What's your core Shenlong?

[Somnicide]

I know many people, myself included, like to have a core 30-35 SS list and then fill in the rest for strats and schemes. Most of what I see about Shenlong is fairly old and I was curious for those of you running him what your core lists look like these days, as I'm just starting him. I played my first game with him last week and was more or less humiliated 10-1. I did fine with the stance dance and Shenlong did well, but the rest was a hot mess other than Shadow Emissary and low river monk giving me three extra cards a turn (and the Shadow doing some damage).

[Tokapondora]

Shen + 2 SS Upgrade and maybe Misdirection

Peasant - 2 SS

And it's pretty much at this stage that I already have to start making decisions. I find leaving Yu out to be a bit of a waste, but the Shadow Emissary+LRM is so good as well. Leaving out Yu makes me miss the fast Shen and him allowing me to use Shen as a fighting piece too, or lets me use Yu as a dedicated healer. 3 cards a turn though... I have tried both with some decent success but it does make me miss having a nice amount of actual beaters. 

Shen, Peasant, Yu, Izamu, Lone Swordsman, Sniper, TTB - has given me some great results and leaves you with 8 units and 9 SS to buy upgrades and cache with. And those beaters are largely swappable like Kang vs Ressers etc. Though I used this mostly before the Emi it didn't suddenly stop working. It's got a bit of everything, and is quite good at it, too.

I would say try to fit a Sniper in there whenever you can. Even just one with the two free focus can wreak havoc on enemy crews and positioning turn 1-2. TTB are as great a model as ever. LRM are actually not that needed here unless you take the Emissary. But even just using ^ while swapping Yu for the Emissary, you'd need to swap out Izamu for a 8ish SS beater and do with 1 cache less. And I like the 'Zamu. It stays alive 'n stuff.

What list were you taking and what were the schemes?

[Somnicide]

This was the scheme pool and strat-

Random encounter generated with CrewFaux
Deployment: Corner Deployment (9)
Strategy: Collect the Bounty (Jokers)
Schemes: 
  * Claim Jump (Always)
  * Eliminate the Leadership (Doubles)
  * Dig Their Graves (Crows)
  * Undercover Entourage (2)
  * Search The Ruins (8)

I took a suboptimal crew because I wanted to try one of each of the monks with his first outing, and was a bit surprised with just how terrible that themed list was.

For instance, my first outing with Asami I did similar, and same with Misaki and both of those games were losses but nowhere near this awful.

[Tokapondora]

Oh. Yeah. Don't Do That Brother.

Leave the High and Fermented monks behind and never look back, one LRM is plenty and Wandering can be a nice pick but again, I wouldn't exceed one and he's a fair bit more niche than the LRM.

[Somnicide]

Yeah no chance. I look forward to using the high river monks in m3e.

[whodares]

I really like to use Yu with Shenlong as they are basicly made for eachother. Swapping upgrades, free focus, ...

I usually position both of them and a peasant close to a sniper. I can use Shenlong's ability (peasant take a 1 interact action) to summon my second, albeit slow, peasant for free. Then I let that slow peasant go first and give my archer focus. Because my archer is close to Yu and Shenlong, I can doa  focusshed shot (1AP), focus again (0AP due to Shenlong) and do a second long range focused shot. Both these shots get +1 duel total due to being a focus-using shot within Yu's bubble effect. Let me tell you that 2x a sh6 from 28" with double + to attack flip (1+ built in, 1+ from focus)usually nets you a neutral flip every time. If needed you can go crazy first turn and cheat twice on damage. If you target an enforcer that way, you might even just blow it up first turn.

So basicly you just blew up an enforcer first turn without him really being able to do something about it, except if your hand is really bad and you have no high cards to cheat. I'd say that could be a game-winning play just like that.

 

Now, about some more models that I like to take.

Probably MVP in about every single game I played: Ten Thunder Brothers. The fact that they can get 7 defense with + flip from defensive makes them extremely hard to take down. I've had on hold up Bad Juju going for a Frenzy (3 attacks) and not taking a single damage point due to having 7 Defense. I will admit I had a 13 tome in my had that I dropped on his first attack, so I got my defensive for free.

Terracotta Warriors: I've only used these once so far, but I really liked them. If you take a model that goes deep into enemy territory (Ohaguro Bettari for example), you can get a free get-out-of-jail card as you can ignore an attack at the cost of a card. This saved my models multiple times and allowed me to go in for some kills I shouldn't have been able to take.

Yasunori: Played this guy together with the Terracotta Warriors. He didn't do much for me that 1 game, except keeping some big models occupied and taking over a big part of the map due to his insane 12" engagement range. I will admit his damage potential is really, really high if you have the right cards in your hand. if you hit every attack, you get 12 damage minimum and 20 damage maximum. The thing about that is that those are 4 attacks and you need to get fairly lucky to hit all 4. I usually activated him fairly late into the turn, so your opponent has less answers to any high cards you still have. I did play him in an Asami Crew, so he could use a charge as a 1 AP action.

 

These are basicly models that I almost always consider taking in any crew I play. I used to be a Jakob Lynch player, but I've been converted to an Asami player after using her just once. I started out with SHenlong, but had very little success with him. Maybe I shouldn't have started as a new wargaming player with the most difficult master in the faction.

After losing several times pretty hard, I noticed that Shenlong isn't my cup of tea as a master. I wanted something with crew synergy and WAAAAYYYY more agression on it. I swapped over to Yan Lo, but his style didn't really fit me either. The fact that my opponents keep using Ca-based masters also doesn't help the poor Lo as that is his only real weakness. After that I went for Lynch and never really looked back. The sheer amount of agression and threat that Lynch + Huggy bring is amazing. I coupled them with Yu and blew up a model first turn if it stood within 6" of the centerline. After some fun games with him, I went back to Yan Lo, but that just further proved howmuch I liked Lynch. Then I tried out Asami and had even more fun. The downside for my prefered master type seems to be that they are summoners and thus rather expensive to play.

