emissary

Quick question. When Misaki gets her decapitate trigger does the damage or the kill effect resolve first? It would be important for slow to die models that could heal. Also if the decapitated slow to die model heals I take it the model would only have the wounds from the heal left.

One setup that has worked wonders for me when I take him as a resser is Yan Lo, Porter, Izamu, Chiaki, 2 Ashigaru, 2 Drowned. The drowned help to soften things up, are good objective grabbers and you don't care if they die because they give Chi.

Agreed. We still call him Lo Pan around here. It's a great article, but it did feel like there was a big elephant in the room while I was reading. I'd also venture to say that the movie was more then a "little" of his initial design. It would be like ignoring the Indiana Jones-Lucas McCabe connection or the Bruce Lee-Mei Feng connection.

I'd also vote for Yan Lo. There's a lot of chi available for him in a brawl. Plus Izamu will take a lot of focus off of Misaki. In addition, you gain one of the best support pieces in the game in Chiaki.

Agreed

I know, it's just a little easier to get the grave spirit off of him.

Well, that and Mei Feng could give him armor 2 and cover his approach with vent steam...

Agreed. Plus for 8 stones I'd always rather have any of the other 8 cost models.

Received my rail golem foot in the mail today. Big thanks to wyrd!

Remember that pitiful ends when the model activates.

Yup, didn't mean for McCabe against Yan Lo, more for McCabe in the speed/objective missions in general. Chiaki clearing off the slow, paralyze and debuffs is exactly one of those good matchups for her. I usually attach the porter to Izamu not to move him early, rather for the ability to heal him later and move him extra if he has to move away from Yan's radius for some reason. Also, IIRC, Repair Corpus and Empower Ancestor's range is 6" while the reliquaries ability is 8" so it gives him a little more room to operate away from Yan Lo.

Yup, it's a good combo. It's also good for resetting Izamu's wounds before your opponent can drop him and deny those corpse counters to you before you can res him. The only problem I've had with that trick is that I usually link the Soul Porter to Izamu, so when I do that combo, the poor Soul Porter is left out in the wind. I'm really excited to try out Lucas McCabe when he is released this week. He looks fantastic on speed scenarios that don't rely on killing. Between his natural speed, the speed of his crew and the speed buffs he can hand out, he looks like he can get the jump on people quickly. Plus he and his crew can hand out a lot of slow and paralyze to slow them down.

Agreed. I haven't had as much success with Toshiro in my 10T builds as he needs those Ashigaru to fully get a lot of use, and by that point there isn't usually much left for the 10T stuff (especially if you're running Yin or Izamu as well). Personally, I haven't had that big of a problem only running Yan with Izamu. He usually dominates Yan's and the Soul Porter's ancestor abilities anyway. Edit: Also, my LGS's order sheet has Yin and Toshiro coming out in February.

2 quick things: For Chiaki, I've really learned that she isn't an auto-include like Izamu and the Soul Porter. She's really good against crews that will put effects or tokens on your crew as part of their strategy like Jacob Lynch, Kaeris, Nicodem and so on. She's also good if you need to spread out a little rather then balling up or if their crew is heavily non-living. However, if those two concerns aren't in play it's been my experience that she isn't worth bringing. I've had games against Misaki, Lady Justice, Perdita and so on where she hasn't really done much of anything. I have been running the crew as 10T more recently and it's a little tougher then with the other 10T masters to get him out of his crew unless you use less Ashigaru and Ancestors. I really like the Toras and Archers with him, but I've found I'd almost rather use Yin instead of Izamu for the Tora swap at times.

the stuff is now up on ebay. My name there is balachi.

Finished two more of my 10T masters. The pictures didn't come out exactly as I was hoping. They look a little washed out. Going to have to fiddle with the light settings. May put up better pictures later when I have time. Up next are Ototo and Kang.

I understand. What creates the confusion is how long you should wait before you need to inquire about its status. Mail here is only a few days. As I said, I submitted it two weeks ago this coming Monday. I'm not concerned yet, but if it hasn't arrived in another week or so, I'll get a little curious.

