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What makes Kirai so good?


Shimian

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Hey guys,

since I am reading everywhere that Kirai is so great, I gave her a shot. I own every Resser model so I can put on the table whatever she needs. But I just dont get what makes her so good. I read godswearhats starter guide, but I still couldnt figure out how to use her.  I got my ass handed every single time. I faced different opponents (Perdita, Zoraida, Shen Long, Hoffman) and I had absolutely no clue what to do with her. I brought Datsue-Ba, Izamu, sometimes the Emissary, sometimes Philip. Everything else I summoned, but since it comes in with only half wounds, my stuff died most of the time.

Datsue-Ba usually summoned a Seishin that Kirai could use to summon. Apart from that, Datsue-Ba didnt do a lot of stuff since I wasnt able to get severe damage on her attacks. Izamu did the usual stuff. Standing around and being a threat. The Emissary was just there most of the time.

In most of my games I either play Nicodem or Reva. Nicodem is in my opinion the boss when it comes to summoning. No matter what I need, Nicodem brings it up and with an additional corpse token it comes in with full wounds most of the time. And Reva is awesome because of her killing potential from far away.

So could you guys please give me a little insight on how to properly use Kirai? Would really appreciate that.

 

Kind regards from Germany

Sebastian

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Were you bringing models to summon out of?  Usually this is going to be a flesh construct or a couple night terrors.

Izamu shouldn't stand around, you catapult him around with Kirai using swirling spirits.

Philip is huge, draw four cards w/ him on the first turn (and probably the second.)

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From my experience, Kirais greatest strength compared to Nicodem is probably Swirl spirits, with a strong mention of the general difficulty to be able to threaten her crew.

I've played one game against her when she didn't reach the half way line before I had finished activating my models on turn 5, but she was still able to score 3points for Breakthrough on corner deployment by the end of the turn.

Joe Wood talks on Schemes and stones about how he used her to win the UKGT with a largely fixed crew, its a little outside of the box due to a lot of the potwential card cycling he built into it to allow him to typicallyl look at 10-15 cards a turn allowing him to summon what he wants, and to pressure with every duel.

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Okay, so my experience, what little of it there is.

UPGRADES!

I take Spirit Beacon on Kirai, this means when a Seishin dies within 2 inches of Kirai, you can have her take 1 damage and the Seishin instead lives with 1 damage on it. I use this to summon off of regularly along with her zero to summon Seishin and Datsue-Ba's (0) to summon another every turn I can make that happen.

I usually take Swirl of Aether so Kirai can zero to teleport up to 8 inches to a friendly spirit so she doesn't have to use her actions on a walk later into a match.

Finally, I take Unforgiven so she can summon within 3 instead of adjacent to the spirit or have a chance to summon without giving the model slow. Also this gives her Sunder Spirit attack a boost so just generally good stuff.

 

Datsue Ba gets Spirit Whispers and My Little Helper. Spirit Whispers lets me drop scheme markers when my spirits die as a 1 action on her, and she's also able to summon a Seishin which I use to surround my Kirai and make her relatively unchargable and moderately immortal. My little helper lets her give two walks when she wants (maybe to give Izamu a chance to get into some pretty odd angles for combat).

 

Izamu gets Decaying Aura. It might look like I'm using him to do damage but he's mostly there to eat fire so I can summon in peace. I don't mind him dying in turn 2 or so as long as the rest of my crew has been mostly ignored.

Finally, Phillip and the Nanny get Haunting Cries. Honestly no reason to not take this upgrade.

 

WHAT DO YOU DO THOUGH?

Turn 1 and 2, Datsue-Ba moves a fair bit ahead and summons a Seishin around two inches ahead of where I think I'll end my Kirai's activation. Either before she moves or after if I have to move at an angle, I'll make Izamu walk or Phillip and the Nanny walk. Usually on turn 1 it's Phillip and the Nanny. After the early game for positioning, her ranged attack is a pretty okay damage attack and ignores armour so it's deadly to any tanky character on the enemy team. Not to mention she can kill stuff and summon off it. I try to keep a soulstone or two for Datsue to charge something armoured and if she can get it to 3-5 health away from dying, I'll spend a SS to force the trigger on her close range attack that lets her make her ranged attack after and then SS to force the summon an Onryo.

