BigHammer

I'm disgusted by all this support for traitors to the emperor. I think I'll sit in the mountains and contemplate it for years on end, as is the Dragon way.

Ototo is the perfect Crab warrior; massive tetsubo, tough as nails, weak willed. Thankfully he fits pretty well into a Yan Lo crew, as old uncle touchy can lightning dance stuff into Ototo to be flurried to death rather nicely. The shadow emissary is another great addition to a Yan Lo crew, and currently has no model; building it as a massive Oni warrior might be an idea. I'm more of a Dragon clan guy myself, and have painted my Samurai in that regard, actually. I'm planning on getting my Shenlong and Yu painted up as Ise Zumi, and while I already have a lone swordswoman proxy, I'd love to do another in the style of Mirumoto Hitomi.

so far, no. I've heard of it once, but never experienced it. It's usually only due to being newer to the game or to tournament play.

in my experience, 4 and 5 turns are common in tournaments. If you only get two or three turns in, one or both players are playing slowly. In a competitive game, where this can have affected the result heavily, it's worth chatting to your opponent and the TO afterwards, in a friendly manner, to help avoid it in future and to discuss an agreed result, possibly. If your opponent is inexperienced, a certain degree of patience and empathy are required; I was a horrendously slow player for my first event or two, and all my opponents were patient with me. In that case, helping them learn their crew and quicker ways to play helps everyone involved, including their future opponents. I do admit, though, that I often don't choose bodyguard in a game where I think it might drag on, or if I've never played that opponent before.

If you want a tough, killy Misaki, the build you want is misdirection, untouchable and either stalking bisento or recalled training. Take the emissary and use aspect of the dragon, choosing dragons' scales each time. Take a healthy pool of stones (5 or 6), and you should have no issues surviving, since Misaki is almost always defensive and has damage reduction 1 (2 vs shooting) plus misdirection and stones to prevent damage. It's my favourite Misaki build by far, now, especially if you bring Shang and/or a low river style sensei Yu as well, to heal her.

Totems follow the same rules as any other model (except that you can only have one per crew and they can be limited by the crew's leader as well). There is no generic rule that states they must be summoned. Some totems *can* be summoned by certain game effects (Shenlong can summon a second Peasant if only one is on the table, Zoraida can summon a Voodoo Doll, Leveticus can summon a Hollow Waif by sacrificing himself, etc), but they don't *need* to be.

Yan Lo doesn't gain fast from that ability, the Emissary does. Sensei Yu with Wandering River Style can allow a pair of Hunpo Assaults, though, which can be utterly disgusting if you have the Emissary and Brutal Khakharra.

Thunders are tricky. A lot of my favourite models are in the crew boxes! Based on the models I use the most, though, I'd have to go with: 1) Mr Graves. An excellent mid-price enforcer with decent survivability, good movement tricks and an extremely hard-hitting attack. 2) Toshiro the Daimyo. He's an absolute game-changer in Thunders, who have some really beefy minions for him to buff, and his 1SS summoning upgrade is fantastic to boot. 3) Katanaka Snipers. Some of the best shooting models in the game, who also happen to have a fantastic melee attack and some very useful abilities, and good synergy with a Thunders crew in general.

It really, really isn't just you

To an extent, I agree with you. Which is why I updated the card to make it absolutely clear and consistent. I've checked the new one and still see the same problem, though; the marker now gets discarded before further Rail Walks are done, but the +6 Ca stays until the end of that Rail Walk chain; Mei Feng can start the chain on the marker, discard it, target a friendly construct or another scrap marker nearby and target them again (and again, etc) and get exactly the same effect as before. The issue isn't with the marker being discarded, it's with the duration of the +6 Ca (for the duration of the action still includes every action generated by the original action, as far as I can tell). A simple fix would be to errata Rail Walk to say that it cannot target a marker or model that it has already targeted that turn. The entire problem goes away, Rail Walk still works the way it should and the Conflux doesn't need super-complex rules wording.

Tawg, that is precisely what has confused me too. The recent Faq on Levi's channel supports the "original action doesn't end until all generated actions do" thing, which is what threw me with the conflux and rail walk. I presumed that since these were generated actions, the duration of the original action was until all actions generated are done, and Mei would get the +6 Ca until the end of that rail walk chain (which I presumed was intended). If so, this change doesn't fix anything, since the Ca bonus and the marker will both last until the end of the entire rail walk chain.

