Overview
Recently, youtber and Godtear enthusiast Ben lamented the lack of a resource he would have liked when he was first exploring Godtear. Ben wanted a single resource that would give a quick overview of every champion. This article is for new players who want what Ben wanted. If you are new to Godtear and you're just a little curious about what your options are, please enjoy. Or if you just like reading about Godtear. Or whatever. Enjoy!
I'm going to give you a single sentence that expresses the vibes of each "crew" (a collective term for a champion and their warband). Then, I'll give a very short overview of how the crew plays and a quick and dirty assessment of the crew's strengths and weaknesses. Finally, I'll estimate the crew's "skill floor."
"Skill floor" refers to the amount of skill a player generally needs to have in order to get this crew to do valuable things in a game. Thus, a low skill floor crew would be one that is very easy to put on the table and get results out of right away. A high skill floor would indicate that the crew requires time and patience to fully "unlock." Note that this is not a comment on the crew's overall power level or maximum potential (that would be the "skill ceiling"). Mileage may vary on skill floor, but I'll give you my honest opinion.
Without further ado...
Guardians
This class of champions gains an extra step when their banners are still on the board at the end of a turn. They generally emphasize defense and area denial at the expense of offense.
Finvarr
Theme: A clan of shadowy elf ninjas is here to grab loot.
Palystyle: Finvarr is a jack of all trades, but a master of none. A more tricky guardian crew, this group can reposition and slow enemies to keep them away from banners. The banners themselves are tricky, as Finvarr can reposition them. His ultimate allows you to radically alter the position of all friendly banners within a very large radius. Finvarr stays alive with good defensive stats and the ability to heal himself at the expense of his enemies. The Shadow Sentinels are versatile and defensive. They have the ability to deal out useful blights and boons as well as a decent attack.
Strengths: durability, control, speed
Weaknesses: damage output
Skill Floor: high
Halftusk
Theme: A sweetly codependent Pugilistic troll and mutant frog sidekicks stake their claim.
Playstyle: This crew is a big, resilient roadblock. Halftusk is very tough to bring down, and his followers have the unique ability to enter objective hexes. This big monster can regenerate lost health, which is useful because his attacks are more accurate when he is undamaged. Halftusks attacks are accurate and efficient, but don't penetrate armor very well. Halftusk has the ability to hand out lots of useful defensive boons and to blight the opponent's accuracy. The Froglodytes can occupy objectives and gain defensive boons when they do so. They do not attack, but do offer some positioning control by pulling enemies towards themselves.
Strengths: durability, defensive support
Weaknesses: speed, offense
Skill floor: low
Helena
Theme: A righteous paladin leads a violent, angry mob.
Palystyle: Helena does not plant banners like others do, she is the banner. This means that the opponent cannot crush her banner, but must instead re-position Helena herself in order to deny Helena five end phase steps. Helena speeds up her allies and has some mild repositioning abilities. She also has a weak ranged attack, but her greatest value is in simply standing on an objective. The Rallied Peasants are numerous, can heal Helena a bit, and gain a defensive bonus when close to their leader. The peasants can sometimes gang up on people in order to attack them.
Strengths: end phase scoring, defensive stats
Weaknesses: offense, health pool
Skill Floor: low
Jaak
Theme: A mad goblin alchemist and his assistants brew strange potions
Palystyle: Jaak brings a strange blend of healing and offense. The mad alchemist is a goblin, so he is at his fastest and most aggressive in the plot phase instead of the clash phase. He hits people with his venomous spider, which damages and slows them. Jaak's Cauldron Cronies deploy his banner for him, which saves Jaak a plot phase action. While this crew's cauldron banner is on the table, Jaak's allies heal and his followers become more accurate. The Cauldron cronies bring a decent ranged attack, the ability to reposition enemy models, and their own banner.
Strengths: offense, ranged claiming
Weaknesses: low armor, slow clash phase
Skill Floor: high
Mourneblade
Theme: An eternal undead villain fueled by spite and his band of emo skeletons tries to keep you from playing the game.
