Cthulhu Wars: Bubastis (2020)

Expansion Cthulhu Wars Bubastis Faction.

Contents:

• 13 figures (6 Earth Cats, 2 Cats from Mars, 2 Cats from Saturn, 2 Cats from Uranus, Bastet)
• 4 Brain Cylinders
• 4 Brain Cylinder Tokens
• 1 Dark Demon
• Faction sheet
• Moon tile
• 6 Spellbooks
• Rulebook

Note that this faction has no acolytes nor a high priest!

Add-ons:

• Gold Cat battle dice
• Neutral unit identifier rings
• 2 Giant Blind Albino Penguins
• Something About Cats box
  • Neutral monsters
    • 2 Cats from Mercury
    • 2 Cats from Venus
    • 2 Asteroid Cats
  • Neutral Terror
    • Cat from Neptune
  • Neutral Independent Elder God
    • Hagarg Ryonis (Cat from Jupiter)

A French translation kit was made available which also includes the Cthulhu Wars: Daemon Sultan material.

Kickstarter Update #3:

Catlovers … stand free to worship aristocratic independence, self-respect, and individual personality joined to extreme grace and beauty as typified by the cool, lithe, cynical, and unconquered lord of the housetops.

- H. P. Lovecraft

Bubastis is probably the weirdest faction of them all. It doesn’t have any cultists. It doesn’t have a Great Old One. It does have Bastet, an Elder God (not quite the same). Like other factions it has 6 spellbooks that are gained in the normal way (though of course with her own unique requirements). One of her most unusual features is that it has a separate map tile representing the Moon. This Moon is the Bubastis starting area. It counts as a Bubastis-controlled gate for all purposes, except that it can’t be seized by another faction. No other gate can be built or moved there (except Yog-Sothoth via the Catnapping spellbook). Bubastis units can move and be pained freely between the Moon and any other map area. Other factions can move or be pained from the Moon to the main map area, but they can’t move to the Moon on their own. Since your cats can’t build or occupy gates, the Moon is their only gate throughout the game.

If they don’t have Cultists, then … ?

Yes I know, this leads into a lot of questions. Let’s break it down. Your faction has 6 Earth cats, 2 Cats from Mars, 2 Cats from Saturn, 2 Cats from Uranus, and Bastet. All the cats count as monsters (yes even the Earth cats), and all the cats generate 1 Power during the Gather Power phase. At game start, you have 6 Earth cats on the Moon, plus the Moon counts as your Gate. This gives you a total of 8 Power: 1 per cat and 2 for the Moon. To get more Power, you’ll have to use a certain spellbook, fulfill a certain spellbook requirement, or summon more cats.

Your Earth cats have the special ability that spellbooks and abilities that target cultists can target Earth cats as if they were acolytes. The Earth cats still cannot be captured, though (except by Tsathoggua using Capture Monster). This does mean that Zingaya will turn them into undead, Ghroth kidnaps them, if you summon a Satyr it brings a pet cat, etc. You can even turn Earth cats into Brain Cylinders.

The Earth Cats are Combat 0, Cost 1.
Cats from Mars are Combat 1, Cost 2.
Cats from Saturn are Combat 2, Cost 3
Cats from Uranus are Combat 3, Cost 4.

Each cat gets a special spellbook benefiting it in some way. The Earth cat’s spellbook, Catabolism, lets an Earth cat recruit a monster without a gate, letting you bring them forth on the main map. The Cats from Mars spellbook, Zagazig, reverses the results of Kills and Pains, so all rolled Kills become Pains, and all rolled Pains become Kills. This works on both sides in the battle, so beware. The Cats from Saturn have a spellbook letting them spend 1 Power pre-battle to increase their attack up to 6. And the Cats from Uranus spellbook means that you can kill one extra unit anywhere on the map post-battle.

How can they win, without Gates?

