Core Set Deathclaw purpose?

Haven’t gotten around to playing much yet, but what’s the point of the Deathclaw?

It’s a nice model, and I’m glad to have it, but I figured there’d be some creature card or something like that to have it randomly show up. Or maybe a few scenarios where it features promently.

That doesn’t seem to be the case, there’s one co-op scenario where it has a chance to show up after a certain round, but that’s about it.

Am I missing something?

I do not know, but the very first thing I did after reading the rules was to set up and play a scenario where the survivor and Dogmeat investigate the Red Rocket only to find it already occupied by a Deathclaw.

It was great fun and fairly simple to play.

I expect it is included because it is iconic and folks would want a monster to use sometimes.

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That’s definitely fair. I’m definitely looking forward to painting it and using it in custom scenarios.

I just wish it had been leveraged a bit more.

I’m super disappointed there isn’t a Deathclaw creature card included. How great would it be to draw a hazard, draw a creature, and then BOOM! random neutral AI Deathclaw pops up on a board edge or even right under the triggering character. That’d be crazy.

I’d make my own card for it, but I don’t have access to cardstock that is stiff enough. It would be super obvious which one it was.

Why would you need a card? You could just have the random, AI controlled Deathclaw start on the board. Give it the objective of defending a token, representing it’s nest. Ta Da.

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Plus I used it once to fight a bunch of AI card controlled settlers. I enjoyed playing the Deathclaw for once. Haven’t been able to do that since Fallout: Tactics.

Because if there’s a card it’s something that could randomly crop up in any scenario?

It’s one thing to go “Oh look, there’s an AI Deathclaw we both have to look out for.” It’s another thing entirely to be planning for one fight and have another completely pop out of nowhere. It’s Concord all over again.

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I haven’t gone through all my cards yet, but I think there’s a few blank ones that have been thrown in on some of the other kits. You could always use one of those/print off a template to write your own card for it? :slight_smile:

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Tutorial Mission 5 uses the deathclaw.

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sergeantIndie raises an interesting underlying principle with the Creature cards. The Creature cards don’t add AI-controlled models to the battlefield and the reason for this is I felt their addition often has too great an effect on a game to be random (as most creatures are quite tough), and no-one likes to lose (or win) a game that was decided due to timing of a card that added a creature they couldn’t prepare for or just due to where the creature appeared. So, the appearance of AI-controlled creatures is down to the scenario.

Of course, there’s no reason you couldn’t have a Creature card to cause an AI-controlled Deathclaw, if your opponent is good with that during set-up and you define how/when/what will happen when a specified Creature card is drawn. Rather than make a card for it - there aren’t any blank Creature or Event cards - the easiest way is to take one of the Creature cards and look at its name, then shuffle that in with the rest. When that card gets drawn, it triggers the Deathclaw instead. You could also use Events to do the same job, such as one of the event cards that has no specific game effect.

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