whodares

I explained the situation in a previous post. First he lets the walgeist make the cover and then he stands behind it. This means you have 1 + to attack instead of 2. Due to the wording "within range and LoS", the actual area he can place it maximum is 6" + 49mm keeping 1mm of the marker within range and LoS. This is a whole lot more than just 6". Unless I've been duped by him and we've played it wrong? That could also be a case and could remove a LOT of the frustration of said marker. If you station Izamu inside of his own charge range to the models, he will be able to be lured himself. If you wait until Tooth moves, your opponent will already have lured another model and messed you up or used Titania to bring something to her. Kind of hard to charge when you're engaged. Teddy ripped Shenlong apart (Rip ml7) and Teddy can push-follow him automatically. Defensive is indeed what kept shenlong alive for a bit longer, but even he can only hold out so long against a dedicated teddy hellbent on killing him. Misdirection only works if there is another model closeby and that just wasn't the case. Just shenlong and Teddy duking it out in hazardous terrain. Teddy has regeneration 2, so he was at a slight advantage there. Now I will admit I had some bad luck and rolled a severe on the terrain damage, which made sure Shenlong could never try and do anything back and was already throwing everything just staying alive. Also don't forget that defensive gained from Low River Style only lasts until end of turn and not start of next activation. Ever seen a Teddy flurry a shenlong without defensive after he wins initiative flip? It's not pretty for Shenlong. You can only have 1 Equality so it's either on Izamu or on Shenlong. If only we could have it on both I had a choice: swap style on shenlong ,get rid of 1 hungry land marker and then lose master and Emissary OR try to delay the inevitable and go for healing flips. I chose the latter and it didn't work out. I can argue that at that point in time the game was already lost. Turn 2 my opponent could move away the Extraction marker 3" and thereby forever keep it out of my range. Due to my stubborn healing , I managed to get 2 points from it and 3 point from Frame for Murder, but my opponent got 9 points. He could have gotten 10, but actually forgot to cash in 1 point. I'd argue that this time the map and scheme pool were just not in my favor. Having the hazardous terrain in the single chokepoint leading to the Extraction marker is BS especially with the amount of terrain that marker covers. It covers 8 inch of death zone. Since you have to walk fully through it with your base and all, even the smaller models need to have a move of 9 inch and in Izamu's case 10" if they want to skip the duel.

Sniper has sh5, not sh6. He only has sh6 when he uses focus when being within 3" of Sensei Yu. That happens in first turn and after that never again. Due to soft cover, his attack has a single + flip which means you need to get lucky to do better than min damage, which is 2. Regarding Izamu's damage: Tooth can put 3 attacks on him (3 damage) into Rougarou who pounces into him (another 3 wounds). Izamu takes at least 1 wound from going through the terrain unless you spend a 10+ card on not taking that. If the Neverborn player gets Red Joker on any of those damage actions, he cuts down Izamu before he can even activate. My shenlong actually did have Low River Style, but he only got close enough once to use it. Then he got pushed into the hazardous terrain 3" every single turn ticking up damage onto him. Eventually he had to start healing his own wounds. By the time that happened, most of my crew was dead. The sniper did indeed try valiantly, but shooting into engagements just isn't his thing. Got the worst luck and had to target my own model who was engaged with 3 others... Please look at the terrain waldgeist creates. Please look at the terrain the Emissary creates. Emissary terrain just plops down on your part of the map and you can't do anything against it. Well, you can hit your own model in it with a blast attack. Great plan, right? Wasting so many resources jus to get rid of a 0 action that comes back next turn. I have included a drawing of the map we were playing on. In the center there were 2 houses, the left side is a climbable hill 2" height. Some crates and severe terrain. The triangle are dense forests. I was on the top side of the map. My opponent placed his waldgeist next to the building and plopped his cover terrain. Then my opponent put his Emissary in cover of that new terrain and put down a hazardous terrain marker on the alleyway leading to the center. This blocked the entire alleyway for me unless I was prepared to take all the hazardous terrain checks against him. A bit later he put down a second piece of the hazardous terrain and yes, they stack. Going through the alleyway from turn 2 would require 2 high cards or a possibility of 2x 1/4/5 damage. he placed the first marker a bit more to my building while the second was placed to make sure I had to take a really long way around the building. Such a long way that I would have to give up Extraction points while he could move the Extraction marker as he pleased. Now that I have included the map, you might understand the dilemma a bit more.

