The Kreelers
I'm extremely late in getting around to this strategy guide for the Kreelers, but better late than never!
Other than the outlaws which the Strontium Dog bounty hunters pursue, the greatest enemies they face are the 'norms' who persecute the mutants at every turn. Worst of all are the Kreelers and their leader Nelson Bunker Kreelman who are hellbent on exterminating the mutants! Now you can recreate battles betwwen mutie and norm on your tabletop with the Kreelers set!
When you crack it open, you'll find that you have three different types of Kreeler that you can play: bog-standard Kreeler soldiers, a Kreelers Officer, and Johnny's arch-enemy, NBK himself (aka 'Nelson Kreelman' in the game)!
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| Image (c) Warlord Games |
Stats
The muties pretty much tear through the Kreelers in the strip so, appropriately enough, they aren't that great stat-wise. Even the Officer and Kreelman characters, while better than their foot-soldiers, aren't anything exceptional generally, but at least both are Star Chip characters. My personal preference would be that a slippery character like Kreelman probably should have had an Evade of at least 2, but neither he or any of his men have any Evade.
Skills and Abilities
The Kreelers Officer has Equipped which means if he is leader, his team can bring 4 Armoury Cards to the table. This means that you would only really want to field him if you are not fielding Kreelman himself. If you opt to use Kreelman as leader, you instead will be able to hold on to 4 Chicanery Cards at the start of the game, and...one of your Armoury Cards is automatically a Time Bomb! Unlike the standard rules for Time Bombs, only Kreelman will be able to use this in the game but he does have a chance of using it to escape (perhaps addressing my concern about the lack of Evade)! Kreelman also has the Feared By Muties ability which is extremely useful if you can get him to within 8" of enemy troops (except Johnny Alpha) as they must take a Cool Test and, if failed, are Pinned! Best of all, this ability does not count as one of his actions!
Tactics for Playing the Kreelers
The Kreelers really are the ultimate all-rounders so you can adapt them best to deal with the mission at hand. The one caveat to that is that their weapons are all -1 at range so you'll definitely want to get into that 8" short range sweet spot to really turn up the heat on the muties. If accompanied by Kreelman himself, his ability to pin those enemies and his access to that Time Bomb could be devastating to mutant foes!
If they were going up against fierce close combat specialists like Wulf or Middenface, then I'd perhaps keep them at range and take my chances at trying to land hits. With only a modified shoot of 1, the basic Kreelers may want to consider taking an Aimed Shot rather than 2 Snap Shots.
Kreelman's Personal Entourage
This is a little mod I've come up with to make the challenge harder when facing against NBK and provide some incentive to make use of those Kreeler Officer cards even when NBK is on the tabletop.
Kreelman hand-picks an entourage of the finest and most fanatical Kreelers to act as his bodyguards. They use the Officers Stats and cost the same Notoriety, but have one vital difference: instead of having the Equipped Ability, they use the same Look Out Johnny! ability Wulf has, only they will switch places with their beloved leader when he comes under attack!
Note that by using the modification rules provided in the rulebook, swapping out one skill for another basically allows you to make this change without increasing Notoriety for these characters.
