How to Fix High River Monks

[Cadaverousbirth]

McCabe can do the same trick with Hounds who are even faster and still die just as quickly. The difference being you can have two puppies for the same cost.

Their Df6 is good, but average for their cost and with no other defensive abilities they will fall over fast. Even with Defensive if the opponent wants them dead, they're dead. Unlike say 10T Bros who can very quickly be Df7 with a +, and maybe armor too. 

Their focus ability is for Shenlong's aura so they can Focus for a zero action. This competes with their push zero, but it can help get one attack in the right situation. They'll probably miss their second. 

 

Get some games in with them and see. When you're on turn 2 and your 18 stones are off the table, come back here 

[Jokerboy]

I personally really like to take one of these guys.

First of all they are great for Frame for Murder and with 3 attacks from their charge they deal minimum 6 dmg (3+3burning) if they hit.

Additional they are the best way together with Kamaitachi to get a huge amount of burning on Shenlong, if you charge him.

In general I heal 4 damage on him anyway because of the Kamaitachi and the Emissary and one HRM gets 3-6 extra burning on Shen. Great if you use him very aggressive.

[Gnomezilla]

Best-laid plans...

I deliberately traded away the cards when my husband bought a box of High River Monks to paint, to remove the temptation to ever play them, but just received one in a 10T trade lot with card and...well, he likes and wants to field it. So. May as well pick one of these suggestions off of the list and house rule it in. 

I love my stompybots and the models he liked [Lynch and co., the more strongly Asian themed, the better] don't have any ignore armor among them, so I may try that burning-ignoring-armor suggestion first. Also will drop the cost to 5ss.

[Kogan Style]

Only use I have found for them (other than FFM target) is a fuel for the Rail Golem in a Mei Feng crew. With some low  in hand you can charge the Golem and attack two or three times to stack up the burning to around 3 - 6 (depending on Tomes). Another combo to this is to charge from the Mech Porkchop aura, giving you  to attack flip to fish for more tomes (if they aren't available in hand) 

[InvokeChaos]

My concern is that they are a modification away from being insane. 

0 to push for charges, 3 attacks on the charge, built in trigger for burning... I mean...

As others have mentioned, if you make them 2/3/4, they are basically more singularly focused yokai. Add in HtK or Armor and they are basically more expensive 10T bros.

That being said my initial look at a fix was indeed to give them 2/3/4 and HtK... but then they throw out 9pts of damage on a charge... and with proper positioning/target selection they could even survive to do it again. And that's too good at 6pts. 

If you look at burning in 10T it facilitates three interactions (correct me if I'm missing any) besides damage:

High River Style's ability to inflate duel totals for damage
Shadow Emissary's ability to lower defense on targets with burning
Obsidian Oni's  to damage on burning targets

Honestly none of those is particularly interesting to me... so I'd probably want to go in some new direction. 

I think what would be neat is if they could "blow up" burning.  Kind of like an expunge.  But make it do something special like it hits all models for the burning amount in a 3" or something. 

Make it a  trigger or something:

(1) Over the Flames (Ml 6  / Rst: Df / Rg: 1): Target suffers 1/2/4 damage.
Ignite: After damaging, the target gains the Burning +1 Condition for each in the final duel total. 
 Combust: After damaging, the target suffers an amount of damage equal to it's current Burning condition value. All models within 3 suffer damage equal to this model's current Burning condition value. This damage counts as being caused by the Burning condition. Then end the condition.

alternatively

 Combust: After damaging, all models in  3 suffers an amount of damage equal to this model's current Burning condition value. This damage counts as being caused by the Burning condition.

Either way I'd make the HRM have:

Saracenar's Plight: Reduce the damage this model suffers from the Burning condition to 0.

So they are immune to their trigger.

[Kogan Style]

On 7/8/2017 at 2:03 AM, InvokeChaos said:

Saracenar's Plight: Reduce the damage this model suffers from the Burning condition to 0.

Even better (and more in keeping with the monks) give them Brutal Sensei like the Low River Monks. Immunity to Slow, Poison and Burning.

[Pyrflamme]

Necromancied so hard I thought this was the Rezzer subforum

I'm actually curious if we might be seeing an upgrade to improve them in book 5. The Nythera event featured polls in each faction subforum asking which model they'd like to see a buffing upgrade for. Low River Monks and High River Monks were the two candidates for 10T, and we got a superb one for LRM in book 4. Granted, they've already mentioned new upgrades for all the Masters plus what seems to be Confluxes for book 4 Masters, all of which have to have taken up a considerable amount of design and playtesting time, but I wonder if they had ideas percolating for the losers in each faction's Nythera polling which they've been hammering out in the extra year since book 4 came out.