Good points and I agree with you. However our faction doesn't have that many terrifying models. I know of Huggy and Illuminated. Are there others? I don't know McCabe as I've never even seen him in my local meta, so I will take your word as a veteran McCabe player. I'd argue against putting saber on something as squishy as a wastrel though as the Tooth lure runs automatically into a Rougarou as well. That's 2 ml6 +flip attacks against a def 4 wd 5 Wastrel. But you can always throw the saber on something a bit more durable and it will have great succes indeed. If you save Izamu as your last activation, you will still have done all your pushes before my last activation. if I saved up Titania, I will do a place on you that forces you to target me. I feel like almost nobody here is taking terrain into account and just playing on a blank map. Sniper will have difficulty hitting due to cover. His focus gets around that, but def 6 is really bad news for the sh6 sniper. In my game I killed their Emissary on T2. My emissary got pulled into his, but managed to land the final blow thanks to blasts. then my emissary died. I got shenlong into range and started havoc, but Teddy came around and murdered half my crew with his ml7 and thus managing to constantly move the Extraction marker. At the end of turn 4 I only had 1 peasant, 1 Sniper and Yu. The rest had died to the terrain, Teddy or Tooth + Rougarou. Props to Titania for doing an 8" place on my brother and getting him eaten by teddy.. I managed to cross the centerline with 3 models who died while trying to give me Extraction points. My high cards were either used on winning duels to keep a model alive for an AP longer, not taking damage from terrain or getting unlucky 13 flips on terrain damage (happened 2 times ...). Neverborn Emissary with the standard conflux should almost always have priority in killing as he's a force multiplier on the level of SHenlong and Yu combined with the +-flips in a faction that thrives on their minions. At least that's how I see it.

I am starting from a turn 2 perspective. You have 9 activation thanks to summoning a peasant, he has 8 activations.The opponent stays out of izamu charge range (6" charge +3" attack range). even after 10" push from Shenlong + Emissary. You can dedicate all your pushes to him and get him up 16", which is almost at the center. Can't hide from him then. However, if you push up that far, you will have done 3 activations so far: LRM, Emissary and Shenlong. Those 3 allow your opponent plenty of time to get in position. If your alpha strike gets read (which it most likely will), they can turn it against you quite easily. Titania can give you a condition that forces you to attack her or discard 2 cards to even be able to attack. If she has "The Queen's Champion" on her, you can't even kill her with your 4 AP.and you are 6" into the enemy deployment zone ready to be combo'd to infinity by the combo I described. The 9-card hand is quite a big deal as it will help you survive some more. You might even get lucky and get 4 high cards (11+). Just remember the opponent also has 6 cards in his hand and + flips to all attacks. You WILL need to burn some of those high cards. More high cards in hand = less in deck = you will need to cheat more. At least, that's been the situation for me. I must have really bad luck with the cards then I guess? I'm guessing I've been getting really bad card luck for the past year then?

I agree with your assessment to a certain point. My assessment shows that you need to cheat a whole lot more cards than your opponent. It seems likely that will happen due to all the +-flips he gets. I don't mind sacrificing a model, but that combo can 1-turn kill swordsman (or Izamu if they get lucky) before he can even retaliate. Killing Gorar is not so easy as you need to have LoS on him to engage. The bases of Rougarou and Tooth aren't small by any means (50mm iirc) and he can easily hide behind them. He just has to be within 6" of the center of the board. If there's terrain to cover his sides, he's even safer. The only way I can see to really get to him is by taking a sniper up high and shoot him. But he has 6 def, so that's not really going to be great. 1 point of terrain damage means he has 8 wounds left. def 4 vs ml6 on + flip means all 6 attacks go through. They get +-flip from trigger on 2 attacks, which puts them on neutral flip to cheat. Let's ignore that for a bit and say they just do min damage on all flips. That's 6 damage taken, Izamu only has 2 wounds left. Izamu activates and goes to town on them. Tooth has 7 wounds armor +1 and hard to wound def5 vs ml6.You will not be able to cheat damage unless you focus. Killing her will take at least 2 AP if you don't focus and get good flips (possible thanks to RT). Rougarou has 9 wounds and hard to kill. Killing him will require at least 3 AP of your Izamu. You can only kill 1 of them and that one comes back via the sacrifice of a Gorar. You can do your healing flip and heal up 2 wounds (3 if lucky) and get back on 4 wounds from death. The enemy can then activate either Rougarou or their Emissary and finish the job. Your Izamu might be able to live through the turn if you did your activations right, but he will drop the next. You have lost a 12 (due to recalled training) ss model while they have lost a Gorar.

