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Holes in Ten Thunders


Da Git

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So I was having a bit of a ponder (always dangerous!) and was trying to think what holes exist in Ten Thunders as a faction and other than we're missing a solid 3ss minion/peon couldn't really think of anything the faction really needs (I could also really see Tengu errata'd to 3ss but that's another story!). We're probably still lacking in the reduction-ignoring department, but otherwise, I think the 10T are a really well rounded faction.  Note, this is not a wishlist (I'll make another thread for that), just for what the faction is lacking.

Masters-wise Asami could use some 7-8ss Oni to summon.

Thoughts?

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From the top of my head:

  • Reduction-ignoring damage as you already mentioned
  • Bad damage tracks like 2/3/5 which makes our damage abysmal when you face a crew that abuses damage reduction
  • Asami's Oni as you mentioned. Our summoner master has a whopping 5 models she can summon and you probably won't summon Akaname or Tengu either way
  • No actual Rider model makes me sad. I don't see Yasunori as a Rider as he is fundamentally different from the other Riders. If Yasunori is a Rider, Kentauroi are also Riders and they can be summoned by the Ressers -.- For me a Rider works with the stacking mechanic and costs 10 stones, thesame as the other Riders.
  • A real summoning Master is something we don't have. Asami is more a combat summoner and her summons disappear. When facing things like Dreamer or Ressers, you are in a race against the clock not to get overswarmed by their models that actually do stay on the board. I miss not being able to make long-term strategies with a summoning master.
  • There are only a couple of masters in Ten Thunders that can actually be valuable even when countered. I'm looking at Lynch (partially), McCabe and Shenlong. Asami gets hardcountered by damage reduction, Yan Lo is countered by the fast nature of games right nown Misaki just got hit with the nerf-bat which went too far imo, ... Shenlong and McCabe can still beef up beaters or play the schemes without all too many problems, even when they do get countered. For Lynch it really depends on the type of schemes and crew the opponent has as i'l put him at tier 1.5 whereas Shenlong and McCabe are Tier 1 (when it comes to counterability)
  • Wave 5 boosed the power level of the other factions by quite a margin. Guild got Jury (combine with austringers = 8 discards per turn guaranteed), Ressers got Kentauroi (summonable rider-like models are fine? I want to summon Yasunori too ...), ... Meanwhile I feel we did not get something likewise in return. Charm Warders are good against summoning masters, Crime Bosses help with point 1 but you need 2 of them for it to really shine - a 16 stone investment, Lotus Eaters feel more like a gimmick and is way too card-intensive to really shine, Statue is more like Izamu without the Ancestor keyword. All seem to be decent models, but I have major doubts on them boosting our faction the way the other factions got help.
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No ability to manipulate the Initiative flip/result within the faction.

Neverborn - Doppelganger

Guild - Perdita (via upgrade: Fastest Draw), Doppelganger (via Lucius)

Gremlins - Trixibelle

Arcanist - Seize the Day upgrade for all Masters

Ressur/Outcasts - Tara (via upgrade: Knowledge of Eternity) 

Last one is a bit of a stretch I'll grant you but in TT we have nothing. 

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Agree. Ten Thunders still have lack of options to ignore damage reduction. Most common for me:

  • Mei/Kang with upgrade, only armor/hard to wound;
  • McCabe's Saber, weak damage when on master with no suit, OK when on other models;
  • Brewmaster's new upgrade, damage from poison is not reduced;
  • Samurai, armor only, weak damage, reach 1, slow model, Wp 4;
  • Lone Swordman, avarage damage, requires suit;
  • Crime Bosses, action that applies the condition deals only 1 damage, can't be applied to models immune to conditions (e.g. Peacekeeper with upgrade), can be removed, reqires fast or 2 Bosses to deal some sensible damage (16ss).

Misaki's new upgrade was good, but got nerfed unreasonably in my opinion. So most of options are dedicated to certain masters which is not enough versatile.

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1 hour ago, WWHSD said:

Is that something that most factions have? Aren't Guild, Gremlins, and Outcasts the only ones that have that?

Night Terrors for Ressurs and Raptors in Arcanist (although Raptors are more useful to make friendly non-beasts into beasts for Marcus)  NB have corrupted hounds and the very useful Wisps.

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26 minutes ago, Kogan Style said:

Night Terrors for Ressurs and Raptors in Arcanist (although Raptors are more useful to make friendly non-beasts into beasts for Marcus)  NB have corrupted hounds and the very useful Wisps.