I've been waiting almost 2 weeks for a response about a missing Rail Golem foot myself through the contact form. I may try emailing them directly. Is there a certain email address that works?

Forgot 2 things: Mr Tannen: I've been thinking about trying out Mr Tannen with this crew. He's just as fast as Izamu and if the soul porter darts him off, you can use the Tora on Tannen to keep him up. Just cutting down the cards in my opponent's hands sounds great. Plus, there are other card drains available like Chiaki's pulse and Yan Lo's combat trigger. Schemes: Few things on some schemes. I think that Yan Lo may be the best master in the faction for Infiltrate malifaux in that he has 2 ancestor minions that are dual faction and can be resummoned. Hence, if they target them down, you can respond by bringing them back. He isn't any different from the other masters for Saving Face IMO. Lastly, I haven't had much luck with his master specific scheme. Either I'm spreading out the chi a little too much and never get to level 4 in any one of them or I just don't have a time where 2 ancestors are dead, especially if the soul porter is killed (which my opponents are trying to do earlier in the game). Good to know, been doing that wrong. Wrote this up at work and so was going off memory.

I'm not an expert, but I've played with Yan Lo quite a bit since I received him from the early release. I've used him as both a Resser master and a 10T master. Thought I'd share some experiences and observations. I'll readily admit that some of this stuff is due to my playstyle, but just about all advice will be influenced by that. First I think I'll just start off with some observations on the unique abilities he brings to the faction then followup on the unique models he brings to the faction (except the Onryo, haven't used it with him yet but see some potential there.) Yan Lo I've found Yan to be very adaptable in my games so far. Unlike other masters, your opponent doesn't quite know what to expect from him because you can change him during the course of the game through his chi paths. You can also adapt him to something unexpected or needed. He also starts a little behind the curve in terms of power at the beginning of the game, but can become one of the most, if not the most, powerful near the end of the game assuming the game has been more about fighting and less about avoidance and objective tagging. The amount of chi he starts with for me is really more about how many soulstones he'll start with. 5 is my minimum with him and I really prefer 6. Even when he has some of his paths fairly matured, he'll still need them, especially if you're going head to head with other masters. As far as the chi paths go, I thought I would really focus in on the bone path because he really gets offensive there, but with Izamu being a lot better then expected (more on this later) I've found myself doing less with it and going into the other paths more. Starting out really depends on the mission. If the crews are going to head for each other I like to complete level 2 of the ash path for the +2 defense, then start into the spirit path for some extra speed. Now, there are good options. If you need more melee he can get downright nasty going up the bone path. Rigor Mortis is fantastic if your opponent is relying on one or two models to do all their heavy lifting or to limit how they can retaliate. Spirit is great for defense and moving assuming you aren't going up against a magic/magical weapon heavy crew. The biggest thing is that you need to be flexible with it while at the same time sticking to your plan. Lastly, I've noticed that if you work on his defense and movement early and let him be a little more of a ranged/support piece early, it has caught my opponent off guard if he suddenly gets a few points in bone later and suddenly become a melee terror. He's very similar to an avatar in that he can suddenly switch up what he's doing in the crew to work with your current situation if things start getting a little away from you. As far as abilities and spells go, I'll start with ancestors first. I really think he runs well with only 1 or 2, but I try to bring at least 1 to all my games. You leave a fair bit on the table if you don't have any. The one thing about him in a 10T crew is that it's great that he can switch with the Toras, but it can put him out of position to grab the ancestor's card if he's taken down and Chiaki isn't there to back him up. On the other hand, you cannot let the ancestors dictate his placement if your situation demands it. For the ancestors, he's got a good healing spell for them (great for those low crows), got the standard resurrection spell for them and can get abilities from him when the situation demands it. Two things that have really stood out for me are the resurrection spell and putting the relics on him. Unlike the other resser masters, what makes his resurrection spell unique is that you have to be careful of positioning when the ancestor is killed. But what makes it nasty is that it brings back a powerful character rather then a rank and file minion (though some of those are great like the Rogue Necromancy). Also, you only ever need 1 corpse counter to bring them back and can hurt your opponent if they need to corpse counters in that you can use all of them in the vicinity. If you don't have many corpse counters, you also can heal them back up with his heal spell, Chiaki, your porter and other abilities like Yamaziko or Izamu's self heal. There has been groaning when my opponent spends a lot of effort to take down Izamu only for him to come immediately back. The relics ability is great, but in my experience people usually only think of it as a card holder until you bring back the ancestor. However, combined with the soul porter you can use it proactively. The two main uses I've found for it is to get a double activation out of Izamu/Yin and to reposition them as it can cause a lot of movement to happen immediately. Secondly, some of the abilities Yan can pick up are great if the situation calls for it. For example, if I'm about