Point taken. I will look up some more intel on McCabe instead of just relying on the people from my local meta. The problem for me is not really Titania, but more the strong minions that the Neverborn have. Getting something like Tooth and Rougarou in the 6" bubble of the Emissary makes them extreme forces to deal with. Getting a +-flip on almost everything you do is really, really strong. It allows Tooth to cheat the lure against Yasunori, even though Yasunori has a built in - flip to wp targetting. Getting ml6 attacks with + flips onto it is also really strong. These minions are dishing out thesame amount of damage as an Izamu or LS just because they have ml6 +flip. This damage will come additionally to the damage you took from walking through the hazardous terrain placed by the Emissary. It feels to me that a lot of people here are looking at a lot of things separately and then it's pretty OK and I'm just overreacting. I'll try and demonstrate what I mean. You have 21 cards that are 9+ to pass the walk duel from the hazardous terrain. Even if you pass all the checks, you need to bring in at least 3 people through the terrain in order not to take the damage. That leaves you with 18 9+ cards left in your deck and hand combined. You will not get everything lucky flipped, so you have to cheat at least 1 of those 3. So now you lost a decent card from your hand and have less options of manipulating results. Tooth challenges you with a +-flip. You will have to cheat this one if you don't want to get closer to Tooth. You get unlucky and your opponent cheats higher. Now you've lost 2 high cards from your hand and your opponent 1. You are at 17 9+ cards in your deck and hand due to cheating. You get pushed to Tooth next to Rougarou. Rougarou can take a pounce ml6 with a +-flip thanks to the Emissary. You decide to take the duel and lose, but don't burn a high card. You take 2 damage because the opponent got minimum damage. You can now take an attack against Tooth (Challenge of Summer), which fails. She can take an attack against you which you cheat in order not to get into the push chain with Rougarou. Current situation: 17 9+ cards left, you took 2 damage and your hand is thinned out by 2 high cards. Tooth attacks. with ml6 +flip. You have to cheat this one, because else she gets a push which will once again trigger Rougarou. This happens a total of 2 times. Even if you manage to cheat all those away, you have needed to cheat 4!! high cards. It seams reasonable to assume the other player also has some decent cards. You don't have enough cards to save your model from a single activation by Tooth unless Tooth gets really unlucky on the +-flip attacks. Tooth's damage track is 2/3/4 with a trigger to get +-flip on damage. Rougarou has 2/3/4 with rams trigger for +-flip on damage. You somehow manage to survive the carnage, push Tooth or Rougarou into the hazardous terrain and kill them. Gorar gets sacrificed and the minion is resummoned (and can activate again because it's a "new" minion). This is the situation I'm describing and only features 4 models: Gorar (backup plan in case a minion dies), Tooth, Rougarou and and Emissary within 6" of both to give +-flips to attack. Yes, I admit this is a heavy investment in Soulstone cost. 25 Soulstone cost, but you get a whole lot in return. 3" past centerline is now Hazardous terrain that your opponent has to cross if he wants to get points. Your opponent can go via the sides, but then loses out on victory points. The first model your oppoent puts in the hazardous terrain will die due the ca6 +flip wp Challenge of Summer that brings you into the Rougarou death loop. I have had this happen several games and I just can't see a way out of it. Because of the combo between Tooth and Rougarou, I feel like there is no way to actually get close to those models and be able to kill one of them. And even if you kill 1 of them, sacrifice the Gorar and get it back with a renewed "Slow" activation.

