Yan Lo, Two-point-O?

[Tokapondora]

So I've taken the plunge and had a go at an all-in build of Yan trying to use all of his upgrades. I think I've succeeded? The largest obstacle of this build was building around the Blood Ascendant upgrade, being as expensive as it is. Now let me preface this. I am not a fan of the sacrificial Wastrel. And I'm thinking of swapping it for a Clockwork Trap and extra SS. Might be a bit more straining on my hand and cost me an Ashigaru, but 4 SS for 2 Chi is still a lot. But if we're playing Blood Ascendant, we're going all in.

Yan Lo [4 SS]
>Follow Their Footsteps [1]
>Awakening [1]
>Misdirection [2]

Soul Porter [3]

Shadow Emissary [10]
>Ancestral Conflux [0]

Toshiro [9]
>Command the Graves [1]
>The Peaceful Waters [0]

Obsidian Statue [9]
>Smoke Grenades [1]

Charm Warder [5]

Monk of Low River [4]

Wastrel [4]

So this list is very bubble-y and revolves around the Obsidian Statue. Yan and the Emissary get their damage from it, the Charm Warder protects it, Yan and the LRM heal it, Toshiro exists mainly to deter attacks towards it. All in all, a bit of a gamble, though if it does get killed you'll be up some 4 Komainu. So with the Statue's main job being "stand somewhere annoying", this brings us to Yan Lo. 

Playing the Blood Ascendant, t1 has to be the rather basic Discard>Charge Wastrel and use his Defensive for a bigger chance of him getting low cards letting you cheat in one severe and kill him on the second attack. Bringing you to 3 Chi at 2 AP, use one of your 0's to gain the Spirit Ascendant and give the Emissary fast. After that you do whatever and try to turn your wastrel into an Ashigaru. The next turn you're starting with discarding a card for +1 chi and your last upgrade. Now you use Follow Their Footsteps to turn that 4 chi into the Blood Ascendant and the  fun can begin.

Well, almost. You're back at 0 Chi again and your Glowy Mouth won't be changing that unless there's something weak and dainty near. But you're at Casting Expert with two 0's so at 12 you should be able to get in at least one Chi. You need that 1+ Chi, because that's the only thing keeping you alive. From this point on, your last 0 actions will be taking a defensive upgrade and at the start of every turn you'll use the Footsteps upgrade to churn that upgrade into Chi again for your next couple of attacks, after which it turns to an upgrade again. Your main attack will still be Lightning Dance. And its target a particularly annoying Statue, which Yan will charge to after dancing one or two enemies in to Glow Mouthily towards. You don't need to kill everything there - you still have an Emissary and a Soul Porter - but every chunk of damage helps. From T3 onwards the VPChi and discarding should bring you to a respectable amount of Chi without you needing to try at all, and around t4 you should even be able to get a Hunpo Assault in if you want.

 

Admittedly, the person I played against didn't know much about Yan's new upgrades or the Statue, and with that the sheer amount of actions and damage took him by surprise. It performed quite well. I was most happy with Awakening, the Statue and the Soul Porter. The extra Chi always helps so to also give it a respectable damage track to finish models off with was perfect. Also Misdirection kept Yan safe as he stood near the Statue, quickly teaching my opponent not to try and touch Yan while near it. 

Then we have Footsteps. It's the only way to really get Blood Ascendant to work, I feel, and it's certainly good, but it restricts one major playstyle that marked Yan - the zero care you could put in your Ancestor's safety with Reliquary. It does open up new hiring options (though I still ended up with 2 Ancestors). Now you could swap out Misdirection and have a Soulstone to spare, but until turn 3 or 4 you'll only have one defensive upgrade and at 5/5/12 that's not what I'd call stellar. Not sure what I'd have done if I faced a Cast heavy crew to undo my Incorporealling. 

The Emissary is good and will be fast at all times, though at this point both he and Yan start with a discard and it's getting costly fast. Now with the LRM you don't need Yu anymore, though somehow now (with two 0's, 0 Lightning Dance and Casting Expert) more than ever I curiously miss being able reposition everything and give Yan more AP. Especially since I can't rebuild the Emissary anymore and the Emissary's only real fast target is Toshiro (since the statue is rooted in place 99% of the time) I have some slight doubts. But then again... 3/4/7 at double focus... And not a  in sight...

And that leaves us with Toshiro and the Charm Warder. Both there to protect the Statue and I feel at this point almost making each other redundant. Toshiro only summoned one Komainu off of the Statue after Yan Misdirectioned into it, but that was enough to make the message clear that touching it was a bad idea. And with that the Charm Warder's defensive buffs went to Yan and Toshi. Lovely to have, to be sure, but I think I could've used those SS for something else. 

