Wave 5 Upgrade scoop

[Boomstick]

Let's pool our info on what the scouts at GenCon have found out about the new upgrades!

I know Brewie got some fun ones.

2ss with an aura to do 2 extra damage when enemies tick poison, and a (0) to summon Westly if he's not there.

And a 1ss to give him a mask when targetting poisoned enemies, so easy Obey on the drunkards. And a (1) to put out a pulse makinh enemies pass a Wk duel or take 2 damage.

I've had pretty good success with him as is, but these will open up a bit more direct playstyle, methinks.

What's everybody else know?

[Pyrflamme]

Shenlong got Yin and Yang upgrades, can only have one at a time. Yin seems to be poison and air theme, Yang fire themed.

Misaki got an upgrade that lets her pitch soulstones at the beginning of the turn to get a condition that stacks and lasts until the end of the game. Can't be removed by enemy models. You heal end of turn according to condition stack. Can also trade in condition end of turn for soulstones = amount you lowered it by. Other upgrade buffs her Thunder by letting you throw blast markers really far and making them hurt no matter what. Also grants Flay trigger to Thunder.

McCabe got an invisibility cloak and an upgrade that works kinda like Terracotta Warrior, but without the "3 Sabers" silliness.

Mei Feng got an upgrade that lets her, once per activation, use a trigger from an attack other than the activating attack. Also Railwalker trigger on all Ml. Second upgrade makes Foundry models near her faster and lets her haul friendlies around.

Jacob got an upgrade that gives always going second cheating to friendly models close to him or Hungering Darkness. Also lets him reveal cards at the beginning of his activation, you get cumulative bonuses for each Mask you reveal, up to 3. Second upgrade lets you summon Depleted off Brillianced enemy models dying near him or Hungering Darkness, you need to pitch cards though.

Yan Lo got three upgrades: One that grants Instinctual and buffs Lightning Dance, one that takes after Asami's VP theme but with Chi and also has a passive that lets you trade in Ascendant upgrades for other Ascendant upgrades. Blood Ascendant: Casting Expert, new Ca attack that heals Ancestors if it kills the target.

Asami got an unusual one where she's immune to enemy condition remove but gains Flicker at the beginning of the game. You can lower it when you summon to buff the summon's flicker, and you get more flicker when you kill stuff with her. Don't have a line on the other.

[Dante83]

Hmmmm, that first Lynch one doesn't seem right.

He already has an upgrade to enable cheating face down. In fact the proposed one is worse than the existing one as rather than being anyone in line of sight (as per existing upgrade), it appears to imply you can only do it within a certain distance of Lynch/Huggy.

[santaclaws01]

1 hour ago, Dante83 said:

Hmmmm, that first Lynch one doesn't seem right.

He already has an upgrade to enable cheating face down. In fact the proposed one is worse than the existing one as rather than being anyone in line of sight (as per existing upgrade), it appears to imply you can only do it within a certain distance of Lynch/Huggy.

Being able to cheat second is very strong. You can be losing a duel and are still forcing your opponent to cheat. If they cheat in something that you wouldn't be able to beat even with a high card it saves your high card. It means your opponent can't hold onto a higher card while using a low card just to get within that 1-5 range because they don't know how high you'll go. Cheating face down just gives some mind games, not a concrete advantage. Being able to always choose how you'll cheat after you see what your opponent is going to do gives you a pretty big advantage.

[Dante83]

I agree being able to cheat second is great,  especially if you are losing the duel, but the original post doesn't mention that as a part of what Lynch does.

I haven't seen the upgrades myself and so my comment was based on the post by pyrflamme.

From what you are suggesting though being able to always cheat second does seem pretty good.

Do you happen to know the upgrade cost/if it is Limited etc?

[santaclaws01]

Just now, Dante83 said:

I agree being able to cheat second is great,  especially if you are losing the duel, but the original post doesn't mention that as a part of what Lynch does.

I haven't seen the upgrades myself and so my comment was based on the post by pyrflamme.