to send Yan in against a model or master that has some important combat triggers, I have companion activated the porter and Yan, offed Izamu for his card and sent in Yan. Being able to cut off important triggers like All Done, Brutal, Onslaught or Critical Strike can be critical in some situations. I've also used it to kill Toshi, taken his card for the Daimyo ability and the push ability somewhere where he wasn't to support the crew for the time being. However, it's not completely about ancestors, especially late. His melee weapon is decent, his ranged weapon is good and he's got two great spells that interact with the entire crew, and this is before anything from the chi paths are added. He has two additional great spells. The ability to give all undead friendly models spirit can be fantastic at times to blunt damage or move through terrain. It's also great to blunt damage from a ranged crew as you move across the board. For some reason, I've found the ability I've been focusing on with him early to midgame is Weight of the Ages. It's got a decent range, but most importantly, it isn't a ranged attack. Hence you can target it into combat and it ignores cover. It does good damage (which can get great with nearby ancestors.) However, the best thing about it is the crows trigger which gives you an additional chi when you kill something with it. What I've found myself doing is trying to really harm, but not quite kill the target with other things, then having Yan move in and WotA + trigger the target and collect my two chi. He can really take off in this way early. For example, in my last game against the dreamer, he unburied some of his nightmares for a strike on me. I companion linked Yan, porter and Izamu and started. Izamu was moved into position with the porter, then attacked the Lelu that had unburied. He wounded it severely and, rather then finishing it off, attacked the alp he was also engaged with (Izamu's 50mm base + 3" reach is crazy) and wounded it severely. Then Yan moved up, blasted the Lelu with the spell and trigger, then repeated with the alp. You do need the crows to make it work, but with soulstones, it can work fairly well even if you have low crows in your hand. Out of that exchange, I killed 2 models and Yan got 4 chi in one activation. In a 10T crew, you can get those early wounds one enemies so Yan can finish them off with archers or shuriken. Mistaken Identity can also get Yan into a great position so that he can do his thing and get out of there, or shoot several times. Okay, as for strategies and usage, I've found Yan to be best at kill strategies and strategies where you you can group up more (like the supply wagon one). He won't work as well as some other masters if you are trying to chase down your opponent all over the board. He wants to be near his crew and the enemies so he can grab the relic cards and vacuum up the chi as it is generated. Also, I've found to be a little more defensive with him early and more offensive with him late is a good plan. I've had him charged by a fully healed Lady Justice and still killed her in melee after the attack, but that only happened because I had spirit on him, the +2 defense and had the first level of the bone path. As far as the crew goes, as said before I always bring at least 1 ancestor and 2 if one of them is Chiaki. Due to their cost, I rarely bring 3. I've been thinking about trying out the traps with him because they're cheap for a lot of Chi, but you won't get that if they're sacrificed. Just about all of the rest of the 10T models have been good in some form or another for him so far. Toras are always great, especially if your ancestors include Yin or Toshi. I usually go for crews that want to win an attrition war. The reason is because of how the chi works. If you're in a battle of attrition and Yan is in the thick of it he's getting (alot) better. I also will want at least 1-2 models that can get wounds on the enemy reliably before Yan goes in or the Weight 2 chi kill. Late in the game, he can rival/pass Misaki for sheer melee power if you've hit level 2-3 in spirit, level 2 in ash and level 3 in bone, but that only happens if you have gotten ~11-13 chi. He isn't unkillable by any means (he doesn't have much other then his Def rating unless spirit will help) to protect him but if you're hulking him up according to your opponent's crew and the current game situation he can be quite a monster. ---------- Post added at 12:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:20 AM ---------- Okay, onto the unique models and other observations. Soul Porter Frankly, I feel that the soul porter is an auto-include unless your only ancestor is Chiaki. Otherwise, attach it to the ancestor and proceed to have fun. The porter is a fantastic support piece for the ancestor. It can heal the ancestor or use Weight of the Ages (no trigger though) once a turn. The important thing about it is the Empower Ancestor ability. It's actually very reasonable to cast and the effect is just great. Being able to push the ancestor out of combat if needed, reposition it outside of it's activation (for Tohi or Yin) or to move it into combat so the ancestor doesn't waste APs on moving or to try to keep that enemy model rooted where it is can't be stressed enough. It also really speeds up normally slow models. For example Izamu's 4/6 WK/CHG is pretty slow. But letting him move 8" before he moves with his 3" reach is pretty crazy. Lastly, being able to kill (not sacrifice) the ancestor so it drops the corpse counters, lets Yan get the card for the reliquaries ability or to resummon can throw a major kink in your opponent's plan. Izamu For me, Izamu has been a really big surprise since I picked him up and started using him. At the moment, I think he's the most powerful minion available to the faction, but like the rail golem his main problem is that he's 1 master only and can't make use of Mistaken Identity. He was good on paper, but has been great on the table. He can be extremely hard to take down due to Object 2, Spirit, Spiritual Fortitude (great ability. The same things