Stranglelove

Sword-toria. I'm using that from now on.

Absolutely agree with Mournafein. You really want at least 6ss with the Viks, especially if you plan to take out their Avatar. I would also consider taking Taelor instead of Misaki as she has better chance of survival. Misaki works well with Ten Thunders. The Ronin are very adaptable with the Viks and can defend/attack as necessary, so they are a no brainer for my lists. Von Schill seems very expensive but could be a useful objective seeker. It would just suck to lose him without doing some useful things, and it is tempting to separate him from the rest of your crew with his fast movement. Avatar: The first action the aViks must take is a melee strike against the closest model or they suffer wounds. So bringing it out when you are near enemies (especially lots of them) is the best move. Depending on flips, you will be carving away. You could also strategically bring it out to keep enemies away from an objective. aViks has no movement, but it has lots of abilities/spells to get into fights on the board. Unless your opponent has an aMaster out as well, you can guarantee that aViks is going to make an impression.

I just played a game using Crooked Men against Lady J and Co. I got her stuck near a Shafted marker while she was paralyzed. When she activated and made the flip, she got paralyzed again. My buddy didn't like, obviously, so he made the argument that he should be able to cheat it. I didn't want to tell him that he was wrong, especially since I'm pretty sure that I can cheat a Crow flip for Mortimer's Exhume. But I feel like this makes Shafted not that great, since the opponent will usually always have low cards to change the Shafted flip outcome. Now that the game is over (I still managed to win 4vp-2vp), I'd really like to clear up whether or not Shafted can be cheated. The answer will affect my decision to continue using Crooked Men.

Wonderful. Thanks for clearing that up. Although, I'd like to think that Nicodem wouldn't muss up his nice suit by shoving a Guild corpse in it.

This is probably an inane question, but I can't seem to find a clarification for using picked up corpse counters. Do corpse counters that have been picked up through an action such as the Vulture's Bring Back exist on the board? Or would that example's corpse counter disappear and not be usable for Nicodem's spells which animate corpse counters. Essentially, I want to know if the corpse counter that Nicodem picks up through Bring Back could then be used by him for spells such as Arise or Reanimator. Can any corpse counters that have been picked up be used, even if spells need them to be on the board?