Fully Grounded: #4 Stone Columns (Patreon)

 This is part of the terrain series, other entries can be found at the contents page here. 

 Terrain from Emporium Miniatures. Link:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/EmporiumMiniatures 

• Number: 2 sets of 3 (Total: 6)
• Size: 2x1
• Passive: No
• Activate: No
• Obstacle: Yes
• Classification: Defensive

One of the most ubiquitous pieces of terrain in the game, the Stone Columns are most often seen during nemesis showdowns; appearing in the Butcher, King's Man, Hand and Manhunter fights. However they do sometimes turn up in quarry showdowns (Always in the Dung Beetle Knight, Sunstalker and Dragon King showdowns where they have direct tactical applications). This suggests that the place where survivors wake up when they are [Redacted] by [Redacted] is more densely covered in Stone Columns than the further out locations they hunt in. That has some interesting connotations in respect to both the Watchers habits and the choice of location where [Redacted] chooses. Perhaps the place where survivors wake up is near some of the ruins of the original White Lion civilisation which once covered this land?

In game, the Stone Columns offer a couple of different functions. The first, most obvious one, is that they are an obstacle which non-combat survivors can stand behind in order to avoid Field of View targeting. In combination with a Fecal Salve a Stone Column can essentially 'disappear' a survivor from the AI's list of potential targets, and as long as they are a non-attacking survivor (Full Support), or one who snipes with a bow occasionally and spends the rest of the time performing AI and or HL Control then they can be very safe. The power of only having 3 viable targets for a monster cannot be understated, it hugely increases the chances that the monster targets your tank.

Other defensive uses of the Stone Columns include using them as occasional cover, this is relevant if the monster happens to end up facing towards your DPS survivor because of reactions. They can attack and then duck behind a stone column in order to try and reduce the odds that they are the monster's next target.

The final use occurs if your unfortunate enough to have a very threatening and dangerous piece of terrain such as the Sinkhole or Lava Pool. Each of these can either harm a survivor in a significant fashion if they are collided with and knocked back into them. However, because the Stone Column stops a survivor when they collide with it (causing 1 damage) you can position the Stone Columns to provide a "screen". It looks like this:

(Positioning here isn't optimal, this was a quick snap to demonstrate the principle).

This means that from three directions, you cannot land in the more dangerous terrain because the pillar will take the first 'hit'.  Note that this kind of terrain strategy works even better with the Toppled Pillar, because that is not destructible, it has more generous deployment rules and it's a 3x1. 

Your survivors pick the area in which they face the monster, you should make sure it is as advantageous as possible!