BigHammer

One for Lilith, one for Nekima And I'm afraid I can't claim credit for the Intercontinental Ballistic Misaki (save for that particular name for it), I read about it on this forum a while back.

I picked up on that as well; I've always played it that blasts have the same damage "type" as the attack that caused them, since they're just one of the effects of said attack. Since Thunder is a Ml ability, I figured all damage caused by it (and its blasts) would be damage caused by a Ml attack (and, hence, Resilient would apply). Same deal for Incorporeal, etc. If I suddenly find out that Thunder's blasts can ignore Incorporeal I'll be a lot more willing to use it (though I doubt it does/will, of course).

Wandering River Style is 50% of the reason to take him, IMO (the other 50% being Disciple). Pushing not only models, but markers too (in decent quantities) wins games. And if you've ever tried it with Misaki... well a fast Misaki, pushed 10" forward, with a target already Stalked for her is a turn-one master killer, especially with recalled training as well.

And as a TT player, I say good luck with that, especially if he has Smoke Grenades as a second upgrade

Disciple has some really, really stinky implications in some crews, and Wandering River Style means that any crew you field with him will change the way your opponent has to play. Combined with his decent stats, he really is quite possibly the best toolbox model 10T have access to. Things I've used him for/still want to try: - the intercontinental ballistic Misaki - the easiest Plant Explosives/Spring the Trap/Line in the Sand/Protect Territory ever - a second Yan Lo - the easiest denial of Plant Explosives/Spring the Trap/Line in the Sand/Protect Territory ever - etc... He finds his way into nearly every crew I use these days (which is probably a sign of him being maybe a little *too* good...)

Tengu can also give a model a few stacks of Regenerate, for an indirect self-heal, but what folk are saying about 10T heals being mostly self-heals is pretty true. Aside from the aforementioned Chiaki, Wastrels, Shenlong(or Sensei Yu) and Brewie, Yan Lo also has a pretty decent heal that gets easier and/or more powerful as he gains Chi throughout the game. If you're using Misaki as your master, Shang also has a heal that only targets her. McCabe can heal himself with one of his upgrades, which can also grant regen to other models. As such, healing is generally master-specific or, as mentioned, self-administered; Models with self-heals include, but are not limited to: - Illuminated - Monks of Low River - Tengu - 10T Brothers - Izamu - Ototo - Sidir - Kang - The Dawn Serpent - The Hungering Darkness - Ama No Zako etc.

Damage reduction is applied before damage itself. The Sorrow doesn't suffer that two damage until after Pandora Martyr's one of it onto herself, leaving one damage for the sorrow (which in your example would reduce it to zero, killing it). As such, the restriction on not having negative wounds is moot, since the damage isn't applied until all the modifiers are done. The "After any other damage reduction" part is referring to things like Armour, Incorporeal, Bulletproof, etc. It does not mean that you apply the damage first and then reduce it again. An example of the order: Attack results in damage > Incorporeal reduces damage > Martyr reduces damage further > remainder is applied to model.

I'll throw my hat in for Outcasts as well; you can make an educated guess at what master they might bring depending on your faction choice and the game setup, but it's never guaranteed, and playing against Levi is a very different game from playing against Tara, which is a very different game from playing against Jack Daw, which is a very different game from playing against Hamelin. The Viks are lethal, but at least they don't massively change the playstyle of the game in the same way as the above do, similarly Von Schill can be compared to a Guild crew with mostly ranged threats and a couple of melee/mobility abilities. I've yet to meet an Outcast player that gave Misaki a chance (no idea why; Scout the Field, Oathkeeper and Diving Charge are a match made in heaven).

