Tokapondora

Fingers is a bad option in the scheme pools you're taking Brewmaster with.

If you convert it to Chi you're also not using your 0 to take any. Really seems like you're handicapping yourself to justify a TCW.

Never said there's no way to poison models. I said there are no good poison oriented models. Yin is by all means great (like I said, closest thing to an autotake for me) but that has absolutely nothing to do with poison. Mainly because there's very little that actually does something good with poison. And it's exactly the poison that's the issue because if you want to play poison you'll be spending SS on units that poison and use poison and their AP on finicky poison effects, rather than hiring strong standalone units that can also capitalize on Swills and Obeys and Binges. You'll have to center around more and more set-up at the cost of his other actions. It's not building on what he has, it's building alongside it hoping it might surpass what he's doing right now. He has a playstyle. In going for poison they're trying to build up an entirely different playstyle that will only ever be used if it completely outshines his initial forté because of the dedication and resources it takes to make poison in any degree usable. That is why poison is a mistake. Because it would take the release of various very strong poison models, very strong upgrades or changes to Brewie and a complete abandonment of everything he does now to make it viable. If it takes completely ignoring what a master does and going for something entirely different to get to where you want, you might as well just design a new master. For five books the Brewmaster has had one direction border on viable while Wyrd has been tossing wave after wave of vaguely related "patches" his way. And throughout all these patches none of them have stuck because Wyrd has this notion in their head that neither the Brewmaster's actions and upgrades nor his themed models can support. Sure, if they five waves ago decided to actually create an entirely different Brewmaster it could've worked. If they then also gave him better models in the past five books we could've been in a brilliant place poison-wise. But poison started broken when the Brewmaster came out the way he did, and at this point enough bad models have been released to safely say we've moved well past the point where we can fix that. There's an errata coming up this January and I hope to god Wyrd takes some notice and decides to try and actually play with the Brewmaster's current tools, rather than alongside or even against them. Poison could've been viable if the Brewmaster was designed entirely differently. He wasn't. It's time to recognize that and move on.

Fine. Wyrd trying to push poison with the Brewmaster (who this thread is entirely about) is a bad thing, because as it is now it is not only a completely dysfunctional part of both his card and his factions, but getting poison to work is directly draining resources and attention away from the only part of his playstyle that is actually working. Be it AP or SS, playing poison requires an investment that runs counter to how he's currently best utilized by a mile. They're not trying to buff him with his card's strength in mind; they're desperately trying to push something that will override the one established part of his card. It's like trying to improve someone's handwriting by designing the perfect specialized left handed pen despite them being right handed. And important to note is that it's actually pretty much all Tri Chi models being very sub-par in anything related to poison. And at least for TT, it's a lack of any model that's particularly amazing at poison. And to get that to change in any significant fashion they'd need to make some very OP poison models, which again will work much better with masters that aren't the Brewmaster. They could've added some general triggers to Swill or whatever, added an actual built in suit to some of his duels or even just given him a fun new debuffing action; each of which would've smoothly been a handful of pluses to augment his existing playstyle. With what we got I'm starting to suspect no one at the Wyrd offices has actually even seen a Brewmaster played. All these upgrades have missed the mark so completely that I hope they see the position the forum takes against all his developments as a hint that maybe, just maybe, they should address it from a different angle.

This is the TT forum though. In a thread about the Brewmaster. I was just talking about the Brewmaster and all models surrounding him in Tri-Chi and TT.