From what you are suggesting though being able to always cheat second does seem pretty good.

Do you happen to know the upgrade cost/if it is Limited etc?

Ah, yeah, so it does. Yes it is limited and is only 1 stone. Also, the second ability talked about on that card requires discards, not just reveal.

[Dante83]

Ah man, the limitedness stops it being auto take as is though (probably good game design), as Huggy's effectiveness will have to take a hit in order to take it.

Do you know what the discard effects are for each mask discarded? 

[twibs]

Any info on Emissary? Did we get a conflux for Asami? At least the promo image with Ototo and Lady J upgrade had some upgrade ending in "..ux" and in 10T colors.

[santaclaws01]

1 hour ago, Dante83 said:

Ah man, the limitedness stops it being auto take as is though (probably good game design), as Huggy's effectiveness will have to take a hit in order to take it.

Do you know what the discard effects are for each mask discarded? 

Give brilliance to every model within 6, place a scheme marker in base with him and huggy, heal every friendly model 2.

[Dante83]

Awesome, thanks.

I've just listened to the latest Max Value podcast and they had a breakdown of all our new wave 5 stuff (including all the master upgrades).

I have to say I'm pretty pleased with how we came out of this book. Misaki looks like she will be a lot of fun and I may actually have to pick up Yan Lo!!!

Overall, good job Wyrd!!

[maca1066]

3 hours ago, Dante83 said:

Awesome, thanks.

I've just listened to the latest Max Value podcast and they had a breakdown of all our new wave 5 stuff (including all the master upgrades).

I have to say I'm pretty pleased with how we came out of this book. Misaki looks like she will be a lot of fun and I may actually have to pick up Yan Lo!!!

Overall, good job Wyrd!!

sounds like my afternoons travelling listening has been decided.

[Pyrflamme]

Gah yeah, misheard Lynch's cheating thing, it is always cheating second as mentioned. Edited to reflect that.

[Tokapondora]

Now Yan Lo I think is definitely helped the most by these, if only because of Awakening. Two zeros is very nice, Lightning Dance trigger and doing it for a 0 is nice, and it only costing 1 SS is also quite nice. The one downside is that it now locks my Df and Wp to 5, which is still shamefully low for a master. Even if not for damage, it still leaves you incredibly vulnerable to the various effects that can be thrown around. Follow Their Footsteps is okay, but with the other two upgrades just about stapled to his card being Rebuild Corpus and Misdirection actually allowing him and his crew to go balls deep into enemy lines I can only see this be possibly used to try and get Blood Ascendant, after which I'd need a Terracotta Warrior to swap it out, which I can't because you can't swap upgrades once you're over your limit, so yeah, there's not much place for that. It's gonna be either this or Awakening, and Awakening takes the cake by a mile.

Which brings us to Blood Ascendant, which is just too expensive. It's an amazing effect, to be sure, but at 4 Chi you're going to attach this at turn 2 only if you beeline straight towards it, and at that point you will have zero defensive Ancestor upgrades and at best 1 Chi, only allowing your next activation to benefit from Casting Expert and that's only if you leave behind any upgrades to offset that pitiful Df/Wp 5. So you don't get Casting Expert until the turn after you equip it, equipping it will realistically cost you just about all your Chi, at which point you're at Ca 5 for all of your actions, and Yan's quite hungry for cards as it is. And even for a 3/4/5 damage track, you will need Chi to make this attack or Lightning Dance be worth anything and the only time you can realistically get both is around turn 4, which is generally well after the damage's been done. Even moreso than the Bone Ascendant this is just too expensive to allow Yan to function with his leftover Chi, and unlike Bone Ascendant you can't benefit from 90% of this card's worth the turn you equip it. 