 

I usually run a Shikome. They usually move once and then drop a scheme marker for Phillip and the Nanny. Then later on they try to give people Advesary for Izamu and Datsue-Ba to deal with and they also do a fair bit of damage themselves. Poison is the preferred trigger here (usually).  I use the Shikome to Swirl of Aether Kirai to after turn 1 and then swap Izamu with her or Datsue Ba depending on positioning on the table. Shikome make okay scheme runners but they hit hard and are pretty okay at taking hits so I tend to move them around to give me attacks against ranged enemies. A solid combo is Datsue-ba giving someone Advesary with her ranged attack and then using Shikome's zero action to place in base with that model and just consistently murder things like that.

 

Izamu, as I said above, he's mostly here to draw fire on turns 1 and 2. I fling him forward with Kira's switch spirit ability and after that I usually Datsue Ba to walk him into enemies if I don't need a new Seishin. If my opponent is quite aggressive, I stay a little back with everyone else but Izamu makes a solid teleport target to push into the opponent's backline via teleport and Datsue-ba's summoning Seishin or attacks making spirits or the Shikome doing her place and then Kirai switching him into the back.

 

Canine Remains, solid scheme runner (many suggest two to make this reliable but I view the rest of my list as disruptive so this little dog tends to be ignored for 3-4 turns and you should win the game in that time or lose it. Primary purpose is to move on turn 1 and drop a scheme marker for Phillip and the Nanny and then to stay around the edges of any engagements and generally not be threatening. Push come to shove, if the Shikome gives something poison, the Canine remains can charge it as a (1) action. I've used this to kill gremlins as they push out of combat if you melee them (or have a chance to at least). I've literally charged the same gremlin 3 times with a Shikome and Canine Remains as they kept pushing out of combat and I had an ap spare so I could charge them. Also it's sometimes surprising to your opponent to attack the dog and have Ikryo come out.

 

Phillip and the Nanny, turns 1 and 2 try to do the draw cards actions as much as possible. It's not a requirement but a better hand means better summons usually, and generally not having a bad turn. Usually I can clear enemy scheme markers by turn 3 or so too for their zero action. Later turns make Chatty important and then I can use the Haunting Cries attack to just try to force enemy model count down.

 

Finally, Kirai, early on she throws Izamu forward and walks and summons a Seishin then summons by taking 1 damage. Later on she mostly summons but the transpose spirits spell sees use if Izamu is in a good position. I place my Kirai near the middle of the field early on via a walk action and swirling aether or double walk if I want to summon a Seishin and Datsue Ba can't do a summon this turn. She defends via passing attacks to Seishin if she gets her defensive trigger and otherwise tries to stay out of sight if possible. Being in the middle allows you to trigger your Ikryo fairly regularly, Ikryo should generally try to attack once immediately after you summon her and then sacrifice herself.

 

Part of the finesse of this is to activate all your summons before you activate stuff you bought normally. It's not going to happen too much on turn 1 but you can get up to 2 additional activations from Seishin there and maybe a Kirai Summon. Turn 2 you will have 2 Seishin, then Datsue Ba then a Seishin she brings then canine remains, whatever Kirai summoned in turn 1, then the models you brought. You can start reliably getting Izamu into combat against things that can't counter activate + your Shikome doing it's own thing pretty quickly. I've literally summoned models to drop scheme markers for Phillip and the Nanny on turn 1 (they can't interact on the turn they arrive but they can on turn 2) and just wasting early activations allows me to move my guys in a way that (unless my enemy is quite aggressive) gives me low damage coming into my list.

 

Another thing to track is models. You want to gain models every turn. If you have a plan that loses you 4 models for their 1, try to think of a different way to do it. Heck, I've used my Kirai as muscle to ensure that I don't lose models before. Onryo heal your master on one of their triggers, that's important if you play Kirai aggressively.

 

WHAT? NO LOST LOVE?

It might be better to use a Lost Love instead of a Canine Remains, but I find people pay too much attention to it and worse, it can't give Phillip and the Nanny scheme markers to munch on. On the other side, he can heal Kirai and extends the Ikryo summoning circle. If your opponent is quite aggressive, he's a better pick than the Canine remains (maybe).

 

Anyways, that's my experience. Hope some of these ideas help you.

 

 

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18 minutes ago, HayesDuSid said:

I take Spirit Beacon on Kirai, this means when a Seishin dies within 2 inches of Kirai, you can have her take 1 damage and the Seishin instead lives with 1 damage on it. I use this to summon off of regularly along with her zero to summon Seishin and Datsue-Ba's (0) to summon another every turn I can make that happen.

Spirit Beacon can only save Seishin that die to attack actions, Blood and Wind is a tactical action.