Yin is my one auto include because the lasting until her next activation allows Brewie and Yin to permanently keep any annoying unit (master) on 's. Also Terrifying is nice, especially when you can obey units into it for an easy paralyze. Ama No Zako comes with her own obey and terrifying, further complimenting that, and her paltry Ml5 is offset by models being on a to Df, which suddenly makes that 3/5/7 a lot more scary. With the new upgrades Wesley just got a 3 SS discount. Sure it costs a 0 but that 6" Brewie push isn't 3SS good. Yasunori is naturally, especially with 2 SS Wesley and Binge existing, an absolute powerhouse. The key to the Brewmaster is realizing fast that poison isn't good and that it should never be your focus. It happens - brilliant, but beyond that you're just wasting AP and worse yet SS on various levels of set up that leaves you with less pay-off than Swill>Charge>Parade a bleeding corpse around. The Brewmaster may be squishy and not very scary, but the crew you're taking with him should be. By being in range of the Brewmaster your opponent should be placing themselves in range of at least 2-3 8+ SS beaters, with the possibility of a or two on any unit around. That alone should provide sufficient threat. Also remember that a fast Brewmaster and a Wesley 12" near a Yin'd model can mean draining up to 5 cards and a completely crippled unit. With Obey, Swill, Binge and Drinking Contest the Brewmaster has a wide variety of ways to hinder your opponent. It's a decent toolbox that touches on plenty of areas of play. The downside to this is that everything he does requires or is set-up. Even his Obey requires a suit, which that new upgrade did nothing to help because all it did was introduce more set-up. Wyrd has had 4 waves to fix the Brewmaster, one of which allowed them to provide actually useful upgrades, but they've shown to simply not get the Brewmaster. They'll keep trying to push poison, which means desperately fiddling with all the weakest parts of his card while leaving all the things that allow him to be "barely functional" in the dark. All poison does is using more AP to do less, even after 5 waves. And they can't release the actually overpowered Tri-Chi units the Brewmaster would need to make poison viable because at that point other masters will do far better with them than the Brewmaster ever could. With his current actions the Brewmaster can use 1 of his AP to affect either the action, hand or flips of a unit. It's not much but it's what he does and what he's reasonably serviceable at. It is then up to your crew to capitalize on the point of weakness you've just created. Take a strong and self sufficient crew that only uses the Brewmaster as a support piece and be sure to take him only when the schemes permit bubbling up within that 12" sphere of influence.

My bad, I meant the Guild Pathfinder. Sue I find not quite interesting enough. I guess I should've included Lazarus though I'd sooner fit him with the likes of Izamu.

Every list will have Yu or the Emissary but beyond that the "staples" and how they're mingled with thematic picks vary wildly. Which master you play, what playstyle you prefer and what schemes, board and opponent you're facing, at least for me, changes at least the small details and in most cases the vast bulk of my lists. When building a list you're composing it out of roles you need to fill. Especially in a limited space you have a lot of options to weigh out allowing you to go for a lot of different models. For Beater you have your Big Beaters in Izamu and Yasunori, which mostly depend on if you can spare the stones, the 8/9ish SS Gang where each unit compliments an entirely different playstyle with Kang, LS, Graves, Crimes Bosses, Bettari, Ama and probably a few I missed (each of which I'd consider a completely viable option in their respective specialties) and the Budget-Range if you need to squeeze out a stone here or there with Illuminated and Yokai or Komainu. And none of all those are a universal "bad pick". For Range you admittedly only have the Snipers, Sidir, Archers, Samurai/Fuhatsu and the Clockwork Trapper Guild Pathfinder, of which the Snipers are the go-to guys and I'd argue only Trappers are a fine budget alternative, and that's only if you want to take range to begin with. And then you have scheming and utility, which touches on at least half our models in one way or the other. Even at just the 4-6 SS range you have the Effigy, LRM, TTB, TCW, Charm Warders, Obsidian Oni, Lotus Eaters and Chiaki. At higher levels you'll generally look for Beaters instead but even here Yin, WRMs and Toshiro pop up in the occasional list. And that's just the general models. Once you look at specific masters you'll get to use an even wider variety of units. McCabe will get amazing use out of the Jorogumo or Dawn Serpent, Gwyneth+an Illuminated, some Guild Hounds and maybe a Torakage. Lynch likes things that flip loads or use aces to discard, and the odd thing with Terrify. Mei demands tailoring a list to her the most, and tends to leave out most staples to further specialize. Yan Lo likes his Ancestors, Brewmasters prefers beaters like Ama and Yasunori specifically, Asami can honestly work with any list with maybe one beater specifically being an Oni to capitalize on her aura and something to draw cards... I guess Misaki and Shenlong are the biggest offenders of living in Staple City, mostly because they don't need their crew to be or do anything specific. Misaki because she moves separately from her crew and Shenlong because whatever his crew, he'll buff it. And even with them I find myself picking different options for similar roles every time I play because there's always subtle difference about the game I'm facing. If you find yourself consistently going for the exact same models whatever your masters, board and schemes it may just be your preferred playstyle - sure - though maybe you just feel pressured to pick them because these are the names thrown about the most. The big names that keep being paraded around do fairly well in just about all situations, no doubt, but if you know how and when to specialize you'll get so much more out of your units than if you just have another TTB because "He's kinda sturdy I suppose". Everybody has models they prefer and dislike. The Illuminated are amazing budget beaters who are sturdy enough to hold up to any similarly costed unit if I need the SS elsewhere. Komainu I feel are the perfect balance between offense and defense especially for their price to the point where they're my go-to guys if I don't need TTB's scheme protection or the Warders' unit protection. The Obsidian Oni are perfect for getting scrap on the field, be it for Toshiro or Asami rather than being summons themselves. It's more about some units being auto-excludes if anything. And in a game where every SS bracket has a dozen or so models there always will be models that just don't measure up, but the fact that in every bracket about half the models are all very much viable picks is really just a sign that our faction is doing great in the internal faction balance department.