[Wake of Godzilla]

Wow, necro thread, Yan Lo has been busy!

I like what InvokeChaos has suggested for a trigger but a single  feels like it would be enough. Burning still feels like the weakest of the generic upgrades and requiring a further  would still be too difficult to line up. However, even with this, I don't think that you would see the model on the table. I ran a Shen Long crew for a while and I was finding I was getting much more reliable damage out of the Fermented Monks thank the high river style.

As others have pointed out, why they are not taken is due to who they compete with, looking at them as beaters there are so many other stronger options in the faction, for a stone more you get an Illuminated. 
So I have a larger step to suggest. One of the main "comments" on the TT within the UK at the moment is that they lack the activations to be competitive. With the High River supposed to be fast and hard hitting, what about dropping the card requirement for the 3rd attack and adding in a zero which allows them to discard a card for reactivate. 

[Dogmantra]

5 hours ago, Pyrflamme said:

Low River Monks and High River Monks were the two candidates for 10T

Wasn't it LRMs and Fuhatsu? Those were the two that got published in Ripples. I wasn't playing 10T during Nythera, but Gremmies voted Whiskey Golem and War Pig and got both of those in Ripples.

[Gnomezilla]

What do you hire instead for chipping through armor at this price bracket? That ended up being the high river monk's value in the game, hitting a target which would've only taken 1 regardless and applying burning for damage later.

[Wake of Godzilla]

1 hour ago, Gnomezilla said:

What do you hire instead for chipping through armor at this price bracket? That ended up being the high river monk's value in the game, hitting a target which would've only taken 1 regardless and applying burning for damage later.

At this SS - Goryo or Rail Workers if I can take them. Otherwise, I look to something that's a little bigger to handle the armor and let the minions focus on other roles. 

[Pyrflamme]

3 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

Wasn't it LRMs and Fuhatsu? Those were the two that got published in Ripples. I wasn't playing 10T during Nythera, but Gremmies voted Whiskey Golem and War Pig and got both of those in Ripples.

I'm pretty sure it was HRM, and Fuhatsu was an unexpected but nice bonus, but maybe my memory fails me.

3 hours ago, Gnomezilla said:

What do you hire instead for chipping through armor at this price bracket? That ended up being the high river monk's value in the game, hitting a target which would've only taken 1 regardless and applying burning for damage later.

Eeesh. Problem is, Armor also tags burning so if you're going against something "that would have only taken 1 regardless", you're probably looking at Armor 2+ in which case you're probably going to get only one damage out of it, and the solution is more to either take a dedicated armor piercer, something with high moderate/severe, or lock it down. In 10T, the Guild Pathfinder (dual faction, so available to every Master) is pretty capital for that. You get traps to harass the Armor dude, and a trigger on the gun which can ignore Armor. Alternatively, if you take the Katanaka Sniper instead, Critical Strike and a natural incentive to Focus could get you 3-4 damage on an Armor+2 depending on how much you're willing to cheat. After that you start getting into the dedicated beaters.

[Nikodemus]

4 hours ago, Gnomezilla said:

What do you hire instead for chipping through armor at this price bracket? That ended up being the high river monk's value in the game, hitting a target which would've only taken 1 regardless and applying burning for damage later.

If I wanted a 6-ish ss model to kill Armour I'd go for Rail Workers. 2/4/5 (with +flip to damage if you want) doesn't mind armour+1 that much. If someone is carrying Hard Worker upgrade they get to ignore armour.

Usually I go for something a bit more expensive though.

[Gnomezilla]

9 hours ago, Wake of Godzilla said:

So I have a larger step to suggest. One of the main "comments" on the TT within the UK at the moment is that they lack the activations to be competitive. With the High River supposed to be fast and hard hitting, what about dropping the card requirement for the 3rd attack and adding in a zero which allows them to discard a card for reactivate. 

Lynch breaks that.