I admit I don't have McCabe and haven't seen much of him. Feedback from other players tells me he is much stronger when played in Guild, which would disqualify him for me. If the feedback I've gotten about him is wrong, I will retract my words and admit you are right. Placing markers un a model or closeby a model for StR means that model will be forced to go into the hazardous terrain and subsequently into lure range as well. I am not sure how that "Laugh Off" works against a place effect, but my gut tells me that a place effect also doesn't work on him. He could blockade the markers for a couple of turns, but you just have to make sure you don't move him in the slightest or he can take another hazardous terrain duel. But I will agree with you that Sidir would be a good choice IF the rest of the crew lived long enough to actually allow you to stand on the markers. I played a sniper, but the sh5 is his biggest weakness. He got 2 shots with Yu in proximity, so he got 2x sh6 at the start. That was about the only time he ever did damage. Sh5 isn't reliable and he also can't shoot into engagements. I find Sniper to have been good in the second book when he came out, but has been lackluster afterwards. This is more a problem with the power creep that has been introduced slightly in Malifaux of which a very good thread passed a while ago. The conclusion was the average Def and WP of models has been increasing whenever a new book came out and that pretty much doomed all sh5 - ml5 models. It's the reason why you never soo a Jorogumo. 9ss minion with ml5 ... Have fun sending a 9ss model on scheme runner killer duty. Salt is overflowing indeed because I find that our faction needs a boost. Titania cannot get past the TTB scheme marker protection directly, but she has a ca6 vs wp duel (wp5) for brother that places him in base contact with her. Protection of markers is now gone. You mention to kill them and hold the middle. Do note they have lure and pushes into pounce. In order to get close to them, you walk through hazardous terrain. Please don't tell me you think your opponent will let you heal your models before luring them away out of range of your healers. You place a model to the front and it gets instantly lured into rougarou and Tooth. Lone swordsman dies from that as his only protection is Hard to Kill (and bulletproof, but that doesn't help against melee attacks). Izamu can hold it down a turn, but you have to move your entire force through the Hazardous terrain in order to be able to heal him AND get in range for the Extraction scheme. So we get to the end of turn 2 and either your entire force has taken damage from the Marker or did not get in range for Extraction. In case of the second point, the marker is now placed 3" further away from you. Good luck in getting anymore points from it in that case. I understand what you're trying to do here, but this is a "Good in Theory" crew. Due to Gorar the first minion you kill comes back. Even if you send your Izamu or LS on a suicide mission, the model they killed comes back and you are down on a big damage dealer. Save some cards for the walk duel from hazardous terrain is what I've been doing. You do need a 9 on a lot of models, which is already a fairly good hand. I don't know about the hands you've been getting, but I barely every get 3+ cards on 9+ in my hand, even after stoning and getting 3 more from LRM. I must be having really bad luck? Even then that single (0) action is now draining your hand or high cards from the deck every turn or dealing 1/4/5 damage. Healing 4 damage requires 2 AP from Low River monk or Low River Shenlong/Yu. Unless they have a defensive and the tright trigger, then they can heal 4 damage in 1 AP. Emissary can be behind, but he only has 7" range. This means he will have to stand in the Walk duel Hazardous Terrain in order to be in range to land attacks. The neverborn player will not place markers on his own half of the map to start the game off, so you have to walk the entire distance to the Extraction point through the terrain while he can sit there freely in his soft cover from the Waldgeist. I will give you props on building the list. It looks really solid on paper, but once you get the game, it will fall apart quickly.

Mind letting me know what synergy you speak of? I feel we barely have any OR that synergy is better used in the native faction of said model. Yan Lo and Lynch spring to mind, which are much stronger in their own faction than in the Thunders. How will you protect your brother if they have an 8" place and lure? He also has to stand in the Hazardous Terrain markers the Mysterious Emissary dropped on turn 1 and 2, which is not good for the health of Said Brother. You claim plenty of space in the 6" bubble to stand around. If he drops both markers to block that off, you have no space to stand around. 3" from either side and a 50mm marker. Well, unless you go stand on HIS part of the map, but I wish you the best of luck on that in neverbron crews with lures. Killing the Emissary turn 1 when he can stand decently far away from the centerline in order to drop his marker. If he moves up, he gets to drop his marker, which is a big PitA to remove and either burns cards or health. Covert breakthrough only scores points at the end of the game. This leaves the enemy plenty of time to react to it. But on Extraction they don't even need to react to it as they get Extraction for free while you lose wounds and activations to the hazardous terrain. Pushing up Yasunori will get you 1 point from Dig Their Graves, maybe 2 if you get lucky. After that he dies to the focus fire from the enemy. Sure, he can tie them up 1 turn. Let's just not exaggerate and say he is tanky enough to survive a turn. He has armor +1 and -flip to wp-targetting attack actions. put him next to Tooth and Rougarou and he dies that same turn in a single activation by Tooth. Mi6 with +flip to attack from the Emissary vs def 5 and then a pounce of Mi6 +flip vs def 5 for 2 attacks in a row WILL kill a yasunori rather easily. And yes, Yasunori will have to go inthere as he has to actually kill things. And let's not forget the enemy can just remove scheme markers, unless you bring a brother upthere as well. If that brother gets up there, he will die the next. Sidir is also 9 points. This means you have to drop either Yu or the Emissary yourself unless you only want 7 activations. Focussed shots get semi-negated by terrain which Waldgeists can drop or that is just natively there. If you are so convinced that the Thunders are good, make me a list that could actually WIN the matchups vs neverborn. So far I haven't found a single one. For me I find it easier to just pick neverborn, get the Emissary and keep him in the back giving all the STRONG minions they have + flips to the attack actions that they can safely do thanks to to places, pushes, lures and Hazardous terrain zone control.