To add to Omenbringer's point on Misaki and control hands, it's actually a very bad idea for Som'er to have no hand against her; Misaki is best played with Misdirection, to which the only defence is a control hand - if she still has stones, she can add a mask to any defence duel to have any attack against her hit another model, and if not she will have a positive flip on defence built in for a greater chance of a mask (and possibly more if she's used Recalled Training on that turn). In addition to unopposed Misdirects, having no control hand also means that her assassinate trigger can only be stopped by stones, which can get expensive quickly, so even if she's only doing weak damage, there's an excellent chance that those two wounds will still kill an important model outright. On top of all that, she doesn't massively rely on her control hand to accomplish anything. With Recalled Training and Thunder, she can wipe out a large swathe of clumped up gremlins in one activation, and with Stalking Bisento she has enough positive flips against a single target to murder it with ease. Half of how I play Misaki involves not activating her until my opponent's control hand is as depleted as possible, so having my opponent discard their entire hand at the start of the turn is a (nearly) perfect scenario. Sure it's nice to have a few high crows in hand, but who needs them, really? And if your opponent is going to be comparing hats, you don't need to waste stones on cards (even though I rarely stone for cards with Misaki, because Shang).

Have you tried hiding the archers behind one or two of your own models with larger bases? They can see the enemy, but the enemy can't see them, making them very difficult to deal with. If the enemy gets close, the models in front can engage them to keep them off the archer, while the archer simply shoots with impunity into that melee. Archers don't fit into every crew or strat/scheme pool, but whenever I think they might be useful, they almost always (bar some poor luck) have a strong effect on the game they're in.

To add to the "the model isn't out yet" list (unless you've got an order in at Gencon or can wait til September), the Shadow Effigy makes scheme running ridiculously easy with Remember the Mission. It can be costly (since it needs a 10 to go off unless you use the Soul Porter to boost its Ca with Chi), but you can get a lot of scheme markers down in a very small space with it (for example, you can have a minion affected by it walk, interact to place a marker, then end its activation and place another marker immediately next to, or even on top of, the first - 4" spacing doesn't apply for non-interact scheming). Line in the Sand becomes extremely easy, and by having the Effigy itself sprint to the appropriate spot, it can score 3VP from Breathrough or Protect Territory all by itself in a single activation, with a 10 in hand. It's currently my runner-booster of choice. Alternatively, Sensei Yu and/or Shenlong with the Wandering River upgrade (more models that aren't out yet, of course, but are/were at Gencon) allow you to scheme away from the intended location and then have a model pushed and "catapult" those markers into far more favourable positions. This one is ideal for Plant Explosives and Spring the Trap, but also allows you to place a stack of markers on one spot on the centreline for, say, a 10T Brother to sit on top of, for Line in the Sand. If you do this multiple times, you can move the markers an alarming amount due to the way that placing and removing from within 3" of a model that you push (and can move inbetween pushes) works. As for individual scheme runners that are currently out, I recommend: - Torakage (Agile is fantastic, and Wk6 as well), - the Emberling (if you run Mei Feng, since Wk5 and incorporeal on a 3SS significant minion is excellent), - Luna (for McCabe; another significant minion, this time with Wk7 and a master that can give her Nimble and Reactivate), - Oiran (Disguised, Shadow-Stride and the Hidden Agenda upgrade's ability to give them Fast and Focussed make them fairly evasive and quick on their feet for 5SS models) and, at a push, - Chiaki the Niece (she's the same cost as a Torakage without upgrades, has a lot of wounds except against Ca, mainly, and is another Wk5 Incorporeal model that can also make enemy scheme runners Insignificant, and provides strong support to any 10T crew - though technically she's not available at the moment, with Yan Lo's box not currently on sale).

She has a hole in her chest that bullets go through. If that doesn't sell you, not much will.

There is no "right ace" for the Wastrels. They can discard *any* card to get *any* suit, and Cast-Offs needs a 6 to succeed. You want to look at Ten Thunder Brothers for that. The Wastrels will settle for any ace in a Lynch crew, but of course cannot benefit from having an upgrade attached to them at any point for card draw.