The moral of my story here? Don't try to force yourself on a master. Play what you really like to play and almost any master can be succesful. Focus more on having fun and experience what each master's strengths and weaknesses are. If you're looking for a Jack-of-all-trades master type, you can check out Asami. She also has a lot of answers to whatever situation arises.

[Nikodemus]

8 hours ago, Somnicide said:

Deployment: Corner Deployment (9)
Strategy: Collect the Bounty (Jokers)
Schemes: 
  * Claim Jump (Always)
  * Eliminate the Leadership (Doubles)
  * Dig Their Graves (Crows)
  * Undercover Entourage (2)
  * Search The Ruins (8)

I start with a style upgrade, peasant and go from there. Sensei Yu is really good, but having played with and without him I'm not sure he's 11ss autoinclude good. My core for others include some utility/support models that I can't live without but Shenlong provides all that by himself. My list for the scenario would probably be:

• Shenlong - Low/Wandering River depending on my mood, Misdirect, Recalled Training (gives him a bit of extra KAPOW if he decides to bust some fools) - 6ss cache
• Peasant
• Sensei Yu - Promising Disciple
• The Lone Swordsman - Recalled Training (Haven't tried them yet but maybe swap for Jorogumo? Same price, less points for Bounty. Worse for scoring Eliminate the Leadership though)
• Burt Jebsen - Recalled Training (ditto)
• Torakage (or any 5-6ss model you like the look of)
• Shadow Effigy

Eyeing up EtL and Entourage, but can do others. Sensei Yu is here to keep the crew healed up and push+fast Shenlong in the final turn to quadruple walk for Entourage. Burt and Swordsman are cheap beaters who punch well, their hard-to-kill is boosted greatly by crew's healing. Effigy is a cheap activation who helps keep Shenlong a bit safer.

Far as monk models go, I own all but Fermented and regularly use Low and Wandering. Low Rivers are somewhat less useful in a Shenlong crew unless you do the Emissary trick and Wandering has specific schemes he really loves. As a group they seem surprisingly unsynergistic with Shenlong himself. He gives a (0) action aura but all the monks have fairly useful (0)'s already. He can heal and push them, but there's better models to do that on, not to mention that 6 wounds that most monks have is eminently one-shotable.

[scarlett fever]

I concur with others in this thread in that there is nothing I always take with Shenlong beyond Wandering River upgrade and a Peasant. Everything else is situational.

What I do have is a few core lists depending on what I want to achieve and a number of go-to models. It's this flexibility that makes him quite intensive to play, if he's not top of my roster I can loose focus.

My core lists are;

Shen, Peasant, Toshiro, Sniper x 2 (Interferrence mostly)

Shen, Peasant, Emissary, Low River, Ohagaru, Swordsman (alternatively Yasanori. This is my killy, pincer list)

Shen, Peasant, Sensei Yu, Wandering River Monk, Thunder Brother (More schemey list, Stake a Claim etc)

Shen, Peasant, Iluminated x 2, Sniper x2 (Collect the Bounty, Minion based schemes etc)

I've also tried a more aggressive control based Shen, Yu, Izamu, Yin list but haven't had as much luck with it. Mind you I've only run it a couple of times.

One list I've made work is Emissary and double Thunder Archers, but I'd only consider it when the terrain and Strat is just so. Hiding the Archers behind a big piece of terrain and flooding the centre of the board with blasts of the Emissary is pretty fun. And no, I don't use Fermented or High Monks either. High are okay with McCabe and in theory they would be good if you know your opponents Frame For Murder target, but that's a lot of ducks in a row.

[BigHammer]

My core is Shenlong with Wandering River style, 1 peasant, Shadow Emissary, low river monk and a Samurai with favour of earth. That's 26 stones before I pump my cache (usu to 5 or 6), leaving space for what I need to score.

 

My hiring pool usually includes the Lone Swordsman, Katanaka Sniper, Wandering river monk, terracotta warrior, wastrels and tengu, which can achieve most schemes without too much bother.

 

I rarely hire Yu with Shenlong now, but some schemes/strategies make it viable, if expensive.

[newsun]

Shenlong + peasant or kamaitachi then other stuff

[Tokapondora]

I would never do the Kamaitachi. As nice as the push and heal are, do they really compare to two activations for 2 SS? Also free focus or w/e.

[SuperSalami]

I play the same list 90% of the time with Shenlong.

Shenlong, Sensei Yu, Lone Swordsman, Emissary, Sniper, Ten Thunders Brother, and a Peasant.  This list can accomplish most strats and schemes pretty well and has a nice mix of killing power and scheme marker manipulation.  It's a little weak to hunting party on paper, but I haven't really had that come up as an issue.

Before I had the emissary I was running Izamu.  I think the emissary brings more to the table, especially the card draw ability.  I've seen low river monk touted as a must take with the emissary, but I've never taken one before.  I can usually get 3 focus on one of the peasants if I want three cards.  There's nothing I'd want to cut to make room for a monk that doesn't really do anything but focus and wander around.  

One tip that I picked up from the Schemes and Stones episode on Shenlong is to use High River Style defensively.  I always thought of it as the primary attacking style, but the ability to raise your final duel total by up to three in exchange for damage means it's pretty easy not to get hit.  Between High River Style and the healing from Low River Style, Shenlong can be damn near impossible to kill, even against dedicated killers like Howard Langston.  Fermented River Style is the go to if you want to mess someone up.  With that style, you're generally on positives to damage and 2/3/5 with good triggers isn't bad.