So I've been playing Ten Thunders for a year now and I've reached a point where I'm going to throw them away. They always sound so great on paper, but then you get on the board and they are powerless. My latest example Extraction against neverborn. Lost 5-10 of which 3 points were given to me to not make me feel as bad. The setup was: Extraction Claim Jump Dig Their Graves Frame For Murder Search The Ruins Covert Breakthrough My list was Shenlong, 1 Peasant, Yu, Emissary, LRM, 2 Brothers and a Sniper. Opponent played Titania, Gorar, Emissary, Teddy, Tooth, Rougarou, Waldgeist and another model that wasn't even needed. Winning this against Neverborn seems impossible to me for the following reasons: 1)Extraction: Their Emmisary can make the entire zone of your board within 3" of the Extraction Marker Hazardous Terrain. Get withing 3" of the 50mm terrain marker and take a wk14!!!! duel or suffer 1/4/5 damage. The only way to get rid of it is by spending at least 2 AP (1 walk, 1 blast attack) for a 0 action of the emissary. We damage our own crew and spend at least 1 action on 2 activations. Good thing we have so many blasts, right? Oh right, using the Blasts of the Emissary also works if your enemy wants to use focus and means you have to focus up for the attack first as well. So then it becomes 3 AP (walk + focus + attack) + a (0) action of the emissary to get rid of the (0) action of the Mysterious Emissary so you can actually come close to the marker without instantly dying or cheating out high cards. Bonus note is their Emissary can drop 2 of those markers and they can both trigger their walk duel as they are separate terrain. Good luck getting any points from Extraction! 2) Claim Jump: Doable, but rather hard with all the lures the Neverborn have. Ever seen the Tooth (Autumn Knight with lure) team up with a pounce model? Her 0 triggers pounce and her attack has a built-in push. It's a 6-stat attack as well with decent damage. Did I also mention her lure gives her a free attack against you? So basicly you get (0) attack + pounce and 2 attacks + pounce. Bonus points if their emissary is nearby. They get +-flips on all those attacks. Even then they just have to engage your scheme runner and stand close to the marker. Scheme disrupted 3) Dig Their Graves: Hard for anyone that is not Titania. Sustained killing has never been the forte of the Thunders and now they even couple it to being close to a scheme marker. 4) Search The Ruins becomes impossible thesame reason as Extraction and Claim Jump. Even if you use a Wandering River Style Mighty Gust to blow the markers there, they can still delete the markers unless it's the very last action you take. In my case Titania just walked up and did a 0 to remove all 3 markers. If you bring a model within a few inch of the center, it dies. 5) Frame For Murder: Doable by both factions but easier for Neverborn as they have an easier time knowing which models you will be targetting. 6) Covert Breakthrough: This becomes a question of WRM vs Silurid. Silurid has way better defenses (Perfect Camouflage) than the WRM (Butterfly Jump) and still packs a very decent punch when cornered. Also don't forget the lures they have which can turn half the map into a murder zone from which there is no escape. I've been going through GG17 schemes and strats and I honestly haven't found a single one which Ten Thunders can actually do better than Neverborn. I've been playing Thunders for a year now and I have never really seen a scheme pool and thought to myselkf "Oh, now I can deny my opponent points" ever since the Emissary came out. What exactly am I missing here with the Thunders? Why do I always feel so helpless when I'm playing them? Why do I feel like every single other faction can outdo us on everything (except scheme markers IF YOU TAKE SHENLONG AND YU) A bit of a rant, but I feel like the Thunders are one of the worst factions in the game due to not having any decent models or any real synergy in the models when comparing them to the other factions.

It was even right above it. I should have read it again instead of asking a silly question like that; Thanks for the answer.