4 SS for a shooting attack with built-in positive flips on a Ruthless model is a decent filler model.

When mounted McCabe "dies", he doesn't die, regardless of how he died (this is his "dismount" ability), so you wouldn't get the reactivations for the snipers until regular McCabe died. Otherwise he'd also give away stuff like Assassinate, Reckoning, Collect the Bounty, etc when he fell off his horse. I love his horse, but she's not so important as to count as a master (or even a model, it would seem). Bloomin' dogs get all the love. Edit: Bloody Torakage everywhere...

Misaki loves headhunter thanks to her Next Target trigger, which can leave her exactly where she needs to be after killing something to pick up the head marker, and Downburst, which can clear her the space she might need to grab it. Yan Lo can Lightning Dance an enemy model into your crew, Lightning Dance back, then have them killed with impunity to provide you with head markers without having to give ground. It's worth bearing in mind, too, that you can pick up head markers dropped by your own models, so if your opponent downs one of your own crew, making sure they're covered to prevent the head being immediately stolen can really help (Ototo and Sidir's Laugh Off abilities stop the enemy moving them away from a marker without an Obey). As for Guild, Mei Feng is my current favourite master against them. Vent Steam messes up Perdita, Sonnia and any other Sh and Ca (mostly the former) attacks, forcing them to close with you (where 10T excel), and any of their Constructs or armoured models are fodder for foundry models (thanks to Precise, an excellent ability). Her immunity to slow and paralyse are also very useful (looking at you, Hunters). Bringing Katanaka Snipers and/or Thunder Archers with Kang and Mei Feng is slightly unfair against predominantly ranged crews, as a lot of Guild tend to be. A monk of low river fits in well here for condition removal, since Vent Steam counters Chiaki's Ca heal (it's an attack action), but protects the vulnerable monks from ranged attacks in turn.

Thank you all for the kind comments. Ototo has always been one of my favourite Ten Thunder models, and I love playing about with underdogs to try and find ways to make them work, so it was fun to write a bit more about him. TheBarbalag: Yan Lo is easily my second choice master to use with Ototo. Bring one or two Onryo, make Ototo a spirit with Trancendence, Lightning Dance an enemy into Ototo and go nuts. You can more confidently deal damage to Ototo with your own attacks in this crew to Enrage him because the Armour +2 he gets from Trancendence makes those last 6 wounds go much farther. It is much more difficult to justify taking Ototo over Izamu in this case, though, since he already has Spirit, Armour +2 and doesn't need to move around as much. The only advantage Ototo offers here really is a few more wounds, Enrage and being able to do three attacks and still heal, while Izamu has the benefit of being able to be re-summoned once with Reliquary. Patzer: I have a list stored away somewhere with every model available to 10T that can inflict slow. Sidir was very close to the top of that list, of course, since Empty the Magazine is so great, and his Sh7 is simply awesome, but I find that in this crew he hinders more than helps. Yin can damage and root from range, debuff Ca/Wp, and apply Slow in melee (that she can push into from 8" away, potentially), and her Ca can be boosted by bringing Chiaki (she only needs one Chi to go to Ca7, equalling Sidir's attack value without suffering from cover or randomisation penalties). She's also far more annoying in general to deal with, especially with those smoke grenades, and synergises with the Komainu (she gives it its slow or burning triggers for free when it's close to her), so she got the ranged-support slot in the crew that Sidir might have taken up. Yu's upgrade attack can also push and slow enemies, so later in the game (he can spend turn 2 moving 14" to get back into the fight) he can push an enemy into Ototo's reach and make it slow as well, giving more ranged-slow support. The archers are fantastic, but extremely fragile for such a small crew. They require a strategy of their own to work (but they do work so well). Scarlett Fever: Ototo dying can often be as a result of overestimating his Wd 12. It sounds like so much, but it can be taken away so quickly with his average-low defences. Soulstones aren't really enough. As counter-intuitive as it may be, pushing him up the flank or a well-covered side-path to begin with can increase his survivability, especially if you occupy the front of the enemy forces with hard-to-affect models like Yin. Once he's covered the distance to the middle of the table, even on the flank, his Badge-of-Speed-Nimble and potentially another push or two from McCabe (who can spare them) will be enough to keep him flurrying things for the rest of the game. The plan is to slow the enemy and potentially push them around anyway, so they shouldn't be getting away too quickly. Lightning strikes quickly, but the Thunder comes in its own time... Jeremy: I think Mr Graves would want a few words with you if you hired Ototo for bouncer duty, but I can see the appeal. There's a lot of healing going on in a Brewie crew, and if you have any Slows that target Wp you can almost certainly get them off. Alternatively, having an enemy model on from Swill makes them a great target for a Massive Tetsubo. If only 10T could hire something similar to Lenny, Ototo would probably die of happiness at getting free .