I wouldn't have thought that Raptors qualified. Outside of bringing one for Marcus they almost seem to be a liability to bring in GG2018. It thought you meant 3 point models that might be hired in multiples to increase the number of activations and provide cheap Interacts like Guild Guards, Bayou Gremlins, or Desperate Mercs do. 

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1 hour ago, santaclaws01 said:

Made it so her blasts can be reduced and took 2"(so down to 10") off the range blast markers can be placed on the storm.



Really I'm not seeing how that went too far.

They took it down from 12" to 8", so 4" range difference. That's quite a big deal.

The thing that hurt the most, was that the damage can now be reduced by armor and the like. A damage track of 2/3/5 isn't steller at all and blasting for 3 damage is great, but lame when his models have armor +1 (or higher) and significantly reduce your damage output.

Seeing as common complaint that our faction has almost no anti-reduction, giving us an attack that has it AND THEN taking away said reduction is just a huge slap in the face. Our faction is still gimped by armor and our min damage 2 on a lot of models just amplifies that problem. We finally had a master that could work around that and be taken reliably in armor matchups (hello Arcanists), but now those blasts will probably hit for 1-2 damage when you cheat in a severe card for damage. Else the damage track becomes 1 ...

Meanwhile you have stuff like the Viks Whirlwinding everything to death ignoring almost every single defensive ability, Rasputina blasting away from almost the entire board length, etc... Yeah, it would have been great if we could actually have some decent damage on a master like the rest.

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22 minutes ago, whodares said:

The thing that hurt the most, was that the damage can now be reduced by armor and the like. A damage track of 2/3/5 isn't steller at all and blasting for 3 damage is great, but lame when his models have armor +1 (or higher) and significantly reduce your damage output.

Isn't this Sonnia Criid's damage track?

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Sonnia covers alot larger aria with her blasts (8" on severe), recives :+flipon damage from Papa, can increase her Ca to 9 and can attack from 14" with no risk to be hurt back. Los and cover is no problem for her with emissary. On the other hand, Misaki risks alot when diving into enemy lines to use her blasts. I think better damage track and ignoring damage redaction would be decent compensation for her.

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12 minutes ago, hollow1351 said:

Sonnia covers alot larger aria with her blasts (8" on severe), recives :+flipon damage from Papa, can increase her Ca to 9 and can attack from 14" with no risk to be hurt back. Los and cover is no problem for her with emissary. On the other hand, Misaki risks alot when diving into enemy lines to use her blasts. I think better damage track and ignoring damage redaction would be decent compensation for her.

Misaki covers a larger area, Sonnia's furthest point on her furthest marker will be about 8" out and touching the others. Misaki can place the markers not touching each other and the closest part of each of them needs to be within 8" of her so she can surgically place them to hit a lot more models. She also has the trigger to cheat even on negatives so the positives to damage are less necessary.

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Another blast user Rasputina attacks from 24" (Ice Mirror) and with damage track 3/5/6 with Ice Gamin. The only advantage of Misaki over these two ladies now is that she can put blasts not touching each other which can be handled easily with right positioning.

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2 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Misaki covers a larger area, Sonnia's furthest point on her furthest marker will be about 8" out and touching the others. Misaki can place the markers not touching each other and the closest part of each of them needs to be within 8" of her so she can surgically place them to hit a lot more models.

Yea, whole 2 models can be blasted by Misaki if you place your models at least 2" from each other.

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31 minutes ago, hollow1351 said:

Yea, whole 2 models can be blasted by Misaki if you place your models at least 2" from each other.

If they do that I would strongly advice to not charge in and blast but go for a big target with your assassination late in the turn. They will spend their entire turn needing to hold on to cards for discarding and keeping their models apart from each other. Some clever spreading out can mitigate a lot of Sonnia's damage as well, in a situation where Misaki can only hit two models I don't see Sonnia hitting more than two or three. Even with positives and stuff (which is pretty resource intense and requires you to keep the Loco death trap around) Sonnia does not have it easy if you have hard cover, htw or the ability to use soulstones on the target she wants to blast from. She also can't companion from the emissary and any significant model in your crew can walk up and remove the burning +1 that the emissary puts out so Sonnia loses the LoS thing and you are back to having hard cover or being out of LoS before she goes. As it currently stands Sonnia is a better blaster than Misaki but Misaki has other things she does a lot better than Sonnia and other avenues of play. When Misaki ignored all reduction on her blasts she was a much better blaster than Sonnia but also had other tricks. Unreductable blast damage on a model which can pretty much always cheat in the blast is generally not a fun thing for the game.

