Shadow Emissary

[Patzer]

There has been little to no discussion on the Shadow Emissary, lets change that! 

I have started to field it more often now, and it is an outstanding model in my opinion. Its got a more than decent stat line with a healthy amount of wounds, Hard to Kill, the Destined condition will help it keep on trucking for a while. Rolling Thunder is simply amazing. With it all you need to do is tie in order to get a straight flip, which can be outright cruel with the Emissary's pretty high severe damage. The attack action (Ca) the Angry Winds is great for two additional reasons. The generic "Word of the Emissary" trigger lets it strike again after damaging, and it has two ranges: 2" , 7". In short it can attack from a fairly safe distance or charge in head on. It's tactical actions are (in descending order from the back of the card) outstanding, interesting, situationally good. The Rite of Strength will once per turn push a friendly non-leader with an upgrade attached (Hidden Agenda!) 4", and give it Fast. I can't stress how much mileage I have gotten out of this already. A great way to push a beater and hit it up with Fast for turn 2, or get them out of melee/reposition, give them Fast so the can go after something else. The next action Aspect of the Dragon looks interesting but I haven't used it, so I can't really comment. Third Prophecies in Thunder will remove the hard earned destined condition (+2 or greater) and give every friendly model in play Focused. I find this very situational, and most of the time I would prefer to have the healing remain on the Emissary. It is a nice trick to have nonetheless. 

Then there is all the Conflux upgrades, which are all good for Ten Thunders in my opinion. I will write more on the ones I have use in later posts, but I would love to hear about which ones everyone think stands out! 

[Gennosuke]

Haven't played nor with or against him yet, but on paper I find the Emmisary oustandingly good, especially with the (0) upgrades. Too good, in my opinion. I mean, I compare him with any other 10SS model of Ten Thunder, and, if I had to choose, I don't really find a way to take Izamu, Dawn Serpent, Fuhatsu, Ototo (particularly that last two xD) over him, considering the benefits of the (o) upgrades.

Because of that, at the moment I have no intention to play it, at least not until the rest of the players in my group start bringing their Emmisaries to the table, and I guess that won't happen until they are released (and in my country that will be at least a couple of months later than the oficial date xD).

However, I can't lie, I'm willing to try him with Misaki and Sensei Yu (and lose a couple of friends in the way xD). Even with the conflux of thunder tunned down, looks like it could set off a incredible slaughter in the first turn among the enemy lines

[Patzer]

Its good, but I don't think it is too good. It falls on the high end of the power curve of what a 10ss model can be. Frankly, TT needs some help in the 10ss+ department too, so I welcome the addition. Then, it will die pretty easy with some focused effort from the opponent. 

I have tried it with Misaki (Stalking Bisento) and Sensei Yu (Wandering River Style), and it worked fine. In standard deployment I felt that alpha strikes would be a stretch so I settled for a Turn 2 assault. You don't want to overextend both one of your best models and Master at turn 1, but there probably are heaps of situations where it would work wonders. The Conflux aura didn't come into play until turn 3 or 4 since the Emissary had to do other stuff. 

[Rurouni Benshin]

I love the Emissary.  He has the strongest Cat attack, for a Non-Master/Henchman model, and brings a lot of interesting bonuses to their respective Masters.  Only Masters I've played with him so far though are Misaki, Mei Feng, and Yan Lo though.  I've played the Brutal Emissary with McCabe once, but I can't imagine him playing very differently by comparison. 

[ScareMeTrav]

Where are you getting the cards for the Emissary?

[Fetid Strumpet]

The card is represented in the book Shifting Loyalties. I assume they are just using the book, or are photocopying/ scanning and printing them out for use. 

[Patzer]

15 hours ago, Rurouni Benshin said:

I love the Emissary.  He has the strongest Cat attack, for a Non-Master/Henchman model, and brings a lot of interesting bonuses to their respective Masters.  Only Masters I've played with him so far though are Misaki, Mei Feng, and Yan Lo though.  I've played the Brutal Emissary with McCabe once, but I can't imagine him playing very differently by comparison. 

How did it work with Yan Lo? The buffs it provides Yan, it becoming an Ancestor, and that it can gets its Attack action to 7 with Chiaki has me gotten pumped to play Yan Lo actually. 

13 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

The card is represented in the book Shifting Loyalties. I assume they are just using the book, or are photocopying/ scanning and printing them out for use. 

Exactly. Hopefully they will be up on Wargame Vault soon.  

[RarerMonsters]

To be fully honest, the Emmisaries are unbelievably boring and even if they're good I just don't want to use them.

In a character oriented game like Malifaux, they have no character at all, they're just generic "Heavies" in the faction's aesthetic.

The Conflux upgrades also don't appeal to me. They're so... inelegant. Slap them on, they specifically buff your master. No figuring out the synergies, no interactions, just "name your master get a bonus". Not my style.

