The Seasoned Hunter: Manhunter (L1) - The Squared Circle (Patreon)

We're back with another round of the Seasoned Hunter; this time it's a look at the first encounter your settlement will have with the Wrestling Bounty Witch Hunter Cowboy Slaver.

Setup:

I do not usually cover a section on setting up, however there are a few monsters who have opening actions that are either predictable or devastating. The Manhunter has both of those along with the ability to potentially wipe your entire nemesis party on the first turn. He will Tombstone at the start of every single turn, which makes his movement and targeting very predictable (and easier to control), but also he has this AI card

If he catches every single survivor and all the pillars in the slam zone, this move can leave you thinking that the Manhunter is one of the most overpowered and disgusting monsters in the game.

As such the following layout is the one I always use when facing any level of Manhunter.

Yellow is my tank, the two pink survivors are my DPS and the green at the top is either my support (prefered) or an archer.

The goal here is to pull the Manhunter out of the pillars and get him fighting away from the terrain. If he does trigger Dirty Fighting on the first turn, he will have already stood on the pillar next to the tank and destroyed it (thanks to Tombstone) so Dirty Fighting will hit only the tank and will have just 2 pillars to archive. That's turned a Speed 5 attack into a Speed 3 one and created a wide open space to fight the Manhunter in (so redrawing Dirty Fighting is a lot safer).

I do not recommend any other setup, you're just asking to get stomped if you do.

Targeting and Behaviour:

The first part of the Manhunter's turn is very predictable, he will short/full stride at the closest threat (regardless of facing) and tombstone them. So you can always control who he is going to tombstone each turn by ensuring that your tank(s) are the closest survivor.

Otherwise the Manhunter's AI is heavily focused around threats, though not to the same level that the Butcher is.

The breakdown of targeting is as follows:

• Random Threat: 2 Basic 1 Advanced
• Closest Threat: 1 Basic 1 Advanced
• Closest Survivor: 1 Basic
• Closest Non-Deaf Survivor: 1 Basic
• Furthest Threat, Field of View: 2 Basic
• Furthest Threat, Facing, Field of View: 1 Basic 1 Advanced
• Furthest Threat, not in field of view: 1 Advanced
• All Threats: 1 Advanced
• All survivors: 1 Advanced
• Threat with most survival: 1 Advanced

As the Manhunter's deck is 7 Basic and 3 Advanced we know that 70% of his behaviour is going to be via those basic cards and that he almost always targets a threat. Also, when he doesn't he targets the closest survivor or all survivors.  

It is also worth noting that if you keep all survivors at exactly the same distance from him, say by having everyone adjacent and standing on a different cardinal position (one at each front/side/back) then you're pretty much free to choose who the Manhunter attacks every single turn. 

On the reaction front the Manhunter is a particularly cruel individual, a great deal of the Manhunter's reactions involve the Manhunter advancing towards or through the survivor who attacked them (often via reflex) and inflicting either a severe injury to the survivor or grabbing them. So range vs. the Manhunter can be very effective if you exceed his movement of 6.

Critical hits against the Manhunter are particularly important because he is less damaging to the attacker when you score them, and it is also the main way you are going to get additional resources and even gear. 

The Manhunter's trap is very basic, it knockbacks everyone adjacent and then the Manhunter will shoot the attacker via Gun Action.

Gun Action is worth a quick mention before we move on, it is a ranged attack which always dooms the survivor (no dodging, so evasion and block are really good) and it causes brain damage to survivors nearby because of the loud, scary noise the Deathpact gun makes. Insanity helps, as does not being too close, also remember to take advantage of the Monster Controller bonus when you can!

Strategy and Tactics:

Outside of the set up, the actual fight with the Manhunter is won through similar methods to beating the Butcher. Evasion, good weapons that will score wounds when you hit and the Fecal Salve are all very powerful, especially when combined with a good support that can manipulate the AI and HL decks. 

If you use a Fecal Salve on a survivor and ensure that they are not the closest survivor they are almost never going to be targeted by the Manhunter. So your support survivor can be very safe in this fight.

You can take this further if you have Surge by having your DPS survivors also pack Fecal Salves, so they can attack and then smear poop on their faces. This will leave the Manhunter almost exclusively attacking your tank for the entire fight and you are in control of when to switch it up.

One of the best items in the game, don't leave home without your bowl of poop!

The other thing that will help in this fight is having as much luck/deadly as possible, every time you are hitting with critical hits you increase the overall resource gain (red vials/crimson vial), reduce the damaging responses that the Manhunter has and most importantly, get a chance of gaining his neat hat (have an open slot on your grid so you can get it without losing another piece of gear!)

Weapons:

Around this point in the game you should already be set up for this fight; the Manhunter is weak to the same things most monsters in this game are weak too.  Rawhide, Lucky Charm, Catgut Bow, Monster Grease, Lion Beast Katars, Rib Blade, Greater Gaxe, Riot Mace, Fecal Salve and so on. Build for high strength weapons, Deadly Weapons and get as much evasion as you can on everyone (your support can pretty much go in naked apart from the rawhide hat if he is going to smear poop all over him)

It is worth noting that Mr Hunter has an inbuilt weakness to whips, so if you are playing with the Spidicules expansion you can take advantage of this because the Silk Whip is quite a good early game weapon. But for the most part, outside of the Community Edition, whips are pretty bad - so it's not super important to bring a whip along, it's just a bonus if you do.

Showdown Goals:

Essentially these are pretty simple, you want to win the fight in order to not become subject to slavery and gain the superb Reverberating Lantern. You also want to score as many critical hits as possible in order to gain multiple vials (and the hat) - the vials are useful outside of combat because they are generic special resources you can spend on a number of other benefits.  Finally, you should be aiming to end this fight with the Deathblow card so you can get all the bonuses for your survivors!

Summary:

To be honest, the level 1 Manhunter is a very simple fight if you manage to avoid Dirty Fighting from crushing your survivors. His AI is very predictable in its targeting and he struggles a great deal when facing against evasion. In essence he's not much stronger than the Butcher you faced in the previous Lantern Year, so use him as an opportunity to gain more hunt experience and weapon proficiency on your chosen survivors.