1 hour ago, Pyrflamme said:

Eeesh. Problem is, Armor also tags burning so if you're going against something "that would have only taken 1 regardless", you're probably looking at Armor 2+ in which case you're probably going to get only one damage out of it, and the solution is more to either take a dedicated armor piercer, something with high moderate/severe, or lock it down. In 10T, the Guild Pathfinder (dual faction, so available to every Master) is pretty capital for that. You get traps to harass the Armor dude, and a trigger on the gun which can ignore Armor. Alternatively, if you take the Katanaka Sniper instead, Critical Strike and a natural incentive to Focus could get you 3-4 damage on an Armor+2 depending on how much you're willing to cheat. After that you start getting into the dedicated beaters.

There was a lot of Grind to a Halt (Armor +3) flying around, what with my guardsmen list having two wardens and a guardian as standard.

Rail workers are a no-go, as is the regulation Guild pathfinder (the glamazon pathfinder* is still a work-in-progress, but who knows if a komainu-headed ronin with a musket will have 'the right look' either). The Katanaka sniper is probably the solution. Or loaning him Johan, if that's an acceptable sculpt, which it probably isn't.

*"the glamazons don't follow fashion: they set traps for it and wear its shiny pelt"

[Kogan Style]

12 hours ago, Gnomezilla said:

22 hours ago, Wake of Godzilla said:

So I have a larger step to suggest. One of the main "comments" on the TT within the UK at the moment is that they lack the activations to be competitive. With the High River supposed to be fast and hard hitting, what about dropping the card requirement for the 3rd attack and adding in a zero which allows them to discard a card for reactivate. 

Lynch breaks that.

Just place the card at the bottom of the deck like the Terracotta Warrior does, as a rule for reactivate 

[Tokapondora]

Maybe let them drain the Burning off of models around them to gain reactivate like an opposite Fermented River Monk? Something like...

(0) From the Ashes: Remove a combined Burning +4 off of models within 3 to gain the Reactivate Condition.

It'd still require them to make three hits and throw on a tome on one of them to get it by themselves, so it wouldn't exactly be spammable. Though to be honest, I still wouldn't see myself use them, because a reactivating High River Monk is still a High River Monk (and possibly because removing 4 damage is quite a steep cost for what they do). So maybe...

(0) From the Ashes: (Ca 6 / TN: 10): Remove a combined Burning +4 off of models within 3 to gain the Reactivate Condition. 
The Phoenix Rises: Heal 4 damage on this model.
 All was Fire: Until the end of the Turn, this model adds  to all their final duel totals.
Scattered in the Wind: Place this model within 8" of its current location.
Clad in Embers: After succeeding, this model gains the following Condition until the end of the Turn: "Ablaze: If a model deals damage to this model it gains the Burning +4 condition."

It'd be a rather significant boost, but takes 4 damage and an entire activation of heavy condition applying (you'd need to charge or cheat in 2 tomes) and leaves them with all their other weaknesses. Maybe give them HtK to ensure they'll even survive long enough to make that first burning. Or maybe change all the 4's to 3's. As you've probably noticed by now, I do not have a lot of faith in the High River Monks.

[Gnomezilla]

I don't know about effective, but first, that's incredibly cool monk flavor, and second, mass burning removal might be a great tool and discouragement against certain blasting models, and third, didn't that statue in playtesting, in the end, set things on fire with a blast available?

I didn't want to field Sonnia for awhile (new player, 14"+2"+3x50mm potential range, unhappiness), but if I do I'll try it.

5 hours ago, Kogan Style said:

Just place the card at the bottom of the deck like the Terracotta Warrior does, as a rule for reactivate 

And that fixes a lot of card discard that Lynch breaks. Another great idea! *takes notes*

[InvokeChaos]

12 hours ago, Kogan Style said:

Just place the card at the bottom of the deck like the Terracotta Warrior does, as a rule for reactivate 

Even with this restriction, being able to have a minion gain reactivate for so low a cost breaks too many things.  You get effectively 4ap from that model every turn, making it one of the most effective scheme runners we have.  Especially considering the 2nd activation they are free to use Wander the Earth.  They basically become a firm contestant against yokai at that point, who with their flicker mechanic and triggers can emulate the 4ap concept. 

Shenlong plays with a 9 card hand and makes that cost basically trivial, but can also fast and push them.  It's just too much.

8 hours ago, Tokapondora said:

Maybe let them drain the Burning off of models around them to gain reactivate like an opposite Fermented River Monk? Something like...

(0) From the Ashes: Remove a combined Burning +4 off of models within 3 to gain the Reactivate Condition.