Poor Ototo. So many Ten Thunder players started out with the beautiful Misaki box set, “The Thunder”, built their models, played their first few games, decided Little Brother was a bit meh, and dropped him to take, instead, Toshiro, Izamu, Fuhatsu, or any one of the other, so-called-reliable, Ten Thunder henchmen and henchwomen. The internet says he’s bad, and you played those five games or so where he really didn’t manage all that much. Maybe he hit something with armour, maybe he never got to flurry, maybe he never got to cheat his damage flips, maybe your opponent killed him before he managed to swing that one turn he was enraged. Maybe, and I know I hated this one myself, he tried to attack something with a terrifying value and you witnessed one of the Three Kingdoms’ greatest warriors kack his pants and say no. That particular rumbling sound was decidedly not the Thunder (yes, that box set is named for him, not his Mistress; that’s how special he is). To all of those players, I say one thing; I forgive you. All evidence you’ve seen points to the singular conclusion that Ototo is, for a ten-soulstone henchman, simply rubbish. Misaki’s box set doesn’t do much to alleviate this theory either; any mention of “synergy” around Misaki gets Laughed Off spectacularly, and any crew member that can’t keep up with the Intercontinental Ballistic Misaki gets left in the dust. And Ototo can’t keep up with her, for sure. She’s so fast, and does so little for her crew (NB: I love Misaki, but she is not built for Ototo), that “Slowtoto” (Kang: Wk4, Izamu: Wk4, Yin: Wk4… Ototo: Wk5) often gets left with nothing to do but get whittled to death or needlessly expose himself to danger trying to keep up and be useful. So your first games with him, and perhaps some of your first experiments using him outside of a Misaki crew, reinforce those stories about him; he’s slow, he doesn’t hit nearly as hard as you think he should, his Wp is too low and he’s not immune to Horror, so just take one of the other big beatsticks instead, or save your stones and take two 10T Brothers. Right? I’m here to tell you that Ototo’s problem isn’t with his cost. It’s not with his willpower stat, or his movement speed, or the number of AP he generates. It’s with his box set. Misaki does nothing for him, or maybe on the first turn she uses Downburst to move him that little bit extra and then you realise that she’s too far behind where she should be and it hasn’t helped him in any way, besides. Ototo is a model that, on paper, looks great. Ml 6 with 3” reach, flurry, critical strike and a (0) self-heal with soulstone use and 12 wounds, great. He can move through Ht 1 and 2 models and can’t be moved about by enemies, great. He’s a melee tank with Df 5 (here’s looking at you, Huggy, Rail Golem, etc), super. On the table, though, actually being able to pull any of that off, never mind getting a full-on Enraged Flurry on your opponent’s most key model, seems extremely difficult at best. There has to be a reason he’s 10 Soulstones, though, right? Not just all those abilities that are good in theory but tricky in practise, yes? So how do you get use out of Ototo? In theory, he wants to be in the enemy’s ranks threatening an Enraged Flurry as quickly as possible, but when you try to do that in a Last Blossom crew you get stuck trying to use a weak Lure (Oiran need crows and to be in front of him), an expensive push (Misaki has far better uses for her AP than shoving Ototo’s bulk up the table), or something similar (On Wing’s of Wind’s push seems great, until you realise you have to not Stalk something in order to use it). Other pushes in Ten Thunders come on expensive models, and you’re already paying through the nose for Ototo himself, so that seems less attractive at first than it actually is. But it’s that last one, the expensive pushing models, that are the key to making Ototo not only work, but become a force for terror in your opponent’s lives. The distant rumble of thunder on a stormy day will bring haunting memories of Flesh Golems and Teddies squished flat in a single activation, of Masters not having enough Soulstones to save them from his fury, of the glint in your eye when you say those magic words; “Ototo will discard a card and flurry…” The first part of making Ototo viable comes in our master selection, as you may have been able to imply from my comments already on Misaki. We need a master that can make Ototo move faster, hit harder and more reliably, and be less feart of other big things. Thankfully, the Thunders have one such master; one Mr Lucas McCabe. The treasure hunter has three things