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Datsue Ba and other masters


Freman

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I've had some luck using her with Yan Lo. Pop up a seshin for him to kill for Chi turn one, putting adversary on the targets Yan lightning dances back into a ball of waiting spirits/killing them and turning them into Gaki (which, if you bring Toshiro/have adversary on their target, aren't bad).

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Personally not a real fan. She’s a little too squishy with only 6 wounds for an 8 SS model. 9SS with her summoning upgrade. Additionally one of her attacks requires a 9+ on an opposed check to even work. As a support Henchman there are just better options. She’s another model you look at alongside newer 8ss options in all factions and you just realize the design philosophies at work in different eras of the game.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 1/29/2018 at 10:57 AM, Fetid Strumpet said:

Personally not a real fan. She’s a little too squishy with only 6 wounds for an 8 SS model. 9SS with her summoning upgrade. Additionally one of her attacks requires a 9+ on an opposed check to even work. As a support Henchman there are just better options. She’s another model you look at alongside newer 8ss options in all factions and you just realize the design philosophies at work in different eras of the game.

Every time I play her (which is almost in every Resser crew) I feel this....Weigh Sins looks so good on paper but is so hard to get off unless you are either cheating the card or on plus flips. I usually end up taking her because she is incorporeal so fairly maneuverable, terrifying, has the zero action to give another spirit a walk, or can summon a Seishin (activations, heals, tie models up, screen Seamus, etc). 

With Seamus I may start trying some other options instead for a few games. With Kirai I still think she is indispensable....she has all the tricks mentioned above plus I can summon off the Seishin and not put wounds on my "real" models. 

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On ‎2‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 3:24 AM, Fetid Strumpet said:

But generally only if the enemy doesn’t have a model on a vantage point. I tend to find generally that is the case.

but that is something you are going to know going in when you see the board. This won't be a surprise to you that you can't plan for.

If the terrain isn't such where you can use the Seishin for screening then you can position accordingly, use them for other purposes (tie things up, block charge lanes, heal), use Datsue Ba to Guide Spirits instead of summon Seishin, or swap her out in list building for something else (Carrion Emissary- that brings Ht. 4 blocking terrain) and adjust your strategy or just yank them off the terrain with a Belle.

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The Seishin wall was always appreciated by Seamus, but I always thought the main attraction was the fact Datsue Ba can supply 3-4 WP tests per activation (MLH dependent) for enemy models just by attacking, plus extra WP tests if she's targeted, which makes Seamus very happy. With Sinister Rep up, all her WP attacks become much harder to avoid. 

Nonetheless, I agree that she feels underwhelming compared with recent additions, especially with all the Ca sources that have been added lately. Emissary, Asura & Phillip are competing with all our support options and often just outright better.

For 8ss, she could really go up to WP6, 7 wounds, and have Spirit Whispers built-in to her card - that way she could take some cute combination of My Little Helper, Admiration, Spirit Anchor in addition to her summoning. She still would not be the best choice all the time, but the times you do decide to hire her would feel better.

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@Fetid Strumpet I agree (ish) in the post a couple up from there I mentioned that with Seamu I might be trying some other options as I don't feel like I get enough mileage out of her. On paper there are a lot of things I like about her but there are a lot of other attractive options in the price range (w/upgrades).

 

@hydranixx I think you take her for a combination of all this reasons. I only mentioned the Seishin in that specific post because the post above mine talked about not being able to get usage out of the Seishin screen technique and I was just trying to provide the counterpoint that you are going to know the terrain before crew selection and the terrain (strats, schemes, etc) should influence your list design or play. I think Datsue Ba offers a lot of things to Seamus and should work well with other things I usually take in my builds but frequently I end up underwhelmed with her performance and am going to be trying out some other options for a few games once I get a few more things assembled/painted that I want to try instead. 

Regardless I am just glad to see the increased amount of activity on this board and some of the discussion. 

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Yeah, me too. Our Ressur forum is often the most stagnant of the 7 faction forums. 