 

All in all, fun. Very, very fun. The biggest downside is that I couldn't let my Ancestors as free as I normally would've and the extra restraint that I now had to show. We had Extraction so it didn't matter too much, but this list really forces you to huddle together. No more spreading wide to give Yan as many options as possible, though of course you're still free to kick them to units other than the Statue.

 

So yeah, that's my attempt. Far too long and awkwardly worded but I just wanted to get my thoughts out. Do you guys see anything in this? Any things I should consider tweaking or completely scrapping? My biggest doubts are with Reliquary (or lack thereof), the Charm Warder, Wastrel and possibly the LRM (though I'm hesitant to leave Yan completely without heal). And Yu is still a maybe x:.

[Rugh Z'ull]

I've made the similar list, but Charm Warder was changed to Terracotta Warrior, so when you'll need the Reliquary - you can swap one of your upgrades for it.  And he can protect the statue too.

Yan Lo [4 SS]
>Follow Their Footsteps [1]
>Awakening [1]
>Misdirection [2]

Soul Porter [3]

Shadow Emissary [10]
>Ancestral Conflux [0]

Yin the Penangalan [8]

Obsidian Statue [9]
>The Peaceful Waters [0]

Goryo [7]

Terracotta Warrior [5]

Monk of Low River [4]

Although there is not so much Chi on the first turn and you don't have any summon, but insted of this main targets of Ca actions suffers more because of Yin's (0) debuff and you have Goryo, who can kill enemy schemerunners on flangs.

[Tokapondora]

You can't use the Terracotta Warrior with Yan - when you get to a fourth upgrade you won't be able to swap in anything due to hiring restrictions. And I was toying with the idea of Yin until I settled on Toshiro. The  to Wp would ease up on the hand a bit when Yan goes in at low Chi, but she's kinda slow and completely reliant on others and doesn't quite get you the advantage Toshiro gets. Though if you're swapping out the Wastrel I guess the Oni and kills alone are an unreliable source of material. Still, the defenses Toshi brings to the Oni by just existing are huge. Also don't forget to Hidden Agenda your Yin if the Emissary is in play.

A Goryo could be nifty though. Could swap the Wastrel for a Clockwork Trap and bump the Warrior/Warder to one. Toshiro can push/fast it around the board, it poops Seishin to make up for the loss in activations, 6 Wk/Inco provides a lot of maneuverability without needing any set up. You'd lose a 3/4/5 Warder but a more standalone model would probably provide a lot of benefit. Maybe leave a little Seishin trail so Yan can kick stuff away from the center if the need ever arises. Gonna give that a go next time.

[Mutter]

Very interested in this.
So far, I've dismissed Follow Their Footsteps and Blood Ascendant, but you sure make it sound interesting.

[Myyrä]

5 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

You can't use the Terracotta Warrior with Yan - when you get to a fourth upgrade you won't be able to swap in anything due to hiring restrictions.

You could use less than 3 upgrades in the beginning and get some extra recalled trainings. It is definitely possible to go with just Follow Their Footsteps and Recalled Training in the beginning and try to play Yan Lo as a beater. Of course you can also put on some other upgrades later if you aren't feeling beaty.

[whodares]

I'm actually excited for the new upgrade as it allows Yan Lo to properly become a backline caster mage. Using Follow Their Footsteps does become essential in making sure you manage to get enough Chi by turn 3.

My preferred upgrades with Yan Lo would become Follow Their Footsteps, Awakening and then Misdirection/Reliquary depending on the playstyle I'll be assuming for that game. FTF gives you a lot more chi than you can actually imagine as you'll be getting a free chi every round starting from Turn 2. You'll need 7 Chi in total for the upgrade you can use as a backline caster and you'll be getting 3 for free from that upgrade. Thanks to FTF you can also swap out the 4ss upgrade for the 3ss upgrade and completely change playstyle. I can already imagine some Turn 5 funsies with getting the free AP, swapping to 3ss upgrade and using 3 ml attacks and 1 ca attack.

Extra upgrades also mean more Fast Emissary, which is also nice.

 

All-in-all I'm excited to see how his upgrades will affect him. I'll be sure to read up on the Obsidian Statue as well as it seems to be a nice combo for him.

