Released as the fifth stand-alone wanderer for the game, Preacher combines both already well-known aspects all Wanderers have in common – like being much stronger than your average run-of-the-mill-survivor whilst also burdened with both destiny and strange compulsions – as well as new facets we have not seen up until now.
Because, make no mistake! Preacher has not come to your settlement for just a quick visit or as she was trying to seek refuge from something!
She has come bearing a purpose! She is here to take charge!

Generally speaking, Wanderers are outsiders, each with their own unique stories to tell. They travel to your settlement, often by pure happenstance, become part of the community for a while and will typically move on eventually to continue their journey through the unbroken darkness.
During their stay however, they will influence your settlement with their foreign ideas and customs, whilst the way they feel towards your community will have an influence on their stories at large.
And trust me, you will want to be on good terms with them. Having a high positive Disposition with them will usually make rolls on their story events easier, which can grant you various different boons and bonuses, such as “not getting eaten” or permanent stat boosts to the Wanderers or even other, regular survivors. They might also find new gear – which you may even be allowed to keep after they are gone – gain innovations or allow for more interactions with their unique core mechanics.
Just be mindful that each and all Wanderers have their fair share of baggage you will have to deal with.

On a side-note: all Wanderers are Arc-Survivors and thus interact with the Knowlegde system from the GCE. Subsequently they will work best in arc settlements.
However if you do not own the GCE: fret not! It will be fine! They all come with a Fighting Art version of their personal Knowledge to share with your survivors.
These Fighting Arts are a bit weaker than the final rank of the Knowledge, and seem to correspond more to its Level 2 version. Not having to level them up first will make up for that a bit during play though.

Preacher is the first Wanderer we have seen that is less of a random passer-by and more of an instigator or usurper type of character. Even the official newsletter called her a “Benevolent Trickster”.
She has come to your settlement to spread the good word of .., uh, .. herself? And if you follow her teachings to the letter she will indeed crit that Frogdog 7 times during one fight for you!

This will contain spoilers, though I will try and keep them fairly light for anything story related.
I do not consider cards posted on the shop page as spoilers – just to be clear.

To spread the gospel of .., uhm .., her own achievements, Preacher arrives at your doorstep in Lantern Year 8. This makes her the last of the non-GCE Wanderers to arrive (for now) and gives you a chance to have a flourishing, or at the very least, functional settlement for her to take over.
Whilst she does appear to be a light-weight of sorts stat-wise at first glance, +1LCK and +1SPD are a decent starting point for her once you start considering the weapon she is carrying around as well. But more on that in a bit. She also has 5 courage and 5 understanding each, which sets her up to be able to gain her unique abilities associated with either fairly quickly.

Speaking of unique abilities – all of them seem to be revolving around Devout survivors.

Devout as a keyword does not do anything on its own but interacts with various cards and abilities brought along by Preacher and how much you are willing to play with these mechanics ultimately will decide how powerful and influential Preacher will be during her time with the settlement.
Even just her own Object of Devotion ability can be very effective in keeping Preacher safe from a lot of nasty effects and attacks if somebody Devout and willing is close by to shield her from harm. And, trust me, you will want to keep her safe.

Still, this doesn’t seem too great right off the bat and how does one get to become Devout anyways?

Well, one of the easiest ways for a survivor to turn Devout would be to use a piece of Preacher’s gear.
She does, as opposed to most other Wanderers, arrive with 3 pieces of gear (a weapon and 2 items) and in her introductory story event one of the 2 items will be made available to be used by the settlement as a “holy relic” of sorts. And every time a survivor departs with this item, they record the Devout keyword on their survivor sheet.

This will be your starting point on your journey to creating a settlement filled with devoted followers!

And between Preacher story events giving survivors Devout, endeavoring at Holy Scarification (I) later on and being the target of Preacher’s max courage ability Evangelist there are still a few other ways to gain this keyword that definitely does not have ANY downsides whatsoever.

The disorders in particular can offer insane survivability as long as the survivor having it is indeed insane.

