Role Call Arc: Early Game Crimson Scabs (Off-Tank/Bruiser)

Required Elements:

• Crimson Crocodile

• Survivalism

Optional Elements

• Faceism

• Deadism

• Lanternism

This build is based around one of my favourite new armors, the Crimson Armor from the Crimson Crocodile (Gambler's Chest Expansion). With these builds I'm going to try and stick to as few monsters as possible for the moment because it's a lot simpler to put things together with just the baseline generic gear that's always available and the given monster. I will at times add in the occasional element from other monsters if there are slots for it and I'll eventually cover more complex multi-monster builds further down the line, but as always I like to construct a very solid foundation and first floor because the principles that are strong in the early part of the game remain strong for the rest of the campaign.

Crimson Scabs are an Off-Tank/Bruiser type of survivor, the Off-tank (or Bruiser as I prefer to call them and will be doing so for the rest of this article) are a hybrid damage/tank survivor who can take either a tanking or damage dealing role depending on what the demands of the showdown are in a given round. There are a LOT of benefits to specialising in this game, because if you focus fully on one thing (damage, soaking damage, dancing) then you can be exceptionally good at that. Still, there are also benefits to being a bit more flexible, you are able to step up to plug whatever gap is needed at the time.

Crimson Scabs are exceptionally good at both of these roles, but they are also walking a tightrope over one form of “instant” death in bleed tokens. Crimson Armor has a set bonus that lets you gain 5 armor points (1 to each location) per bleeding token you have. A Crimson Armor survivor's bleed limit is 6 thanks to the armor, so that means it is possible to push yourself to 5 bleed tokens, hit the set bonus activation to gain 25 extra armor points and then clear out the bleeding to a more manageable level. This does take a bit of time to sort out, it's at least two activations; one for the extra armor and one for the first bandage application so you don't die to a simple Bleed 1 attack. But once set up you don't need to go reapplying these armor points for the rest of the showdown.

It's also possible against higher bleed monsters like The Butcher, to let the monster drop the bleed onto you during the fight and then gain the armor points when you've pushed things as far as you are willing. So that's the first big benefit a Crimson Scab has, they've got a huge amount of potential armor points which can make them incredibly difficult for the first selection of monsters in a campaign to get through.

The second benefit we have is located on the Crimson Helm and it is the Mindlock 1 ability. Mindlock is a “fire and forget” form of protection which can almost be thought of as “Deflect for Brain Damage”. This ability not only softens Intimidates, but it also has a strong protective interactions for survivors with Torment. Torment and Systemic Pressure are two of the balancing costs involved in Arc Survivors; with each point of Torment providing a -1 to Brain Trauma rolls, thereby increasing the chances of you dying. Mindlock stops this happening via Brain Damage, as long as we take the time to apply a Mindlock token when one is lost we get to not worry about that. (Note some monsters like The Manhunter have such a high amount of incidental brain damage that the Mindlock is not as effective due to the cost of reapplying it so often). We'll see one of the benefits of this (in combination with the extra armor points) when we get to the Knowledges.

The final aspect of Crimson Armor is a less unique one, and that is much like almost all of the monster based armor sets it offers an ability that allows you to “attack like the monster does”. In this case it is the Immortal Spin on the Crimson Dress, an attack that mimics how Crocodiles “death roll” their prey and how the Crimson Crocodile rolls from side-to-side. This like almost all “monster movement” abilities has you moving in a particular way (3 spaces forward in this case) before making an attack with a melee weapon at +1 strength per bleeding token. Most monster movement abilities use this same template with thematic variations, due to the limitations in the movement portion of these abilities Reach X melee weapons are the optimal ones to use if you want to make use of all parts of the armor set.

So with that analysis of Crimson Armor completed, we can see that we have three aspects to lean into; bleeding tokens, Mindlock and the Immortal Spin. So let us get onto the gear.

The main grid I've laid out covers the elements mentioned above; we have a way to generate bleeding (Blood Compass Lantern) a way to clean up bleeding tokens when they get too high (Bandages) and a Crimson Crocodile weapon that is both Reach X and has bleeding synergies (Bloodglass Longsword). In addition I've got the Monster-Tooth Necklace here because it's a great way of extending the lifespan of the Longsword by pushing it to 5 strength (higher when spinning) and because it activates the puzzle ability of the Longsword, meaning you don't have to worry about losing Honed 3 if you hit a super-dense hit location.

