Bandit Archer

Seen in: The Black Barrow, The Barrow Lair

Stats

Normal Bandit Archers are one of the most vanilla enemies in the game, while Elites pick up Poison at level 4. Both have considerable range (4+) at every level above 0, with elites having 6 (!) by level 4, far higher than most player’s ranged abilities and at the upper end of a lot of class’ movement.

Cards

The Archer deck (shared with City and Inox Archers) has 4 fairly standard move+attack cards. The more interesting cards are

• Attack+1, Range+1 (68)
• Attack-1, Target 2 (56)
• Move, Attack, create a 3 damage trap (14)
• Move, Attack, Immobilise (29, shuffle)

The first two cards give the players an opportunity to move out of range, although at higher levels this becomes increasingly difficult. They also prevent the archer from moving away to remove disadvantage.

The traps end up being self-defeating a lot of the time. With the number and positioning of archers in some scenarios it’s possible for entire areas to be blocked off with weak traps, and since the traps are dropped right next to the archer the most common victim is the archer herself.

While the immobilise will often amount to nothing we have lost a scenario because of it. At 29 with +1 range it’s relatively fast and can completely mess with plans to get in (or out of) range of a dangerous enemy or of an objective.

Scenario Placement

Despite being the first enemy encountered Bandit Guards are surprisingly rare, being found in only 9 scenarios in the main game. Unlike their melee counterparts they show up in several early campaign scenarios after The Black Barrow giving players more exposure to them.

They tend to be placed in the middle or back of rooms, with their considerable range meaning their damage and annoying abilities are rarely wasted.