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Kirai has a huge learning curve because there are so many things you have to think about and remember when you play her, she's probably the most mechanically complex of the Resser masters. I've played about 15 games with her at this point and I still get rolled every time I use her (to be fair, I'm a terrible player...) . She's definitely a top tier master but she's not one you can just pick up and start winning with.

I also think that her bark is bigger than her bite, the internet has given her huge infamy.

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On 15/03/2017 at 4:45 AM, Shimian said:

Datsue-Ba usually summoned a Seishin that Kirai could use to summon. Apart from that, Datsue-Ba didnt do a lot of stuff since I wasnt able to get severe damage on her attacks.

Datsue Ba is one of those models that requires a lot of resources and set up to be effective, if you're just learning Kirai I would recommend trying a Goryo in her place - easy access to Seishin and he is one less thing you need to think too hard about when trying to remember the other 5000 things Kirai's crew does and is trying to do.

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39 minutes ago, MeatAndFauxtatoes said:

Kirai has a huge learning curve because there are so many things you have to think about and remember when you play her, she's probably the most mechanically complex of the Resser masters. I've played about 15 games with her at this point and I still get rolled every time I use her (to be fair, I'm a terrible player...) . She's definitely a top tier master but she's not one you can just pick up and start winning with.

I also think that her bark is bigger than her bite, the internet has given her huge infamy.

I think no one played her in the UK masters this year. You're probably right about her internet reputation.

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4 hours ago, MeatAndFauxtatoes said:

Kirai has a huge learning curve because there are so many things you have to think about and remember when you play her, she's probably the most mechanically complex of the Resser masters. I've played about 15 games with her at this point and I still get rolled every time I use her (to be fair, I'm a terrible player...) . She's definitely a top tier master but she's not one you can just pick up and start winning with.

I also think that her bark is bigger than her bite, the internet has given her huge infamy.

Same experience here. She was among my first masters and I played 1 or 2 'good' games in which I swirled Izamu around, get Ikyro (if that's spelled right) out, gain activation advantage and summoning didn't get into play that often.

I think you play 1 game and focus on something you can do whether its tactically good or not, play a 2nd game focus on another her specialty etc. and after a while start combining stuff. Games I play with her tend to take huge amounts of time and mentally taxing so not (yet at least) something that I would play in 2 hours tournaments. 

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In the gamed I've faced her it has been brutal for me. Center-focused strat so that anything you kill brings Ikiryo out. A flesh construct to summon off to get things started and my opponent summoned those harpies that charge for a (1) against adversaries, put those in terrain so that my models couldn't reach them with charges but they could charge me due to flight. Once Ikiryo is out she is used to summon from for "free". Both Anna and Philip is usually in the crew so you can't push or place to get at vulnerable models and his hand was brimming with severes every turn. She might be less strong if the strat doesn't allow the bubble play (and now that Ikiryo needs LoS to be summoned).

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2 hours ago, Ludvig said:

In the gamed I've faced her it has been brutal for me. Center-focused strat so that anything you kill brings Ikiryo out. A flesh construct to summon off to get things started and my opponent summoned those harpies that charge for a (1) against adversaries, put those in terrain so that my models couldn't reach them with charges but they could charge me due to flight. Once Ikiryo is out she is used to summon from for "free". Both Anna and Philip is usually in the crew so you can't push or place to get at vulnerable models and his hand was brimming with severes every turn. She might be less strong if the strat doesn't allow the bubble play (and now that Ikiryo needs LoS to be summoned).

If im not wrong, Shikomes charge for (1) against poisoned models, not adversary.  

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Im also in the side that while her being a good master she is difficult to play and has an OP reputation wich doesnt deserve. Slow wounded invocations are not that good, and her upgrades add little comparing to other masters upgrades. Also if you are not careful she is very very vulnerable to enemy attacks. 

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One trick is to bring someone with a decent gun and pick off models like the lost love or something else that is getting her summoning engine running. Have said shooty model be in base contact with  some terrain and one or two models. When Ikiryo is supposed to come out, she will not have room to place and cannot be summoned.

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8 hours ago, Saduhem said:

I think no one played her in the UK masters this year. You're probably right about her internet reputation.

The top Kirai player was 1 place short of the masters in the ranking, so I don't know if that statement is very releveant (He'd one the GT the year before with Mono Kirai, and in that year only lost 2 tournament games with her despite having played her at every event he entered so most of the other top players knew exactly what they would face).

 

3 minutes ago, Saduhem said:

One trick is to bring someone with a decent gun and pick off models like the lost love or something else that is getting her summoning engine running. Have said shooty model be in base contact with  some terrain and one or two models. When Ikiryo is supposed to come out, she will not have room to place and cannot be summoned.

