As an independent Great Old One, his cosmic level psyche allows him to re-assign Battle results to Factions in a Battle Area that are now even participating in the Battle. Send your big army, including Dire Cthulhu, to an enemy’s area where he has lots of tasty victims. Then, conspire with a 3rd player to move a single Cultist into that Area, and Battle that one lone unit. It won’t roll anything against you. And all the dice you roll against him, you can simply re-assign to all those tasty victims who are merely bystanders. They can receive all your rolled Kills and Pains, but do not get to retaliate! Cthulhu is indeed…Dire! Also, if you replace the normal Cthulhu with Dire Cthulhu, you can use the “classic” figure for the original Independent Cthulhu Great Old One if you like (rules are inside the master rulebook). Yes, this means you could, if you were insane, use BOTH figures as independent great old ones in the same game. Cthulhu vs. Cthulhu! —description from the publisher;; The Dire Cthulhu sculpt is credited to "Tidal 4".