GG '17 Initial Reactions

[Yvarre]

How are folks out there handling Gaining Grounds 2017?

I'm about to hit up my first '17 tourney tomorrow without having played the new schemes, and there are more events to come soon.  What masters and models are we finding to work with different strats and scheme pools?

[Nikodemus]

Should be an interesting thread. Only played one game of 2017 so this is mostly suit based theoryfaux on my end.

Frame For Murder being so common I've been wondering about what are our options for handling opponents in non-lethal ways. For my part I've been thinking of using Mighty Gust more offensively to push+slow enemies when playing Shenlong/Sensei Yu. I've used it opportunistically before to good effect but never went really heavy with it. What are our other "containment" options? Lightning Dance people into Tarpits? Shoot/pulse slow with Sidir/Ototo? Swill them to the ground?

I've rarely used Shadow Effigy's accomplice, but with Dig Their Graves/Accuse I think I'd get good use out of it. Walk up to something, interact, accomplice to a beater or secondary Accuser. I doubt his (0) leader buff will deter anyone from Eliminate the Leadership but it's nice to have. I've always been a fan of this guy and I think he might be a wee bit better in 2017.

I think Wandering River Monk is a bit stronger this year since he didn't really contribute to Hunting Party or Show of Force. 12'' movement with 1AP left to interact works on many schemes, theoretically can do Claim Jump by himself and since he's so great at farming VP I think he's a valid Frame For Murder target as well.

I'll be getting plenty of games in next week so I can hopefully say a bit more from experience.

[InvokeChaos]

TL;DR - With so many pushes, places and utility tools in our box, GG2017 is the year of the Ten Thunders, in my opinion. We did well with the strats of last year, but the kill-y nature of the schemes didn't play to our strengths as much as this year looks to.

I'm only going to focus on suited schemes right now.

Claim Jump -  Some minions who can complete every turn by themselves: Yokai (needs a 5 each turn), 10T Bros (needs a mask each turn), Wandering River Monk... Shenlong enables this with any model and McCabe giving nimble opens up the same option. Convict Labor was always pretty close to an auto-take for me, and claim jump will probably be as well. Yokai get a +1 here because they place at the end of the turn when lowering flicker, potentially allowing placement to deny this scheme after scoring it themselves  

Frame for Murder - we've got great targets in general... such as Yasunori, Izamu, Shadow Emissary. Guys that the opponent goes "ok, that needs to die." Several of our minions are pretty good choices for this as well (10T bros, illuminated come to mind). I think the struggle is we don't have a lot of neutralizing outside of say Brewmaster. We have great tarpit units and some pretty seriously healing... so there is always the idea of just tying up models and sticking in hard. Yan Lo giving out Armor to everyone while healing with Sensei Yu on low river... I mean, that's just bananas healing. Especially with a low river monk, Sun Quiang and Obsidian Oni. Something I think that I'm still going to consider this an auto two points to my opponent. The benefit is that our really big hitters that I mentioned above are enforcers, so we can at least deny that third point. I might avoid Lynch if this is in the scheme pool though!

Leave Your Mark - Asami, McCabe, Yokai, Shenlong, Yu, Wandering River Monk... we have no shortage of models here that can accelerate to incredible speeds and get this done. Push and placing is our thing (enter Lust) and that gives us plenty of options here. Denial... we have movement a go-go... I'd totally be ok using asami to nom markers while sending out oni to continue my other schemes.

Eliminate the Leadership - I feel we have plenty of tools to accomplish this scheme but it's going to depend on the opponent's master, obviously. Though having access to Bettari might open this door a bit wider for us. A lot of our Masters are pretty stalwart and we have the eponimous Misdirection as well. Still I think this is a meh scheme for us, despite models like Misaki and Lynch (who can devastate a master by themselves). I just think we are a bit shy on high min models and could probably look elsewhere for more easily gained points.

Accusation - With several fast models that can travel distance and still have an AP or 0 action to interact, this is a good scheme for us again. Yokai again are in my top picks for here. With Yin, Izamu, depleted (w/ Lynch), 10T bros and several other models that can be hard to shift or get away from, we have plenty of solid options here. Again, our push/places help with being able to disengage from combat to remove the condition.

Dig Their Graves - I've been seriously considering bringing a performer into my Asami lists as of late, because I feel the lure and anti-scheme tech is strong enough to take one of my obsidian oni slots. And this scheme is one of the reasons why. Sun Quiang is going to be awesome for and against this. Also a special nod to Asami who can, with good positioning, let an oni can drop a scheme marker and then charge for 1AP.  Also McCabe giving nimble...  Oh the choices!
         EXTRA CREDIT: So Asami... she summons in an oni... Your opponent has a model and it's going to die from poison/burning/what have you at the end of the turn. But your oni is going to phase out  and due to Heavenly Design, drop a scheme marker... Can you drop the scheme marker BEFORE resolving the condition and thus score this scheme?