It'd still require them to make three hits and throw on a tome on one of them to get it by themselves, so it wouldn't exactly be spammable. Though to be honest, I still wouldn't see myself use them, because a reactivating High River Monk is still a High River Monk (and possibly because removing 4 damage is quite a steep cost for what they do). So maybe...

(0) From the Ashes: (Ca 6 / TN: 10): Remove a combined Burning +4 off of models within 3 to gain the Reactivate Condition. 
The Phoenix Rises: Heal 4 damage on this model.
 All was Fire: Until the end of the Turn, this model adds  to all their final duel totals.
Scattered in the Wind: Place this model within 8" of its current location.
Clad in Embers: After succeeding, this model gains the following Condition until the end of the Turn: "Ablaze: If a model deals damage to this model it gains the Burning +4 condition."

It'd be a rather significant boost, but takes 4 damage and an entire activation of heavy condition applying (you'd need to charge or cheat in 2 tomes) and leaves them with all their other weaknesses. Maybe give them HtK to ensure they'll even survive long enough to make that first burning. Or maybe change all the 4's to 3's. As you've probably noticed by now, I do not have a lot of faith in the High River Monks.

I like this idea, but wording becomes a problem.  Plus removing burning so easily slaps the concept of burning in the face.  It normally takes 1AP to remove a condition, and you could potentially remove 4 condtions on a 0... then gain 2AP, then gain crazy trigger effects. And nothing says you can't do the ability again. 

While it might be removing damage you've put on, it could also just be removing damage your opponent put on as well.  

I agree that reactivating a bad minion doesn't change it from being a bad minion, but that's WAY too good, haha. I'd use it, though... 

[Tokapondora]

Eh, it's a very rough idea but I'd say unless you were up against another burning crew you wouldn't be spamming this all across the board. You still need your enemies to be in that 3" bubble, you can only gain reactivate once and if you after that want to both apply and remove another 4 burning for a place or a heal I'd say more power to you. Though of course you can always stipulate to take burning from enemy units only. They'd still be severely lacking models for the rest of their card, but it'd allow burning crews to become a somewhat viable direction to go. And wouldn't allow them to become premium schemerunners either, since it takes an entire activation and a bit of luck to even get that +4 by themselves.

Or perhaps something simpler that would let you redistribute Burning from an area, so you could divecharge or have something blast into a group, apply a handful of burning, and then hand that over to some enemy with higher defenses or spread in such a way that you can just finish units off.

[InvokeChaos]

Very fair, my friend.

I really like that second concept.  An ability that lets them call the flame to them and then re-purpose it.  It's thematically very cool.  I'm just going to suck all the burning from you three and then GIVE IT TO OUR ENEMIES!!! Or use it for my own gains.  

Thematic it after Calls Unto the Chi? Stealing your triggers @Tokapondora  I modified slightly just for power reasons and change a name to reduce repetition of the word fire. the highlighted text is clunky but I like the concept so left it.

(0) Calls Unto the Flame (Ca 5  / TN: 12): Move the full value of the Burning condition from each model within 6 to this model. You may discard a card. If you do, lower the value of the Burning condition on this model by 2 and gain the effect of a trigger matching the discarded card's suit.
The Phoenix Rises: Heal 3 damage on this model. 
 And All Will Burn:  Until the end of the Turn, this model adds to all their final duel totals 
Scattered in the Wind: Place this model within 5" of its current location. 
Clad in Embers: After succeeding, this model gains the following Condition until the end of the Turn: "Ablaze: If a model deals damage to this model it gains the Burning +2 condition." 

Then add a 1AP cast to redistribute it:

(1) Anointed by the Fire (Ca 6 / Rst: Df / Rg: 8) - Move the full value of the Burning condition from this model to the target. 
 Like Wildfire: If the value moved was 4 or greater, this model gains the Reactivate condition.

[Tokapondora]

I wouldn't seperate the two. If you gobble a handful of Burning and then fail to pass it on with your other actions you've just torched your own unit, and on a (1) which can only be done after your (0) which will only work after doing 2-3 attacks since Burning doesn't stick it's too much work and risk to outweigh the rewards.

Also at a 7 and now having to discard a card and discarding another card to get that charge started that's a whole lotta cards for one 6 SS model activation.

I'd still go for something closer to... 

(0) From The Ashes (Ca 6 / TN: 12): Remove a combined Burning +4 off of enemy models within 3 to gain the Reactivate Condition. 
The Phoenix Rises: Heal 3 damage on this model.  
All Was Fire:  Until the end of the Turn, this model adds  to all their final duel totals 
Scattered in the Wind: Place this model within 6" of its current location. 
Clad in Embers: After succeeding, this model gains the following Condition until the end of the Turn: "Ablaze: If a model deals damage to this model with a  attack action it gains the Burning +3 condition." 