[Tokapondora]

You definitely need Follow Their Footsteps if you're going for Blood Ascendant. It's using your leftover Chi at the end of your activation to gain some defenses, followed by immediately getting it back once you activate Yan again so you can cast harder. But I'd also argue you need to actively go for Blood Ascendant for Follow Their Footsteps to be worth it. Without chasing Blood Ascendant you really just need 6 Chi, which you tend to fall into rather smoothly around turn 3 anyways and after that the odd spare Chi could turn into Armor, sit there fermenting or might get you to venture into Blood or Bone. And at that point you've wasted a few turns of Casting Expert which could've gone a long way. 

And @Myyrä, I don't think you can run Yan with only one upgrade. It'd take a lot more Chi, leave him defenseless and a  to a damage track 2/3/4 or 3/4/5 is hardly that big a deal that you'd completely want to repurpose him. He'd be much better served with more Lightning Jumps and another 0, resurrecting Ancestors or even Misdirecting. And once you have your second upgrade, you might as well get your third.

[Mutter]

13 hours ago, whodares said:

as you'll be getting a free chi every round starting from Turn 2.

Since most VP are scored at the end of turn 2, you don't really benefit from the extra Chi till beginning of 3rd turn ...

13 hours ago, whodares said:

Extra upgrades also mean more Fast Emissary, which is also nice.

In practice, I found I almost always had Fast on him anyway (but then I'm always using a TW with him, so that might influence my view).

But I still agree that FTF seems very fluid and powerful, and I'm leaning towards using it as a staple, too.

[whodares]

42 minutes ago, Mutter said:

Since most VP are scored at the end of turn 2, you don't really benefit from the extra Chi till beginning of 3rd turn ...

That's what I meant, but misworded it a bit.

42 minutes ago, Mutter said:

In practice, I found I almost always had Fast on him anyway (but then I'm always using a TW with him, so that might influence my view).

But I still agree that FTF seems very fluid and powerful, and I'm leaning towards using it as a staple, too.

I'm guessing you used the Recalled Training trick with him or swapping upgrades on Izamu or whoever?

I've always found it difficult to use TW properly as I mostly use him just for his upgrade swap and protection with 1 AP left to do whatever I want. Yan Lo doesn't make this any easier as it's so easy to go over 3 upgrades and I can only use the upgrade swapping on 1-2 models which may or may not even need it.

[Mutter]

12 minutes ago, whodares said:

I'm guessing you used the Recalled Training trick with him or swapping upgrades on Izamu or whoever?

I usually got the Fast just for getting an Ascendancy upgrade every turn, but when this somehow didn't work out, it was Chiaki or Yin who got a swap, yes. But FTF will just make that even easier, I guess.

[whodares]

26 minutes ago, Mutter said:

I usually got the Fast just for getting an Ascendancy upgrade every turn, but when this somehow didn't work out, it was Chiaki or Yin who got a swap, yes. But FTF will just make that even easier, I guess.

Does FTF allow for attaching thesame upgrade again or is it worded that you can't? Because then you wouldn't even need the Terracotta Warrior anymore for the upgrade swap stuff and that single upgrade would give you a permanent fast Emissary.

I haven't seen the cards yet, so all I can use are the reference in the upgrade threads. Sure hope they release soon as I can't wait to try them out.

[Tokapondora]

Yeah. You can discard an Ascendant upgrade to gain it's cost in Chi. Then you can lower your Chi by any amount to attach a similarly costed Ascendant upgrade. So you can just flip Ash over and over if you've got nothing else to spend it on.

[Mutter]

I still think the TW will be useful, because I won't be wasting slots on Reliquary, for example. With TW, you can still slot it in if you really need it.

[whodares]

Has anyone here gone for 4 AP on Turn 1 already?

Unless I'm missing something, this should be possible.

You can do the Wastrel trick so you can get the 2 Chi on 2 AP, still have a third AP left. Attack something like a Tengu or a Brother and cheat in another severe. Due to having 2 (0) actions you can now even heal him while you are at +4 Chi (+3 ca cap) AND still upgrade afterwards.

The downside is you'll need an additional severe card and if you use Toshiro summoning, you'll be burning through a lot of cards already.

1. 1 card to throw away at the start of his activation
2. 1 low card for cheating with the Wastrel
3. 2 severe cards for Yan Lo
4. 1 Medium card for the heal
5. 1 9+ for the Toshiro summon

That's a full hand that needs to align, which is really rough. It does grant you the 4ss Ascendant upgrade, which can be key to have right off the bat and will still only lose the Wastrel as Yan's heal probably heals the second sacrifice to nearly full by itself.