that applied in the Yan Lo post apply here), and the amount of healing available to him and his crew. He's also extremely hitty with a 3" reach, 6CB, 3/4/6 damage range and his reposte trigger. Being immune to influence can always cause a lot of problems. In fact, there's even a thread on him in the Neverborn forums. Lastly, the fact that he can be resurrected easily and can come back with a lot of wounds is crazy. With Object 2 he takes a lot of work to bring down and can be debilitating for your opponent if he's immediately brought back so that work meant nothing. Again, in that game against Lady Justice, my opponent used Nino and Lady Justice to finally bring him down. However, I had saved a ram in my hand so that with the final strike, LJ couldn't prevent him from dropping corpse counters and I brought him back after that. As far as him being different then a resser crew, there isn't too much really. I have found that he can take a lot of attention off Kang or Ototo because they can be faced with the conundrum of which beater to try to bring down and Yan smiling from behind them. The Oiran has proved useful for the effects of the tranquil dance on him and, like the Belles, luring in someone for him to kill. Toras can also cover his advance well with smoke bombs so that you don't spend much time healing him and he can arrive to the battle or objective in great shape. Chiaki Chiaki is the true gem in Yan's arsenal IMO. Now, if she is brought every game against every opponent it's been my experience that at least half the games she won't do much. I've even had games where she never even lost harmless because she didn't do anything other then move. However, she can be game changing against specific crews as well. It really comes down to 3 abilities for me (I can't remember all their names), the chi anchor, the big pulse and Cleanse Spirits. Cleanse Spirits is probably the most important. It can really shut down what some crews are trying to do. She can clear off perma-brilliance from your models against Jacob Lynch as long as the models isn't within 6" of a Beckoner. It clears off insignificant and blight counters when playing against Hamelin. Same thing with burning counters against arcanists. If you get paralyzed from Nicodem or Bete Noire that's gone too. Debuffs from any source like pacify or the Lilitu's abilities can be taken care of. Lastly, it will clear off slow from a summoned model. She's invaluable against any crew that is working on something like this against your crew. The ability for her to grab chi and ancestor cards for Yan if he's away has been very important. She allows the crew to split up a little more and lets Yan make use of the Tokos much better without fear of losing out when he's outside the heart of the turtle. Being able to give the crew that type of flexibility is great. Lastly, the pulse that causes non-living enemies to make the Def test or get slow can really hurt crews with a lot of non-living models like Undead, Spirits, Constructs or Nightmares. You can get her into position with the soul porter so she can do it twice if necessary. Also, it has a great range and you don't have to worry about casting it. It's been one of those things where you can either slow down a lot of their army to limit options or make them blow out a lot of cards in their hand or deck. Either result is really good for you. If they flip a good card so they don't get slow, that's one less good card they can't get in a duel later. If they get a bad card and don't cheat, the model gets 1 less AP coming up and if they lose then cheat, that's 1 card out of their hand and potentially a good card. Being able to pulse twice can cause a lot of duels and some should fail. Lastly, she's only 5 stones, so is very cheaply costed for something that can swing a battle pretty quickly (as long as you bring her against crews that she'll be useful against). Her little 3" heal radius is also nice when you're bunched up. Other 10T/Toshi/Yin/Ashigaru models Torakages: It's a pity they can't reposition Izamu or Chiaki. However, being able to Mistaken Identity Yan Lo can be great, especially late. They do help to fix some of Yan's problem in that his crew can be a little slower. Otherwise, they're pretty much the same as they are in other crews. Ashigaru: Ashigaru have been really good for me. They can really take a beating unless my opponent gets lucky with a good flip (but that's for every model). They do have a 5" move, a good def and cb and a great 0 action plus trigger. Their cost is also very good at only 4 stones for what you get. With an ancestor nearby they have a very respectable 6 cb and when combined with their 0 action they can protect and hold a piece of terrain reliably. I will sometimes put them around a corner so that they can't be seen but will be able to Wall against the opponent if they come around. The best I've ever had with one was taking down a fully healed Coppulus over 3 turns without help (though there was some good luck involved). What's also nice is that all three 4 cost minions (Oiran, Ashigaru, and Wastrels) have good niches to fill within the crew against your opponent. Be it a solid minion for the turtle (Ashigaru), support (Oiran), or movement and ranged (Wastrels). Ototo/Kang: Toshi can help them hit better and Izamu can present another high-priority target to take pressure off them. If you have Izamu and one of them, you can keep Izamu near Yan or the action and then send out Ototo/Kang against another target or to hit them from another angle. I also really like sending them in against one target and then using rigor mortis on what would retailiate, especially if that's a big threat too. 10T brothers: These guys really depend on what you have in the crew. The best thing with them in my experience is their companion ability. However, if you bring the soul porter and ancestors they can all companion well in a turtle to begin with. I've found these guys to be better in the crew if your only ancestor is Chiaki or Toshi and you want to be able to companion with the Tora or another big hitter like Ototo/Kang.