One fun thing with Datsue Ba I did was pairing her with her Graveyard Spirit. 6 wounds is not many, but when she's guarded by both Armour+2 and Incorporeal, then she becomes a lot harder to get rid of. From non Ca sources she needs a hit of 7+damage just to deal more than 1 damage - and you can always use Soulstones too. This was with Spirit Molly nearby too so every swing she took there was just as much returned Black Blood damage. A nice big Goryo standing there hugging the GYS let him stay safe from incoming attention. Next time I'd be keen to try it with Jaakuna instead/aswell. 

Packing so tightly makes :blasts  scary but Datsue Ba can use a sacrificial Seishin to give your models immunity to :blast & :pulse for a round entirely. It's also a nice little bonus that Graveyard Spirit's (0) helps Datsue in draining even more cards from the opponent.

GYS is generally more useful than Spirit Molly and Kirai's totems, and I take it with Nicodem sometimes too. I prefer Copycat Killer for Seamus, but basically, for the other 3 masters I'd even start to consider hiring Datsue Ba for, I would also consider Graveyard Spirit.

 

Overall I'd like to see more from Datsue Ba but I think she's still a decent pick against some factions. Guild and Arcanists often have a lot of reliance on Armour that she can get around. Arcanists in particular have tonnes of Hard to Kill models that she can counter and convert into Onryo with her chained attacks. Still, it can be risky since Arcanists do have access to lots of Ca models.

Guild and Arcanist's two masters that typically threaten our Spirits the most (Raspy+Sonia) are neutered pretty heavily if you are prepared to sacrifice a Seishin to ignore those blasts too. 

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The graveyard spirit is also showing his age. I do take him on occasion but the increased prevelance of ca attacks as well as blasting attacks means he is often a free way for the opponent to target a very low def model, get the blast, and kill the spirit as well as getting free unresistable dmg on the model it was supposed to be protecting. 

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1 hour ago, hydranixx said:

GYS is generally more useful than Spirit Molly and Kirai's totems ...

I would have thought that Kirai’s totem giving another vector for Malevolence and another model that triggers Malevolence when damaged would make him hard to not hire.

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I generally find myself overlooking Totems with half of the Resser masters I play. I know there is a current craze for the Malifaux Child with Nicodem, but I don't play Nicodem. I have Seamus, Kirai, Molly (still in the painting queue along with some horrors), and Yan. 

With Seamus, the CCK is amazing for the points; with Yan the Porter is awesome economy as well. With Kirai I don't get the mileage out of it and generally with proper positioning Kirai's range for Malevolence is good enough. 6" each direction for her encompasses a 1" diameter circle which covers a significant portion of the board at any given time and in a number of strategies most of the space I need to influence at any given time. Yes, I know that doesn't cover the space you need to in Ours.....I generally don't play her in ours or if I do am considering that in my play. But, in most of my games the Lost Love hasn't been missed or felt like he was needed. In a Molly crew her totem can be summoned so I would rather use the SS for other things and summon it if needed. 

This isn't to say that totems are never a good choice, or that no Resser master should take a totem. Rather it is to say that I don't think they are an auto-include in some/half and in a number of those there are better ways to spend the points than on a totem considering on what those totems provide or the vulnerabilities they create (in play style, targeting, etc). 

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My 2 pence:

Datsue ba is an always consider for my yan lo and new spirit Molly.

Extra walk for spirits, and seishin summon for chi and activations are golden abilities (healing, blast immunity and los block are good but not things that have come up a lot in practice). 

Having an emergency source of ignore armour is nice. The ability to summon off a kill is costly but very strong. I totally save cards for this (yan lo isn't hugely big card demanding and Molly gets extra draw). I have never used denial of sanzu, but if I were a better player I certainly should.

Importantly, her abilities and status often coincide with the scoring of VP for relatively cheap cost e.g. she can take multiple upgrades for show of force, score for kills (and keep peon numbers up) in make them suffer, until recently interfere and model swing in intereference etc.