Our flex options on the side bar lean into a few other alternative weapon choices and some classic staples. The Crimson Pearls let us run as a Fist & Tooth survivor with great ease, the Bone Club may not have reach (honestly it looks like it should), but it appreciates the fact that you can move and attack with it via the Immortal Spin. The Counterweighted Axe is a classic staple that has good stats along with Reach 2 (Greater Gaxe from the Gorm is another variant of this weapon) and the Diamond Scab Katars are here because you can get them very early in the campaign via the hunt event and Crimson Armor activates their puzzle ability cleanly.

Monster Grease is listed because of how it works well when stacked with Evasion Training + Survival of the Fittest and with the First Aid Kit (Barber Surgeon) you can build a gear grid that has three green affinities with great ease. Allowing you to lean more into evasion and perhaps even become just a straight up tank rather than a bruiser. The First Aid Kit is here because of the above synergy and because it is a great alternative to the Bandages even if it isn't as efficient at removing bleeding.

When we get to our knowledges, the best option we have is straight up good-old Survivalism; Faceism is a decent secondary option and you could even use Dreamism in a PotDream campaign, but the key thing is the armor loadout is a flexible base for almost any direction. You can also run this on a Deadism survivor, but that's a little awkward because Deadism survivors tend to want to take Brain Traumas and survive them rather than not take Brain Traumas in the first place. However, if what you want is to gain ranks in order to unlock the protective Deadism knowledges (and Dark Eye) it is a solid option even if it is counterintuitive.

I've got a few “packages” sitting in the Knowledge section; Unyielding is there because of how powerful it is when you have a lot of armor points; likewise Death Sense is useful when you're both attacking and defending. This is all similar to the Rawhide Tank's reasons for using them.

Evasion Training and Demagogue are where we deviate from the rawhide design because we can use Mindlock to overcome the torment and Crimson Armor can generate so many extra armor points that losing 2 armor on the legs is not as bad as it is for Rawhide. It's always interesting how a card like Evasion Training which you'd avoid for a traditional tank can become useful for a different build. These are the kind of Knowledges I always find fascinating and engaging, they're not automatic picks, they're situational ones. I love situational picks.

Stone Wrecker is not on the build but it is once again an option. This for the same reasons as it was with Rawhide, have enough Physiognomy (and Gatherism) survivors generating extra terrain cards and you can lean on running a Stone Column for your weapon (the Stone Column also has Reach 2, perfect). This is especially interesting for Fist & Tooth variants as they can afford to leave an empty slot in the gear grid and have something to do if they whiff on finding a pillar or break it.

The Crimson Crocodile Monster Knowledge Blood Dancer is a natural fit, because it is automatically unlocked with Collective Cognition Advancement and it turns bleeding into strength, many monster knowledges are like this and you'll see them turn up in builds where they have been release. Dark Eye and Desperate Strike are both options if you are running a weapon with other Perfect Hit triggers such as the Counterweighted Axe(Greater Gaxe) or the Diamond Scab Katars, Also look, it's a Crimson Crocodile in Dark Eye II's artwork!

Finally we have a slightly more awkward but interesting collection to put together; this takes advantage of Lanternism's “Ghostzerker” knowledge in combination with the amount of Bleeding Tokens that Crimson Scabs tend to have. With Ghostzerker each bleeding token and the Mindlock token all also count as Death Tokens, so we can use them with an offensive pay off like Light Warrior to generate a lot of extra strength of our next attack, or do heavy Hit Location control with Light Whisperer.

You can't have Ghostzerker + both of these onto the same build without help from either the Romantic or Ambitionism philosophies because there's only two slots for non-tenet knowledges normally. However Survivalism's Tenacity (and Dreamism's Guardian) both generate tokens themselves that the Ghostzerker can use. Red Fist SFA is also given away during Lanternism's advancements, so we can also make use of that, meaning a Lanternism Survivor is a fine alternative to a Survivalism one.

So that's the Crimson Scab build, hopefully this has given you some ideas beyond what I've listed here, because there are now so many options that you can put together a lot of different combinations and expand further beyond that when Tier 2 and Tier 3 Philosophies begin to get unlocked.