So needless to say you can sum up with "we've got the tools and we've got the talent!"

[BigHammer]

Dig Their Graves question: if the model dies to Burning/Poison, you wouldn't score regardless, as it requires your crew to make the kill to score at all.

[scarlett fever]

On 8/01/2017 at 1:53 AM, Nikodemus said:

Frame For Murder being so common I've been wondering about what are our options for handling opponents in non-lethal ways. For my part I've been thinking of using Mighty Gust more offensively to push+slow enemies when playing Shenlong/Sensei Yu. I've used it opportunistically before to good effect but never went really heavy with it. What are our other "containment" options? Lightning Dance people into Tarpits? Shoot/pulse slow with Sidir/Ototo? Swill them to the ground?

This has been on my mind as well. It's fairly common to come across lists that have that 'one thing' you just have to deal with, Killjoy, Nothing Beast, Langston, Nekima, so it's going to be more important to have something in your list to tie it up for turn 2-3 just in case. Whilst a couple of the strongest players in our meta have primary crews that are neutralise based (one plays Tara the other Zoraida) the past year I seem to have played either very scheme marker oriented or killy lists. Time for a change.

I'm keen to try Shen+Yu in a more concentrated control style which I haven't done for some time, probably teamed with Yin and/or Tannen. Another thing that might see table time is the unpleasant Obey to Paralyse combos, Yin+Ama/Brewy/Huggy etc. McCabe slow spam lists perhaps. In terms of healing/tanking and just 'weathering the storm' I've had poor luck with that against really aggressive opponents. I've had good runs with entire HtK crews ticked up by Shen/Yu but when they meet tech or the real heavies they tend to melt, same with Yan Lo, although he's not a primary Master of mine. I'm also wary of tanking when schemes like accusation are in the pool. Still between Yan Lo and Mei we have some solid tank builds.

Keen to get Brewy out again, I've played a number of games with him but I'm sure a useless pilot with him. I found I was building elaborate Rube Goldberg machines just to make his crew do something and they just got picked apart, however 2017 might be his year. Still difficult to see how he could hold his ground against a strong Zoraida crew, got to get some practice in.

[Vapo]

So, the supposedly useless Monk of High River can just sit by the edge and do Claim Jump all by himself without needing any flips... seems good.

(take an interact putting a scheme marker on one side of your base, 0 action to move 2" directly away from it, another interact to place a scheme marker the other side of your base, just over 4" from the first one)

[Dogmantra]

13 minutes ago, Vapo said:

So, the supposedly useless Monk of High River can just sit by the edge and do Claim Jump all by himself without needing any flips... seems good.

(take an interact putting a scheme marker on one side of your base, 0 action to move 2" directly away from it, another interact to place a scheme marker the other side of your base, just over 4" from the first one)

That would only be just over 3", not 4".

[Vapo]

GDI. Useless monks.

[tomjoad]

Any time you think you've found a use for High River Monks, what you've actually found is a reason to sit down and figure out what you've done wrong. A hill I will die on is that those things are the worst models in the faction.

I've only played two games of GG2017 so far (one in which I got blown out with Yan Lo, one in which my Asami et al just murdered everything set in front of them). Neither of these games played out the way I expect 2017 to play out best, though. I think the Thunders best option will be Shenlong, much as 2014-15 went, and it should be trivial to score 9-10 points with Shen and Yu in most scheme pools. Since minions and enforcers will be doing most/all of the killing in such crews Frame won't be much of an issue (savvy opponents will probably just not choose it when Shen and Yu are the only choices in your crew to give them full points). Frame is the only scheme of the 5 most common that you can't more or less assure yourself of 3 points from, so I'm feeling a lot of confidence for our Tyrant going forward.

[Yvarre]

I ended up taking first in my tournament with the only points I missed being all three for Last Stand in the third round.  Having taken McCabe, I had two more models than my opponent, and we even went over the whole need to have less models to score thing.  Then, I blanked and picked it anyways, revealing it turn 1 and maintaining a higher model count the whole game.  So, as a general rule, I think it's not a great idea to take Last Stand if you have more models and don't intend to lose them more quickly than you take out your opponent's.