Thanks. It's really by choice. I'm just the type of person that doesn't like to have too much of any one game at a time. A few months ago I had 10 crews. Just too much to be able to get much use out of. I also wanted to start the Ten Thunders (I've already got all 5 masters) and just needed to make room. I also enjoy painting the stuff up so it doesn't bother me that I'm selling it once I have it completed. Hey if you like it, most of this stuff will be on ebay in the next day or two.

Gotcha

Thanks, I'll have to keep it in mind for the future. I've already based, pinned and started painting my current 10T stuff with the metal bases but will have to remember for more stuff. Jakune was my first experience with a metal insert and my 10T stuff will my first crew with entirely metal inserts.

I tried looking around for an answer, but haven't seen it. Our group has been discussing the Ten Thunders Scheme Saving Face. Are we missing something or is that scheme an automatic 2 VPs for the Ten Thunders player if you are doing most of the shared strategies since in a lot of them both players can't each score 4 VPs? The keyword is for us is "each" since it looks like both of you have to score 4 or the 10T players gets 2 extra.

Well, those are all my current painted models. Pity I'm going to ebay everything except the Yan Lo stuff and the Showgirls this week. Gotta make room for the Ten Thunders stuff I've bought. I'll also try to get pictures of the Zoraia/Collodi, Viktorias, Leveticus and Marcus crews I've painted for my friends here soon if I can.