Court of the Seven Headed Serpent Beginner's Guide

A crash course in Court's calculating and controlling playstyle.

The Court of the Seven Headed Serpent ("Court") is the weirdest faction in Trench Crusade. Other factions are playing XCOM, while you are playing a puzzle game. You will often deprioritize scenario objectives in favor of keeping your Elites on the board and taking enemy models Out of Action.

This guide assumes you've read the rulebook and Warbands of Trench Crusade, and understand the game's rules. It is not a full campaign guide or comprehensive strategy guide, just a quick primer with a few common builds and strategies.

Core Mechanics

Court models have Goetic Powers, which cost Blood Markers to use. You can use Blood Markers from any model on the entire board that does not have the DEMONIC or BLACK GRAIL keywords. This includes friendly Wretches, most enemy models, and in some scenarios non-player models.

You need a steady supply of Blood Markers to fuel your Goetic Powers. There are three basic strategies:

Blood Batteries

Blood Batteries generate Blood Markers by having Yoke Fiends directly torture Wretches.

Equip a Yoke Fiend with a Torture Instrument. Deploy the Yoke Fiend next to a Wretch hiding behind a line-of-sight blocking terrain piece near your edge of the board. On every turn, use the Yoke Fiend's Torture Instrument to hit the Wretch and hope you add two Blood Markers.

This is safe (you are unlikely to kill the Wretch) but only generates a small amount of Blood Markers and wastes two models' worth of Ducats doing nothing in the back of the board. To generate enough Blood Markers, you'll probably need two Blood Batteries, ideally in different parts of the board to make it harder for the enemy to kill them both.

Hotbox

The Hotbox generates Blood Markers by hitting a group of Wretches with a Gas Grenade.

Equip a Yoke Fiend with a Muzzle and Gas Grenades. Deploy it near 3-4 Wretches huddled together behind a line-of-sight blocking terrain piece near your edge of the board. On every turn, throw a Gas Grenade at the ground in between the Wretches. It should generate a lot of Blood Markers, but with a small chance of killing some of the Wretches.

This is the most effective and reliable way to gain Blood Markers, though you'll have to pay for replacement Wretches if any die. The Hotbox is also a juicy target for the enemy to kill many models at once.

Remember, your opponent can spend Blood Markers from your Wretches to add +D to Injury Rolls or convert them to Bloodbath Rolls, so spend all your Blood Markers on a Wretch before throwing another grenade at them. You might need to reposition Wretches to set up the next grenade.

Shotwretches

Instead of buying Yoke Fiends, buy shotguns for your Wretches and use them as frontline screening infantry. Hope they score some Blood Markers on the enemy or at least gain some of their own. You can use them to block charges, try to score lucky hits, and if you get really lucky you might get some kills.

This is the riskiest way to get Blood Markers, but it's a lot more fun than parking them in the back of the board.

Key models

Most Court lists revolve around the "Unholy Trinity": A Praetor, a Hunter, and a Sorceror. These three models are individually like mini-bosses, and together they form the core of your warband.

Praetor

Huge, fast, hits like a truck.

Good equipment choices:

Hunter

Possibly the most powerful single model in the game. Absurd, borderline game-breaking mobility with Left Hand Path and Shadow Walker. Great survivability, assuming you can fuel Oracle Beast Cloak with Blood Markers.

However, make one or two mistakes with the Hunter, and you'll probably lose the game. The Hunter activations are your most critical moments in every game.

Do NOT ever send the Hunter into a risky situation without enough Blood Markers in reserve to use Oracle Beast Cloak.

Good equipment choices:

Sorceror

A support model that can use the Cast Spell ACTION to harass and control the field.

Good equipment choices:

Hell Knight

Versatile, all around good combat model. Focus each one on either ranged or melee, don't try to do both well with the same model.

Wretch

Your source of Blood Markers. Give them a trench knife unless you're running a Shotwretch list.

Yoke Fiend

Equip as required for your Blood Marker generation strategy. In later campaign stages you can use them as combat units with Muzzles and Flamethrowers, with extra movement from Slavemaster. But in early campaign/one-offs, the money is better spent on the ELITE models.

Desecrated Saint

Only take a Desecrated Saint if you need a specific aura for your build. Otherwise, the money is better spent on powering up the Unholy Trinity and Hell Knights.

If you do take a saint, fill his arms with melee weapons (probably Swords and a Hellblade).

Pit Locust

A cool model, but it costs too much. Invest in Hell Knights instead - you get more for your money.

If for some reason you get one, be sure to grab the Crown of Hellfire.

Mercenaries

There aren't any obvious must-have Mercenaries for the Court in 1.0.1, so pick up whatever seems cool. Sin Eater or Goetic Warlock or Scripture Guardian might be neat choices.

Seven Deadly Sins

Pick the sin that sounds fun to play:

Playing the Game

In a campaign game, your goals are always:

  1. Do not let any Elite model get taken Out of Action.
  2. Do not let any Elite model get taken Out of Action.
  3. Do not let any Elite model get taken Out of Action.
  4. Kill the enemy.
  5. Maybe do some objectives if it's convenient and not too risky to do so.

It is not worth winning a campaign game if you gain Battle Scars that fuck you in the next 1-3 games!

Deployment

The goal during deployment is to delay placing the large models as long as possible. If you place them early, your opponent can deploy their ranged units to all shoot them on turn 1.

Turn 1

Later Turns