by pkreynolds
My daughter and I are only up to chapter 3 so far, but at this point, we have a clear winner in the most valuable mouse category - We won't leave Barksburg without Nez. He has been our most reliable fighter, often rolling 3 or 4 hits.He's easy to equip - there's no need to replace his starting hammer and we used the Tinkerer's Treasure in chapter 1 to get him some armor.
We have him armed with Battle Squeak for when he really needs to deliver a knockout blow to Brodie or some sort of heavily armored bug thing. He almost always recoups the 1 cheese cost for using it when he rolls all five dice to attack.
If we really need something dead in a hurry, we'll have Nez attack it, and then have Collin use Giver Order and let Nez swing again. We delivered a one-two all-Nez knockout to Skitter-Clak this way.
He's also been our only Cheesemaster, and our only Cat Tamer (twice) thus far.
Compared to the other mice, the only two who come close to Nez's battle record are Collin and Tilda (and only when she's on a space with a couple of wounded mice so she can roll 3 or 4 dice).
He's also the only mouse who hasn't been captured. He's faced Brodie alone and lived to tell the tale.
Filch is great but so far we really haven't been able to gear him effectively to make use of his abilities. He's rolled only two dice throughout our campaign and he often misses or is blocked. Lily has only been along for one chapter, and she's performed okay but that's mainly because she had the Enchanted Bow right from the start so she rolled three dice, and she got the extra attack a couple of times. Maginos, even with the Scorching Wand, hasn't fared very well for us yet.
So far, my ranking in terms of how indispensable (in combat)each mouse has been for us would go: Nez, Collin, Tilda, Filch, Lily, Maginos. If we're talking about party utility, I'd probably rate them a little differently: Collin, Tilda, Nez, Filch, Lily, Maginos. Although Nez does have some impressive party utility just because he's the tinkerer. He can get any armor or weapon out of the deck in chapter 1, and he lets the party avoid the potentially fatal Dining Room encounter in chapter 2. Without him in the party, you can't do either of those very powerful things.
So in summary, yes he's slow(ish - he still usually moves 3 spaces on average), and yes he has low starting armor (which can be easily brought in line with everyone else immediately at the beginning of chapter 1) but he hits like a beast, has the most health of all the mice, and if you want to, you can equip him like a tank (Have Tilda give him her Leather Breastplate, use Tinkerer's Treasure to find the Thimble Helm, starting ability Resolve. Put him out front to draw minion attacks, and he gets base three defense dice [five when Resolve is used]. Put Tilda adjacent behind him to First Aid and you can keep the whole party safe and sound pretty easily. And he still swings with four dice. Beastly). Even better, use Filch with Find to get him a shield and bring his defense up to base four with six on Resolve. That's downright ridiculous).