in his arsenal that make Ototo good, and another that goes a long way to making him truly great: First up, the obvious one, is the excellent Badge of Speed. For a four of any suit, you can make whatever model you like Nimble (what was that I was saying about Wk5 earlier?) and push them 4”. This requires, of course, the second of those things, which is his ability “Take This!”, McCabe’s unique mechanic that gives him such powerful synergy with a lot of crews. The third of these things is Promises, an upgrade I see more often on Sidir than I do on McCabe (eh? He’s Wk 4 and primarily ranged, why would you restrict your crew’s movement so harshly?). With his initial Wk of 7 and 3 AP, McCabe can get this bubble of positive flips on Ml and Wp duels pretty much anywhere it’s needed, and the two things Ototo needs positive flips for are, of course, Ml and Wp duels. He wants every attack to threaten to hit, and he wants to be able to hit Terrifying and Manipulative targets whenever he damn well chooses. Ml 6 is pretty good, but a lot of masters can match or better it, giving a single flip attack roughly even odds of hitting and missing. That problem goes away with Promises in the mix. The fourth trick McCabe brings to the Ototo crew (because we all know who’s really calling the shots when Misaki isn’t about) is a bit less obvious, but is central to any crew McCabe leads. On both of his natural attack actions, whether mounted or on foot, McCabe can give enemy models the Slow condition. Already an excellent condition to rob your opponent of their AP, Slow has an added synergy with Ototo, as long as you buy him his unique upgrade, Call the Thunder. Let’s face it, you used it once, failed to make anything slow with its (0) action and put it away, didn’t you? You told yourself the trigger was nice, but you can already get +2 damage out of critical strike, or even +3, so why would you need it? And why would you hobble your first attack with Ototo to try to make something slow on a negative damage flip (read: 2 damage), when you could just hit for a bit extra to begin with, right? Enter McCabe, and his Netgun, Whip and Sabre attacks, and the Slow they can all dish out. Against an already Slow target, Ototo doesn’t need to worry about them failing a simple Wk duel, or exchanging hitting power for Slow on at least on of his attacks. Against an already slow target, Ototo only needs one Ram. Maybe he isn’t Enraged, but you have a high Ram in hand, or a spare soulstone. Both of those things are now worth +2 damage. Maybe he is Enraged, and you don’t want to waste those resources trying to get two Rams in there for his Critical Strike trigger. McCabe’s reliable Slow-enducing attacks allow you to set up a target for Ototo to smash. So now we have an Ototo who’s going to potentially hit harder and move faster, but we can do all that with the Dawn Serpent and give it reactivate as well, or with Izamu who has two armour and Melee Expert and Ruthless and 3 weak damage, right, so why would be bother with Ototo when such models can have the same tricks? We need to make Ototo faster, and we need to push this Slow synergy we’ve found into a full-blown strategy if we want anything worthwhile to come of this. Like I said, this isn’t a McCabe crew, it’s an Ototo crew. We need more things to make Ototo hit harder and move faster, and we need more potential sources of Slow for him to exploit (and to turn Slow into a viable strategy). Before we come to those other models, I want to share a thought or two about Slow in general. In Malifaux, crew size has a lot of effects on the game. Large crews with lots of cheaper models gain activation advantage, and can potentially do a lot more useful things every turn. In turn, their static hand size of six is more limiting, because more models and more actions means less overall cheating/discarding, weakening the effect your hand has over the course of the game. You generally suffer more from attrition, since you lose models (and hence activations and AP, the things you paid for) more easily due to them having less wounds, worse stats, less survivability-enhancing abilities, etc. There are exceptions to this, of course, but this is a general rule. Smaller crews, on the other hand, have less activations and AP, and suffer if they cannot bring the enemy crew down in size, since their opponent has far more control over positioning and timing, but they can more easily utilise a strong control hand and each model is generally more survivable in turn. The degrees that these scales swing and balance varies wildly in Malifaux, of course, since there are 6 SS Flesh