Jump to content

Journey along the Path, or how to suck at Yan Lo


Mxbedlam

Recommended Posts

So I recently picked up Yan Lo, because I simply can't stop myself from buying new masters. Figured I'd chronicle my Yan Lo games here so everyone can see how NOT to play him. 

My first game was vs Ten Thunders

Standard Deployment

Headhunter

Claim Jump, Eliminate, Dig Graves, Recover Evidence, Search the Ruins

I took:                                                                                                                      He took: 

Yan (Fortify, Brutal, misdirection)                                                                               McCabe (some Mccabe upgrades)

Soul Porter                                                                                                               Luna

Toshiro (COmmand)                                                                                                 Shadow Em (mcCabe conflux)

Shadow Em (Ancestral)                                                                                             Guild Hound

Komaniu                                                                                                                  Dawn serpent

Low River Monk                                                                                                        Jorogumo

Ten Thunders Bro                                                                                                     Jorogumo

Jorogumo 

We both took Eliminate and Dig and ended up tying 7-7

This was a hard hard game. I summoned exactly one Ashigaru. Yan tied up McCabe but wasn't able to dismount him. I killed both joros but it took real work. Made a big mistake forgetting Misdirection on to McCabe that would have made the difference between 1 and 2 eliminate points. Thankfully my opponent chose to go after Toshiro instead of grabbing a head marker on turn 3. Ulitimately I liked my list but I would have changed out Toshiro to Izamu and the Bro to a TC warrior if I were to go into this pool again. I did like that Toshiro buffed the Joro and the Komaniu to make short work of the enemy Joros. Yan ended up with all 3 ancestor upgrades but I think I should have kept the 3 chi for Fortify as opposed to spending it on Hunpo Assault in his last activation. It didn't end up doing anything for me as it missed McCabe all together and the +3 to my stats would have made a difference in keeping him on the board. 

 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Did Tosh have the Peaceful Waters upgrade for the Low River Monk? 

I'd have added Chiaki and the T.Warrior in this pool so the T.Warrior can pass Ancient Protection to Chiaki who can pass it to Yan to soak that big hit one time. Interesting to see different Yan styles though!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's a silly trick you can do if you run upgrade light with Yan Lo where every turn you attach Ash Ascendent and then use a Terracotta Warrior to swap it out for Recalled Training, essentially getting permanent :+fates to everything. I'd be interested to hear how that works for you :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Haha fair enough. Anyway onto Game 2

Scheme pool was:

Flank

Reckoning

Claim Jump

Frame For Murder

Eliminate the Leadership

Recover Evidence

Tail 'Em

 

I played:                                                                                                               My opponent played:

Yan Lo- Reliquary, Fortify Spirit, Brutal Kakahara                                                       Lucius - Surprisingly Loyal, Hidden Assets, Hidden Sniper

Chiaki- Pull of the Grave                                                                                          Mr Graves- Debt to the Guild

Izamu- Recalled Training                                                                                        Mr Tannen- Useless Duplications

Shadow Emissary -Ancestral Conflux                                                                        Peacekeeper- Debt to the Guild

Soul Porter                                                                                                            Guild Sargeant- Debt to the Guild

Ten Thunder Brother                                                                                              Scribe

Ten Thunder Brother                                                                                              Witchling Thrall

Komaniu                                                                                                               

I took Frame on Komaniu, Claim Jump                                                                     He took Recover Evidence, Frame on Tannen

 

So going into the game I liked Yan Lo for this because he's pretty easy to deny Tail 'Em and Yan + Izamu can wreck people's faces. Plus 2 Ten Thunders brothers lock down claim jump. I made a big mistake this game and forgot to give Yan Impossible to Wound turn 1. Plus I Lightning Danced on the Peace Keeper because I was worried about Frame being on the Thrall. I wasn't ever able to do much damage to the peacekeeper but keeping it out of Lucius' Commanding Presence for a turn was a big deal.  Sadly because of my misplay, Yan died on turn 3 before I could Hunpo Assault on a tasty clump made of Tannen, Scribe, Sargeant and Graves. Oh well, nice Red Joker from Shadow Emissary took Graves down and spread some Black blood. I ended up getting 2 for Frame, 3 for Reckoning and 3 for Claim Jump. In the end I wasn't able to stop my opponent from scoring all his Recover Evidence. I realise now I should have aggresively spammed Chiaki's Insignificant attack. Too late, I'll use it for next time. I liked the list and I would definitely play it again, maybe switching out the Komaniu for the TC Warrior next game. (I"ll proxy one up I guess) We ended up tying 7-7. Same score as last game. 

I will say Debt to the Guild is stupid good. It makes a calculated chance of survival into a guaranteed model death, especially in a faction that has access to lots of crit strike already. There were a few times I looked at a model and thought, min 3 vs incorporeal is fine. Then suddenly I took 2 attacks of min 5 thanks to debt and crit strike and it wasn't fine at all. 

Tune in for the next game, hopefully this week. Will I tie again? Is 7 points my Yan Lo sweet spot? Guess we shall have to see

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/16/2017 at 2:07 AM, Dogmantra said:

There's a silly trick you can do if you run upgrade light with Yan Lo where every turn you attach Ash Ascendent and then use a Terracotta Warrior to swap it out for Recalled Training, essentially getting permanent :+fates to everything. I'd be interested to hear how that works for you :D

This is cute, but Yan is not only upgrade heavy, but you have 4 total actions you are probably flipping on: dance, attack Ca, brutal k and his heal. Dance, heal and his attack like :+fate 's but you should probably be on Ca8 for those anyways. Brutal K should really only be used with hunpo assault, which already has built in :+fate 's.