I took Claim Jump all three rounds, vaporizing most of my opponent's crew in the first two turns of Headhunter with Lynch and scoring on turns 3-5, also picking up A Quick Murder on turn 1 with Ototo taking down the Lone Swordsman with a push and fast from Sensei Yu into a Recalled Training Flurry (though the Swordsman failed to piss him off after his first volley), a bit overkill but I did hit the Black Joker on the third damage flip, warranting the 4th AP, especially since Lone Swordsman was about to reactivate.  The next two rounds, a single guild hound with a badge of speed scored all three points for Claim Jump each game, and McCabe Smartly waltzed into the Deployment zone for Undercover Entourage to also stake my 6th claim in game 2.  Consequently, he stayed on his horse all game only taking 1 wound with Armor and 1 soulstone, denying a possible Eliminate the Leadership.  I did give up 3 points for Frame for Murder when McCabe finished off Teddy, thinking he was protecting himself from EtL, though it turned out that Vasilisa was going for Undercover Entourage instead, though already at half wounds.

McCabe with the Emissary is simply an all star, potentially netting 4 (or even 5 with Sensei Yu in corner deployment) nimble AP off of 1 Badge of Speed.  With 3 hounds, Stake a Claim and Squatter's Rights along with Claim Jump and even another scheme marker scheme are pretty simple to score, especially with the hound with a Badge of Speed going to the opponent's weaker flank and McCabe or some of the other crew stopping them from getting anywhere near the dog.  Similar tactics as before, though 1 less scheme marker and a nimble dog chasing its own tail.

I still don't really know what to do for interference, though lots of evasive dogs all with walk 6 can do a whole lot of scheme running...  I guess now that the Dreamer has been taken down a peg, there's slightly less storm potential to worry about.

I stayed away from Accusation! and Tail 'em, as I prefer to deny points by making things dead quickly, and I'm not too big a plan of Frame for Murder because it relies on circumstances I can't more fully control to score.  I do also like to keep my models if possible.

All in all, I think I'm going to be jumping quite a few claims in 2017...

[Inquisitor Wall]

The ability to score claim jump so easily with a single model is really good.  Nearly every faction can do it with a single model every turn.  I think this year will see a bit of a shift to fast scheme runner killers.  But for now nimble hounds, crooligans, and sillurids will be rock stars for that scheme.

[Fetid Strumpet]

How are crooligan's good for claim jump? They can't drop more than a single scheme marker a turn without outside help, in which case another model can do it just as well. Perhaps you were referring to Necropunks?

[Inquisitor Wall]

I was thinking of Necropunks with their leap.  Sorry bout that.

[Somnicide]

Asami has been a rock star in the two GG2017 games I have played so far thanks to A Heavenly Design. Being able to all but guarantee where those scheme markers are going to be at the end of the turn is pretty amazing for Claim Jump and for Leave Your Mark in particular. Plus it places them nicely for Dig Their Graves.  Ohaguro Bettari with her ability to force an interact has been really useful to use on Asami herself giving her that pseudo 4th AP if you need a quick heal, or for the scheme (I so far to run them fairly close to each other for obvious reasons). Also I have used it to pick up heads both with Asami (kill something with 2nd AP or charge, walk to marker with 3rd) and Oni that charge for 1 AP, kill the model on the charge attacks, and then walk to marker for. I am tempted to also run Ama No Zako for additional shenanigans. But speaking of Bettari, her Hunting Song actually ends up being really good on scheme runners. 

Yokai are absolute money with their places, and putting a poison on it from an akaname lets you effectively get 3 scheme markers down  without too much trouble even if you started its activation engaged (assuming it wasn't the turn it was summoned and it has two flicker, obviously). Do the 0, flicker/place 1, walk 5, place the second, ~4 place for poison and lose the last flicker and drop the third.

Summon a Tengu in if you need to remove scheme markers, walk, discard a card or two to discard the scheme markers as necessary and then at the end of the turn flicker out and place your own.

I am so loving Asami at the moment for her insane flexibility.

[qoob]

15 hours ago, Somnicide said:

Asami has been a rock star in the two GG2017 games I have played so far thanks to A Heavenly Design. Being able to all but guarantee where those scheme markers are going to be at the end of the turn is pretty amazing for Claim Jump and for Leave Your Mark in particular. Plus it places them nicely for Dig Their Graves.  Ohaguro Bettari with her ability to force an interact has been really useful to use on Asami herself giving her that pseudo 4th AP if you need a quick heal, or for the scheme (I so far to run them fairly close to each other for obvious reasons). Also I have used it to pick up heads both with Asami (kill something with 2nd AP or charge, walk to marker with 3rd) and Oni that charge for 1 AP, kill the model on the charge attacks, and then walk to marker for. I am tempted to also run Ama No Zako for additional shenanigans. But speaking of Bettari, her Hunting Song actually ends up being really good on scheme runners. 

Yokai are absolute money with their places, and putting a poison on it from an akaname lets you effectively get 3 scheme markers down  without too much trouble even if you started its activation engaged (assuming it wasn't the turn it was summoned and it has two flicker, obviously). Do the 0, flicker/place 1, walk 5, place the second, ~4 place for poison and lose the last flicker and drop the third.