Constructs and 8 wound, 10 SS henchmen out there. What a smaller crew, as Ototo’s crew is destined to be, has to be able to do to reduce their activation disadvantage, is to either kill or disable enemy models. Slow (and by extension, Paralyse) is one tool in the arsenal of the smaller crew aside from beating things to death, that can do just this. It helps a smaller crew function by reducing the AP their opponent has to use, as long as it comes in volume, with reliability, and ideally has some range to its application. So as a strategy, it helps alleviate one of a small crew’s weaknesses. It’s just a bonus that it also happens to make Ototo hit harder, honestly. Slow is also a tool to use against elite crews; It can deny a charge, or a flurry, or stop a Deliver the Message in its tracks. It can prevent a powerful ability from being used, or utterly kill the threat range of an enemy model. It can stop a sniper from targeting something on the other side of the board, and prevent a scheme runner from doing their only job. With surgical use (or liberal application!), it can be a very powerful tool. Note that this also means we have to guard against it ourselves. With low Wp, average Df and Wk, and few AP, Ototo is pretty vulnerable to it himself. We make a note to bring some condition removal. Moving on, Ototo still needs that last boost we were talking about earlier. We’re prepared, now, to commit to a smaller, more elite crew, as long as we alleviate the disadvantages that brings by bringing lots of effective Slow and counters to the same condition. So who in the Ten Thunders arsenal can push models around the table and give them extra AP to play with, regardless of their social status? Sensei Yu can. I got a little ahead of myself earlier when I mentioned the Intercontinental Ballistic Misaki. This is a tactic that, having borrowed it from other 10T players, I have used to terrifying effect in the past. Sensei Yu, with his Wandering River upgrade, can push a model 10” forward and give them fast, all for the cost of two 6+ cards. With Misaki, who gets a good amount of AP, and moves fast herself anyway, this can result in turn one assassination points and a very frustrated opponent. With Ototo, however, we can have something similar, but without our master being left out to dry after the fact. With the Wandering River Style upgrade, Sensei Yu can combine his powers with those of McCabe to provide an Ototo who has pushed 14”, is Nimble, and is Fast, before he has even activated. With his 3” reach and 5” move, this gives Ototo an effective Flurry range of 22” in the first turn, with an AP to spare, or 27” without the spare AP. If your opponent has extended any model from their standard deployment zone at all that turn, that model will be taking a Massive Tetsubo to its face, multiple times. With careful positioning of McCabe, and perhaps an accurate Netgun shot, those attacks are going to be on positive flips, with a single Ram providing two extra damage. Willpower 4 is still a bit low, of course, so we shove Servant of Five Dragons on Ototo for the Wp buff and our Ototo bomb is now complete. All that remains at this point is to decide what other models to take with this already-elite crew (there’s 26 stones in there already, without a third upgrade for McCabe - which should be Barbs, by the way, since you want to be Netgunning and Whipping as often as possible, and since in a pinch you can throw it on a minion to have Promises trigger for them too, so that’s 27 now, and also you’ve two Henchmen and a master, so a couple more soulstones in the cache wouldn’t hurt either, and that’s 29 and we’re running out of room already, with only three models chosen…). Our goal is elite models who can put out Slow, and potentially remove harmful conditions as well. At this point, the crew becomes standard Ten Thunders fare, so I needn’t bore you with the whys and wherefores of that. Instead, here is our complete Ototo crew, for when you need an elite crew that can beat face quickly: Lucas McCabe: Barbs, Badge of Speed, Promises, 2 additional Soulstones. Ototo: Call the Thunder, Servant of Five Dragons. Sensei Yu: Wandering River Style. Yin the Penangalan: Smoke Grenades. Chiaki the Neice: Pull of the Grave. 1 Komainu Enjoy, and remember, you will like Ototo when he’s angry. ----- Postscript: I'm trying my hand at blog-style writing for the first time in a while, and would like to hear your comments, both on the content and the style of the article. If I like this one and where it goes, I might do some more on an actual blog, if that doesn't sound too much like hard work.