 

A very close second McCabe, who gets a very nifty new tool that I can see replacing another 1 SS upgrade in Cloak of Invisibility. I can already hear the complaints of a Disguised Yasunori ringing through the poor poor Guild forums though. And Don't Mind Me is perfect for me, seeing as I tend to use McCabe for my schemier schemes already. Top that off with Perfect Camouflage and you've offset one of McCabe's biggest weaknesses of being weak against range. Next is Loot Bag, which if nothing else is a 1 SS upgrade that can turn into any of McCabe's 2 SS upgrades, so it's naturally an autotake though I feel for the wrong reasons. You can fuss around by throwing this onto a friendly model who can then later turn it into a McCabe upgrade but realistically you'll be much better off just getting what you want while everything is in throwing distance. I'm not sure McCabe really needed these buffs; there's plenty of TT masters who could've used such a big boost much better with McCabe just getting something to allow alternative playstyles.

 

Then we get Asami who gets an upgrade that gives her 7 Flicker which in turn can be used to add suits to duels and flicker to other Oni. At 7 you can really only use this once if you don't want her to flicker out turn 5 though, and that's hoping that the rounds don't go beyond that. Especially in tournament games it might be good since you're more likely to run low on rounds, but I hardly feel that's supposed to be a selling point for upgrades.Now you could always use Amanjaku or kill enemies with Asami to get Flicker, but Asami is far too card hungry for that to be a viable/reliable method of getting more on it. Most of the time this will just be turning a Soulstone into a suit, which you no doubt will do at some point, and at that point you best make sure you've done all you need to do with her if you want to spend any more.

Bad Hair Day allows you discard a card to reflip a flip, which the again card hungry Asami cannot deal with, especially for a chance to topdeck whatever it is she needs. The attack to block Walk and Charge actions seems nice, but the fact that it needs a suit just kills it. There's, again, both cards and Soulstones involved in getting this off that are much better off on other actions. The Shadow Emissary's conflux turns him into an Oni, which is definitely a big plus, and drops scheme markers near him when models get sacrificed near him. Definitely a neat little diddy, but it does compete with a  to minion attacks and just other support models in general. Not entirely sure about this one but it's hardly bad. 

 

Kay that was a bit more detail than I was expecting to go in. I'll get to the others in a bit.

[santaclaws01]

12 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

Now Yan Lo I think is definitely helped the most by these, if only because of Awakening. Two zeros is very nice, Lightning Dance trigger and doing it for a 0 is nice, and it only costing 1 SS is also quite nice. The one downside is that it now locks my Df and Wp to 5, which is still shamefully low for a master. Even if not for damage, it still leaves you incredibly vulnerable to the various effects that can be thrown around. Follow Their Footsteps is okay, but with the other two upgrades just about stapled to his card being Rebuild Corpus and Misdirection actually allowing him and his crew to go balls deep into enemy lines I can only see this be possibly used to try and get Blood Ascendant, after which I'd need a Terracotta Warrior to swap it out, which I can't because you can't swap upgrades once you're over your limit, so yeah, there's not much place for that. It's gonna be either this or Awakening, and Awakening takes the cake by a mile.

Which brings us to Blood Ascendant, which is just too expensive. It's an amazing effect, to be sure, but at 4 Chi you're going to attach this at turn 2 only if you beeline straight towards it, and at that point you will have zero defensive Ancestor upgrades and at best 1 Chi, only allowing your next activation to benefit from Casting Expert and that's only if you leave behind any upgrades to offset that pitiful Df/Wp 5. So you don't get Casting Expert until the turn after you equip it, equipping it will realistically cost you just about all your Chi, at which point you're at Ca 5 for all of your actions, and Yan's quite hungry for cards as it is. And even for a 3/4/5 damage track, you will need Chi to make this attack or Lightning Dance be worth anything and the only time you can realistically get both is around turn 4, which is generally well after the damage's been done. Even moreso than the Bone Ascendant this is just too expensive to allow Yan to function with his leftover Chi, and unlike Bone Ascendant you can't benefit from 90% of this card's worth the turn you equip it. 

