The Secrets of the Citadel are no longer a secret! As of Gen Con 2026, this uniques-only wave has made its way into the hands of Heroscapers everywhere and comes right after Commons started to take over the meta. Will they be able to keep up with the Skordyre, Gruts, Troopers, Reavers, and other Common-heavy armies? Only time and tournaments will tell. 

Nishi Souta brings some long-awaited Lawman AND Samurai synergy to Valhalla. In a similar vein to Thormun, Nishi is able to take a turn with other heroes and himself. In fact, between both Samurai Hero Bonding and Call For Backup, Nishi has the potential to activate two other Heroes and still take a turn himself. That’s three Hero turns all with the same Order Marker. 

Improved Counterstrike gives him the ability to counterstrike into other Samurai, previously only something Charos was able to do. Call For Backup requires Nishi to be susceptible to attacks, as he must be within 5 spaces of an enemy figure. It’s an ability not to be rushed into, as his 4 Life/4 Defense will fall quickly to concentrated attacks. Along with only a meager 2 Attack, you will want to be very selective of when and who Nishi engages. While Swordcatcher does help with survivability, it has limitations that can be overcome by a savvy player. 

Takanawa Kaiga is the first other Samurai to be summoned into this new age of Heroscape and is therefore the only Samurai that can bond with Nishi in Contemporary, but Kameon Awa is just waiting for the opportunity in an All-Time event. Takanawa enters every battle alongside his Bloodcursed Blade. Between The Blade Thirsts and the Bloodcursed Blade, Takanawa is a formidable warrior who can deal high amounts of damage while moving swiftly across the battlefield. Between his high life, above-average defense, Large size class that renders him immune to a number of enemy effects, and Counterstrike, Takanawa is a bargain for only 90 points. Be leery of his blade, however, as it will slowly eat through his life if not wielded wisely. He wants to engage high-value targets and force them to attack into his Counterstrike, while his blade whittles the opponent down. This will also help keep Nishi protected, while your opponent deals with a double-attacking, counterstriking samurai or risks disengagements. 

Pairing Takanawa with other units that give free movement abilities, such as Dr. Mindbender, or being Bankrolled / Business Operationed by the Crimson Twins and/or fielding a healer such as Durnipia, will shore up his weakness of taking unneeded wounds while developing across the map.  And be on the lookout for Ninjas with this build: nobody wants a Phantom Walking Snake Eyes to sneak in and take out a poor Nishi Souta.

We have several newly summoned Lawmen joining the ranks of the Classic league of Lawmen made up of Johnny, Dan, James, and Guilty: including Cainak, Private Eye, "Blink” Dawson, and a teched-up Guilty McCreech. These are all options for Nishi’s Call For Backup ability.  

“Blink” is an amazing filler option for only 20 points, but will he replace Marcu in All-Time? Probably not (6 life for 20 points is hard to beat), but Blink’s Quickdraw 7 will make opponents very hesitant to risk a 70% chance to not only take a wound but also lose their attack. In the early game, moving him onto a glyph with the Tanuki Tricksters’ Tanuku Aruki or Call For Backup and forcing your opponent to throw melee units at him to remove him may help take early pressure off Nishi and Takanawa, especially if the glyph is Valda or Zigvald. That may be what Takanawa needs to engage his opponent and not take the wound from his blade. Blink also holds his own as an endgame unit, as with 5 move and 7 range he will generally get to attack first, and Quickdraw 7 forces his opponent to walk through his range to even try and engage him, in order to avoid the potential wound and lost attack. He won’t last long once he is engaged, though, as 2 life/2 defense falls quickly. And keep in mind: Special Attacks bypass Quickdraw, so you must be aware of any Special Attackers your opponent has in their army. 

Cainak is our first and only (so far) Orc Lawman. Cainak’s Pick Up the Trail gives some Order Marker protection for Nishi and other lawmen. If Nishi is down to one or two Life, and you are placing Order Markers, you may be hesitant to put more than one OM on him—but Pick Up the Trail ensures that as long as Cainak is around, you still get activations from those OMs, even if Nishi falls. Also, revealing the X allows a free turn with Cainak! (assuming the destroyed hero was a Lawman). Your Order Markers will often be telegraphed with your 1, 2, 3 on Nishi and X on Cainak, but for Order Marker insurance and a free turn, it’s a small price to pay. You will want to be careful not to overextend Cainak early and take full advantage of the 5 range. It will be very tricky if both Nishi and Cainak are down to one life and in harm’s way and it's time to place Order Markers. 