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30 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

If they do that I would strongly advice to not charge in and blast but go for a big target with your assassination late in the turn.

Yes, you can do so, but the question is why should you want to take Storm at all, cuz your opponent will position his models such a way in every game. I can remember very little amount of buffs that reqire to stay closer then 2" eg Grave Spirit. The Storm looks too situational after that nerf.

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20 minutes ago, hollow1351 said:

Yes, you can do so, but the question is why should you want to take Storm at all, cuz your opponent will position his models such a way in every game. I can remember very little amount of buffs that reqire to stay closer then 2" eg Grave Spirit. The Storm looks too situational after that nerf.

Isn’t Misaki less affected enemy positioning than other blasting models since she can place her blast markers independently of each other and the target?

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27 minutes ago, hollow1351 said:

Yes, you can do so, but the question is why should you want to take Storm at all, cuz your opponent will position his models such a way in every game. I can remember very little amount of buffs that reqire to stay closer then 2" eg Grave Spirit. The Storm looks too situational after that nerf.

On a more cramped board I don't think there is always an option to keep your models super far apart. They may need to get close together because they want to get somewhere and don't want to lose huge amounts of movement spacing out that much. They may need to do some scheme like setup or are trying to set up a pouncetrap which you will force them to not do or punish them dearly for trying. There are a couple of bubble crews that want many models in a certain aura so they likely end up closer than what is optimal. The aforementioned Papa Loco and Francisco apply buffs within 2" so will at some point be that close to Sonnia which seems like a prety juicy target. I can't say for sure in which situations it's still worth it, maybe it's outshone by the other excellent choices available to her. I can say that I did not like the original design one bit, blasts shouldn't be irreducable, especially on a model that can cheat negatives to damage. The one saving grace against Sonnia is having an all armoured crew so she does one damage per model. As I said, if a crew is kept perfectly spaced to only allow two Misaki hits then Sonnia shouldn't hurt them much at all and plenty of people seem to hit a lot of models with Sonnia (including in high level events) so people obviously don't space perfectly a lot of the time.

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6 hours ago, whodares said:

They took it down from 12" to 8", so 4" range difference. That's quite a big deal.

The thing that hurt the most, was that the damage can now be reduced by armor and the like. A damage track of 2/3/5 isn't steller at all and blasting for 3 damage is great, but lame when his models have armor +1 (or higher) and significantly reduce your damage output.

Seeing as common complaint that our faction has almost no anti-reduction, giving us an attack that has it AND THEN taking away said reduction is just a huge slap in the face. Our faction is still gimped by armor and our min damage 2 on a lot of models just amplifies that problem. We finally had a master that could work around that and be taken reliably in armor matchups (hello Arcanists), but now those blasts will probably hit for 1-2 damage when you cheat in a severe card for damage. Else the damage track becomes 1 ...

Meanwhile you have stuff like the Viks Whirlwinding everything to death ignoring almost every single defensive ability, Rasputina blasting away from almost the entire board length, etc... Yeah, it would have been great if we could actually have some decent damage on a master like the rest.

No, it being irreducable was not good for the game. Models taking 3 damage with no way to stop it because Misaki can beat on weaker models is a good way to cause NPEs.

You know why 10T have lower min damage? Because we can very easily get :+flip to attack and damage flips. It's basically the same situation with guild except they have crit strike instead of easy access to :+flip.

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3 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

No, it being irreducable was not good for the game. Models taking 3 damage with no way to stop it because Misaki can beat on weaker models is a good way to cause NPEs.

You know why 10T have lower min damage? Because we can very easily get :+flip to attack and damage flips. It's basically the same situation with guild except they have crit strike instead of easy access to :+flip.

Min damage track is a problem though considering how many ss pay for support pieces.

Misaki needs the no reduction on her bisento really.

Missing ways to generate extra AP or companion into plays after support actions are taken.

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5 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

You know why 10T have lower min damage? Because we can very easily get :+flip to attack and damage flips. It's basically the same situation with guild except they have crit strike instead of easy access to :+flip.