[Tokapondora]

@Mutter, the issue with the TWs is that if Yan has 4 or more upgrades (which he realistically will fast) he can't swap out an upgrade for another one - the TW's upgrade swap binds you by the hiring restrictions for upgrades. That's the biggest issue with Reliquary; it's amazing to have as insurance but you can't swap it in late game unless you give up both starting upgrades and Ascendant upgrades.

@whodares; I suppose it's theoretically possible to get the upgrade Turn 1, but if you get that upgrade with one of your actions you won't be getting the extra AP until Yan's next activation, so that's a whole lot of high cards for +1 Chi. Since at the start of your next activation you're discarding a card for a Chi already and can attach an upgrade for free it seems far more work than you're getting rewarded for. And if you absolutely must you can always pop a Soul Porter. 

[whodares]

15 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

 

@whodares; I suppose it's theoretically possible to get the upgrade Turn 1, but if you get that upgrade with one of your actions you won't be getting the extra AP until Yan's next activation, so that's a whole lot of high cards for +1 Chi. Since at the start of your next activation you're discarding a card for a Chi already and can attach an upgrade for free it seems far more work than you're getting rewarded for. And if you absolutely must you can always pop a Soul Porter. 

There's a pretty big difference though. In your scenario you either lose an activation or have Yan Lo at ca5. In my scenario you still have all your activations and ca6 if you discard a card next turn. Having that ca6 makes a huge difference for Yan The Man.

You can also grab 1ss upgrade, cast 3 times on ca8 and then use (0) ascend to get that final AP on ca5 in.

Getting that fourth Chi is extremely gamechanging in my opinion as Yan becomes a much bigger powerhouse in Turn 2 that way, while still keeping his 2 upgrades intact.

I'm kind of sad right now I didn't get the latest versions of the playtest as I know Obsidian Statue was changed a bit and I don't know what the wording on it became. Since it seems to have a nice trick with Misdirection and Toshiro for Komainu, I can't wait for the book to come out. Too bad I always get the digital version

[Slobber]

It seems to me that the easiest way to have chi 3 at the end of turn 1 is to take 2 goryo and eat their summons you've got 3 AP to kill 2 models where min is sufficient. You probably won't be able to fit the emissary but the Goryo can do some damage themselves, and with a high crows they can apply adversary (or sun Quang) giving them a charge on a (1). 

Right now here's what I'm playing with. 

50 SS Ten Thunders Crew
Yan Lo + 6 Pool
 - Awakening (1)
 - Follow Their Footsteps (1)
 - Fortify The Spirit (1)
Soul Porter (3)
Obsidian Statue (9)
 - Equality (1)
Sun Quiang (8)
Goryo (7)
Goryo (7)
Charm Warder (5)
Charm Warder (5)

 The idea is that the warders and the soul Porter can benefit from the statue's aura while Yan throws models in and kills stuff himself, leaving the Goryo to scheme, kill, whatever. You could also run a TCW to insulate the statue from a Red Joker, however I feel that disguised probably helps just as much over all.

[oryxwild]

I don't know if this is super helpful since I play resser Yan Lo, but I've just tested this build in a game 

 

-- Yan Lo 4 Chi Turn 1 --

Yan Lo
    Awakening, 1SS
    Follow Their Footsteps, 1SS
    Reliquary, 1SS
Soul Porter, 3SS
Datsue Ba, 8SS
    Spirit Whispers, 1SS
    My Little Helper, 1SS
Goryo, 7SS
Goryo, 7SS
Carrion Emissary, 10SS
    Ancestral Conflux
Chiaki the Niece, 6SS
    Pull of the Grave, 1SS

Available Soulstones: 50
Total: 47
Pool: 7

Shared from MalifauxModels (geeksong.com/Malifaux, or Google Play).
 

The only thing that you can't get easily is Datsue Ba for the third Seishin, which honestly might be a problem. Still, there is a lot of synergy in this list - Goryo are excellent and Yan Lo loves healing them, 1 charges are great with Fury of the Yomi (although, again, Datsue Ba provides the adversary for me, so it might not work the same). Summoning your emissary turn 3-4 is beyond useful, and can really swing a game. Reliquary is, especially if you have yin/chiaki/emissary, basically an autoinclude for me. Yan Lo doesn't really need tankiness because he can very easily be ItW incorporeal armor +2. It would be nice to have a little healing in the crew tho. 

I think that getting up to 4 chi on turn 1 is really important. It allows you to attach blood ascendant to give hte emissary fast, then trade it in for spirit ascendant turn 2. If you discard a card on turn 2 as well, that sits you very comfortably at 4 ap (casting expert generates when this model activates, so just resolve it before swapping the upgrade out), cast 8, and incorporeal, with the option for fury of the yomi if it's juicy. 