Palystyle: Mourneblade has long range abilities and a willingness to absorb punishment. While Mourneblade will be knocked out after taking only one wound, he gives up only one point when knocked out instead of the usual four. Moreover, Mourneblade gets to stand back up from being KOd for free whenever an enemy is KOd anywhere on the board. He can both attack and plant his banner at long range, which makes it hard to prevent him from having an effect on the game. Mourneblade's followers, the Knightshades, can completely trap enemies in place just by standing next to them. Mourneblade and the Knightshades both move each other around, which makes this crew mobile in a strange, janky way.
Strengths: movement denial, ranged claiming, knockout scoring denial
Weaknesses: low health, low offense
Skill Floor: high
Rhodri
Theme: A brave, stubborn, heavily armored dwarf and his loyal guards declare that none shall pass.
Palystyle: Rhodri is a straightforward brawler with lots of armor and hitting power. He can reposition enemies by Shield Bashing them. Rhodri's followers are also heavily armored and pack a punch. Rhodri cannot be moved when adjacent to his banner, and his followers cannot be moved when adjacent to him. This allows the crew to form strong positions around friendly banners. Rhodri's ultimate skill allows him to plant his banner in the clash phase if it's not already out. Though slow, these dwarves are tough.
Strengths: durability, anti-control
Weaknesses: low speed
Skill Floor: low
Maelstroms
This class of champions gains an extra step when they knock out an enemy follower. They generally emphasize multi-target offense and mobility support at the expense of durability.
Blackjaw
Theme: An orc warlord with a messianic complex and a flaming axe leads a group of very scary warriors.
Playstyle: Blackjaw excels at taking out huge clusters of enemy followers in a single activation. He does this by targeting multiple enemy followers with each attack and by gaining an extra action each time he gets a KO. Blackjaw and the Unburnt reavers have good speed, so their targets will have a hard time staying away from them. The Reavers are more focused on damaging a single target and can hit hard enough to threaten squishier enemy champions. They also project an aura of fearsomeness which limits the accuracy of enemy followers when they spread out.
Strengths: multi-target offense, overall mobility
Weaknesses: low offensive potential against hard targets
Skill Floor: low
Fenra
Theme: A giant wolf portends the apocalypse with her litter of pack-hunting gnolls.
Playstyle: Fenra is slow in the plot phase and blazing fast in the clash phase. Fenra is in a two way tie for highest dodge stat among all champions. Fenra's attacks do more damage to enemies who are adjacent to friendly followers. Fenra can certainly score lots of points in the clash phase, but emphasizes allied mobility a bit more. Fenra gets to move an allied model a little bit for free every time she gets a KO, and her ultimate lets a single friendly model move a very long way. The Chainless Curs are good at encircling and repositioning enemies in order to set up Fenra's damage rolls.
Strengths: clash phase speed, movement support, high dodge
Weaknesses: plot phase speed, low health
Skill Floor: high
Grimgut
Theme: A corpulent undead monster eats everything in sight and weaponizes his own sick.
Playstyle: Grimgut has the ability to radically reposition his own followers by literally vomiting them all over the board. Grimgut has low speed stats, but he can roll very fast in a straight line. Since the Retchlings do not give up scoring when knocked out, they make excellent roadblocks. Grimgut can only attack one follower per turn without using his ultimate skill, but his attacks are very reliable. The Retchlings hand out speed boons and can attack clusters of enemies with reasonably hard-hitting but inaccurate attacks. They have the unique ability to repeat skill actions, which lets them potentially hand out two speed boons or a ttack twice.
Strengths: area denial, follower scoring denial
Weaknesses: low defensive stats, limited offense against champions
Skill Floor: moderate
Jeen
Theme: A band of samurai-themed goblins flies all over the board and disturbs everything.
Playstyle: Jeen is a whirling dervish in the plot phase. Jeen's ultimate repositions her and allies dramatically. She has a high volume of low value attacks, so her scoring output is very dependent on the followers the oppnent brings. Like all goblins, she mellows out in the clash phase, but has speed to burn in the plot phase. The Golden Shrikes reposition enemies for free every turn without having to roll any dice. They also hand out speed boons and fly all over the field. The crew overall has good defensive stats, although Jeen has a low health pool.