Summon a Tengu in if you need to remove scheme markers, walk, discard a card or two to discard the scheme markers as necessary and then at the end of the turn flicker out and place your own.

I am so loving Asami at the moment for her insane flexibility.

Unfortunately you cannot place markers the round you summoned them. But a hired yokai can go places 

[Tris]

@qoob

That`s what he wrote, I suppose?

 

.....  lets you effectively get 3 scheme markers down  without too much trouble even if you started its activation engaged (assuming it wasn't the turn it was summoned and it has two flicker, obviously) .....

 

And isn`t she able to let them place a marker when they die, even if they are sacrificed through flicker?

 

 

[qoob]

35 minutes ago, Tris said:

@qoob

That`s what he wrote, I suppose?

 

.....  lets you effectively get 3 scheme markers down  without too much trouble even if you started its activation engaged (assuming it wasn't the turn it was summoned and it has two flicker, obviously) .....

 

And isn`t she able to let them place a marker when they die, even if they are sacrificed through flicker?

 

 

Then you need at least one scrap or corpse marker in order to give the Yokai Flicker +3

[Somnicide]

Nah, they have a trigger on their attack that gives a flicker, Amanojaku can give flicker, there's an upgrade.

I've even been able to cheat down for the suit I wanted after getting a hit when my opponent chose not to cheat. It's pretty easy to get flicker on a yokai if you want it, and depending on the need, it might be worth it.

[qoob]

56 minutes ago, Somnicide said:

Nah, they have a trigger on their attack that gives a flicker, Amanojaku can give flicker, there's an upgrade.

I've even been able to cheat down for the suit I wanted after getting a hit when my opponent chose not to cheat. It's pretty easy to get flicker on a yokai if you want it, and depending on the need, it might be worth it.

If you have the resources, it might be worth the investment

[Somnicide]

Yeah it's not always going to be worth the investment, but in my general style I like to have options. I'll tend to take something slightly less efficient if it gives me more options, which is a personal play style thing and I know that not everyone shares it, and I can understand the desire to take what you already do well up to 11. That's one of the fantastic things about this game, is that there is room for both.

[LuckyLuke]

I did a recent Tourny as Lucas for Round 1 thinking it'd be a good idea to fight close deployment. Due to my inexperience, my opponents amazing skill, my poor flips, and some heavy meds I screwed up hard. Thankfully there was a break for me to recover by Jacob Lynch is a nasty master for the round 1 we played. Looking at you @Yvarre. ;p 

The other two rounds I thoroughly enjoyed playing Asami. I feel that she is amazingly skilled at most strategies/schemes especially claim jump. While I can back up Yvarre's claims on the Lucas and scheme build, I was unable to play it round 2 due to terrain not having enough room to pass through with a 50 mm base reliably. Very tight, very hilly. 

So far, Claim Jump asami has been my go to. I genuinely think we have a strong force for most of these new schemes and maybe Dig their graves would be hard? Thought on that? 

 

Sorry for rambling. 

[Somnicide]

@LuckyLuke I actually found dig their graves fairly easy with asami due to the number of scheme markers we can scatter around the field.

[Nikodemus]

Shenlong/Sensei Yu can push markers around as well as ever with Wandering River Style. Dig Their Graves seems quite doable for them. Interact a few markers next to your beater of choice. Push said beater and markers up, give it fast and bust some fools. Honestly I tend to look for easier schemes, something I can score just by interacting or killing, as opposed to interacting AND killing. I guess this scheme is easiest in pools that encourage bunching up, Extraction and Guard the Stash come to mind. Definitely seems like a scheme made for those newfangled marker dropping wave 4 models if you ask me 

Heck I might give Shenlong a try as a beater in that scheme. Drop a marker (potentially as a free non-(0) action from Wandering River Style), then charge & kill a nearby enemy. Might be more of a casual way to do it though, for me Shenlong performs best when behind a wall of beefy goons. I already mentioned planning to give Shadow Effigy accomplice a try, though that might be too demanding far as positioning goes. There's of course a bunch of models that can get near and drop a marker. I mainly worry for this scheme's AP efficiency. Seems easy to do, just that most other schemes take less AP to achieve.

[qoob]

So my most favorite scheme in GG17 is Leave your Mark with Asami. It's easy 3 VP with a Yokai and "A Heavenly Design". 

[Tris]

3 hours ago, qoob said:

So my most favorite scheme in GG17 is Leave your Mark with Asami. It's easy 3 VP with a Yokai and "A Heavenly Design". 

We had that one since 2016

But agreed, you scored it pretty reliably with Asami, she`s a great master and you did a good job last tournament^^