 

A very close second McCabe, who gets a very nifty new tool that I can see replacing another 1 SS upgrade in Cloak of Invisibility. I can already hear the complaints of a Disguised Yasunori ringing through the poor poor Guild forums though. And Don't Mind Me is perfect for me, seeing as I tend to use McCabe for my schemier schemes already. Top that off with Perfect Camouflage and you've offset one of McCabe's biggest weaknesses of being weak against range. Next is Loot Bag, which if nothing else is a 1 SS upgrade that can turn into any of McCabe's 2 SS upgrades, so it's naturally an autotake though I feel for the wrong reasons. You can fuss around by throwing this onto a friendly model who can then later turn it into a McCabe upgrade but realistically you'll be much better off just getting what you want while everything is in throwing distance. I'm not sure McCabe really needed these buffs; there's plenty of TT masters who could've used such a big boost much better with McCabe just getting something to allow alternative playstyles.

 

Then we get Asami who gets an upgrade that gives her 7 Flicker which in turn can be used to add suits to duels and flicker to other Oni. At 7 you can really only use this once if you don't want her to flicker out turn 5 though, and that's hoping that the rounds don't go beyond that. Especially in tournament games it might be good since you're more likely to run low on rounds, but I hardly feel that's supposed to be a selling point for upgrades.Now you could always use Amanjaku or kill enemies with Asami to get Flicker, but Asami is far too card hungry for that to be a viable/reliable method of getting more on it. Most of the time this will just be turning a Soulstone into a suit, which you no doubt will do at some point, and at that point you best make sure you've done all you need to do with her if you want to spend any more.

Bad Hair Day allows you discard a card to reflip a flip, which the again card hungry Asami cannot deal with, especially for a chance to topdeck whatever it is she needs. The attack to block Walk and Charge actions seems nice, but the fact that it needs a suit just kills it. There's, again, both cards and Soulstones involved in getting this off that are much better off on other actions. The Shadow Emissary's conflux turns him into an Oni, which is definitely a big plus, and drops scheme markers near him when models get sacrificed near him. Definitely a neat little diddy, but it does compete with a  to minion attacks and just other support models in general. Not entirely sure about this one but it's hardly bad. 

 

Kay that was a bit more detail than I was expecting to go in. I'll get to the others in a bit.

The conflux being able to trade wounds for flicker is very useful, especially with Jorogumo and them having eat your fill.

[Tokapondora]

Ah, forgot about that one. The problem there is I just like Yu with her so much. Being able to reposition minions in that bubble over and over again, giving them fast to boot and repositioning the scheme markers the Oni drop really just makes him hard to top for me.

[twibs]

About bad hair day. I could see this as a sort of turning low cards into higher ones, with a gamble. The podcast said you can attempt the duel again, which I interpret as having the identical duel. Stone/flicker for a suit, focus up and attempt a summon, maybe yokai. If it fails, drop an ace for reflip, which should also be with the suit and focused. Add in Yu for added focus benefits.

[Tokapondora]

Well, time to crack on. 

We're now getting into the territory of "alternative playstyles", and kick it off with Lynch. Cheating Bastard is, by all accounts, great. I'd very much take it if it was 2 SS, maaaybe even 3. I would not however take it if it was Limited. Alas. Cheating last is incredibly powerful, but against that is a 3 Df tadpole that will not survive any amount of attention. You'd have to hold back playing him, your opponents would be far less incentivized to not bother, and ultimately the rest is not going to tip this upgrade over the edge. Getting to tag one enemy within 6" with Brilliance undefended is great, placing scheme markers do not fit the type of game I take Lynch with and I can't ever go into a game expecting three masks. I might swap it out if I'm feeling cheeky, but since it's 1 SS it's gonna cost me another SS to swap it back again. I'd actually be happier with this upgrade being 2 SS.

