The G-Mutant | Resident Evil™ 2: The Board Game

2020 Update: This post was published during or shortly after the Kickstarter campaign on July 30, 2018, and may contain out-of-date assets and mechanics. To see the final version, check out Resident Evil 2: The Board Game

A truly horrific specimen, the G-Mutant will be the first boss enemy players will encounter during their escape from Raccoon City. The malformation which occurs after G has attempted to impregnate a host with incompatible DNA, this monstrosity is actually a rejected embryo burst free from its unfortunate victim and grown to hideous size. Awaiting in the cesspool and blocking the entrance to the sewers, the survivors have little choice but to defeat this foe in order to progress!

Although Birkin Stage Two was the first boss we created, encountered during the Resident Evil™ 2: The Board Game demos at GenCon and Spiel last year, the G-Mutant was the first full game boss monster our design team approached. We already knew how the behaviour deck would work for bosses after making the demo, so instead our initial discussions were more theoretical than mechanical. How difficult did we want the boss to be, in relation to standard enemies? How about in relation to Birkin Stage Two for that matter? What did we want to accomplish?

The latter was our starting point. We decided the G-Mutant was going to be our ‘tutorial’ boss. That’s not to say the encounter would be easy for the players, by any stretch of the imagination – but instead would introduce the boss mechanics for the players in a slightly more forgiving environment, where a simple mistake wouldn’t be too punishing, and they would have space to develop tactics. As you can imagine, this informed the difficulty of the boss as much as the scenario it was encountered in, and the weapons the survivors would be able to bring to bear against it.

With that in mind, lets deep dive into the G-Mutant’s special rules and behaviour cards!

Did Somebody Say Weevils?

Starting with the G-Mutant’s reference card, we can see this enemy is capable of suffering a lot more damage than the other adversaries players will have encountered. At 25 hit points, they’ll need to bring far more than handguns or even the mighty shotgun with them to put it down! At least it isn’t terribly fast. A movement value of 1 puts the G-Mutant at the same speed as a zombie, the beast only able to slowly drag its ungainly bulk around the cesspool.

Let’s keep that in mind, as we look at the G-Mutant’s special rules. The first is named Lurching Gait and allows the G-Mutant to perform a move any time the boss is unable to target a character with an attack. Although this might seem powerful at first glance, it’s worth mention this is one of the only ways the G-Mutant will move at all. Bosses rely on behaviour cards in order to perform their movement and the G-Mutant’s behaviour deck reflects the monstrosity’s lumbering advance, with only two cards featuring a move profile.

The second rule is named G-Imago Bite and is a little more complicated. As any veteran of the original videogame will tell you, as the G-Mutant moves around it sheds small organisms, named G-Imago. These bloodthirsty little critters scuttle towards any nearby characters, latching themselves to the unfortunate survivor’s clothes. In Resident Evil™ 2: The Board Game this is represented by a behaviour card named Spawn G-Imago, which places a token on the profile of each character on the same tile as the G-Mutant. If a card is drawn with the G-Imago profile on it? The G-Imago bite, inflicting a point of damage for each token!

That’s one of the behaviour cards down – lets look at the rest.

Next up is Lurch Forward, the only card in the deck with a movement profile. It also allows the G-Mutant to attack, with a low-range swipe which isn’t too hard to evade, inflicting moderate damage to a survivor hit by the G-Mutant’s claws. This is a great starter card for players to draw, teaching them the basics of how boss enemies both use their movement value, and how they interact with characters.

The second melee attack card is named Monstrous Sweep and introduces the All icon. Because of this symbol, the attack hits every character in range, representing the G-Mutant wildly swinging its arm around in a murderous arc. Although this is harder to evade than the previous attack, it fortunately retains a short range – so try to keep away!

The final type of card in the behaviour deck is Acidic Bile, which is the first time players will encounter an enemy shooting back at them! An easily evaded attack which only inflicts minimal damage, this card is much more concerning to draw because it also features the dreaded G-Imago profile…

So, how do you defeat this horrific foe? Staying away from the G-Mutant and taking advantage of your superior range is definitely the best idea. Because the boss doesn’t move very fast you should easily have time to reposition when it does get close – and as long as the survivors have a couple of recovery items with them, they can heal any damage inflicted by a stream of corrosive acid.

Undoubtedly the most important thing to remember is that the longer the battle goes on the worse it will be for the survivors, as the G-Imago slowly chew through each character’s health. You definitely won’t out attrition this guy, so bring plenty of ammunition and unload it into the boss as quickly as possible, before the disgusting little spawn overwhelm you!

We’ll be back next week, with another boss update – Birkin Stage Four, an enemy big enough to bring brand new rules to the tabletop…