Yeah, this podcast's had enough things in it I know to be wrong that I'm wary to take any moves that make me go "that's nifty" as legal.

Just because you get Blood Ascendant doesn't mean you need to use Glowy Mouth. The most important thing is getting Casting Expert, with which you should easily be able to get +1 chi (even if you have to pop your own units in the face), and beyond that you can just aggressively pursue weaker units to get kills in. End of his second activation I've never ended below 2 Chi, which in turn lets me incorporeal the heck out of Yan and will be enough to get that snowball rolling without any effort. You can always say that you don't swap it in when Yan starts and you just activate Yan with 4 Chi or 3+Impossible to Wound, after which you use a 0 to go for Blood when you're done activating, but you'd sacrifice a near guaranteed incorporeal and 1 AP. But yeah, it's really enough that it doesn't need a Goryo and its Seishin, and with Disguised Yan being an option I'd gladly forgo that if it gave me 2 more activations turn 1 (Ashigaru and whatever other model would have to go for Goryo to fit).

And with that the Warder is back in. 5 SS is a lot but if you're getting a Disguised master back for it on top of that it seems like a decent trade. I always assumed it was until it left play. I wonder if they forgot or just ran out of card space and hoped it'd be fine. Since they give themselves a to Df and Wp they essentially have the Wastrel's free defensive letting you pick the lowest of two, and at that point Yan needs one severe and can auto-win the next duel. So that's a discard, a card to enable cheating, a 13+ 11+, a 9+ and a 7+. Not sure if I'd do both this and the Goryo though. Space is tight and with this you're already back at 8 activations and 4 Chi when you start your next activation. That's plenty, really. Not sure what I'd cut to bring both this and a Goryo. Both the LRM and whatever the 4 SS cutting the Wastrel leaves? I like the LRM though. Really not seeing the Kamaitachi though. It's 1 SS more, loses freely pushing Toshi/Yan/Emi, can't hand out Chi to non ancestors (or at all, I suppose), isn't Ca6 3 at 2/3/4 near the Statue... Also, and this may just be my meta, but I'm hesitant to give up condition protection.

@Mutter, the issue with the TWs is that if Yan has 4 or more upgrades (which he realistically will fast) he can't swap out an upgrade for another one - the TW's upgrade swap binds you by the hiring restrictions for upgrades. That's the biggest issue with Reliquary; it's amazing to have as insurance but you can't swap it in late game unless you give up both starting upgrades and Ascendant upgrades. @whodares; I suppose it's theoretically possible to get the upgrade Turn 1, but if you get that upgrade with one of your actions you won't be getting the extra AP until Yan's next activation, so that's a whole lot of high cards for +1 Chi. Since at the start of your next activation you're discarding a card for a Chi already and can attach an upgrade for free it seems far more work than you're getting rewarded for. And if you absolutely must you can always pop a Soul Porter.

Yeah. You can discard an Ascendant upgrade to gain it's cost in Chi. Then you can lower your Chi by any amount to attach a similarly costed Ascendant upgrade. So you can just flip Ash over and over if you've got nothing else to spend it on.