And Miracle Worker – Preacher’s max understanding ability – should also be able to create a lot of value with every critical wound she inflicts, even if it is limited to once per round only. That +1LCK she starts with should pay off nicely in the long run.

But why am I even playing this charade at this point?

What you actually need to know is that with a hunting party of 4 Devout survivors, Preacher is easily the strongest Wanderer by far at this point, at least when it comes to offense.
Give her a Lucky Charm and she will crit a monster on 4+!

If the monster can be crit, Preacher will do so reliably.

A dash of insanity is required to make the most of the gear though. Something Preacher does start with upon arrival, with her insanity set to 9, luckily.
And I’ve not even mentioned the Sanctified Rosary with its armor gain on arrival yet either.

In short, if Preacher and the settlement believe in her own hype just enough, she will happily live up to it.

Her knowledge & Fighting Art further highlight the power of belief and actualization.

And even without a disquieted mind, Virtuous (K/FA) will slowly add insanity to a Devout believer until they eventually gain an additional +1SPD or the trifecta of stats (+1MOV/ACC/SPD) from the rank 3 knowledge.
And whilst these stats may not appeal to all players, they sure sound lovely to me, especially if Preacher gets her hammer up to 3 swings per attack.
That’s right – the 1/5+/7 club that can get Deadly 3 fairly easily, isn’t even slow, in case you missed that!

Unfortunately for her less willing subjects, Virtuous (K/FA) does not help non-Devout survivors at all – even harming them as it sets their insanity to 0 at the start of every act!

But that’s surely only all the more reason to willingly become Devout!?

Well..

Mostly.

Her neurosis Revered can be a real killer for how simple it is.
My first attempt at a Preacher campaign got lost to an unfortunate knockdown when a Sunstalker vomited on a singled out Preacher before it proceeded to explode with its solar flare and nobody could do anything about it.
2 people died that fight, one of them Preacher.

Overall, any fight that features a lot of knockdown is very dangerous with her in the party. Especially as once she has fallen over, nobody else can help her up if you have a group of all Devout survivors!
And sure, there are a couple of easy fixes here – like “just bring 1 non-Devout survivor” .. but that turns off Deadly 3! The hammer needs 3+ OTHER Devout survivors!
Or, “don’t bring Preacher” .. but why would I not bring my super-survivor?
But ultimately you will just have to decide for yourself if the risk is worth the reward .. have you seen that hammer?

I do want to take her to a Screaming God one day and find out how things play out – if the group gets lost to the Stampede in a turn or two – and I will update this post once I have managed to do so.

So, with the cat out of the bag now, that Devout is actually a mixed bag after all in conjunction with Preacher in the party, we do still need to take a look at the innovations she shares with the settlement.

These 4 innovations are gained during Preacher’s story and immediately replace their non-holy counterparts wherever they may be at the time you trigger the event – be it in play, your innovation deck or still in the box to be added as a consequence for something else.

And whilst they appear to be mostly upgrades to their non-holy versions there are .. issues .. to consider with each of them.

Holy Scarification (I) for instance, loses the +1 courage gain, but makes the survivor endeavoring here Devout and gives you a roll on what I would consider a straight up better table than what regular Scarification (I) has on offer.

Holy Shrine (I) limits its effect to only apply to Devout survivors but is overall better in what it does.

Holy Hovel (I) gives you +2 survival and +2 insanity on departure, but again, only for Devout survivor!
And.., OH, but what is this? Intimacy can only be participated in .. with a Partner!?

This restriction is probably one of the more game-defining ones Preacher unleashes upon your settlement, but thankfully she also teaches you about Partnership (I) at the same time. So, whilst it might still end up being a considerable drain on your endeavors in the long run, you will at least get the innovation for free from your deck.
And as I’ve said before: Partnership (I) isn’t actually all that bad.. as long as you get it for free!

Holy Sacrifice (I) feels like a straight up different innovation in comparison to regular Sacrifice (I).