So easily, realy? I can list most of them: Shenlong's crew (focus once per activation), Recalled Training (for stone, requires free slot, one turn only), Dragon Stone (stone, slot, once per game), Mei with burning, Kang (aura against constructs and undeads only), Emissary (1 attack only), Lynch's minions against Briliance. + Don't forget 1:+flipfor damage will give you a normal flip in most cases, considering that there are less high cards in a deck then low and medium (3 to 5 to 5) you'll get low or moderate more often without cheating. I can say that other factions have as many or even more ways to gain:-flipwhen damaged (hard to wound, impossible to wound) + don't forget every master or henchman can use stone to give you additional:-flipfor damage flip.
Some Thunder's models also have ability to cheat fate even with negative modifiers (most Onies have flay, Misaki's Storm) but we don't have as many card draw mechanics to effectively use it.
P.S. Oh, I forgot Crime Bosses' condition which gives:+flipfor damage, but it's not so ultimative, can be removed, model can be immune for conditions + the action itself causes only 1 damage, so you need first work on returning damage vasted by this action, then you'll probbably gain some benefit from it, or not, not sure.

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5 hours ago, santaclaws01 said:

No, it being irreducable was not good for the game. Models taking 3 damage with no way to stop it because Misaki can beat on weaker models is a good way to cause NPEs.

You know why 10T have lower min damage? Because we can very easily get :+flip to attack and damage flips. It's basically the same situation with guild except they have crit strike instead of easy access to :+flip.

Misaki does not have an easy way to get :+flip to attack and/or damage flips. She has a trigger that allows you to cheat, that's true. However you're once again using either specific high cards for the trigger or a stone and a high card together with another high card to cheat in severe damage. When your master has to make that much of an investment and the payoff is almost nothing, that's depressing.

Looking at other factions with damage masters, I'll take one of the most dreaded alpha strikes in the game: the viks. Card investment for setup is pretty much nothing. Maybe a 6 if your really flip badly on the +2 damage. Throw forward a fast Blood and you can take at least 4 Ml 7 attacks with min damage 5. Stone/card for trigger like Misaki and become a whirlwind of blending goodness that goes that same attack (without triggers) on everything in your range aka blend everything within 2". Don't forget that Mark allows Blood to ignore pretty much all reduction and even then, min damage 5 ... That's the severe of over half our faction ... Armor doesn't matter vs that, because the damage is just too high. Let's not forget how safe it is as well with the new burying upgrade they have.

 

Guild is actually in a better spot right now than ever before. Take any master, bring Jury with 2 Austringers and enjoy dumping your opponents hand every single Turn. Then force in your Master while your opponent is handless and enjoy the free win. Bonus points if your master is Lady J as she has Scales, which allows her to draw cards if your opponent somehow manages to still have some semblance of a hand.

 

I'll state it once again: Wave 5 has been horrible for the Thunders. All the other factions managed to get a broken model such as Jury, Kentauroi, ... while our broken model (Misaki master upgrade) got put back in line pre-wave 5. There is currently no more reason to ever pick up The Storm as the assassination + tricks can just work better without less setup requirement. Perhaps if you bring a Terracotta Warrior so you can swap out the upgrade, but besides that ....

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My feelings from playing Ten Thunders for about two years:

  • the most "elite" faction, but elite for the most part in cost values: the survival ability of models is average or below average, lack of defence mechanics;
  • expensive support models (Yu, Yin, Lust, Sun Quiang), lack of good cheap scheme runners, outactivated in most games;
  • lack of ability to control opponent's crew, lack of deck filtration mechanics (fixed a bit in 5th wave), no control of activations (can't skip like Nellie, can't chain activate except of few supports), no way to somehow improve the initiative flip;
  • bad damage tracks as mentioned earlier, no versetile instrument to ignore damage reduction;
  • weaker synergies between models in general comparing to other factions.

Pros:

  • can easily remove conditions and heal (Chiaki, Low River Monks, Shenlong's upgrade), but become less actual in current meta, because you heal only 1/2/3 or flat 2 with one action while opponent damages more, you'll slowly lose this race;
  • fast faction in general with a lot of move tricks, but usualy determines how fast you'll be viped out from the board.

Of course this is subjective, but look, Thunders are unique in that 6 of 8 our masters are duals. Are any of them considered to be tear 1 in their second faction? No. Do they play much better in TT? Not realy, except of Misaki maybe.
I can remember only 4 TT players in our country + 1 buddy abroad, all of them switched to another factions or sold their armies (haven't seen their new owners on our events yet).

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