And Burn Out... Burn Out is an interesting one. You get Depleted when you kill stuff. They'll be coming in at 3 Wds but it's the activation that counts. That said though, since it requires opponents you are relying on them to get that count up, you're realistically only gonna be doing in from t2 onwards, and at 2 SS Lynch will end up with a 6 SS upgrade line-up, with Addict on Huggy bringing it to 7 (since you'll need to play fairly Brilliancy if you want to make the most out of this). It's a tough one but above all it looks fun and I'm definitely looking forward to trying it. Lynch is already definitely on the top half of the spectrum, so giving him difficult choices rather than autoincludes is exactly what we want.

 

Mei Feng's biggest issue before we even look at her upgrades is that she is filled to the brim with them already. Vapormancy, Seismic Claws, Misdirection, Recalled Training... It's gonna be tough to make your way in there. Which starts us off at Rail Lines. Friendly Foundry models walk faster when they start near her. Now I don't use a lot of Foundry models with Mei. I don't even use Mei's own Wk. And Railwalker gets to haul models away, but on a trigger. Which is fair, you shouldn't be able to chain activate that in any way shape or form. Though they could've suited that on a . At a 7+ its going to be one expensively niche Railwalk. It's not like TT is really pressed for movement. And then you look at that card and you look at the four upgrades that are already waiting in line to be stuck on her, and... yeah... Shame.

Press the Advantage seems, at first glance, an absolutely amazing ability. Any attack you do gets to activate a trigger on any of your attacks. Wombocomboing across the board for days. Though then, it's restricted by a once a turn-clause. Which is fair enough, but also hurls this upgrade down the tier-stairs. To the point where, looking at all the pretty upgrades in line already, the double suited trigger for Railwalks just isn't enough to let it break through.

 

And then there's Shenlong. Poor poor Shenlong. These two are just a resounding meh. He's got upgrade slots to spare, so initially I was like "Why not", but then I realised that for the price of these upgrades I can also put 1 SS in my pool. And that's kind of a worrying sign, if there's two upgrades that you find hard to justify at 1 SS. Yang gives 1 extra charge attack, which is nice enough, but when you're charging in you're not using Shenlong for what he does best; support. Giving up 1 poison to get 1 Df is nice, but then you realise it's only for the Action, not even the Activation. And you have to give it up before the duel starts anyways. There's not enough poison in the world to make playing him more on poison viable.
They seem to be designed to make use of his massive hands and turn him into somewhat of a combat master as alternative. This is fine, Shenlong didn't need some huge buff. But it's done in such a bland way, without spicing him up in any way which he'd definitely need if he's stuck relying on his attacks. I've thought of Terracotta Warrioring him into carrying both - since it only says you cannot purchase both - but again, I couldn't get myself to take one let alone two. They're just... boring. 

 

Misaki's really interesting - just not good enough. Risk and Reward is a fun little gimmick, but since you have to do it at the start of your turn and you only heal after the turn ends it's a risky one. A risky one that will come at the cost of Stalking Bisento, Misdirection or Recalled Training. And that extra crow just isn't quite worth it without all three of those. If I could take a fourth I'd happily give it a go but alas. The Storm has, well, issues. Blasting 12" away is great, naturally, and you might give the Emissary's focus aura a go for a change, but ultimately they will not only be dropping in at 2 or 3 damage, but they do so at even more of a cost of Misaki's hand - something she even struggles with when she has a  to attack and damage.

This honestly should've been a simple  to her damage. You'd still have to cheat in for the double blast, but it wouldn't leave her attacks completely useless unless you cheated damage in every single attack. Just a small change that would've turned this not necessarily into something that remotely compares with Stalking Bisento but at least would've made it a functional alternative. She's without  flips to her attacks, she'll have to cheat in to realistically get above the min 2 damage, to cheat in she needs a suit to start with... There's just far too many issues with this to make it even just a fun little alternative. 

