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What TT Master works best as Ten Thunders?


Merellin

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So, The topic title might be confusing but I was thinking about this, Almost all Ten Thunders Masters are Dual Faction, and I heard somewhere Mei Feng works best as Arcanists and Jakob Lynch works best as Neverborn.. And that Brewmaster is basicaly pure Gremlin (Dont remember where I read this, But I recall reading it somewhere..) So I started wondering, What Ten Thunders Master plays best in the Ten Thunders faction..?

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Shenlong. :P

 

Realtalk, they're often not better, just different.  If you try to play brewie as a drinking party instead of Swillbot 9000 in 10T, it just won't work - he's the most dramaric example, but far from the only one.  It's easy to try to play it the same way in a new faction and just fail.

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Well, I'm new to the faction but IMO McCabe gets a lot of nice things from being in TT instead of Guild. The Shadowy Emissary can push + fast anything when he's around, and there are a few other interactions with upgrades that he can give to minions. Plus there are more guardsmen to hire in (especially hounds + austringers) whereas in guild I'm not even sure which black sheep models there are that aren't dual faction guild anway.

 

Also I wouldn't be so quick to write off Lynch in TT. He's not a master I play, but there are plenty of nice ways to use those aces. 10T brothers can all get whichever trigger you want on their (0) with him at no cost.

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Lynch: I was listening to a podcast, and apparently TT Lynch is very notorious in the UK.  As in people see him as very powerful.  I think all of the ways TT can have positive flips really help Lynch.  Plus TT brothers.

Mei Feng: There are enough constructs in TT as well as other factions (via foundry keyword) that I think Mei Feng does just as well in TT as she does as Arcanists.  I don't think either faction is a bad choice.

McCabe: He has access to better minions in TT which makes TT the better choice over Guild imo.

Yan Lo: He works fairly independently of his crew, so I don't think it really matters which faction he's run as.

Brewmaster: I have no experience with him

Misaki: The other Outcast masters are generally always better choices over Misaki.  I feel like I mostly see Misaki run as TT.  I don't really have enough tabletop experience with her to know if she is better as Outcasts or TT.

 

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Brewmaster was my first crew, and what he's missing (from my point of view) is the ability to force people into his drinking games and ways to bolster his own workers while doing it. Ten Thunders gives many options in that direction for him that I never got a feel for from the Gremlins side. One of the downsides of trying to run him as a TT master is one of his upgrades is mandatory to use the rest of his box, since his Tri Chi infiltration is not built in.

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Mei Feng seems every bit as good in Thunders as she is in Arcanists. Some of the newer releases in particular have closed the gap (if it ever existed).

There are a handful of really potent tools that Arcanists offer her, such as Howard Langston (steam cloud tag-team), Mech Rider and upgrades Seize, Reservoir etc.

But she gets a lot  from Toshiro + Komainu, Shadow Emissary and upgrades like Recalled Training and Wings of Wind that Thunders have to offer. Thunders also have better guns than Arcanists, so her crew can be built to happily trade fire with Gremlin or Guild while she vents steam for them.

I feel like Mei's greatest strength in Ten Thunders is the raw diversity of the faction itself. When you declare Ten Thunders, your opponent usually has very little idea what you'll be bringing or who your master is.

Compare that to when you declare Arcanists, as your opponent knows you're very likely to have Constructs and/or Armour/Hard to Kill in your crew, so it's much, much easier to prepare/tech against Arcanists once they're declared than Ten Thunders.

I think Mei in Ten Thunders is probably ever so slightly stronger than in Arcanists nowadays.

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TL;DR misaki and mccabe are better in 10T the rest are pretty even.

I agree on the general opinion of masters in 10T aren't stronger or weaker so much as different. 

You have to take it all in context. Each of the dual faction masters, even ones like Lucius or Tara, have pros and cons to running in each faction that tend to distill down to two specific concepts:

Custom crew and upgrades. 

What I mean by custom crew is those "unique" models in each faction that don't really have an equivalent in other factions. You can narrow a lot of models down to simple things like utility, scheme runner, beater, etc.

When you do that you have easier times matching capabilities. For instance, Lynch (just happen to know him well). Scheme running he has silurids, terror tots and insidious madness in neverborn. For 10T he has yokai, 10T bros and wandering river monks. 

Some of these are better than others at various things but they all fit the role of being scheme runners, solid to great. 

But when you look at the mysterious emissary vs the shadow emissary, you have unique effects to consider. Mysty drops hazardous and can remove conditions or summon cheap minions. Shadow grants aura effects, a push and fast and access to crew wide focus bombs. 

Lynch doesn't really care about mysty, he's good but none of his tricks are too dastardly, just cool. But shadow pushing huggy and giving him fast is monstrous. So 10T edges there. 

You can perform these kind of comparitive exercises with all our dual faction masters and at the end of the day it comes down to how you play them. Wyrd did a really good job of balancing, and as of right now I would happily play any of my 10T masters as 10T. 

My two exceptions to this longwinded post are McCabe and Misaki. 

McCabe gets access to the best stuff he wants from guild in 10T: austringers and hounds. 10T gives him just better targets for his black flash and saber, hedging him into better as a 10T. 

Misaki gets Yu, Shadow and misdirection in 10T... There just really isn't much contest comparitively. 