Guilty McCreech is back, but with some new…augmentations. The stat line is similar to his prior incarnation, with Double Attack, except he’s gained an additional life and Defense (the injuries from his hanging must have healed) and two new abilities. Long Arm of the Law lets Guilty grab Treasure Glyphs for himself or his fellow Lawmen. Is Guilty the new Treasure Quest king? Perhaps more importantly, Guilty’s other new ability, Deputize, opens up Call For Backup to so many more units. 

One of the options that synergizes with Long Arm of the Law is Gimbal, who comes with 3 treasure glyphs: C.L.A.W.S., B.R.E.A.T.H., and W.I.N.G.S., allowing her to fly, fireline, and cleave. Gimbal has 4 Defense and 3 Life, which is a paltry sum based on the size of the figure, but she has much greater survivability than at first glance due to Ablative Equipment. We have seen a similar ‘ignore wounds’ ability with the Oathbound Phalanx’s One Falls, The Swarm Survives, but the trick becomes when to drop which glyph. 

In most cases, a flying dragon popping around the map with a long-range breath attack is more intimidating than its close-up potential for damage, so C.L.A.W.S. may generally make the most sense to drop first, unless you are already triple engaged and need to stay in the thick of combat and don’t plan on moving. At that point, W.I.N.G.S. aren’t doing you any good anyway, so they can go. The best part is when you drop a glyph, you get to pop off the associated part of the miniature as well! This is a little like the Necrotech Reavers and their common Heroes. The only disappointing part about this is when Guilty picks up the glyph with Long Arm of the Law; we can’t put the wings on Guilty. 

Gimbal fits into a wide variety of armies: whether deputized by Guilty, made a Liege with the Scions of Icaria, or brought along by her Eisen Expedition associates, she is certainly a force to be reckoned with.

Speaking of the Eisen Expedition, they are our very first three-figure, unique, long-ranged, bonding squad in the game. Jinx and Kamakura gave us a sampling of this but with only two figures and 4 Range. The Eisen Expedition’s Line Up The Shot 2 has a similar feeling to Wait Then Fire, which we saw many times in All-Time Heroscape. The biggest difference is that it doesn’t affect the full squad if only one moves, just that individual figure. So, if two figures are already on their heighted perches but one figure is lagging behind, the two who didn’t move can get the bonus attack, while the third figure can still move and get the normal attack of 1. 

Well-Equipped lets them do a lot of fun and strategic things on the map, such as moving across water without stopping, taking height on Lava Field while not worrying about the potential damage at the end of the round, or ignoring Toxic land’s negative defense penalties. The “may” clause still allows them to benefit from jungle, road, and shadow, but note: the Shroudshrooms are destructible objects, not terrain tiles, so they can’t ignore those effects. The Eisen are quite fragile with only 1 Life and 3 Defense, but being able to ignore certain terrain tile effects may give them the boost they need to stay on height that others can’t for the extra survivability. 

Expeditionary Force allows them to bond with a lot of the same targets that the Chain Gruts have with Guild Boss Bonding. Using Zed’s Skyhook to set up Line up the Shot 2 finally gives a use to everybody’s favorite blimp. Expeditionary Force also gives us a new class: Scientist. This gives the Eisen Expedition the ability to bond with (at the moment): Gimbal, Durnipia, and even an upcoming Elf Wizard Scientist (more on that in a later article).

At the 2026 World Championship at Gen Con, AL Bot was able to pilot an army of Nishi Souta, Takanawa Kaiga, Guilty McCreech 2.0, a deputized Gimbal, the Eisen Expedition, and “Blink” Dawson to 1st place out of about 150 players.

With over half of the top 32 being COBRA Trooper builds, AL Bot had to wade through the many Trooper, Serpentor, and Destro builds to show that an all-unique build can climb to the top of the meta and offer some clear counterplay.

When speaking with AL Bot, he mentioned that he liked the threat of fireline to keep the Troopers from podding up, plus the range of the Eisen Expedition to force the Troopers to keep moving. The hard-hitting power of Takanawa and Gimbal could also threaten Serpentor if anyone got overly aggressive with him. 

Have all the Secrets of the Citadel been revealed?  Is there more to come? Will the Troopers be able to recover from the loss? How long will the reign of Gimbal last? Stay tuned for the next article. Until then, Happy Scaping!

Photos by Vecna