Well, one of their spellbooks, Ailurophobia, lets them score 1 Doom per cat variety that they have on the main map. So if they have all four (which is usually the case), they get 5 Doom per Doom phase: 4 for the cats, and 1 for their impregnable Moon Gate. That’s not bad. On the other hand, their Rituals of Annihilation are sucktastic, since all that does is double their Gate points, a mere +1.

What’s Bastet like?

She’s an Elder God (like Nodens), not a Great Old One. This means she does not roll combat dice, and she does not inherently provide an Elder Sign when you Ritual.

However, her Combat ability is still potent: she adds 1 Kill to your combat total, and additionally the enemy must lower their rolled Kill total by 1.

Her Requires Attention ability kicks in during the Doom phase. If Bastet is in an area with an enemy cultist (only), you can perform a Ritual of Annihilation. In this case, the Ritual adds exactly 4 Doom, plus if the area Bastet is in has an enemy Gate, gain 1 Elder Sign, and if the Area has an Enemy Great Old One, 2 more Elder Signs. These are additive.

This means your best-case scenario is you have all four cat types on the map, plus Bastet in an area with an enemy-controlled Gate and their Great Old One. In the Doom phase you will earn 5 Doom for your 4 cats & Moon gate. Then the ritual scores you 4 more Doom and Bastet scores 3 Elder Signs. That’s 9 Doom and 3 Elder Signs. Of course you won’t be able to pull that off every turn.

The cats are fun, if weird, and I think you’ll like playing with them. We have had a lot of fun. They are an extremely aggressive faction. They don’t play “defense” because they want to always be in your areas causing trouble. Like kittens I guess. And Bubastis is hard to KO, because you can’t steal her gate. You have to just kill the kitties one by one.

Giant Blind Albino Penguins!

This white, waddling thing was fully six feet high… To say that the white thing did not profoundly frighten us would be vain. We were indeed clutched for an instant by a primitive dread almost sharper than the worst of our reasoned fears regarding those others. Then came a flash of anticlimax as the white shape sidled into a lateral archway to our left to join two others of its kind which had summoned it in raucous tones. For it was only a penguin—albeit of a huge, unknown species larger than the greatest of the known king penguins, and monstrous in its combined albinism and virtual eyelessness.

- H. P. Lovecraft

The Giant Blind Albino Penguin has been a thorn in my side for years. People are constantly asking for one, yet it’s obviously idiotic. Yes, it’s a Lovecraft creation, but it’s specifically non-threatening. That said, so many folks have asked for this critter that I have finally caved in. Here it is.

And it’s a doozy. As with the cats, I couldn’t bring myself to make them look goofy. They are creepy and terrifying. At least in my opinion.

What do they do?
Their sole purpose is to mess with the other players and make them hate you. Which really ought to be the obvious desire of anyone spending Doom to get giant penguins! As with other neutral monsters you pay 2 Doom in the Doom phase, then get a free Penguin at your gate. The Penguins are cost 1, Combat minus 2. This means if you have a Penguin in the battle it reduces your attack by 2, so it’s kind of like the irksome Servitors of the Outer Gods. But it is indeed tactically and strategically quite different.

The Penguins’ special ability is Laughingstock, and is pre-Battle. You can move one or more Penguins to a Battle area even if you are not involved in the Battle. If you are part of the Battle, the Penguin fights on your side–so in this case it acts kind of like a Hunting Horror with Search & Destroy, except that it weakens your combat. But it does serve as a meat shield, which provides some usefulness. I have seen a Crawling Chaos fly in a pair of Penguins to accompany Nyarlathotep in a battle–sure it lowered Nyarlathotep’s attack from 12 to 8, but 8 dice was enough for his purposes, and having two Cost 1 penguins there to take hits for him was priceless.

Their real threat though is if you are not involved in the battle, then you choose which side the Penguin is on, and it belongs to that player till the battle ends. In other words, they roll 2 fewer dice, and you are the reason. If they complain, tell them that your regime is “harsh, but fair.” Or try to convince them that you were “helping” by giving them an ally. The latter has never worked for me though.