Malady Man

Not all music is pleasing to the ear, and it is with discordant, off-kilter harmonics and an uneven tempo that the Malady Man plays his fiendish instrument. He punishes those who lack conviction and are easily distracted to abandon work or to neglect their wards. Soldiers who stray from watch posts, mothers who let their children wander off, or laborers who stand idly by more than they work, all have been transfixed by the sound of his hand-cranked organ before being torn apart by the deranged monkey that joins him.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Man
  • Template:Officer
  • Template:Combat Caster
  • Template:Hard to Keep a Good Monkey Down
  • Template:Magic Ability
  • Template:Wagon

• Monkey
  • Template:Acrobatics
  • Template:Countercharge
  • Template:Monkey Bite

Weapons

• Man
  • Template:Unarmed

• Monkey
  • Bite - 0.5" reach, POW 3, P+S 8 melee attack

Spells

• Template:Cradle Song
• Template:Desperate Pace
• Template:Something Wicked

Theme Forces

• Template:Bump in the Night. They gain Rise in this theme.
• Template:Dark Menagerie

Thoughts on the Malady Man

Malady Man in a nutshell

Nothing seems more Grymkin than a devilish songster who enchants you with his tunes while his murderous monkey companion bites his way through your infantry. The Malady Man (and his monkey) are a small two-mankey unit that provides some control for you and some spacing problems for your opponent. The Malady Man himself has a bevy of bewitching spells that makes life difficult for your opponent. Also, when needed, he can really turn the dial up to 11 and let the monkey loose, where it goes on a homicidal killing spree. Don't worry, when the monkey finally falls, another pops up next turn. Lastly, he can turn his melody upon his own allies to increase their movement as they rampage across the battlefield towards their enemy with Desperate Pace for Grymkin units.

Grymkin are a melee faction whose biggest weakness is their ability to deliver their models to the enemy’s face intact. There isn’t a single Grymkin unit which does not overwhelmingly benefit from an additional 2” of movement a turn courtesy of Desperate Pace.

Combos & Synergies

• Dread Rots are squishy & slow, but also hard hitting & cheap. They pair particularly well with the Malady Monkey (Monkey Man?) as the Monkey can effectively deal with the softer, harder to hit targets while the Dreads deal with the harder, but much easier to hit ones.
• Piggybacks have always needed a goodly amount of support, and now those support options have just gotten better! Literally the only thing Pigs need to be worth their points is to be an additional couple inches up the table. Desperate Pace is so relevant to their impact on the board, it might even be worth calling Pigs + Malady Man the best combo in Grymkin (perhaps even better than Skin & Moans + Death Knell).

Drawbacks & Downsides

• While the Malady Man himself has some resistance to shooting thanks to the Wagon rule, he is still a large base with middling stats and will get sniped by anything which can boost. Once he's dead, the utility of the monkey drops dramatically.
• Likewise, the monkey can be removed from game. This prevents its respawning, and effectively removes all the direct output of the unit. This scenario is especially crippling into similarly slow & bulky armies (such as in the mirror), as the relevance of Desperate Pace declines dramatically later in the game.
• The Malady Man & Monkey is a 6 point unit which can be taken for free, you are unlikely to be spending points on these guys. This means they take up a free slot which could be used on something else, such as Lord Longfellow or one of the attachments. This is less a problem for the Malady Man and more for other options in your list; including a full FA of 2 Maladies Man result in fast but samey lists.

Tricks & Tips

• The Malady Man is a great scoring option for Dark Menagerie lists, whose only other unit option is Dread Rots. Their ability to act as scoring pieces actually improves when only one member remains, as they are still technically a unit. If this is only the Monkey, it can be trivial to contest & score round zones as it is very easy to block a small base.
• Countercharge on the Monkey can be used to block charge lanes. This is especially relevant for 1" reach medium bases, a well placed Monkey can block two-three models from meaningfully engaging.
• Don't be afraid to send the Monkey right into the enemy. His -hit aura works on things which are engaging him making him especially annoying for gargantuans or 2" reach living heavies.
• The Monkey can be used in conjunction with a unit of Mad Caps to efficiently generate corpses for Grave Ghouls. This is most relevant on turn 1, when Countercharge & Monkey's Paw are unlikely to do anything. See the Grave Ghoul page for an explanation of how the combo works.

Other

Trivia

Released at Adepticon (2019.03)