You definitely need Follow Their Footsteps if you're going for Blood Ascendant. It's using your leftover Chi at the end of your activation to gain some defenses, followed by immediately getting it back once you activate Yan again so you can cast harder. But I'd also argue you need to actively go for Blood Ascendant for Follow Their Footsteps to be worth it. Without chasing Blood Ascendant you really just need 6 Chi, which you tend to fall into rather smoothly around turn 3 anyways and after that the odd spare Chi could turn into Armor, sit there fermenting or might get you to venture into Blood or Bone. And at that point you've wasted a few turns of Casting Expert which could've gone a long way. And @Myyrä, I don't think you can run Yan with only one upgrade. It'd take a lot more Chi, leave him defenseless and a to a damage track 2/3/4 or 3/4/5 is hardly that big a deal that you'd completely want to repurpose him. He'd be much better served with more Lightning Jumps and another 0, resurrecting Ancestors or even Misdirecting. And once you have your second upgrade, you might as well get your third.

An activation goes; 1. Resolve “Activation" Effects 2. Generate AP 3. Take Actions 4. End Activation So when he's resolving all the activation effects in whatever order he likes, such as gaining Chi and swapping in upgrades with Follow Their Footsteps, he's doing that before generating the AP for that round. This also means that you don't gain Casting Expert if you've switched out the Blood Ascendant.

You can't use the Terracotta Warrior with Yan - when you get to a fourth upgrade you won't be able to swap in anything due to hiring restrictions. And I was toying with the idea of Yin until I settled on Toshiro. The to Wp would ease up on the hand a bit when Yan goes in at low Chi, but she's kinda slow and completely reliant on others and doesn't quite get you the advantage Toshiro gets. Though if you're swapping out the Wastrel I guess the Oni and kills alone are an unreliable source of material. Still, the defenses Toshi brings to the Oni by just existing are huge. Also don't forget to Hidden Agenda your Yin if the Emissary is in play. A Goryo could be nifty though. Could swap the Wastrel for a Clockwork Trap and bump the Warrior/Warder to one. Toshiro can push/fast it around the board, it poops Seishin to make up for the loss in activations, 6 Wk/Inco provides a lot of maneuverability without needing any set up. You'd lose a 3/4/5 Warder but a more standalone model would probably provide a lot of benefit. Maybe leave a little Seishin trail so Yan can kick stuff away from the center if the need ever arises. Gonna give that a go next time.