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22 minutes ago, spooky_squirrel said:

Brewmaster was my first crew, and what he's missing (from my point of view) is the ability to force people into his drinking games and ways to bolster his own workers while doing it. Ten Thunders gives many options in that direction for him that I never got a feel for from the Gremlins side. One of the downsides of trying to run him as a TT master is one of his upgrades is mandatory to use the rest of his box, since his Tri Chi infiltration is not built in.

Honestly that's what annoys me most. You have to pay an extra 2 SS just to take his totem. Is there like some weird secret trick I'm not aware of that make Wesley an absolute beast in TT specifically? The Tri Chi in general taking an upgrade is fine but at least that totem should be part of the master. I hate having bought the box and never using anything but Brewwie ):

 

As for which masters are better...

Like the thread is saying; most play different. TT bring a lot of different tools, and with their infiltration they tend to get most of what they need from other factions and get to slap on a Recalled Training and Misdirection to boot. Mei doesn't need a crew with 8 different constructs and even if she did you could make do with TT and her infiltration. Brewwie in TT gets Yin and Yu. Lynch gets Yu and TTBs. Every master gets TTBs actually. Maybe Yan is missing some spiritty synergy, but with the new Goryo I'd say that's largely solved. On the whole I'd say TT brings some more mobility to most masters, which lends itself to different playstyles. Hard to say which of those is objectively stronger though.

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19 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

Honestly that's what annoys me most. You have to pay an extra 2 SS just to take his totem. Is there like some weird secret trick I'm not aware of that make Wesley an absolute beast in TT specifically? The Tri Chi in general taking an upgrade is fine but at least that totem should be part of the master. I hate having bought the box and never using anything but Brewwie ):

Yeah this is a total bummer. I cannot wait to try out Terracotta with him...

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One thought regarding Mei Feng: she has immediate access to things like the Mechanical Rider, Metal Gamin, Rail Golem when running as an Arcanist.

 

As a Ten Thunders, she ends up infiltrating the Foundry models in and cannot bring in the Mechanical Rider or the collection of spiders that bring down Df, eat scheme markers, etc. So this looks like a limiting factor because she loses out on having a crew hiring pool that supports her being a long-range non-linear threat. With constructs roaming around (to include Toshiro summoning Komainu off of the Porkchop's dropped tail), she still has impressive mobility and can run schemes really well if her crew is handling the strategy, but compared to the M&SU menu, it's not as exciting/absurd.

So her role might change to a more supporting role. Vent Steam near some 10T Brothers and watch them get ignored by casters, shooters, and beaters as too hard to deal with. Select upgrades that will put her in better positions to support and be a counter-charge element instead of minion-slayer. I don't have my TT upgrades cards in front of me and I've been using her in Arcanists more, so I don't have a lot of refinement of this idea.

From my own experience with her, her model selection in Arcanists supports her better; depending on the strat/scheme and hiring pools, the Ten Thunders models might be better supported by her.

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Ya, Wesley should have at least been dual faction like Luna, Emberling, Shang, Soul Porter, and Hungering Darkness are.  I blame it on the Brewmaster being a new master for M2E and a Wave 1 master no less.  One of those real hindsight issues.

Personally I think people's opinions on who is better with which faction will vary a lot based on their preferences as the crews will vary between the two factions.  Personally I like McCabe in Guild over 10T, despite knowing I am a minority here, because I like taking more than 4 guardsman models normally.  With McCabe I favor more and cheaper models, that is my style with him, where it seems with 10T I end up with more midrange costed models.  But I know that is a preference.

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I think Brewmaster works better as a Ten Thunder master actually, even though he doesn't get acces to Trixie; There's plenty of models that add poison without needing a trigger, a lot of pushes to bring model to the drinking contest aura, the misdirection upgrade works great with him, and a lot of models that synergize very well with the Brewmaster: like Yin, sensei Yu, bunrakus, fermented monks, even oiran and komainu could have their place.

I don't even think the "Running Tab" upgrade is necessary. Only wesely is really worth it, and I don't understand why he's not dual faction.

But maybe that's just my way of playing.

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1 hour ago, Macumazahn said:

I don't even think the "Running Tab" upgrade is necessary. Only wesely is really worth it, and I don't understand why he's not dual faction.

Not necessarily always, but Fingers is incredible in the right scheme pool. Give him Drinking "Problem" and he is nigh unkillable (although I suppose you could do similar with Sensei Yu and Low River Style), he's an amazing scheme runner (and well, probably should be if you're paying 10 stones for him and an extra 2 to be able to hire him) but also really good in Headhunter/Squatter's Rights.

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I prefer Lynch in Thunders due to the added mobility and all the +++ and the 'discard a card to'.
I also prefer handing out 'Swill+x' rather then activating Drinking contest every turn with the Brewmaster (not that Sensei Yu can't copy the Contest ;))
I feel like Yan Lo would be better as a Resser, but after the Goryo were revealed I intend to convert them from Lone Swordsmen + Sorrows.
Which reminds me, can someone please PM me their stats/abilities? I expect I won't be able get my hands on the physical book in my LGS for two more months at least.

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5 hours ago, Macumazahn said:

The model with drinking problem doesn't benefit from the effect, only other tri chi models. But Fingers is pretty hardy either way.

oh damn, just noticed that... book's only been out for years. lucky I haven't played him all that much then

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