Arkh

I don't have a 10T brother yet. That's probably what I'm missing to make Ototo do his thing correctly. He is all offense, no defense, and when he has to sit there getting pummeled on after the initial torakage swap then sit and wait again until the second torakage swaps him back out he tends to end up dead. Perhaps I will pick up a single 10T brother and then give ototo another shot.

That's the problem that I am having. My opponents don't seem to be having trouble killing ototo in a single round of combat. Perhaps I am just unlucky... On the flip side, he does tend to draw out the red joker. Only problem is that I can't really prevent that from happening because he is only def 4. Which also tends to mean that he is dying in the next attack. Ototo has been killed in two hits on numerous occasions. The only times It seems to take my opponent two turns to kill him, ototo will have already activated and then my opponent will win the initiative flip on the following turn and finish him off before I get a chance to use him while enraged. I think I have only ever gotten to use him once while enraged in around 12-15 games so far.

I've been using Ototo quite a bit actually. My last game at 25 was my first game without him. I feel like he is too slow and requires a dedicated torakage to get him where he needs to be. Then when he gets there he dies fast even with the 11 wounds because he has nothing defensive to keep himself alive other than hard to kill which only keeps him alive for one more attack. Gratned... For the first half of my games with Ten Thunders he was my favorite model on the table and I loved his damage output. In the end, as you said, it depends on what you are up against. Against ressers he is fantastic because of how much defensive stuff he ignores. That said... Last night was my first two games with yamaziko and I am miles more impressed with her at 6 points than I am with ototo at 8. Yamaziko's strengths are not dependent on what my opponent brings to the table.

About a month into the game now and starting to decide on what I consider to be a good list. Here's what I'm running at 25: Misaki + 4 SS Shang Yamaziko Torakage Torakage The point of the list is to get Misaki engaging enemy models on turn one with "you're mine" up (using the two torakage to advance her 10" up the field) . Access to free healing flips & fast from Yamaziko and reflips + more cards from Shang. On turn two the two torakage that advanced Misaki both do their disappearing acts with the intent of showing up on the other side of the table where the action is going on. Or... showing up on objectives for the start of turn 3. Misaki should be able to survive a while because of the access to 8 SS + Shang + Yamaziko support. When the list goes to 35 I haven't decided where to go with the list. Perhaps Oiran + Ototo, -2 SS. Or just oiran + Archer... Or 2 archers, -2 SS... not sure what is best.

I am just not a fan of almost all of the sculpts and I like to do things differently . I would love to get Yamaziko, but need to wait until February. I will probably drop a torakage for Yamaziko once she gets released. I mostly play miniature games because I like to exercise the creative side of my brain and I don't enjoy working with models that I don't like aesthetically. Once I finish a few commissions I will start posting my Ten Thunders crew in the painting section of the forums.

So... I saw the Misaki + Ten Thunders models and decided it was time to get into Malifaux. I've gotten 4 games in thus far and finally on my 4th game won my first game. (though my first 3 games I wasn't told that the soulstone cache on Misaki represented the number of soulstones that she starts with... I thought that was the max that I could put into her cache to start the game, so I was playing down 4 points effectively.) Just started playing 35 pts with the following crew: Misaki Shang 3 Ototo 8 Torakage 6 Torakage 6 Archer 6 Archer 6 So far my finding has been the following: - Initiative becomes increasingly important the further into the game you get. - Keep Shang near the archers in order to assist them by pushing them out of combat with the only spell he can cast. - Shang should be a spirit... - Ototo is not as invincible as he first appears, though if you throw him into a defensive stance and then torakage him up field he's pretty tough to deal with. - The archers deal pretty insane damage, however really need a torakage or shang on the table to get them out of melee once they get engaged. - The torakage being able to add 5" of threat range to the archers on first turn is very useful. Now a question... Should I get Oiran? The only models I own thus far are the archers and the Misaki crew box. (I am not going to buy any of the old metals regardless of how good they might be.)

Your paint scheme is pretty much the exact same of what I had envisioned for mine originally, however then I decided to invert it. So all of my cloth will be red and all of the magic & accents will be a blueish green. Nice work on your models thus far. Should look great on the tabletop