I really liked your post, but I do have to critique this one point in it. Your summoned peasant starts with Slow and therefore can't use his (2) action to sacrifice for Shenlong. I'm guessing you made a slight mistake between this one and the hired one? Second question: on your anti-neverborn list, how do you get around the Neverborn Emissary's Hazardous Terrain? Try and get lucky with blast markers or is there something I'm missing? I've played Extraction vs that Emissary and it was just pure hell on getting any points from it. My opponent placed it 2" deep in my territory, so I was forced out of a lot of zone for that Strategy. Also didn't help he was playing Titania and he could just bunch up everything around it.

To be honest, i'm not a big fan of your list. I prefer to go kamaitachi + terracotta warrior for the heal on Asami which also gives push and card draw. It also allows Asami to be even more flexible as you can swap upgrades you're not using. Running behind a bit in VP? Switch to the other upgrade and summon a free Oni at VP difference +3. Need more damage? Grasping Strands etcetc I usually take at least 1 Brother with me because he's just the best scheme-protecting model we have BY FAR. hard to take down with defense 6 (7 if defensive) and no scheme marker discard within 5". I'll take a look at the effigy. Remember the mission looks a lot better in GG17 than it used to do, so I might start taking the little guy with me.

Which is true and one of the main reasons why Bettari works so well with her. If she can get in 1 attack, that's instant 6 damage on your model. The opponents I've faced always cheated on Bettari when they could to keep her damage contained. Nothing beats blowing up a single model in 1 attack and healing to full health I might try and play Asami a bit more front-line soon, but my style is and remains to play her mid-line where almost nothing can touch her and just poop out Yokai with + to the charge attack.

Thank you for the clarification. I'm glad I wrote "I think" on it as I wasn't completely sure about it. This makes Tannen even worse for Asami imo as there is nothing special about him. Summoning a Yokai on a 7 with his aura isn't worth the soulstone cost to a defensive (master) style player such as myself.

My absolute core with Asami's crew would be Kamaitachi and Terracotta Warriors. the combo with the card draw, heal and push is vital in my playstyle. Since Asami takes damage from charging off of her ability, you can heal 2 charges per turn by swapping an upgrade. Tengu can be summoned as a last-ditch effort for his scheme marker clearing. For other things I find Yokai to be superior. I would only summon Jorogumo is I can get 2+ Flicker on him and he stays until the end of the game. Imo the 13 is otherwise better used in blowing stuff up with Bettari or keeping Bettari safe. My main summon is Yokai because they are just so magnificent in what they do. You should also keep in mind I'm an advocate of Jorogumo being a good summon. The main problem with Jorogumo is that he only has ml5, which is thesame as Yokai. His triggers are even worse than Yokai as they require a specific suit and only give + flip to the damage in comparison to ++ from Yokai. Yokai also has + flip on charge attacks which Jorogumo doesn't have. The only reason I would summon a Jorogumo is to keep opponents occupied or to block LoS. For all the rest a Yokai is superior. I'm not completely sold on the Emissary yet. For about thesame price I can get Yasunori who can operate alone and is a true powerhouse. Whenever I field yasunori, my opponent is forced to use his big bad monster OR multiple monsters on it to keep it occupied. This either gives me activation control or lets Bettari go even more crazy due to lower threat against her. In my last game my Bettari shredded 3 models before finally dieing. This was only possible because Yasunori tied up (big) Bad JuJu and the rest of the damage was manageable for her to survive through the turn. I see you have also listed Tannen in your fillers. I'm not really a fan of him in this crew as he doesn't really allow any crazy things the way he allows them for The Dreamer. I think we can summon a Yasunori if we Red Joker (14) it while in Tannen's aura, but I'm not completely sure about that. As you can already guess, chances of that happening are a lot lower than Dreamer summoning Teddy. At least Dreamer can get 2 cards to do the trick vs the 1 card Asami uses. Since I also play Asami back more and go on offense with Yokai, enemy models barely ever get in range to do something tannen can help with. Then again, if you play her very agressivelly YMMV.