To explain my reasoning...

The Enemy only thing is only fair. I rarely play against Burning crews so it very much slipped my mind. Now removing Burning +4 I'd say is a fair cost because it's just tough enough that you require either a lot of luck or a model or two assisting you to get it. Unlike poison you can't build up towards it, it needs to be then and there when you activate this model. If you then take it upon yourself to make 3 attacks and manage to succeed on all of them and get that extra trigger in then fair enough, take that reactivate. 

 can be 3 or 4, doesn't make that much a difference. 
 should be the one built in, since all it amounts to is removing Burning+4 and turning it into Burning+2 if you just hit your attacks to +4 if you can both manage another charge and are fast.
 8 might have been a bit much (was possibly set to 8 to keep it 4-4-4-8 but 3-3-6 should do «.« ».»).
 should really be +3 at the least. With zero defenses they need something to keep enemies from instantly melting them and +2 just kinda lacks that oompf you need to deter attacks.  felt more fitting though, giving plenty of space to counter this trigger.

And then Call Unto The Flame could be a trigger to their standard attack;

 Call Unto The Flame: After succeeding, move the Burning condition from the target model to a model within 6" and LoS. 

It'd synergise with All Was Fire, and you'd need to succeed on a defensive duel, but at the expense of applying burning with that attack and wouldn't get in the way of them being designed as chargey models. 

All in all I don't think it'd really turn them OP, since it ultimately only buffs them if they can get 4 Burning in. A must-have for Burn-style TT lists to be sure, but with the sparsity of those lists going around in the first place I'd say it wouldn't hurt. Without back-up burning they're still the same old High River Monks with a small chance of a reactivate. I do like the idea of something like these though. Add to them Mei, the Shadow Emissary, NewStatue and some general stuff and that'd make for at least a fun list I'd imagine.

[Pyrflamme]

The discussion is pretty interesting, but I think tuning up the survival and damage a touch would do the job pretty nicely. Hard To Kill as mentioned earlier, and possibly Brutal Sensei. I also would change the melee trigger to a built-in Consuming Flame (each model damaged gets Burning +1) and add to moderate and severe (maybe even to severe). Trades possibly one Burning depending on flips from the original trigger for the ability to blast into crowds, and light them on fire as well. It's a bit balanced out by their need to respect their own melee threat range, and their needing to get stuck on.

It also makes Focusing and subsequently Reading The Wind a more interesting use of your AP, trying to get those crowd blasts. In Shenlong, he could get Fast, (0) Focus, or both, and in other crews, if he survives thanks to HtK, he can then decide whether to punch twice, or Focus then punch.

[Da Git]

Some of these are starting to get super elaborate! Not that that's a bad thing, I just like simpler and feel that that's more likely to get attention. 

So their biggest weakness is their lack of hittiness and squishiness. So my upgrade would give them two abilities. 

Master the Flames - 0ss

Rare 1

This Upgrade may only be attached if the crew contains a Munk of High River. 

Friendly Munks of High River within 10 gain the following abilities. 

Burning Intimidation: Enemy models that with the Burning condition that target this model with an Attack Action must pass a TN 11 Wp duel or the attack fails. Increase the TN by +1 equal to the enemy model's burning condition to a maximum of +3. 

Wreathed in Flames: Other models with 1 do not end the Burning condition at end of the turn (but they still suffer the effects as normal). 

To me this is both simple and ties in with what the Munk is already trying to do whilst providing both defense and offence. 

[MrDeathTrout]

I really don't like fixing models with 0-point, aura upgrades.  Even if they cost 0 SS I still have to use an upgrade slot for it, plus I have to keep models near their baby-sitter with the upgrade to make them playable.  If their baby-sitter dies, you're back to having substandard models gain.  

Also a lot of strats, schemes, abilities don't count 0-point upgrades.  I understand why, but you're still using a slot, so(veering a bit off the topic of HRM here) if you have an enforcer that needs an 0-point upgrade to be worth while (Samurai, Fuhatsu, etc.) or is acting as a baby-sitter for a minion you now have a model that doesn't count for any of those abilities.

 I'd much rather just have an eratta'd model, especially now that eratta's are much more common than they used to be.