[Astrella]

That's a personal opinion, I really like the Brutal Emmisary myself and think it's a very characteristic guild model. And I think you're forgetting that the Emmisaries are supposed to be an Avatar replacement, so of course they're going to have unique stuff for each master.

[Patzer]

 

41 minutes ago, RarerMonsters said:

To be fully honest, the Emmisaries are unbelievably boring and even if they're good I just don't want to use them.

In a character oriented game like Malifaux, they have no character at all, they're just generic "Heavies" in the faction's aesthetic.

The Conflux upgrades also don't appeal to me. They're so... inelegant. Slap them on, they specifically buff your master. No figuring out the synergies, no interactions, just "name your master get a bonus". Not my style.

Shadow Emissary is a ton of fun. 

The Effigies are generic schemers and Master buffers, and the Emissaries are buffed up Effigies, so I think they have a place. Especially since that the Effigies are the factions' "avatars", and that they are the only ones who represents the faction as whole in such a sense. Each Effigy also got a story now, thus making them characters too I guess. Bland maybe, but I guess one can argue more than Guild Guard 201. 

If a model gets a buff from a source that is direct, that in itself may present other synergy options. Synergy doesn't stop between two models. Even if you don't like the initial source, you might find some other synergy it provides to further down the "chain". 

[Rurouni Benshin]

8 hours ago, Patzer said:

How did it work with Yan Lo? The buffs it provides Yan, it becoming an Ancestor, and that it can gets its Attack action to 7 with Chiaki has me gotten pumped to play Yan Lo actually. 

Exactly. Hopefully they will be up on Wargame Vault soon.  

He's wonderful with Yan Lo.  I used to take Toshiro with him, until the Emissary came out, and now they're rarely ever not together for me.  Brutal Khakkhara is also more effective, which makes Bone Ascendant more a priority for me.  Throw in Sensei Yu for some secondary healing and board control, and the crew is pretty powerful.

[Cadaverousbirth]

18 minutes ago, Rurouni Benshin said:

He's wonderful with Yan Lo.  I used to take Toshiro with him, until the Emissary came out, and now they're rarely ever not together for me.  Brutal Khakkhara is also more effective, which makes Bone Ascendant more a priority for me.  Throw in Sensei Yu for some secondary healing and board control, and the crew is pretty powerful.

That is wonderful to hear. It will be nice to move Yan Lo out of the "play against new players because he's weak" mentality I have with him. Pushing the lower-tier masters with more competitiveness is always good.

[Rurouni Benshin]

Just now, Cadaverousbirth said:

That is wonderful to hear. It will be nice to move Yan Lo out of the "play against new players because he's weak" mentality I have with him. Pushing the lower-tier masters with more competitiveness is always good.

The last time I played Yan Lo was in a tournament against Levi (of all Masters...).  We played Interference, and I ended winning (7-4, I believe).  Yan Lo didn't make it to the end, unfortunately, but he managed to bring a good showing to one of the more powerful Masters in the game.

[BigHammer]

Yan Lo is the boss of Malifaux. There's pretty much nothing he can't do.

#fearthebeard

(I too run the Emissary with him, and it's fantastic. Having it and Izamu as a double threat with Yan and Yu supporting is amazing. Then Yan Lo gets Bone Ascendant and just goes to town on things with Brutal Khakharra. I had him kill 11 steampunk arachnids in a game against Ramos once, on his own, just by Hunpo Assaulting into the middle of them whenever they were summoned. So many scrap markers, so much Chi...)

[Patzer]

Fun to hear people are throwing Yan on the board. After hiring three 10+ ss models in Emissary, Izamu, and Yu, what else are you bringing? 

[EntrepeNinja]

I've been really into trying it... I am even thinking about just magnetizing my Dawn Serpant so the 40mm base can click into a 50mm blank...

The things that look most exciting to me are McCabe- Getting an extra McCabe upgrade to chuck around, and another model able to cast take this seems really good.

I'm also excited about all the different auras... I think it's really well designed- "What master are you playing? Need poison? Burning? We got you." So, Mei would be fun. Might be hard to find points in a Brewie crew, the way I play him. A lot of promise there, though, yeah.

ENinja

[OneLittleThunder]

I can second that he works well with Yan Lo. I've also had pretty good success running him with Lynch; the Conflux of Hunger provides a useful 0 action push and potential card draw, and with Lynch's Ace tricks making Rolling Thunder "free" more often than not, he can hit pretty hard. I haven't played him much with Shenlong, but automatic condition removal PLUS automatic card draw is pretty awesome. The healing is situational, but a nice bonus.