It seems we have a different playstyle as I never let asami get within charge range of enemy models. The only way people are able to charge her or within 4" of her is if I allow them or they have something like Bettari (no LoS, ignore terrain). After turn 2 I swapped it over for A Fate Of Mortals for the card draw on killing, which is pretty insane considering Bettari can blow up a model per turn. Imo Bettari is also fairly safe in an Asami crew. I could overextend fairly hard as long as I still had Asami to activate. Bettari getting targetted? Summon a Yokai and place her into safety. I did notice summoners are my preferred playstyle (RIP wallet), so I'll play some more asami for now. After that I'm probably switching to The Dreamer to see just how different their playstyle is. I must admit Asami felt like summoning Yokai and just throwing them into the enemy for free scheme markers at the end of the turn.

I really like to use Yu with Shenlong as they are basicly made for eachother. Swapping upgrades, free focus, ... I usually position both of them and a peasant close to a sniper. I can use Shenlong's ability (peasant take a 1 interact action) to summon my second, albeit slow, peasant for free. Then I let that slow peasant go first and give my archer focus. Because my archer is close to Yu and Shenlong, I can doa focusshed shot (1AP), focus again (0AP due to Shenlong) and do a second long range focused shot. Both these shots get +1 duel total due to being a focus-using shot within Yu's bubble effect. Let me tell you that 2x a sh6 from 28" with double + to attack flip (1+ built in, 1+ from focus)usually nets you a neutral flip every time. If needed you can go crazy first turn and cheat twice on damage. If you target an enforcer that way, you might even just blow it up first turn. So basicly you just blew up an enforcer first turn without him really being able to do something about it, except if your hand is really bad and you have no high cards to cheat. I'd say that could be a game-winning play just like that. Now, about some more models that I like to take. Probably MVP in about every single game I played: Ten Thunder Brothers. The fact that they can get 7 defense with + flip from defensive makes them extremely hard to take down. I've had on hold up Bad Juju going for a Frenzy (3 attacks) and not taking a single damage point due to having 7 Defense. I will admit I had a 13 tome in my had that I dropped on his first attack, so I got my defensive for free. Terracotta Warriors: I've only used these once so far, but I really liked them. If you take a model that goes deep into enemy territory (Ohaguro Bettari for example), you can get a free get-out-of-jail card as you can ignore an attack at the cost of a card. This saved my models multiple times and allowed me to go in for some kills I shouldn't have been able to take. Yasunori: Played this guy together with the Terracotta Warriors. He didn't do much for me that 1 game, except keeping some big models occupied and taking over a big part of the map due to his insane 12" engagement range. I will admit his damage potential is really, really high if you have the right cards in your hand. if you hit every attack, you get 12 damage minimum and 20 damage maximum. The thing about that is that those are 4 attacks and you need to get fairly lucky to hit all 4. I usually activated him fairly late into the turn, so your opponent has less answers to any high cards you still have. I did play him in an Asami Crew, so he could use a charge as a 1 AP action. These are basicly models that I almost always consider taking in any crew I play. I used to be a Jakob Lynch player, but I've been converted to an Asami player after using her just once. I started out with SHenlong, but had very little success with him. Maybe I shouldn't have started as a new wargaming player with the most difficult master in the faction. After losing several times pretty hard, I noticed that Shenlong isn't my cup of tea as a master. I wanted something with crew synergy and WAAAAYYYY more agression on it. I swapped over to Yan Lo, but his style didn't really fit me either. The fact that my opponents keep using Ca-based masters also doesn't help the poor Lo as that is his only real weakness. After that I went for Lynch and never really looked back. The sheer amount of agression and threat that Lynch + Huggy bring is amazing. I coupled them with Yu and blew up a model first turn if it stood within 6" of the centerline. After some fun games with him, I went back to Yan Lo, but that just further proved howmuch I liked Lynch. Then I tried out Asami and had even more fun. The downside for my prefered master type seems to be that they are summoners and thus rather expensive to play. The moral of my story here? Don't try to force yourself on a master. Play what you really like to play and almost any master can be succesful. Focus more on having fun and experience what each master's strengths and weaknesses are. If you're looking for a Jack-of-all-trades master type, you can check out Asami. She also has a lot of answers to whatever situation arises.

You have to declare which Faction you will be using and you can only hire from that Faction. Some masters do have a characteristic that let's them hire from outside of their faction: ex Lynch and his Darkened models. Not all darkened are Ten Thunders, but you can hire 4 Darkened from other factions in your crew for no extra cost.