Strengths: mobility, control
Weaknesses: low health pool, weak attacks
Skill Floor: high
Kailinn
Theme: A very angry, brutal centaur and her self-righteous coterie bring quick death at high speed.
Playstyle: Kailinn flies all over the board and unleashes very powerful attacks. She lacks the sheer attack volume of other maelstoms, though, and can only target up to three followers per clash phase without using her ultimate. Still, her attacks hit hard and can take out large followers and even enemy champions efficiently. Kailinn is highly mobile and can enter hexes occupied by followers, pushing them around as she sees fit. However, Kailinn can never enter objective hexes, which restricts her movement and ensures that she can never threaten enemy banners. Kailinn's followers, the Virtues, provide multiple lower value attacks along with whatever supporting boons Kailinn needs.
Strengths: damage, mobility
Weaknesses: cannot crush banners
Skill Floor: low
Luella
Theme: Dwarf viking berserker maidens with lighting magic charge into enemy lines.
Playstyle: Luella gains speed when she moves in a straight line, which means that she can be very fast if positioned correctly. Her ultimate also gives her a burst of movement and damage, so Luella can attack at surprising angles. Her accurate attacks splash small damage rolls onto surrounding enemies. These damage rolls hit automatically, so Luella is very effective against followers with high dodge and low armor. Unlike most maelstroms, Luella has a good health pool and defensive stats. Luella's Shield Maidens provide defensive support and accurate attacks.
Strengths: durability, accuracy, straight line speed
Weaknesses: damage vs. high armor, serpentine movement
Skill Floor: moderate
Titus
Theme: A wronged gladiator and his band of thrill-seekers try to prove their worthiness by killing everyone in sight.
Playstyle: Titus has brutal melee attacks which target multiple enemy followers. Titus scores the most when harvesting followers, but packs enough punch to threaten some champions. He also has some repositioning tricks and can hand out blights to enemies by taking on a blight in return. Titus is essentially impervious to attacks from followers, but is very vulnerable to high value attacks from champions. The Glory Seekers offer mobility support to friendly champions and can dish out high damage to a single enemy target if they surround it.
Strengths: offense, versatility
Weaknesses: low health
Skill Floor: low
Shapers
This class of champions gains an extra step when they plant their banners. They generally emphasize control and support at the expense of offensive power.
Lilly
Theme: A proud fairy warps mortal perceptions and weaponizes local flora.
Playstyle: No champion manipulates positioning more than Lily does. She can relocate enemy models en masse. Lily can also move around objective hexes and leave boons and blights lying around to be picked up by passing models. Lily's ultimate allows her to place her followers on top of objective hexes and thus prevent others from claiming on them. Lily's followers, the Thornlings, are numerous and can recruit more quickly than other followers. They also have the ability to vanish from wherever they may be and re-appear around their boss, so they generally form a protective wall around Lily or her banner.
Strengths: control, support
Weaknesses: offense
Skill Floor: high
Nia
Theme: A dwarf whose best friends seem to be rocks engages in the battle for immortality constructively.
Playstyle: Nia is a force multiplier who copies status effects and builds objectives. She has the unique ability to create new objective hexes out of her followers. This givers her entire team a boost in the banner game. Nia gains a bonus action whenever her followers are all on the board, so she can do a lot of different things over the course of an activation. This is helped by the fact that the Quartzlings get to recruit for free when Nia's banner leaves the table. Nia can copy boons in the plot phase and copy blights in the clash phase, which amplifies support abilities across the board. The Quartzlings are very resistant to attacks and can slow enemies.
Strengths: support, banner scoring
Weaknesses: speed, offense
Skill Floor: moderate
Raith'Marid
Theme: An extremely rude dragon teleports around and pushes everybody with water magic.