It also means that you should kill some stuff and generate more chi turn 2, which in turn allows for crazy amounts of upgrades OR just giving a buttload of things armor and spirit and making them do stuff. 

The only things I would consider changing are Datsue Ba (she was good, but how good? I'm not sure where the fourth chi woudl come from), and I think Yin is really important in this list. 

Of course, Yin gets crazy with my little helper so maybe that's a resser thing, but consider this - Ascendant of Blood's attack is a cast vs WP. It's even somewhat feasible to get 3 chi turn 1, discard at start of activation turn 2, trade in all your chi for blood ascendant, and then just nuke whatever Yin debuffed. As long as it's not a soulstone user, Ca 5 should be plenty to kill something on negative flips. 

Chiaki is an amazing flexible piece and is almost an autoinclude for me. The condition protection, minor damage, chi generation, healing, handing out insignificant, pushing, annoyingly hard to remove for her cost, and I like pull of hte grave for the situational slow. 

Anyway, just some thoughts - it's very quiet on the Yan Lo front over at the resser forums, so I'm glad to see some buzz over here. I'm extremely excited about hte new Yan Lo - it turns out that masters with 6 AP are pretty good - and personally he may have moved to A or even S tier. Looking forward to the results of more experiments! 

[Da Git]

If people are running Ancestor lite, how about using the Kamaitachi instead of the Soul Porter? 

It lacks the Chi generation but should be drawing an extra card every turn and pushing/healing Yan from turn 2 if you're using Follow Their Footsteps. He can also push any Minion it's Wk, not just Yan. 

@oryxwild, you do start of Activation stuff before generating AP so if you swap out Blood Ascendant with Follow Their Footsteps, you don't get Casting Expert. 

[Amayasu]

I may be off-kilter here, but i've been pondering a sacrificial Charm Warder. It's 5SS which you could ultimately turn into a 5SS Ashigaru with Toshiro.

 

So Yan, a Charm Warder and a Goryo walk into a bar.

Goryo cuts himself for a Seishin.

Charm Warder Disguises Yan.

Yan activates, discards for a Chi, eats the Seishin for a Chi, Severes the Warder for a Chi and then kills the Warder for a final Chi, giving 4. Yan (0) for an upgrade.

Yan spends the rest of the game Disguised (as the Warder never again activates) and has enough Chi for Casting Expert and +1Ca or Ash upgrade on next activation, and you only need one severe as two weaks is enough to kill the Seishin and finish the Warder.

Warder is living so Tosh can summon off the Corpse.

I'm not sure if it's worth it, but 4 Master AP and Disguised seem compelling on a master that likes to get into the thick of things and needs the Chi early.

[anencephalous]

Oops.

[Amayasu]

1 minute ago, anencephalous said:

Just a reminder that Harvest Chi needs a severe or be killed by an enemy. So you need three severes in your starting hand to get four chi.

It's not harvest Chi giving the Chi, it's the trigger on his attack, which which fires After Killing or dealing severe damage. The target doesn't need to be an enemy.

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

1 hour ago, Amayasu said:

Yan spends the rest of the game Disguised (as the Warder never again activates)

Are you sure it works this way?

[daemonkin]

2 hours ago, Amayasu said:

I may be off-kilter here, but i've been pondering a sacrificial Charm Warder. It's 5SS which you could ultimately turn into a 5SS Ashigaru with Toshiro.

 

So Yan, a Charm Warder and a Goryo walk into a bar.

Goryo cuts himself for a Seishin.

Charm Warder Disguises Yan.

Yan activates, discards for a Chi, eats the Seishin for a Chi, Severes the Warder for a Chi and then kills the Warder for a final Chi, giving 4. Yan (0) for an upgrade.

Yan spends the rest of the game Disguised (as the Warder never again activates) and has enough Chi for Casting Expert and +1Ca or Ash upgrade on next activation, and you only need one severe as two weaks is enough to kill the Seishin and finish the Warder.

Warder is living so Tosh can summon off the Corpse.

I'm not sure if it's worth it, but 4 Master AP and Disguised seem compelling on a master that likes to get into the thick of things and needs the Chi early.

[Kogan Style]

48 minutes ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

Are you sure it works this way?

The Charm of Hiding  action doesn't have the usual 'model's next activation or or until this model is removed from play' wording on the playtest cards, so it should work if it stays as written.

Disguised is a condition, so it can be removed.