he goes astray from a boss that I personally would want to use when I make a posse.
He has thick skinned which is really great, for him, as he becomes armour 5 against melee attacks. He has Sure Foot so he never gets slowed down by terrain or even falling off things. He has Run Down which ensures he can stay engaged with anyone he gets his claws into, Fear to disrupt surrounding enemies when he kills a model in melee, and, finally, Army of One which is interesting in that if he is the last remaining model of your posse he now has 4 AP rather than his usual 3. So, as you can see, all his abilities just make him a big nasty melee machine. Which is great! But his lack of Infernal Reanimation is unfortunate and does play into his Army of One ability. My biggest reason for not including Eiffel in my preferred bosses is mostly that he doesn't offer anything to his posse outside just being a big melee threat.
That said, he is not a bad choice by any means. You can load up your posse with abominations and other pricey melee models to throw at the enemy like missiles and hope they can take out some models and die. If all your models die off, Eiffel becomes even more dangerous so he will make a lot of use of the TNT rule many of our smaller constructs have. He is even more straight forward than Carpathian, but sometimes you just want to crush the world in a giant metal spider machine.
Virgil Earp
Virgil Earp is a very odd duck.
He's in the unfortunate spot of being similar to Carpathian but also being overshadowed. His stats are solid all across the board. He's good at range and melee, brings decent influence, and is pretty durable. His weapons are The Gift, a UR-30 Blaster, Gas Grenades, and his Iron Fist. First off, The Gift is very similar to the Atomic Blunderbuss, it's a little weaker but shoots two 3" AoEs which can affect the same amount of models as Carpathian. However, since it lacks Irradiate it's still a solid gun but isn't on the level as the Blunderbuss. The UR-30 Blaster is a solid short range side arm if you choose not to use The Gift. The Gas Grenades are very impressive being a 5" AoE with Irradiate and Poison but are hindered by their short range. His Iron Fist is a good melee choice but seems like a final option more than a standard attack.
Virgil's abilities are also very interesting. He has Enlightened Echelon, which gives him bonus armour when he moves and is in base contact with a friendly Enlightened model. He also has Mindless Puppets which lets him bring UR-30 Lawbots with him and grants them Enlightened Echelon so they can hang out together and get armour bonuses. He also has 9 Lives which can keep him around with some lucky rolls.
My biggest issue with Virgil, and why I never play him, is that he is essentially still a Lawmen model, just placed into Enlightened. He doesn't have any abilities that help other Enlightened models and, although his own attacks are good, he fills a similar role to Carpathian but doesn't have reanimation or the better gun. However, he's a cheap option if you want more points available for other stuff. He's a good option but not one of my favourites.
Legendary Dr Carpathian
Legendary bosses are powerful, but they have a hefty price tag. Dr Carpathian is certainly a fine example of this, as he is now a walking death machine.
His stats are very similar to his non-legendary version, yet he is now faster, more armoured, and brings more influence.
His weapons are also very similar as far as his gun is concerned, it is identical to the Blunderbuss but with a longer range. The biggest change to Carpathian is that he now has two very deadly melee attacks; Steel Legs and Massive Claw. The legs have a shorter range and have a very potent pow of 12 with armour piercing. Yet his massive claw is the scarier of the two as it has a longer reach, and is a massive pow 14 to boot. Regular Carpathian prefers to not be engaged with enemy models but Legendary Carpathian has no issue with it at all, and even relishes the idea.
His abilities are again very similar, he keeps Steel Skin which is amazing with his standard armour of 4, so anything that shoots him has to try and get through the outrageous armour 6! He also still has Radioactive Presence which makes him even more of melee beast as that slight melee hinderance can make his enemies really have a bad time. The big switch is that he loses Infernal Reanimation, but gains a far better version. His Enhanced Reanimation, is a once per game thing, but you just pick 6 Animation models and put them within 6" of Carpathian and at 5 Lifeblood! You can push your monsters to their limit knowing that the doctor can just bring them back no questions asked! His other ability (Visions of Perfection) lets him kill models and then use the dead bodies to place abominations into play free of charge.
Legendary Carpathian does everything the non-legendary does but has the ability to rip anything to pieces. So if you want to have yourself game with Carpathian but want the added aspect of stomping his way across the board and just be a beast, this is the way to go. Keep in mind that he is expensive so you might have a smaller posse, and chances are you'll be facing another Legendary boss on the other side.
And this brings and end to the bosses. Next up: Underbosses!