 

The Brewmaster I had high hopes for. As one of the worst masters in the game with upgrade slots gallore this was Wyrd's chance to actually do something with him. A nice clean way to give him something without having to resort to erratas and I have to say, I'm genuinely disappointed. We get Wesley for 2 SS and a 0 which by all means is an improvement over having to stick Running Tab on him, but it's definitely not what he needed. The extra poison damage seems huge, but seeing as models within 6" tend to be stuck making numerous healing flips a turn anyway the uncontrolled End of Turn damage bump is too unfocussed to make use of. Just give me a Wesley and be done with it (and I'm not happy to have to give up my 0 for that).

A Friendly Ear should've just been a  and that's it. The absolute last thing the Brewmaster needed was even more set up. Hell, it would've even been fine if the Brewmaster just got a  to all duels with models with the poison condition - might make the You're Drunk trigger an interesting one to go and for your opponents to look out for. As it is now it's just repeating the same design mistakes that've plagued the Brewmaster since day 1. And Explosive Mixture is wyrd's offering at finally being able to deal damage. Except it's a simple duel. And for whatever reason targets Wk instead of Wp. So you get a very unreliable damage source, a situational suit that, if built in, would've given the Brewmaster an actually reliable damage source, and they didn't even bother to give a small bump to the defenses of a Df 5 two-suited defensive trigger. 

 

All in all, I feel this was the chance to pull Misaki and the Brewmaster somewhat closer to the competitive scene. Maybe give Mei a little boost as well. Lynch, Asami and Yan Lo I'm happy about though. McCabe worried. Shenlong... Well... Such is life.

[Jinn]

The Terracotta warrior can block the damage that the Emissary is causing for the +1 flicker, which makes it much more viable with a turn 1 Jorogumo or Obsidian Oni.

My (probably irrational) fear with borrowed time is that you'll run up against a hard counter to it semi-often. It says that enemy models can't remove or end conditions on you, to stop you from being cleansed to death, but that also means that any expunge is going to deal damage equal to your poison and then leave that poison on you. It also means that Kaeris can stack burning on you and then engulf you multiple times, and then leave that burning to resolve at the end of the turn (she'd probably kill you anyway if you didn't have misdirection though). My biggest fear though, is Marcus. If Marcus alphas you (Ca:7, maybe 8 with his new upgrade, vs Wp5) he can choose to summon a tengu (or whatever the weakest Oni is), lower your flicker for the mask and then transfer all of your flicker to the summon and kill Asami.

There are probably other scenarios that I'm not thinking of and it these problems will only appear in a few match ups, but when you are probably only getting a mask or two out of the upgrade, is it worth the risk? The two factions I play are Arcanists and TT so I may be overestimating the prevalence of these match-ups.

[santaclaws01]

59 minutes ago, Jinn said:

The Terracotta warrior can block the damage that the Emissary is causing for the +1 flicker, which makes it much more viable with a turn 1 Jorogumo or Obsidian Oni.

My (probably irrational) fear with borrowed time is that you'll run up against a hard counter to it semi-often. It says that enemy models can't remove or end conditions on you, to stop you from being cleansed to death, but that also means that any expunge is going to deal damage equal to your poison and then leave that poison on you. It also means that Kaeris can stack burning on you and then engulf you multiple times, and then leave that burning to resolve at the end of the turn (she'd probably kill you anyway if you didn't have misdirection though). My biggest fear though, is Marcus. If Marcus alphas you (Ca:7, maybe 8 with his new upgrade, vs Wp5) he can choose to summon a tengu (or whatever the weakest Oni is), lower your flicker for the mask and then transfer all of your flicker to the summon and kill Asami.

There are probably other scenarios that I'm not thinking of and it these problems will only appear in a few match ups, but when you are probably only getting a mask or two out of the upgrade, is it worth the risk? The two factions I play are Arcanists and TT so I may be overestimating the prevalence of these match-ups.

Yeah, if only we had a model in faction that can change out upgrades.

[Gnomezilla]

3 hours ago, Jinn said:

...My biggest fear though, is Marcus. If Marcus alphas you (Ca:7, maybe 8 with his new upgrade, vs Wp5) he can choose to summon a tengu (or whatever the weakest Oni is), lower your flicker for the mask and then transfer all of your flicker to the summon and kill Asami....

