Anyone who knows me knows that this title is the thing I was most excited for from the moment it first got teased in the Malifaux Burns trailer. Parker Barrows has always been my favourite Master and keyword by far, and the blurb alone from Pearl Musgrove makes me very excited to try her out. I'll be playing around with a few other titles as they will be released before Parker (Misaki especially) but as soon as I can get the sculpts for the Barrows siblings I will be painting them and getting them on the table.
Parker's front of card stays fairly similar to what it used to be, although he has gone down to Wp5 and 12 wounds (with Hard to Kill now though). Gunfighter and Run and Gun are still there, but he no longer ignores Friendly Fire (on his rifles at least) and loses all of the easy ways for him to get out sneaky Scheme markers while he shoots up the enemy and instead is a lot more based in counter-scheming by the way of damage. Abandon All Hope is a huge aura, and it being just a straight up swap of an enemy Scheme into a friendly is very rude because it takes the opponent's resource and gives you one instead. It also synergises great with Perdition, because it has the same range and becomes basically a guaranteed 2" Shockwave effect for 1 damage, and any damage pinging is really nice to have especially in such a big bubble. It also triggers off of all Scheme markers, so even if the opponent is placing their own to score or use their own abilities they'll be hurting for it and then you can remove them anyway with a lot of the crew's passive abilities. Drop It! (which I'll come back to later) becomes a very good means of extra damage in a lot of places while you can continue to kite the enemy from a distance. Parker's guns are a little bit different to what they used to be, although they are still very good. Still stat 5+, but with no bonuses for nearby Scheme markers although it is 14" range now for an amazing threat range. The damage is a bit more varied as 2/4/5 is now 2/3/6, and it ignores Hard to Kill which is great when it matters. As for triggers, the once per turn Crow for a double positive to damage flips (and likely meaning you'll be able to hit that 6 damage severe) is excellent, and the Ram trigger for Shielded +2 is also great to have but not something I would necessarily seek out to do. Broken Man's Lasso is really interesting because it is good range at 10", can be used on a Charge, and 6 vs Mv is a great stat, and the triggers are both excellent (Drop It! and Execute are both fantastic) but overall it is a movement controlling action on a Master that likes to be doing damage and so puts him in a bit of a different role than he normally would. It ignores Friendly Fire, and you can use it to pull friendly models out of engagement (similar to Bandit Raid, but with less immediate benefit replaced with freedom of movement) with it also choosing to give out Staggered (so if you keep dragging one thing around it becomes easier). Overall I think it's mostly going to happen where you can pull things into places you can get better shots or bunch things together to hurt them more with blasts and Scheme marker pings. Parker's bonus action is interesting, and stat 7 vs Wp at 10" range is really good, but it doesn't do a huge amount by itself unless you stack other things on top of it. Drop It! being After Resolving means it is really reliable marker dropping (and thus damage pings) but only on one model and not a massive benefit given that you're still failing a duel to do it. The triggers are both very economical too, with Masks for a free projectile action (which is either of his 2 attacks, although I think the Rifle is probably better in this case) or Crows to take the action again for more benefit as well. Both are great, and it really depends on what you're looking for in terms of board state that turn as to which one you'll want to use. His 1 tactical action moves a marker (not quite as good as removing it, but still great), and only needs a 5 to get off with a built in suit for the trigger. Moving it 4" is nice, and giving Injured +1 to enemies without it is very good especially if you can do it on Hazardous markers (which will mostly be from enemies, but it works with Rusty Alyce and especially Prospectors moving around Scheme markers). The trigger is also very useful to have, because it removes any marker moved through as well so you can quite easily clear the board between him and Mad Dog. It also removes markers that aren't Destructible so it's a little bit better than Mad Dog as well (and you can even do it on a Blown Apart marker for extra benefit). You can use this action a few times a turn to shove around markers where they benefit you and clear anything your opponent might have, and it only needing 5s is pretty worthwhile and low cost.
Pearl Musgrove sits in the 7SS Bandit bracket where she has a lot of competition, but I think in general she has a decent place in the crew, especially with Dead Man Walking Parker. Her stats are all entirely average with even her actions all being stat 5 so she isn't amazing, but also still good enough to consider, and Gunfighter and Run and Gun are to be expected for a Bandit. Being Frontier she also has Home on the Range, but in Bandit crews you can only get 1 anyway so it's really just her being slightly further up. Hard to Kill is nice defensively, and Reformed works really nicely in a crew that already want to be removing markers pretty often (eat a Scheme to get Fast and then also heal 1? Yes please. Mad Dog blowing up Destructible markers and then healing things? Yep, also great). It does need careful control of placement, but not careful enough that you won't be getting it fairly reliably by just using her in tandem with other things in the crew. Kick Up Dust as the bonus action is to be expected for Frontier, and it can be useful to cover yourself from awkward angles of shooting but the trigger is where you will find the most synergies with Bandit and it will work in a lot of ways. It is just a really simple Scheme marker drop instead of Dust Cloud, but for only a 5 and a 3" range it's great for scoring potential but also with DMW Parker to chuck out chip damage at enemies that are placed closer together which is really nice. Draw Them In is really interesting in what it does, but I'm not certain it has amazing applications in Bandit crews like it does in Frontier. Bandit lacks the big tanky beaters that Frontier has in Reichart and especially the Sandworm, and so pulling a group of models into one of yours is likely to mean that model gets ganged up on and killed even with it coming with a heal of 2 on its trigger. Staggered gives a little bit of synergy with DMW Parker's Lasso but in general I think I would really need to consider when it becomes worth it to drag things towards one of your own models and it's usually if it can get the opponent away from somewhere they would be scoring (Ley Lines and Claim Jump mainly) or into positions where they can be blasted in higher numbers (Turf War this helps, but in general between Pearl, Mad Dog and Perdition you have lots of grouped damage). Pearl's Sawed-Off Shotgun is fairly standard in what it does, although like DMW Parker she doesn't have Drop It! which is important to point out. The damage is fairly average, although it having blasts is very nice to throw out damage, and with a positive flip and built-in Tome it works very well with what Bandits want to do. 6" range is very short, but 11" threat range with Run and Gun is still nice and the Mask trigger for Stagger works nicely with the blasts but doesn't have any other huge synergy with the crew outside of Parker's Lasso which is ok but mostly just a nice little debuff to have. Brushfire as the Tome trigger is a bit tricky to set up, but not impossible, and it adds extra blasts off of a Scheme or Dust Cloud marker within 3" of the target which is always nice. You can combo it with someone else's Drop It, and even Parker's Stare Down, to get damage from the first shot, pulse damage from the marker drop and then more damage and blasts from Pearl shooting herself. The main use I see for Pearl is to absolutely punish bubble crews with the new Parker, because you can throw out so much more damage across a few models which is really nice as an option.
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