Her survivability is an issue. Terrifying, def6, incorporial (great with armour) and stones are decent, her discard 2 cards on death ability is badly worded which annoys me. (Incidently i wonder if wp5 was originally to guard against sonnia). Given her status this is not enough to keep her standing against the models that will gun for her. The prevalence of good casting attacks being the major issue. Take her into neverborn and arcanists at your own risk.

The art of using her has always seemed to me to be having her lurk somewhere the enemy can't quite justify getting to whilst they have more immediate pressures to deal with. I managed to keep her alive once against a very good Pandora player by doing this (MLH is an extremely good upgrade for her btw). Along similar lines, she excels as a not-quite-heavy flanker as the resources the enemy has available for taking her down tend to be more restricted and she melts light scheme runners.

She is not a crazy good autoinclude, but definitely a solid model after a bit of practice.

I have never used her with mcm because his thematic stuff is awesome. Now shikome are more hirable, she may even get a look in here - though I still think Sebastian, rafkin, and emissary crowd her out.

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22 hours ago, WWHSD said:

I would have thought that Kirai’s totem giving another vector for Malevolence and another model that triggers Malevolence when damaged would make him hard to not hire.

It's possible, but of the last 10 or so lists I've read and heard about by Kirai players I've never seen Lost Love show up even once. I can't speculate on why that is too much, maybe she just has ridiculously competitive choices to make in hiring - maybe neither LL nor GYS can find a place.

More malevolence coverage can only be good but the question is: is it 4ss good? The best opponents will still find a way to work around Malevolence with placement or pushing effect or even make it work against the Kirai player - Ikiryo suddenly arrives in my lap, well I guess I may as well farm her for Ply For Information or have an easier time with Public Demonstration etc. 

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17 hours ago, thewrathchilde said:

I generally find myself overlooking Totems with half of the Resser masters I play. I know there is a current craze for the Malifaux Child with Nicodem, but I don't play Nicodem. I have Seamus, Kirai, Molly (still in the painting queue along with some horrors), and Yan. 

With Seamus, the CCK is amazing for the points; with Yan the Porter is awesome economy as well. With Kirai I don't get the mileage out of it and generally with proper positioning Kirai's range for Malevolence is good enough. 6" each direction for her encompasses a 1" diameter circle which covers a significant portion of the board at any given time and in a number of strategies most of the space I need to influence at any given time. Yes, I know that doesn't cover the space you need to in Ours.....I generally don't play her in ours or if I do am considering that in my play. But, in most of my games the Lost Love hasn't been missed or felt like he was needed. In a Molly crew her totem can be summoned so I would rather use the SS for other things and summon it if needed. 

This isn't to say that totems are never a good choice, or that no Resser master should take a totem. Rather it is to say that I don't think they are an auto-include in some/half and in a number of those there are better ways to spend the points than on a totem considering on what those totems provide or the vulnerabilities they create (in play style, targeting, etc). 

I think you're spot on with your analysis; CCK and Porter are always worth their 3ss, but other than them I think only the Chihuahua is auto take as far as our totems go.

But I did want to add that Necrotic Engine sometimes has a place to be hired, especially in Horror lists. It's main use is early game. It can really help get a heavy crew get moving turn 1 with it's (0) - a 4" move for almost your whole crew (provided you hired smartly) is legit for a 7+ card. Also, since basically any 2ss activation is worth considering just to help with activation control early on it's not awful just to take for that reason. In fact I think it might very well be the only 2ss Minion in the game - so he's a really cute hire in Interference/Reconnoiter. 

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Necrotic machine is also a great (best in faction?) choice in frame for murder.

Full points if literally anything kills her, is not immune to black blood if out of Molly's aura and can give enemy models that condition, so even if the opponent susses you there is a way to get her killed. 

Used as a bluff it is 2ss model that you can just run at the enemy to jam them up if they fall for the ruse, and if they call your bluff, meh.

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