@Mrbedlam Nice reports! You should try the Chiaki shuffle :D  give her fast and the terracotta protection, then when she activates have her pass it to Yan Lo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Quick update on a game. I don't have all the notes in front of me. Played a headhunter game vs gremlins. 

Standard Deployment, Headhunter, Claim Jump, Eliminate the Leadership, frame for murder, Search the Ruins, Quick Murder

Yan lo (reliquary, brutal, misdirection)                                                 Zipp(Stilts, Dirty Cheater, Sky pirate upgrade)

soul porter                                                                                                Earl

Chiaki(Graves)                                                                                         McTavish 

Izamu (recalled)                                                                                      Francois (Dirty Cheater)

TC warrior                                                                                                Skeeter (Piano upgrade)

2 Ten T bro                                                                                               Rooster Rider

Shadow Em (Ancestor Flux)                                                                 3 Bayou gremlins

i knew that I was going to have a hard time with Zipp going into this scheme pool and I had to out play a friggin bastard of a master. I figured he wouldn't take Quick Murder cause Izamu is hard to kil when you can't ignore armor. Scoring Search the Ruins, Eliminate is hard vs Zipp. So I took Quick Murder and Frame for Murder on the Shadow Emmisary. He tilted hard turn 1 with a skeeter making Franc fast and sending him right into Izamu, pulling a red joker, a severe and a severe. Izamu died and so did Franc. I brought Izamu back, killed the skeeter with Yan Lo, gave him 3 points for Frame. 

Next turn, I sent Izamu and yan lo after Mc Tavish, scoring Quick Murder for 3 points. I managed to get the Ten T bro in to grab a head. He flung the Shadow Em away from zipp so that earl could grab the head. His gremlins dropped claim markers. my Ten t bro denied one. Turn 3, Yan Lo went after a gremlin, while Zipp killed the TC warrior. Bayou gremlin got a lucky flip and killed the Ten T bro but wasn't able to drop a claim marker.

Long story short, I could only deny him claim 2 turns and he never killed the shadow emmisary thanks to blowing up his own Franc. Final score was 8-6 in Zipp's favor. I feel like it was just a very bad pool to go up against Zipp in. So much of the pool was hard to impossible to score.  Great game though. 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would've been more worried about Emissary being a Quick Murder target, but I guess framing him alleviated that somewhat. Might've gone for Search the Ruins instead of Frame myself. Just looking at the two crew lists I've got a good feeling TT will have more left standing towards the end, and I usually have a few rubbish cards to discard to bypass Zipp's pseudo-chatty. Not an obvious pick over Frame though, tough pool indeed.

In retrospect do you think you could've avoided giving 3VP for Frame? In hindsight at least frontal Skeeter sounds like an obvious pick for Frame, once you figured out it wasn't Francois. Or Earl. Always Earl. Curse that guy.

Cool writeup!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The problem with Search the Ruins is that Zipp in the middle just mercs you right out of it thanks to his dumb aura. I probably shouldn't have killed the skeeter for sure, but I wanted the Chi on Yan Lo and I figured he had it on Franc. Oops. Zipp is just so hard to play around that he gets in my head before the game even starts. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Got some more Yan Lo games in this week. Both games vs Levi. Don't remember full details so I will go for the cliff notes. 

My list for first was: Yan Lo (Awakening, Reliquary, and Misdirection), Soul Porter, Chiaki (Pull), Toshiro (Command), Shadow (Ancestoral), Wastrel, 2 Thunders Brothers.

Opponent played Levi (From Aether, Pariah of Iron, Untimely Demise), 2 Waifs, Rusty (Deso Souls, Aether), Joss (Oathkeeper), TC Warrior, 3 Aboms.

Pool was: standard, Symbols, Take Prisoner, Undercover Entourage, Punish the Weak, Recover Evidence, and Public Demo.

This game was over quick. Turn 1 I gave Yan Impossible to Wound after killing the wastrel. Summoned an Ashigaru. Then Chiaki got killed by Levi and Joss made some scrap. Turn 2 I lost initiative (as was theme for the day).  Yan Lo got hunpo hoping to kill aboms and pulled in Rusty to Toshiro. Ashigaru became an Abom. Chiaki came back. Deso engine got summoned and put Yan Lo on 4 wounds with 2 attacks. awesome. Ten Thunder brother dies to Joss. Turn 3, Yan lo dies on first activation. (lost initative again). and we called it so we could have time to do another game.

Game 2. I switched out Tosh for Izamu. He switched Joss for Hooded. Pool was: Flank, Ply, Surround Them, Dig Graves, Set Up, Hold Up Forces, Search Ruins. 

First Turn Yan kills the Wastrel again and gets I2W. Levi summons an Abom thanks to Rusty's corpse marker. Turn 2, Deso engine charges Yan Lo and does some damage. Izamu charges Hooded and puts him to 2. Hooded goes, flips severe damage on a neg flip to put IZamu to 2 wounds. Levi finishes him off and summons an abom. Deso gets plyed and dropped by Yan and Shadow. Yan also pulls a waif far away from any anchors so that Chiaki can kill it. Turn 3, I need to win initiative to kill Levi and the last waif. I don't get it. Yan dies to Levi. Shadow Emissary blows up 2 aboms. Chiaki tags an abom for ply. Hooded Fails to kill Chiaki. Turn 4 I actually win intiative. I go with Shadow. Forget to use my 0 for focus blasts before I shoot the last waif. It would have red jokered onto the hooded and killing him as well. Oh well. Levi fails to kill anything else. I end up with 2 points for surround them and 2 for ply. Opponent ends up with 2 points for ply and 2 points for Set Up. 

Take aways: I really need to figure out what Yan Lo is actually doing in my games. Most of the time he was just bouncing around and then dying. Playing some more tomorrow night. Hopefully adding a Goryo instead of a wastrel to help with Chi 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information