Just a question about this: Don't I get the 3" place after I declare which interact action and not before? (0) Corrupting Essence (Ca 5 / TN: 10): Lower this model's Flicker Condition by 1. Then, if this model is still in play, it may take a (1) Interact Action. Ephemeral Warriors: After the value of the Poison or Flicker Condition on this model is lowered, if this model is still in play, this model may be placed within 3", not in terrain, after completing the current Action. (If the Condition is ended or removed without lowering the value, this Ability does not come into play). This looks like I first have to remove + declare which interact to complete my 0 action. Do tell me if I'm wrong here, because it would be very interesting for me to know how these wordings should be read. My crew yesterday fielded both Bettari and Yasunori, but no Yu/Emissary. I have to say Bettari (and the Yokai) get some crazy mobility thanks to Asami. I had 4 soulstones that game, but I feel like I really need more than that to keep up my sommoning engine with Asami. Bettari with Eat Your Fill can be disgustingly good though. Get nearly killed, Asami summons a Yokai behind LoS-blocking terrain and you place Bettari completely safe. Next round you can go HAM, kill something and get Bettari back to full. I was kind of skeptical about the Terracotta/Kamaitachi, but that combo was so good. It kept Asami constantly on full health with free push AND a card draw. Something I did notice is that my Yokai never survived 2 turns. I summoned them and they usually died thesame turn as I threw them onto my enemy and burned at least 1 Flicker. End of turn I lost the second Flicker which then sacrificed it. Free scheme marker though My MVP upgrade was either A Taste For Flesh on Bettari or The Fate Of Mortals on Asami. I drew 3 cards from AFOM, which thinned the bad ones from my deck. Bettari survived and went crazy thanks to ATFF. My worst upgrade was Grasping Strands because I only managed to use the charge portion once and never the Reaching Tendrils thing. At least I was able to swap between upgrades a bit. My takeaway from my last game: more soulstones. Getting 7 might not even be overkill on her.

Thanks for this. I already forgot summoned models can't interact first turn. This is my first "real" summoner I'm playing, so I'm going to have to reread some rules now. Your upgrade swapping is so much better than what I had in mind with switching to Recalled training all the time. It really shows how great the differences in mindset between masters are. I'll definitely take a look at Fate of Mortals as it seems like a really nice suggestion here!

Should have known this. It's really been too long since I last had something like this :s Thanks for the answers. I knew about the Obsidian, but I'm still a bit hesitant on using it right now. Any hints on what upgrades you're swapping with Kamaitachi + Terracotta? I'm guessing the Yokai 0 action let's him use the interact action whether or not he's engaged, but it would be great to get some confirmation on that.

Going to be playing Asami tonight with Kamaitachi (of however you write that) and the Terracotta damage controllers. What upgrade do you usually swap between to get the Kamaitachi bonus? I'll be bringing Heavenly design, Grasping strands and Nefarious pact on Asami; My other models will have either Recalled or Equality on them (still deciding). With Yan Lo, it was fairly easy to decide. Just get a Chi upgrade and trololol swap to Recalled training every single turn. Since I'm bad at using the Soul Porter, the Kamaitachi was a pretty awesome upgrade for me. For Asami, it's a lot harder as I don't have a clue on what would be useful to swap out. I'm thinking about Grasping Strands, but I'm not completely sure about that. EDIT: Just realised Interference is our Strat. How does the Asami Flicker mechanic work with that? Do Flickered models go away before counting the models or do they stay for it? Currently looking for reliable ways of getting Corpse and Scrap markers as well. I'm guessing the Yokai's 0 action allows him to take the interact action even when engaged, right? So many ways of getting stuff done in this crew, it's insane. I'm used to playing Yan Lo and Lynch, but this crew just seems pretty crazy!

Thanks for the clarification. I thought it worked like that, but I still prefer to get it cleared out before any arguements can start.

I'm not certain what you mean with this. Do you mean that the Flicker sacrifice counts as kills for Reckoning? I'm only playing on the standard schemes and strats, so I prefer to actually know how the crews interact with them. Guess I won't go with the Bettari alpha strike then. I'll have to switch up my tactics a bit from my Lynch crew then. I'm going to miss blowing up a 10+ ss model turn 1

Do you feel like the Oni and Yokai are sufficient to generate scrap and corpse markers? Does the sacrifice work against you for Reckoning? Do you feel like you can get a good alpha strike with emissary, asami and bettari? I'm comparing it to how I have a tendancy to blow up stuff turn 1 with my lynch, huggy and Yu combo. I can blow up people that are standing on their own board edge turn 1 rofl