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Making Yan Lo Work [Beginner Help Thread]


IntereoVivo

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For people that have played Yan Lo, where did you find your Chi coming from?

The death of your non-ancestor crew members or the triggers off your spells?

I could see trying a horde of dogs and necropunks and building up Path of Bone.

But, I think that I might still want to bring Toshiro with me to speed up my horde and give bonuses to them. I'd like him for his utility, not his "ancestor-ness". (But it is a bonus that he is an ancestor.)

But, if I am only taking Toshiro, I could live without Soul Porter, so I could also take Grave Spirit to help keep Toshiro alive...

So, thats just one ancestor. No idea if its useful or not, but it WOULD be fast and "all over the board" and have limited ancestors.

So, something like plant evidence:

Ressurectionists Crew - 35 - Scrap

Yan Lo
--
8 Pool

Grave Spirit [1ss]

  • Ashigaru
    [4ss]

  • Ashigaru
    [4ss]

  • Canine Remains
    [2ss]

  • Canine Remains
    [2ss]

  • Canine Remains
    [2ss]

  • Necropunk
    [3ss]

  • Necropunk
    [3ss]

  • Necropunk
    [3ss]

  • Toshiro, the Damiyo
    [8ss]

I still intend to play with every dang ancestor I get my hands on, was just thinking that he seems pretty cool on paper even without being loaded with ancestors.

Edited by Gruesome
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Not every master can do every strat. Only a few can do just about any strat (Kirai and Colette come to mind) Seeing as you only have Yan Lo right now, it is a FACT that you will do better at some strats than others. Sure if you need to spread out, build a list to accommodate that, but not taking ancestors with Yan Lo is like playing Kirai without seshin or Colette without the coryphee. You hurt yourself by limiting the choices you can make. Trust me when I first started I only wanted to play 1 master from each faction. Big mistake. Too many times I would flip a strat and would struggle to achieve it because I limited myself to the minions i could take. Malifaux is all about options, having lots of options lets you do better in each game, for each strat. In Malifaux, you don't play masters, you play factions. My 0.02$ at least.

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Have to heavily disagree with abraxus04 about the no ancestor thing. Without an ancestor Yan Lo loses the use of 2 spells (one of them being the all important resurrect), 4 Talents and his main offensive spell is utterly limited in scope. If by some chance you feel to do a strategy where you'd rather not use any ancestor, you are better off bringing any other of our masters most time, because with Yan it's just a lot of wasted potential.

I fell 1 ancestor is doable (though I'd go to one of the heavy duty ancestors if I'm going this route) but 2 is the most recommended though 3 seems to work better than I expected (chiaki better be one of them).

I would agree with this and also add that without Ancestors you lose buffs for Yan Lo when they die. One of the keys to Yan Lo is in being able to grab those relics the ancestors provide.

Of the Ancestors I consider Toshiro to be one of the best since he is really the summoner for Yan Lo along with Chiaki. One of my favorite lists for Yan Lo is:

Ressurectionists Crew - 35 - Scrap

Yan Lo
--
5 Pool

Soul Porter [2ss]

  • Chiaki, the Niece
    [5ss]

  • Punk Zombie
    [5ss]

  • Punk Zombie
    [5ss]

  • Punk Zombie
    [5ss]

  • Punk Zombie
    [5ss]

  • Toshiro, the Damiyo
    [8ss]

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For people that have played Yan Lo, where did you find your Chi coming from?

The death of your non-ancestor crew members or the triggers off your spells?

I could see trying a horde of dogs and necropunks and building up Path of Bone.

But, I think that I might still want to bring Toshiro with me to speed up my horde and give bonuses to them. I'd like him for his utility, not his "ancestor-ness". (But it is a bonus that he is an ancestor.)

But, if I am only taking Toshiro, I could live without Soul Porter, so I could also take Grave Spirit to help keep Toshiro alive...

So, thats just one ancestor. No idea if its useful or not, but it WOULD be fast and "all over the board" and have limited ancestors.

So, something like plant evidence:

Ressurectionists Crew - 35 - Scrap

Yan Lo
--
8 Pool

Grave Spirit [1ss]

  • Ashigaru
    [4ss]

  • Ashigaru
    [4ss]

  • Canine Remains
    [2ss]

  • Canine Remains
    [2ss]

  • Canine Remains
    [2ss]

  • Necropunk
    [3ss]

  • Necropunk
    [3ss]

  • Necropunk
    [3ss]

  • Toshiro, the Damiyo
    [8ss]

I still intend to play with every dang ancestor I get my hands on, was just thinking that he seems pretty cool on paper even without being loaded with ancestors.

So, something like plant evidence:

This the the most important part of that post. Building a crew without knowing the strategy is like trying to build a 40k list without knowing the point limit. The best way to build a crew is to know what your objective is FIRST, then build a crew to do that one thing.

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@Omen do you find Punk's are too slow or does Tosh speed them up "enough"? I am asking because I have heard the prevailing wisdom is that Punk's are too slow so not that good unless you are summoning them.

I really haven't found them that slow to be honest, 4/7 isn't that bad (and its better than Toshiro or the Ashiguru). I have also found Toshiro's "Teki o Juden!" ability a decent suppliment to the crews movement (though it does require a bit of forethought and necessitates him going early in the activation order).

Their awesomely consistent hitting ability (Cb 7:crows with :+fate before adding in the possibility of another :+fate if within Toshiro's Damiyo :aura) and better damage output coupled with knowing that if one dies your half way to another (again as long as its within 6" of Toshiro's Undead Warlord ability) more than makes up for any percieved slowness.

