Dredge Stonesinger

General
Stonesingers are the Dredge equivalent of human Menders, specializing in powerful magical abilities. They wear stone masks, are wrapped in brightly colored stoles and hold two spear-like weapons that help them channel the dark energy they summon when using their special abilities. Seemingly fragile units with limited mobility, Stonesingers always have other Dredge as bodyguards and usually lurk in the back lines. This makes them really hard to get to, and leaves them ample time to weave any of their two active abilities.

Passive Ability: Disease Strike
The Stonesinger's melee-attack, if successful, transmits a deadly disease to the target unit. This disease causes the unit to lose 1 Strength point at the start of each of his turns, until the end of the battle. The disease is instantly transmitted to all units that are adjacent to the target, be they allies or enemies. Moreover, the disease will infect any unit terminating its move in a tile adjacent to an already diseased unit.

Note:
 * Killing the Stonesinger will not remove the disease effect (debuff) from afflicted units.
 * In some versions of the second part of The Banner Saga, there were two issues/bugs concerning this effect: (a) The debuff removed from all units after killing the Singer and/or (b) the effect could be carried/transmitted by Skulkers, without them getting harmed by it.

Active Ability: Rupture
The Stonesinger unites his twin spears and starts vibrating while he casts his deadly spell. At the start of his next turn, specific Dredge units suddenly explode, killing themselves and causing direct Strength AoE damage that harms all adjacent units. The units that explode are those that are wounded (8STR or less) and that have at least one adjacent enemy; if no Dredge units satisfy these conditions, then nothing happens. The amount of damage caused by each exploding-Dredge is equal to its remaining Armor; note that this Strength damage bypasses the Armor of the units that suffer the attack, just like Slag and Burn or Shatterstone!

Note: In the second part of The Banner Saga Rupture seems to cause more damage than expected by the description.

Active Ability: Umbrage
Just like when using Rupture, the Stonesinger unites his twin spears and starts vibrating while he casts his deadly spell. At the start of his next turn, all ally Dredge units permanently lose 2 Armor and gain 3 Strength points.

K illing the Stonesinger removes the +3STR buff from all Dredge but leaves the -2ARM penalty. Enemies that were kept alive due to the buff are instantly killed.

Strategies

 * Stonesingers are generally hard to get to as they are well protected behind their Dredge allies.
 * Both Stonesinger active abilities are related to ally Dredge, so when Singers are alone they are actually easy to kill. Umbrage can be cast multiple times during a fight, whereas Rupture is cast just once. The Singer will usually engage in melee combat only when he/she is the last enemy standing.
 * In the first part of The Banner Saga, there is not way to distinguish if the Stonesinger is casting Rupture or Umbrage, so be prepared for anyone of the two... The worst case is Rupture, so you should either kill the Singer, knock-out any Dredge units adjacent to your allies, or get away from them! In the second part of The Banner Saga, a special icon for casting Rupture shows on the turn-queue portrait of the Singer.
 * Rupture can be devastating if you have used Armor-bypass attacks (e.g. Arc Lightning, Bloody Flail or Impale) to wound high-Armor units like Stoneguard. Killing the Stonesinger, or finishing-off his wounded bodyguards, before he completes his spell, can save a lot of lives!