I don't play either master, but that has got to be a Malifaux 'unlikely but hilarious' achievement goal for someone. That's less total disruption than alpha'ing Ramos and having him detonate his best stompybot and then himself, but took more thought to set up.

Speaking of Ramos as a summoner, I think he may be avoiding Ten Thunders until the allure of The Storm wears off...

[Jinn]

3 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

Yeah, if only we had a model in faction that can change out upgrades.

That is true, but the reason that upgrade has that ability in the first place is so that Asami can't just be cleansed of Flicker. If your opponent brings Johan (or Chiaki, which would be a lot more dangerous, as she doesn't need a suit) and lucks into a high ram you could also lose Asami there if you switched out the upgrade. The worst case scenarios for that upgrade just seem very dangerous and a little more widespread than I'd like. The bad scenarios with expunges and Marcus will probably only happen infrequently, but does that flicker bring enough to the table to be worth it? I'll definitely try the upgrade out before I swear off it though.

53 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

I don't play either master, but that has got to be a Malifaux 'unlikely but hilarious' achievement goal for someone. That's less total disruption than alpha'ing Ramos and having him detonate his best stompybot and then himself, but took more thought to set up.

My favourite (theoretical) Marcus Alpha target has to be the Desolation Engine (if anyone actually took it); you walk it 10" towards as many of your opponent's models as possible and then use the (0) action Consume to sacrifice every one of your enemy's models within 3" of the Desolation Engine, including itself. It doesn't even get to leave behind any Abominations because it is sacrificed instead of killed.

[Gnomezilla]

11 minutes ago, Jinn said:

My favourite (theoretical) Marcus Alpha target has to be the Desolation Engine (if anyone actually took it); you walk it 10" towards as many of your opponent's models as possible and then use the (0) action Consume to sacrifice every one of your enemy's models within 3" of the Desolation Engine, including itself. It doesn't even get to leave behind any Abominations because it is sacrificed instead of killed.

I'm not weeping because I'm sad. I'm weeping because it's so beautiful.

Marcus absolutely has a grudge against constructs, doesn't he?

[twibs]

If Asami has problems with poison, just summon Akaname. But yeah, a thing to keep in mind, for sure.

[santaclaws01]

Yeah, it can give her some bad match ups, but it just mearns you'll be more taking it in interference where you're less likely to play against Marcus or McM or Kaeris. Also you should have some condition removal of your own. Or just screen yourself with all the Jorogumo you'll be summoning.

[santaclaws01]

On 8/19/2017 at 2:20 PM, Jinn said:

That is true, but the reason that upgrade has that ability in the first place is so that Asami can't just be cleansed of Flicker. If your opponent brings Johan (or Chiaki, which would be a lot more dangerous, as she doesn't need a suit) and lucks into a high ram you could also lose Asami there if you switched out the upgrade. The worst case scenarios for that upgrade just seem very dangerous and a little more widespread than I'd like. The bad scenarios with expunges and Marcus will probably only happen infrequently, but does that flicker bring enough to the table to be worth it? I'll definitely try the upgrade out before I swear off it though.

My favourite (theoretical) Marcus Alpha target has to be the Desolation Engine (if anyone actually took it); you walk it 10" towards as many of your opponent's models as possible and then use the (0) action Consume to sacrifice every one of your enemy's models within 3" of the Desolation Engine, including itself. It doesn't even get to leave behind any Abominations because it is sacrificed instead of killed.

So coming back to the new upgrade. If a case happens where you're playing against models that would punish Asami with her current upgrade, if she has Nefarious Pact she doesn't have to worry about it. The Otherworldy Protection Aura isn't other friendly models, and it gives the choice to end or remove a condition due to enemy models, so she can still get rid of poison and burning against Kaeris and McMorning, and just have flicker on her that isn't going to be doing anything other than ticking down each turn.