So I've taken the plunge and had a go at an all-in build of Yan trying to use all of his upgrades. I think I've succeeded? The largest obstacle of this build was building around the Blood Ascendant upgrade, being as expensive as it is. Now let me preface this. I am not a fan of the sacrificial Wastrel. And I'm thinking of swapping it for a Clockwork Trap and extra SS. Might be a bit more straining on my hand and cost me an Ashigaru, but 4 SS for 2 Chi is still a lot. But if we're playing Blood Ascendant, we're going all in. Yan Lo [4 SS] >Follow Their Footsteps [1] >Awakening [1] >Misdirection [2] Soul Porter [3] Shadow Emissary [10] >Ancestral Conflux [0] Toshiro [9] >Command the Graves [1] >The Peaceful Waters [0] Obsidian Statue [9] >Smoke Grenades [1] Charm Warder [5] Monk of Low River [4] Wastrel [4] So this list is very bubble-y and revolves around the Obsidian Statue. Yan and the Emissary get their damage from it, the Charm Warder protects it, Yan and the LRM heal it, Toshiro exists mainly to deter attacks towards it. All in all, a bit of a gamble, though if it does get killed you'll be up some 4 Komainu. So with the Statue's main job being "stand somewhere annoying", this brings us to Yan Lo. Playing the Blood Ascendant, t1 has to be the rather basic Discard>Charge Wastrel and use his Defensive for a bigger chance of him getting low cards letting you cheat in one severe and kill him on the second attack. Bringing you to 3 Chi at 2 AP, use one of your 0's to gain the Spirit Ascendant and give the Emissary fast. After that you do whatever and try to turn your wastrel into an Ashigaru. The next turn you're starting with discarding a card for +1 chi and your last upgrade. Now you use Follow Their Footsteps to turn that 4 chi into the Blood Ascendant and the fun can begin. Well, almost. You're back at 0 Chi again and your Glowy Mouth won't be changing that unless there's something weak and dainty near. But you're at Casting Expert with two 0's so at 12 you should be able to get in at least one Chi. You need that 1+ Chi, because that's the only thing keeping you alive. From this point on, your last 0 actions will be taking a defensive upgrade and at the start of every turn you'll use the Footsteps upgrade to churn that upgrade into Chi again for your next couple of attacks, after which it turns to an upgrade again. Your main attack will still be Lightning Dance. And its target a particularly annoying Statue, which Yan will charge to after dancing one or two enemies in to Glow Mouthily towards. You don't need to kill everything there - you still have an Emissary and a Soul Porter - but every chunk of damage helps. From T3 onwards the VPChi and discarding should bring you to a respectable amount of Chi without you needing to try at all, and around t4 you should even be able to get a Hunpo Assault in if you want. Admittedly, the person I played against didn't know much about Yan's new upgrades or the Statue, and with that the sheer amount of actions and damage took him by surprise. It performed quite well. I was most happy with Awakening, the Statue and the Soul Porter. The extra Chi always helps so to also give it a respectable damage track to finish models off with was perfect. Also Misdirection kept Yan safe as he stood near the Statue, quickly teaching my opponent not to try and touch Yan while near it. Then we have Footsteps. It's the only way to really get Blood Ascendant to work, I feel, and it's certainly good, but it restricts one major playstyle that marked Yan - the zero care you could put in your Ancestor's safety with Reliquary. It does open up new hiring options (though I still ended up with 2 Ancestors). Now you could swap out Misdirection and have a Soulstone to spare, but until turn 3 or 4 you'll only have one defensive upgrade and at 5/5/12 that's not what I'd call stellar. Not sure what I'd have done if I faced a Cast heavy crew to undo my Incorporealling. The Emissary is good and will be fast at all times, though at this point both he and Yan start with a discard and it's getting costly fast. Now with the LRM you don't need Yu anymore, though somehow now (with two 0's, 0 Lightning Dance and Casting Expert) more than ever I curiously miss being able reposition everything and give Yan more AP. Especially since I can't rebuild the Emissary anymore and the Emissary's only real fast target is Toshiro (since the statue is rooted in place 99% of the time) I have some slight doubts. But then again... 3/4/7 at double focus... And not a in sight... And that leaves us with Toshiro and the Charm Warder. Both there to protect the Statue and I feel at this point almost making each other redundant. Toshiro only summoned one Komainu off of the Statue after Yan Misdirectioned into it, but that was enough to make the message clear that touching it was a bad idea. And with that the Charm Warder's defensive buffs went to Yan and Toshi. Lovely to have, to be sure, but I think I could've used those SS for something else. All in all, fun. Very, very fun. The biggest downside is that I couldn't let my Ancestors as free as I normally would've and the extra restraint that I now had to show. We had Extraction so it didn't matter too much, but this list really forces you to huddle together. No more spreading wide to give Yan as many options as possible, though of course you're still free to kick them to units other than the Statue. So yeah, that's my attempt. Far too long and awkwardly worded but I just wanted to get my thoughts out. Do you guys see anything in this? Any things I should consider tweaking or completely scrapping? My biggest doubts are with Reliquary (or lack thereof), the Charm Warder, Wastrel and possibly the LRM (though I'm hesitant to leave Yan completely without heal). And Yu is still a maybe x:.