@Justin, this seems like a pretty massive cuddle. I agree, that it was possible for this to get a out of hand (last game I killed 5 models in one go). But I think the pendulum may have swung too far in making the Emissaries much less attractive in a Misaki crew. . This was a pretty powerful anti-summoning tech against Summoning Dreamer, Ulix pig farm, Ramos spider farm, and Somner gremlin spam. Would rather have seen it keep the ability as written but add a restriction "Minion or Peon" or maybe "an enemy model that costs 5 SS or less." my only issue with the conflux now is that it is very similar to the conflux of combat. Mei Feng can get an extra attack if she hits with one and spends a card, Misaki gets a whole general AP, and while she doesn't have to spend a card, she does have to kill, rather than just hit, her target. The other ability on both confluxes is a zero action push; Misaki's gets an extra inch while Mei Feng's drops a special scrap marker. IMO the conflux of combat is strictly better (because the scrap marker can be used to summon a Komainu at little cost), which I think is a shame. It's pointless lamenting what could have been, of course, but I would really have liked her conflux to make deadly dance viable, since in its current form it's a pretty terrible action, rather than just granting her even more AP. Alas.

No. It means you railwalk to the Marker with your increased Ca, discard it once the Railwalk is complete and if you want to trigger an additional Railwalk you'll need a new target. Yes, but do you keep the +6 Ca? Because then you can achieve the same result as before by going to the next target and just repeating the process on it instead of the original (special) marker, no? Edit: I think I've misunderstood the duration of the ability. I presumed "for the duration of the action" meant until all triggers had been resolved, and as such subsequent Rail Walks that are triggered by the ability are still in that duration. Have I just got my timing wrong here, and the +6 Ca goes away once the next (triggered) Rail Walk begins?

Hmm, I'm struggling with the change to Deconstruction on the Conflux of Combat; If the +6 Ca lasts the duration of the action, and the Marker is discarded once the action is completed, isn't the only change to its behaviour now that, once some idiot has cycled their black joker out of their deck or some such nonsense (as per the silly discussion on the ability previously), the marker goes away? Doesn't this mean that the loop can still be done? Or has this all been a massive misunderstanding and as soon as the first rail walk is complete, both the +6 Ca bonus and the marker go away?

The ink's not even dry and I'm sorry to say this is no longer true. Sad times.

Note that, as of tonight's FAQ and Errata, this is no longer the case. Should have kept our fat mouths shut. The ability now only triggers once per turn, and only grants one AP, regardless of how many models are killed/sacrificed. Alas.

I am very sad for the Conflux of Thunder change, but to be fair I think it was probably necessary. The conflux during beta was terrible, then in the book was unbelievably powerful. Against an unwary opponent you could potentially have Misaki kill their entire crew in one activation, now it's just a nice bonus. Part of me is okay with this (the part that likes other people to have fun too, so that's a win for the design team there!).

Yes, but the only model that sacrifices itself is the Waif. Levi never dies or sacrifices at any point.

Why would you lose the Avatar upgrade?

edit: no longer relevant

edit: no longer relevant

Great stuff, as usual. Can't believe it, but I actually have a tip for you with Tara and Distract/Cursed Object in the pool; Lost Instants prevents any interact actions within Aura 6, so instead of feeding models to prevent it being removed, you can throw that down early in the turn (sacrificing her second activation, but I've found it to be worth it in the past) and it not only prevents those conditions from being removed on whichever models are near her, but also prevents your opponent from giving the conditions to your own models. With Deliver a Message in there too, it can completely protect her from it if she wins initiative as well. P.S. I did the lunch money thing already anyway, I figure the cost of the train ticket offset it (and they are a great bunch of folk anyway!)

The illuminated, by far, is your best bet. It's got armour, regen and a self-heal that make it last a lot longer than the zombie, it's got a respectable shooting attack that can give out Brilliance to boost its own damage on the charge, it has a larger threat range than the zombie as well. Tosh gives it + flips to melee attacks, so the zombie's built-in + flips effectiveness is reduced overall, and the Flay trigger makes them highly dangerous even against hard to wound targets. The sniper isn't really comparable in this role (melee beatstick) because while they have a similar melee attack, they aren't as tough as either model and have a lower Ml stat. If you want a sniper, though, they are fantastic. Sh 5 is usual for a sniper (anything higher tends to make them really powerful), and they can just stay within 3" of Yu to make their focused shots Sh 6 equivalent anyway (which tends to make them really powerful). But yeah, with War Fan, Daimyo and Yu already in your list, the Ch 8 self-healing, armoured, terrifying Illuminated work amazingly well (I always bring one with Tosh and they always punch well above their weight).

lately I've been using Yan Lo for it. Izamu, shadow emissary, sensei Yu, 10T brother, the soul porter and the shadow effigy make up the rest of the crew. Reliquary, brutal khakharra, misdirection on uncle touchy, recalled training on Izamu, ancestral conflux on the emissary and low river style on Yu. There is a heap of survivability in the crew, a lot of movement tricks, killing power to spare, and the two biggest models each have two lives. Though I've yet to need it, using the soul porter to give Yu chi to boost his casting and give him access to the ascended upgrades is the lists hidden weapon.

Perfect, thanks for that. Turns out I've been doing it right all along!