[Paradigm]

I like playing Shadow Emissary in my Shenlong crew with two Katanaka Snipers and Lone Swordsman. Flying up to within 10" of an enemy while activating the aura that gives blasts, and then shooting four focused shots from the Snipers is really fun. A bit difficult to pull off, but really satisfying when it works. Being able to push Lone Swordsman (carrying Recalled Training) is also fun. And this is just one of the compositions in which Shadow Emissary is fun to use.

[BigHammer]

Having played it in a tournament at the weekend, I'm probably willing to say that Shenlong's Emissary is ridiculous. Guaranteeing 3 extra cards a turn (by hiring a Low River Monk with it) and, on average, about 4-8 healing across the crew each turn for free, whilst also being a reliable, mobile, hard-hitting model that can efficiently spread AP, in a crew that can efficiently spread AP, is a bit silly. If you can protect it (not difficult unless your opponent is playing a particular master/crew setup), it can help you dominate hand-control, positioning, activation and damage with little effort itself. It's mostly free to spend its AP murdering things very efficiently once you get into position, as well, allowing you to justify its 10 SS cost. I like it. A lot.

[Rurouni Benshin]

On 2/5/2016 at 3:34 PM, Patzer said:

Fun to hear people are throwing Yan on the board. After hiring three 10+ ss models in Emissary, Izamu, and Yu, what else are you bringing? 

Along with the 3 you mentioned, I usually bring Chiaki, the Soul Porter, and 1 Ashigaru.  After upgrades, I usually have a total cache of 6 or 5.

[Patzer]

12 hours ago, BigHammer said:

Having played it in a tournament at the weekend, I'm probably willing to say that Shenlong's Emissary is ridiculous. Guaranteeing 3 extra cards a turn (by hiring a Low River Monk with it) and, on average, about 4-8 healing across the crew each turn for free, whilst also being a reliable, mobile, hard-hitting model that can efficiently spread AP, in a crew that can efficiently spread AP, is a bit silly. If you can protect it (not difficult unless your opponent is playing a particular master/crew setup), it can help you dominate hand-control, positioning, activation and damage with little effort itself. It's mostly free to spend its AP murdering things very efficiently once you get into position, as well, allowing you to justify its 10 SS cost. I like it. A lot.

Great combo. In general I don't like the idea of hiring a Monk of Low River, but I cannot come up with a more effective way of getting those three cards a turn. MoLR seems to be a pretty good baby sitter for the Emissary too. Getting rid of conditions like Paralyze or denying charges by just standing in the way. Can get some mileage of its healing with the Emissary around. 

5 hours ago, Rurouni Benshin said:

Along with the 3 you mentioned, I usually bring Chiaki, the Soul Porter, and 1 Ashigaru.  After upgrades, I usually have a total cache of 6 or 5.

Aright. All the pushes and extra AP available should make up for being out activated most of the time. With such elite models the outactivation shouldn't be that longed lived either. 

I think the Emissary have opened up quite a lot of viable seven model crews for Ten Thunders, which is really interesting and fun to play around with. 

[BigHammer]

2 hours ago, Patzer said:

Great combo. In general I don't like the idea of hiring a Monk of Low River, but I cannot come up with a more effective way of getting those three cards a turn. MoLR seems to be a pretty good baby sitter for the Emissary too. Getting rid of conditions like Paralyze or denying charges by just standing in the way. Can get some mileage of its healing with the Emissary around. 

 

It also allows me to remove the Slow from the Peasant that I summon on the first turn, since I generally don't need to move the monk anyway. That peasant is then able to Provide for the Temple and move, setting up properly in case of the dreaded Unexpected Loss of Peasant (ULP!).

[Patzer]

Its very convincing. I guess it shouldn't be too hard to find a single MotLR. 

[Sybarite]

I've run it with McCabe and I really like it. Those extra blasts it can give to friends are nice and it has a great attack and support, as you said. Sometimes it can lay down a whole lot of damage. I only tried McCabe's conflux a couple of times and thought it was pretty nice, but I'm unsure if I like it over the general conflux. Giving positives to attack to minions can be great in a McCabe crew, with reactivating minions and stuff  

[BigHammer]

2 hours ago, Sybarite said:

I've run it with McCabe and I really like it. Those extra blasts it can give to friends are nice and it has a great attack and support, as you said. Sometimes it can lay down a whole lot of damage. I only tried McCabe's conflux a couple of times and thought it was pretty nice, but I'm unsure if I like it over the general conflux. Giving positives to attack to minions can be great in a McCabe crew, with reactivating minions and stuff  

McCabe can already do that, though, with Promises and the upgrades he hands out to things. His conflux gives you another upgrade and another Take This to hand that upgrade out. IMO, that's too good a set of abilities to pass up when you can already do the  attack flips for minions (and, indeed, anything that has an upgrade) with Promises (which is also for Wp duels as well, handily).