Playstyle: Raith is a highly flexible, highly mobile assassin of both banners and squishy enemy champions. He removes his followers from the table by teleporting to their locations, but he also gains a boon each time one of his followers leaves the table. This allows Raith to get where needs to go and to pick up the tool he'll need along the way. Raith's ultimate skill is among the most powerful in the game; it allows him to teleport a long distance and to push around all the enemies who are near his landing point. Raith is surprisingly durable for such a mobile model, and can even do decent damage. The Splashlings are more than just teleport targets, though. They copy Raith's boons and push opponents around.
Strengths: mobility, control
Weaknesses: low dodge, relies on followers
Skill Floor: moderate
Rattlebone
Theme: An orc seer and her semi-sentient totems put curses on everyone.
Playstyle: Rattlebone is the queen of blights. She has a skill which applies blights in each phase, and each of them gives you some options as to what blight you are applying. Her ultimate skill can potentially give out every blight to every enemy within close range. Rattlebone has a somewhat unpredictable ability to move boons and blights around once they are out. Rattlebone has good speed and defensive stats. The Hexlings can also hand out boons or blights in a flexible, though inefficient way. The Hexlings are fragile, but Rattlebone can easily position them for best effect. This crew has only one attack, but it does good damage.
Strengths: support
Weaknesses: offense
Skill Floor: moderate
Shayle
Theme: A geomancer decides mortals shouldn't have godlike power, so he gives the godtears to his trusty golem.
Playstyle: Shayle is different from most champions in that he mostly supports his single, giant follower. Mostly, this crew specializes in repositioning enemy models. Landslide has a big attack and the ability to reposition entire enemy units in every phase. Landslide gets to teleport every time Shayle acts, so the golem is very mobile outside its own activation and completely immobile inside its own activation. Shayle hands out speed blights, and has the ability deny boons to enemies. Shayle's ultimate is very powerful; it allows him to move every objective hex within a wide radius of landslide, effectively scrambling a large area of the conflict according to Shayle's preferences.
Strengths: control
Weaknesses: durability
Skill Floor: moderate
Styx
Theme: The grim reaper and his *very good* cerberuses haunt an area of the board.
Playstyle: Styx is very good at dominating a single objective. Enemies do not move Styx when he is knocked out, so this champion is very hard to push off of a point. Styx has the ability to manipulate the board by pulling enemies and objective hexes towards himself. Styx's ultimate skill allows him to instantly KO one enemy once per game. Although he doesn't score points for it, Styx's ultimate does allow him to reposition an enemy and deny them an action without rolling any dice. The Abyssal Hounds are fast and can drag enemy followers around. These multi-headed doggies are unique among followers in that they can actually remove enemy banners. This means that Styx's crew can threaten far away banners even as Styx settles into a spot.
Strengths: control, anti-control
Weaknesses: offense
Skill Floor: low
Slayers
This class of champions gains an extra step when they knock out an enemy champion. They generally emphasize single target damage and mobility at the expense of durability.
Keera
Theme: A pair of young dragons incinerate and devour everything in sight on behalf of their royal princess.
Playstyle: Keera is a long-range glass cannon. This crew can deal truly enormous amounts of damage. All of Keera's attacks must originate from her dragons, so she can attack from range, but not from her own position. The fact that all of her attacks can be channeled through either dragon really allows Keera to threaten a large area of the board. Keera has the ability to reposition or re-summon the dragons in every phase, so their offense is very difficult to fully deny. Keera herself is fragile and slow, but she doesn't need to be in the midst of her enemies in order to immolate them. The dragons have low defensive stats but high health pools, which makes them inefficient to knock out. They bring considerable mobility (they fly) and offensive output of their own.
Strengths: offense
Weaknesses: durability
Skill Floor: low
Lorsann
Theme: A bunch of elf archers prance around shooting arrows at all who intrude on their lands.
Playstyle: Lorsann is a hit and run artist who can "kite" opponents with her long ranged attacks and efficient mobility. Every time he damages an enemy, Lorsann gets a free hex of movement, which makes her action economy very efficient. Her ultimate skill lets you put wounds on enemies without making a damage roll, which allows Lorsann to finish someone off in any phase of a turn. She is a good banner crusher with natural speed. The Mistwood Rangers also have a strong, long range attack and the ability to blight enemy armor. The Rangers hit harder when enemies are already wounded, so they do well as finishers. The entire crew, unfortunately, has low health and armor.