The McCabe trick you get the most out of if you take her and one Illuminated. At that point you're being very cost efficient and she's rarely gonna hand out enough Brilliance to benefit more than 2 activations. I wouldn't make any builds utilizing Come Play though. Its unimpressive simple duel nature means it's very unreliable and since she's lost her The Party Never Ends last minute she doesn't gain a lot in return for it. She doesn't give enough to Brillianced models to really get me to take her with anyone beyond Lynch and the odd McCabe list. As for Asami, one thing I've imagined (but not gotten to yet) is using Borrowed Time and Fate of Mortals. Assuming your opponent scores for about ~3 turns that brings you up to flicker+10 and with that 3 extra flicker/suits to dole out before counting gobbled Gremlins and Amanjaku cheering you on. And adds the nice possibility for card draw to boot. Fate of Mortals' biggest issue was that VP is generally scored after conditions, meaning you'd need to set up a specific Oni to benefit from it. With this you'll always have the perfect target. I think I'd definitely like to run Amanjaku when playing Borrowed Time though. Not even to keep feeding her 9's but it'd be nice to have the option in case you need it. Beyond that I haven't seen much in the way of "special tricks" or amazing combos. Still trying to figure out a way to get Yan his Blood Ascendant without being at Ca5 and no defensive upgrades in a timely fashion. Does Follow the Path allow you to discard Blood Ascendant after gaining its Casting Expert? And if so, does that mean switching in Blood Ascendant with Follow the Path makes you miss out on Casting Expert? The start of turn nature of Casting Expert and 4 Chi cost makes it so awkward to get any worthwhile use out of.

So does Misaki need LoS to the marker? To the center location you place the marker? Because if so that really hurts this upgrade.

This is actually quite important. If it's Ht0 you couldn't, for example, place it on top of a ht 3 building even if you can see ht1 models on that building.

You could always hand Shenlong Misdirection - it lets you plant him somewhere in a more battle-y position. Personally I've never been big on fighty-shen but if you'd like an extra brawler he'll do okay. There's not many other sturdy enough units to replace the Illuminated in that role really. Perhaps Komainu. But with 12 SS you can really just mix and match between two models and an upgrade depending on what you're encountering. If you feel there's plenty of firing lanes or vantage points an extra Sniper should do perfectly, if you need the Wandering Monks' scheming they'll shine, for scheming in close corners you'd be happy with the TTB/T-warriors... Just leave it open for some situational swapping.

Again, On Wings of Wind of all upgrades has no place on Shenlong. He can't spare the 0's and doesn't need the pushes. Those SS would be much better spent on just about anything including cache. Depending on the game I'd swap either the Terracotta Warrior or the TTB for an Illuminated, who provides a sturdy and cheap beater to supplement Yasunori doing his fighty thing, with the Emissary and possibly Shen as back up. I would've ideally gone for an 8 SS beater but with Yasunori you'll struggle to make room for that, so the Illuminated should do brilliantly. As for Dragon's Breath, it triggers on the enemies hit by a focus attack.

Well, Shen pushes plenty already and the Emissary also has a push (that admittedly only works on Yasunori, but). Beyond that, with the Emissary and the LRM you have 9 activations total, which is always good, you have a near guaranteed 3 cards a turn if you want them, and you can give all focussed shots blast which any Shenlong crew will welcome with open arms. Now the biggest seller here is 3 cards a turn (LRM focusses twice for focus+3>Emissary's 0). Add to that him having a 2/3/6 on focus+2, blast everywhere and he's a decent fighter compared to Yu, giving you three fighters in the thick of it rather than leaving Shen and Yasu to carry all that weight.

I'd remove On Wings of Wind, since Shenlong will both be using his own 0 actions constantly and pushing more than enough for that upgrade to have any use, and Words On the River since you want to hold onto any burning or poison you might get. And for those upgrades and Sensei Yu you can get the Shadow Emissary and a Low River Monk, allowing you to draw three extra cards a turn and giving you another decent threat source+buffs to focussed shots. Yu is good but he's ultimately just more of Shenlong while the Emissary broadens your toolbox a bit. Two Snipers can be fine but you might want a similarly costed model to swap one into depending on the terrain/schemes/etc. Illuminated are great and sturdy close combat models in that price range, TTB are naturally always welcome letting you increase your pool/attach another upgrade, a Clockwork Trapper if you need to fill the field but also want that From the Shadows for scheming. When they come out the Lotus Eaters or Charm Warders can be decent techs. Again Snipers are good but at 2 you're leaving the rest of your team to carry a lot of the burden. Which, with Yasunori, Shenlong and possibly the Emissary is hardly a stellar body. Still workable, but not something to put in your core.

I see myself taking one with card hungry masters who like a midrange beater or two. So Asami, maybe Misaki. I could see one with McCabe if you're upping those defenses. I wouldn't treat them as tanks though. They're brawlers that will fold if they're ever up against bigger units.