Also I really consider the Punk Zombies to be a better option with Toshiro because they have a higher Df value and consistent Hard to Wound ability (The Ashiguru's Hard to Kill and Hard but Brittle abilities are far to easy to get around with a below average Df.

I often read on these forums about how it is better to just summon things in game rather than hire them, however I have found that aside from one crew in particular (hopefully not so much after the promised errata doc) this is not a very reliable tactic. In regards to Toshiro's summoning ability specifically he requires a unique material component (that is somewhat difficult to collect) in addition to a rather high suited card (without any way to augment the casting via Soulstone usage). Cheating is fine however there are still only 6 cards in the deck that will succeed. Also add in that trying to summon will result in him being left behind (denying his buffing auras to the Punk Zombies or Ashiguru unless they also wait for him). Summoning in game should almost never be depended upon for more than 1 or 2 models.

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Agree with Omenbringer about the Punks, with Toshiro I have no problem whatsoever with their speed, what does give me pause is their ressilience, hard to wound helps, but 6 wounds has a hard time surviving an activation against certain targets. I personally like ashigaru a bit more since wall of steel is pure awesome, but I do think using punks from the getgo with him is a good plan. Same with Seamus with belles where I also like to take punks to give me some hitting power and belles help with giving them targets.

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I would agree with Razhem on the Ashigaru. Personally I think a good mix of the 2 from the start is a good idea but if I did any summoning I would likely bring in only the Punks. But again this would depend on the strat/scheme. (ie. Wall of Steel and Claim Jump can be very nice.)

Hard but brittle seems scary to me... But what you say about Wall of Steel and Claim Jump sounds very fun. If you still have it, can you bring your Yan Lo proxy stuff on Thursday? I'd love to finally play against it after not even getting a chance to watch it at the tourney. I can play whichever rezzer you want or any guild my son does not choose, if there was something in particular you wanted to play against to test.

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Hard but brittle seems scary to me... But what you say about Wall of Steel and Claim Jump sounds very fun. If you still have it, can you bring your Yan Lo proxy stuff on Thursday? I'd love to finally play against it after not even getting a chance to watch it at the tourney. I can play whichever rezzer you want or any guild my son does not choose, if there was something in particular you wanted to play against to test.

Sounds good, I planned on bringing Yan out again, we'll see how he does this week. The Wall of Steel action is pretty nice for board control.

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But again this would depend on the strat/scheme. (ie. Wall of Steel and Claim Jump can be very nice.)

Definately a worth while trick to keep in the back pocket however I have found Wall of Steel a bit underwhelming in most circumstances.

Hard but brittle seems scary to me...

Definately one of the main reasons I prefer the Punk Zombies. Losing Hard to Kill plus the additional point of damage (off setting Object 1) on a Severe Damage flip makes them easy pottery for anything to finish off.

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I actually had the opposite experience with Ashigaru. It's really easy to get the defender into a :-fate damage flip against most opponents, and that tends to come up moderate or weak for damage. This stays at either "laughably small" or at least "workable". Not to say Severe doesn't happen, but most severe hits from any real hitter will flatten both models.

My real problem with these guys is that their threat range makes it a challenge to keep them near their boss. 10 inch threat range! :P

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I actually had the opposite experience with Ashigaru. It's really easy to get the defender into a :-fate damage flip against most opponents, and that tends to come up moderate or weak for damage. This stays at either "laughably small" or at least "workable". Not to say Severe doesn't happen, but most severe hits from any real hitter will flatten both models.

My real problem with these guys is that their threat range makes it a challenge to keep them near their boss. 10 inch threat range! :P

The only easy method the Ashiguru have of inducing a :-fate flip on the attacker is via Defensive Stance which will greatly slow them down. Keeping the attacker to only succeeding by 5 or less on the attack is a bit more difficult with a lower than average defense (more so when facing the "heavy hitters" that generally also have higher than average Cb). It is also easily offset by a Charge or Focus which automatically gives a :+fate flip on the damage flip (so succeeding by only 1 on the attack flip will still allow cheating up to Severe).

There are also a few more subtle ways of getting around Hard but Brittle such as moderate damage flips or fixed damage abilities where the Ashiguru only have Object 1 to protect them (and to a lesser extent Hard to Kill).

I don't really see 'Hard but brittle' as a disadvantage - a nasty severe will kill them just as easily as a normal 4 ss model, but most of the time they are extremely hard to take down for their cost...

Granted a Severe from a "heavy hitter" may kill either however the Punk Zombie gets a parting shot thanks to Slow to Die.

They can be useful (mainly in the defensive Strategies where they can camp behind a Wall of Steal) however I find the Punk Zombies a lot more universally useful.

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Ya that is what I was getting at (it sounded better in my head).

In Strumpet's defense, my post made a lot more sense in my head then what I actually wrote there now that I look at it. Lets try one more time.

In my experience, even with only that defense I've had a pretty easy time forcing the attacker into a :-fate for damage. That gives me reasonable odds of getting low damage, that hard but brittle + object 1 turns to nearly nothing. Situations where I'm worried about them eating a charge I'll try and activate them early in the turn to get wall of steel up.

In the interests of full disclosure though, I've mostly used them with Toshiro (where they are fantastic by the way). They've been so good together I'm honestly kind of dissapointed that Denise is in the box set and not Toshi.

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