Strengths: range, mobility
Weaknesses: durability
Skill Floor: low
Maxen
Theme: A dwarf tinkerer and his mechanical bird friends use trickiness and gun violence to take what's theirs.
Playstyle: Maxen has a video game shotgun in the sense that it has far greater impact at close range. Although Maxen is not very fast, he has the unique ability to remove an enemy's banner when he knocks them out. His ultimate skill is a hugely powerful long-range shot that can give you great odds of a knockout once per game when you need it most. Maxen's Gearhawks are numerous and highly mobile. Although they can hand out blights and claw at enemies, their most valuable contribution is usually to hand out free accuracy boons to friendly champions at the end of every activation.
Strengths: damage, support
Weaknesses: low speed
Skill Floor: moderate
Morrigan
Theme: A malicious lich and her horde of frozen skeletons punish the living with ice magic.
Playstyle: Morrigan gets double the benefit from boons, which givers her flexibility insofar as her teammates can buff her. She has attacks that are weak without boons, but with some setup become much more formidable. Morrigan's crew can provide her with accuracy boons, but she will need help from another crew to gain damage boons. Morrigan's followers can also easily pass her a speed boon, which makes her a very mobile champion in general. The Ice Queen's ultimate skill distributes a huge quantity of impactful blights. The Cold Bones are slow, but they pass blights to enemies who knock them out, setting up Morrigan's retaliation.
Strengths: mobility, support
Weaknesses: dependence on support
Skill Floor: high
Rangosh
Theme: A raging minotaur eats his bandit followers in order to punch harder.
Playstyle: Rangosh is a brute force sledgehammer. He does huge amounts of damage which he can opportunistically boost by removing his own followers. Rangosh is surprisingly agile and mobile for a big, brutal minotaur. He is very well rounded despite having an extreme strength. There's also a certain subtlety to Rangosh; his attacks can reposition enemies, and he uses boons and blights to maximize his output. His ultimate skill lets him move and apply wounds automatically, so he has the ability to finish off a wounded enemy in any phase of a turn. The Red bandits are an elite offensive follower unit with a high volume of attacks and the ability to do automatic damage in both phases. They are also able to come back to the board more quickly than other follower units, which is nice because they have bad defensive stats and Rangosh frequently eats them.
Strengths: offense
Weaknesses: durability
Skill Floor: low
Skullbreaker
Theme: An orc barbarian who aims to live up to his name with an enormous dragonbone sword and a ferocious hunting party.
Playstyle: Skullbreaker dishes out just one attack per clash phase, but it's one you'll remember. Skullbreaker is mobile agile, and a splendid banner crusher. His mobility is amplified by his ability to move through small followers. If Skullbreaker can attack without having to take an advance action, then he'll be able to choose from a menu of powerful abilities that push his offense to extreme levels. Because of this, the mini-game is to set him up such that he activates already adjacent to his target. The Tooth Bearers facilitate this by giving their boss boons and/or moving him around when they do damage. They are also powerful attackers in their own right, although they are fragile.
Strengths: offense, mobility
Weaknesses: durability
Skill Floor: moderate
Sneaky Peet
Theme: An evasive goblin pirate and his squabbling band sneak around in search of opportunities for skullduggery.
Playstyle: Sneaky Peet is very hard to hit. No models have higher dodge values than those of Peet and his crew. Peet's attacks can be very accurate and usually deal out a small amount of automatic damage. In the plot phase, Peet is very dynamic and can fly all over the board. In true Goblin fashion, he really slows down in the clash phase, but still has useful support and control abilities to go along with a bit of stabbiness. The Sneaky Stabbers are highly mobile and can run between enemy models' legs. They have a versatile attack which gets more powerful but less accurate as more gobbos participate. Essentially it gets more chaotic as more of them fight over who gets to push the knife in.
Strengths: evasiveness, plot phase speed
Weaknesses: armor, clash phase speed
Skill Floor: moderate