I quite like the idea, but it relies on your opponent leaving two or more models in range (8") of the mercs, and that those models aren't terrifying (because you will need to cheat those Wp 4 Mercs' horror duels, one per terrifying target, which will likely equally drain your hand to do). If you're looking for hand-drain (and stone-drain), you might want to consider an outcast Misaki instead (assassinate trigger, Yamaziko's Master Tactician ability, Hans shooting at their master), all of which (and potentially Pilfer on Misaki) can drain your opponent's resources extremely quickly.

If you go for a performer, an Oiran is a decent addition as well. Her Wp buff is useful, she provides another lure, her melee attack causes poison just for hitting, a 0SS upgrade on a damage dealer gives her fast and focussed pretty easily, and, for added synergy, she can prevent a Ruthless model from wading in and beating your performer to death with the trigger on her melee (needs a tome and to damage, but if you have Sensei Yu and Hidden Agenda, she's going to be using her focus to get that attack, which gives her +1 to the total for using focus within range of Yu). Synergy coming out of every orifice.

If you are using McCabe with the badge of speed, and have a couple of 10's in hand, it's a scheme running machine. It can actually score LITS in a single turn, single handedly; Remember the mission, interact, end to scheme, black flash, give it the badge and push it, then reactivate, move if you have to with nimble (you're probably about 3 inches away from your last scheme marker, so will have to move just over an inch further to place one with an interact), remember the mission, interact, end to scheme; four markers down by one model, all within about a 10" space or so. Beautiful. Now camp a couple of Ten Thunder Brothers nearby and go defensive with them for the rest of the game, or just do it in the 5th turn to begin with.

I find the Shadow Effigy brilliant when Assassinate is in the scheme pool. Its "Into Shadows" ability stacks well with stuff like Recalled Training, Misdirection and Broken Promises to ensure your master stays alive when you need them to. Also, Remember the Mission is a tactical action, so it can target itself with it, take an interact action to place a scheme marker, then drop another right next to it at the end of its activation. If you keep it out of the way, it can score 3VP from an announced breakthrough or Protect Territory all by itself in a single activation, as long as you have a 10 in hand to guarantee the Remember the Mission action succeeds.

The archers gain more benefit from fast than focused, unless you give focus to three or more archers. They can use the extra AP from fast to gain focus +2 for 1AP, rather than the 1 focus they get from Toshiro burning a scheme marker (which will cost something, usually an AP, to put down in the first place). A Fast thunder archer can focus, shoot, then focus again, and then in the end-phase use Blot the Sky (on Toshiro, of course) to spend that 2 focus on a Hail of Hachinosu attack (or Rapid Fire, then focus, then Hail of Hachinosu in the end-phase, if you prefer). Against Undead and Constructs, Kang will also give them to attack and damage on top of all of that, so they become even more dangerous.

This is amazing stuff. That Lone Swordsman render :3 And Shenlong! And the Shadow Effigy! And EVERYTHING! <3

Also Misdirection, especially if Assassinate is in the scheme pool.