I'm not sure this works well against the top Kirai players, as they probably have sufficient redundancy in the crew, and you are holding a very large part of your crew in one place trying to do one thing that isn't even scoring you points.

1 hour ago, mojopin said:

If im not wrong, Shikomes charge for (1) against poisoned models, not adversary.  

You're right. They do have a (0) to place next to an adversay I think, but that's not as good as a (1) charge

 

I would agree that Kirai is a tough master to get the most out of, but when she is played well she has very few weaknesses to try and exploit. When she isn't played well she can have a lot of weaknesses seem to show up.

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Her issue is she does everything, and too well.

She shoots as hard as beater models with the option to reduce damage for interesting triggers.

She summons amoung the best models Ressers have as easily or easier than Nicodem, and easier as she doesn't need to wait for corpse markers.

She is execeptopnally mobile.

She supports her crew as well as any dedicated support master.

She is amoung the harder masters in the game to remove.

And added to all that she had Ikiryo summoning.

She really needs a few cuddles.

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Guns against her models work for one shot. After that you have an ikiryo. Ikiryos damage output is very high as well as very accurate due to the accompaning adversary that ikiryo gives you. Kirai is very tanky due to her ability to push the damage omto a seshin (then take 1 damage to keep it alive.

 

Sheshin are easy to spawn, and they plus ikiryo herself are very good targets to throw summoned spirits at.

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Anna Lovelace can give her a huge headache. Her min 3 CA attack will 1 shot most of the things she can summon. So you're trading 1 of Anna's APs for 1 of Kirai's  APs+ Crow + High Card + Half of the summon's wounds on a friendly model. Good cast actions tend to put you on the better end of the trade against her. 

She also has a big 8 aura inch of "no swirling Izamu in my face".

If Anna gets 2 shots, the first should be against a spirit that also has the undead characteristic (Like the Hanged or a Shikome). The second one that is just spirit. If the first attack makes your opponent decide to pop out Ikiryo, Anna has a good chance of burying her on her melee attack. Ikiryo HATES being buried as she can no longer be summoned. 

If Ikiryo does not pop out after the first attack, then the second should go to a straight spirit so that Ikiryo cannot be triggered.

I'm not saying Anna Lovelace is going to solve all Ikiryo related problems but she's a great mercenary all around and has helped me tons.

 

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37 minutes ago, Saduhem said:

Anna Lovelace can give her a huge headache. Her min 3 CA attack will 1 shot most of the things she can summon. So you're trading 1 of Anna's APs for 1 of Kirai's  APs+ Crow + High Card + Half of the summon's wounds on a friendly model. Good cast actions tend to put you on the better end of the trade against her. 

She also has a big 8 aura inch of "no swirling Izamu in my face".

If Anna gets 2 shots, the first should be against a spirit that also has the undead characteristic (Like the Hanged or a Shikome). The second one that is just spirit. If the first attack makes your opponent decide to pop out Ikiryo, Anna has a good chance of burying her on her melee attack. Ikiryo HATES being buried as she can no longer be summoned. 

If Ikiryo does not pop out after the first attack, then the second should go to a straight spirit so that Ikiryo cannot be triggered.

I'm not saying Anna Lovelace is going to solve all Ikiryo related problems but she's a great mercenary all around and has helped me tons.

 

Good thing the Emissary solves that little issue for her :P

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3 minutes ago, Tris said:

Good thing the Emissary solves that little issue for her :P

The Emissary is not living or Undead and does not trigger malevolence. I am not sure competitive Kirai players would bring it considering that she already has issues squeezing stuff in. And if she does, murder the emissary first. It's a 10 stone investment that is not protected by her main defensive mechanic.

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9 minutes ago, Saduhem said:

The Emissary is not living or Undead and does not trigger malevolence. I am not sure competitive Kirai players would bring it considering that she already has issues squeezing stuff in. And if she does, murder the emissary first. It's a 10 stone investment that is not protected by her main defensive mechanic.

That`s again at least one more turn protection for her crew, if you can get the angle to kill him through the shards - not saying that he is unkillable or makes Kirai broken, but he`s a hard counter to those ca based attacks you mentioned earlier :)

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I think Kirai  is doing me a favor in that case. 10 stones and you have to have people stay around the Emissary? Yes please.

 

Also, she still negates all the switcharoo shenanigans, and those spirits still won't trigger malevolence, and she can still bury Ikiryo. She's just great against her, Emissary or not.

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