So, overall, these innovations are also a bit of a mixed bad, further highlighting the divide that gets created in your settlement between survivors that are Devout and those that aren’t as a lot of great benefits are solely granted to those ready to follow Preacher without question.
Ultimately this set-up wants you to engage with all these aspects fully, rewarding you by making Preacher that much more powerful as long as her retinue is fully Devout.

Oh, and in case you were wondering:
Should Preacher die unexpectedly, get murdered or something, yes you are stuck with these new Holy innovations unless explicitly told otherwise by a story event.
So, yes, there is a world in which you unlock Holy Hovel (I), Preacher dies immediately in the following Lantern Year and you are now stuck not only on mandatory Partnership (I) but also without the +2 survival/insanity departing bonus and with no way to actually gain Devout for your survivors until you innovate Holy Scarification (I) or randomly draw one of the two disorders.

But should you manage to keep Preacher alive and well and send her on hunts with a full-party of Devout underlings, much like Aeneas, she will be able to shape your settlement by killing off powerful quarry monsters almost single handedly with her crit-on-4+ mentality.
She is, indeed, the Hype.

Whilst I have enjoyed my time spent with Preacher thus far there are two things I would like to mention/address still.

Number 1: the model & box.
They are old. The plastic for this release has been finished since forever ago and it is quite obvious.
She is in the old scale without a doubt – which is especially noticeable next to the other Wanderers. And for her being so detailed and intricate, she will be a challenge to paint for most people. Also her glasses do look kinda weird.
The box is also noticeably different to the other Wanderers, being both larger (deeper) and smaller (less length) at the same time.
As a random positive note, you can chose between long and short hair for the figure.

Number 2: the story.
I do not want to spoil the story – which has been my hard and fast rule for most of these boxes, but there has been some intense criticism towards this box in particular, even if it is coming from what seems to be a small minority of players.
Politics and religion usually lead to such reactions, so there is that right from the onset – she is called Preacher after all. And I believe I should at least mention that you might bounce off of this expansion hard if you tend to find issues with these topics in fiction or games, especially in the context of hypocrisy.
I don’t really want to say anything else as that would go against my attempts to not spoil the events playing out, but I am sure you might have an idea or two towards which outcome this story might be trending to if you have read the full post. And I am sure the dynamic between her disposition and the Devout keyword existing will give you another idea or two.
..
What’s that? I haven’t really mentioned disposition at all?
Exactly.

Keeping these things in mind, whilst it took me a long time to get her to the table, I have still enjoyed my time with her just as much as with the other 4 Wanderers available as White Boxes.

If you want to make the most of her in the time that she is around in your settlement, you will need to fully engage with her mechanics which will likely leave a permanent mark on how your settlement functions for the rest of the campaign.
And if you are indeed fully devoted to her, Preacher will crunch up whatever monster you put in front of her, as long as it can be critically wounded and it doesn’t knock her down.

Compared to the other 4 available Wanderers, Preacher reminds me most of Goth, as in she offers a more rounded gameplay experience than the other boxes, making some aspects of the game harder, whilst others get easier.
The main difference to the other Wanderers, in my opinion, would be that Preacher demands a certain level of commitment. Especially if you hardly interact with her at all, she will be a noticeable detriment to your settlement which has not been the case with any of the others.

If you are in the market for any of the other Wanderers and are looking for a way to make your campaigns slightly easier, you should consider Candy who is looking for a forever-home or the aloof Death Drifter.
For a slightly more balanced experience of push and pull – as mentioned above – Goth might be more interesting to you.
Or if you are looking for a Wanderer that could square up with Preacher in terms of power but likes snacking on your resources instead of warping your settlement phase gameplay: Aeneas could be the one for you.

***

As always, I do sincerely hope this has helped you form an opinion on whether or not Wanderer – Preacher might be right for you.
If you are interested in my opinions on the other Wanderers you can read about Goth here, the Death Drifter here, Candy & Cola here and Aeneas here!

Are you willing to change your way of life to accommodate the wandering Preacher praising .., uh, herself?
Let me know!

As always, thank you very much for your time, nobody believes in Preacher’s hype quite as much as Preacher herself!
Amathul