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Is 8 activations required always?


Raresterror

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Hey everyone,

So my question is as the title suggests. Is 8 activations, including Master, mandatory? I seem to be able to make what appear to be these great 7 activation lists but from what i've gathered from around the forums, 8 seems to be the magic number. My other question, which relates to this, is if you have a master and depending on that master either sensei yu or shadow emissary and 1 or 2 ten thunder brothers ten thunder brother, and possibly a monk of low river (these seem like staple units) how many should be devoted to damage dealing/tarpitting? Does ten thunders run heavy damage dealing capabilities or are they a faction that picks 1 maybe 2 good ones and everybody else is support? 

Well i guess thats 3 questions. Sorry about that. Any help as always is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

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You don't need 8 activations, but the average number in my experience tends to be around 8, and getting to go last in a turn is sometimes more important than getting to go first - consider a crew where you have 8 activations to your opponent's 7. If you go second in a turn and then win initiative next turn you can chain three activations in a row without your opponent having a chance to react, simply by bringing slightly cheaper models. Having the last activation also makes it much much easier to deny schemes like Claim Jump which can be denied by sitting a model near them. I would recommend pretty much always having at least 8 activations unless you have a really good reason not to.

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Because, for instance, this is my Mei Feng list that im thinking of trying, just as a beginner mind you because i'm a beginner lol.

Mei Feng

-thunderous smash

-seismic claws

Emberling

Kang

-people's challenge

Shadow emissary

-conflux of combat

Mr. Graves

Obsidian Oni

2x TTB

I have the emberling, emissary, and oni generating scrap, the 2 TTB scheming, and graves and kang helping tear things apart and take hits. This however leaves me at 3 soulstones and a rather inflexible list. I can't hire the fabled Yasunori nor Izamu. Am i doing something wrong?

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I generally don't mind 7 but know that at 7 you're gonna have to reduce that gap and fast. And if you're up against someone with like 9 or 10 activations especially the first half of the match will be a steep uphill battle for you, where you choices and your ability to force those choices onto your opponent will make or break your game.

For Mei, her best activation tricks come from the fact that Toshiro can summon Komainu off of the scrap the Emissary and Oni (and Porkchop x:) drop, which will easily carry you from your starting 7 to 10~11ish activations. McCabe gets to hire significant hounds at 3 SS a pop, giving him 4-5 activations for 14-17 SS including McCabe's upgrades. Shenlong gets 2 Peasants for 2 SS, starting him off at 3 activations for 4 SS. Asami summons and they occasionally don't disappear, so that still counts. Huggy is free... 

So TT has a fair amount of little tricks to catch up - though naturally, all factions do. Most slightly better. And that's the point of a model like Yasunori. When you hear about him, it'll be a tale of terror as he swoops down from the heavens to steal the souls of their babies or whatever. You don't hear about him the next 3 games where he's nestled safely in your bag as you decided scheming might be a nice thing to do this game or about the half a dozen also very great models you had to remove or demote an SS or two just so you could bring Yass. He's a model you have to make sacrifices for and hope he'll give you a decent return on that. 

In your list you can replace the two TTB for Toshiro, who from turn 1 onwards will easily be able to summon a Komainu a turn, maybe more. You have Kang, Graves and the Emissary. That's three huge investments already. Yasunori or Izamu's budget will have to come from there. Maybe you can give up Graves and a TTB for Yasu, and hope he quickly kills something else to catch you up on activations. You can turn the Emissary into Izamu and hit even harder at the cost of support. You can melt 2 TTB down into an Izamu but that will make scheming a tad more difficult. That's the idea of listbuilding - whatever you focus on will come at the cost of other areas of specialisation. There's a reason why these things cost so much SS, and it's not to make planning easier.

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As they said above, there is no Magic number of activations required.  For example it used to be fairly common in Reckoning games that you would build forces of 4 or 5 activation hoping to deny Stratergy points because your models were too tough for them to kill 2 a turn. But those lists were almost Auto lose in reconnotre games because you didn't have enough models to contest quarters for the early part of the game. 

Honestly, in the long run, you want to build a list that is capable to score you stratergy points whilst denyign them to your opponent, and complete at least 2 of the schemes available.  Sometimes that mean you might want a large number of "tarpit" models, and other times you might not care so much about their tarpit nature, as long as they can get the kills in,.or get the required interacting done. 

 

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I often play with 7 and try to kill enough to make up the difference by the end of turn 3. The main bonuses to more activations is that you can burn some activations to force your enemy to move important models before you do and the second one is that you have more target to maneuver around to get schemes while a portion holds the center or distracts your enemy.

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