whodares

Let me systematically destroy your entire argument. Serena bowman with 1k faces: Only gives a card if you swap to pact. Just ... don't .... She also loses the upgrade if she dies and is reborn. The Thorn: gives a card after damaging and you have a scheme marker within 2". The other trigger giving a + to damage is in general much better on a 1/3/4 damage track though. Gwyneth Maddox: 1 card per Turn, possibly more if you flip Aces. Phillip and the Nanny can get 2 cards per Turn, so I don't see the problem here? Yasunori: once per turn card draw on taking damage. Again I see no problem. Nicodem alone gains the same amount of cards FROM SUMMONING as these "problematic" models have combined. I'm not going to list every single master in the game just to show you how wrong you are. Also please don't confuse + flips with card draw. Card draw is in general a whole lot stronger than a + flip. But please continue, show me how those masters can get close to the amount of cards that Nicodem can get while doing a CORE mechanic. Going into defensive stance takes up AP. If you want to spend an entire Turn giving all your models Defensive +2 I will laugh and thank you for it. It means I get a free Turn to get VP while you stand still and try to look tough The reason why it applies for all masters is because Nicodem and Sandeep are very overtuned right now. There is almost no point in taking another master in said faction because they are overshined by those 2. Why do you not see them winning that many tournaments? Nicodem because he needs to get to Turn 3 to really score VP and he's rather boring to play. Sandeep because he's not everybodies playstyle and some players consider playing him, just like Nicodem, tryhard wannabe winner. Getting wins on these masters is not a testament of skill. Good players seeking recognition would rather play a not-overpowered master and have a challenging game than to be know as "that" guy.

I fail to see how these masters can rival Nicodem's card draw. Lynch can get back aces on friendly activations, but those are aces and they are not useful for all models. Nicodem can get any card while doing his core mechanic. Dreamer can give Playtime, but that's a (1) action instead of an Ability, so it has a cost associated with it. Even then the model with Playtime has to deal damage to get a card. So that's 2 conditions already. Nicodem can get cards doing his core mechanic (summoning) AND when models die in his aura. This is a magnitude easier to pull off and generates a ton more cards. Dreamer can maybe get 2-3 cards per Turn from Playtime. Nicodem guarantees 3 cards without doing any effort at all. Asami has a single card draw after her activation ends. I'm not even sure why she's mentioned in your list, unless you're just going through all Masters that have a card draw ... NICODEM has a card draw when undead models are killed or sacrificed near him. This means he gets card draw on summons and card draw when you kill or sacrifice his summons. Just summoning 3 models every Turn nets you 3 cards. Even low cards are great when you're flipping through the deck as much as him as he'll have a much more stacked deck. Combining this with support models means you can rather easily get to a 10 card hand (very conservative of me) AFTER summoning. In order to reach Nicodem's card draw, Asami should have a card draw on summoning and when her models get killed/sacrificed. Even then she doesn't have the support of Phillip etc to get the engine going. Point is: none of the Masters are even close to the drawing power of Nicodem while doing a core mechanic. As mentioned in previous posts summoning is supposed to be a resource drain. Nicodem actively comes out stronger on all front from summoning.

I'd actually like to know which masters you are talking about here. It would be interesting to know which masters can possibly rival Nico's drawing mechanics or just his powerlevel in general and isn't named Sandeep.

What I read from this is that you are either a Nicodem or Sandeep player and you're scared of actually having to put in effort into winning. My meta is not that big, but any tournament those masters show up, they win. And not just win, but win by a landslide. They win so hard and so easily it's not even funny anymore. By your logic no nerf should ever happen. Removing the rat engine was a mistake then, because what about the people that invested money to get rats with Levi? What about Dreamer players after his nerf? ... As several posters have mentioned already: buffing other masters is not really an option. I've seen it happen in other games. Sometimes it becomes so bad you HAVE to win Turn 1 or you are set back so much you auto-lose. Imagine buffing up the Viks some more giving them a 10-card hand. I'm pretty sure they would destroy anyone as you have enough cards to both Whirlwind and defend afterwards from whatever is still alive. Imagine any other summoner getting the resources of Nicodem. Actually, that might just make him balanced and onto par with all the other summoning masters. A possible way to do this for Dreamer: draw a card on summoning + draw a card when a daydream sacrifices + draw a card when something heals from your aura + draw 6 cards when LCB is summoned. Now he can come close to the amount of power Nicodem has, but I'm not sure we're at his draw engine power yet A bit over the top, but it should prove a point: buffing other masters just isn't viable and would create a very unfun way to play the game. It would overcomplicate it as well.

I see Jury in nearly every list. My worst experience so far was against Lucius with Jury and Austringer. He burned my entire hand in 2 activations every single turn FeelsBadMan.

They do it the most and they have the easiest way of getting it. There is nothing wrong with it being easier for them, but right now it's just too easy. Previously Outcasts were broken because everyone could run the rat engine. They fixed that rather fast. We both agree that activation control can be game-breaking. As you say, the game is designed around alternating activations. The last iteration of GG pushed away from having many small models to having a more elite crew. Because of this, they HAD to make a change to summons and how they are able to score. The best example of this would be Ours. You mention Hamelin, Viks and Leveticus and then also mention that only Hamelin can do it now due to the changes to the rat engine. You then mention crews running 7-9 activations and +3 = 10-13 which is still not enough to outactivate crews like Hamelin rat engine. What you don't take into account is the rest of the summoning that Ressers already bring. You can quite easily get to 20 activations on your second Turn with Ressers and outactivate other crews such as Hamelin. Then add the fact that their summons aren't weaklings and you get double stones worth of models by the end of Turn 2 while not really sacrificing anything else. I agree with you that perfect balance is impossible to achieve. However I would say Asura is too strong regardless of faction. Put her in any faction and use let her summon chaff from that faction which can then use her actions. Suddenly you have a must-have model for that faction as well. After all, being able to give a stacking Df and mobility debuff to ignorable models suddenly raises their priority by quite a large margin. She can do it from a bit over 12" away and therefore does not risk any sort of retaliation. Asura grants massive power just by "existing" and she does it way too safe and way too easy. On top of that she makes obtaining activation control trivial. That's why I don't think I went into hyperbole territory as she's just too overtuned on all fronts right now.

You see to not account for the fact that the Resser player can just summon them in the back. If I see you using those tactics even once, you won't be able to get a second VP like that. You'll also have to be able to keep said model alive, which can prove to be rather hard when the opponent can outactivate you. Any opponent worth his salt will target the scoring model. The Zombie makes it easier to take you down as he can either do damage to you or debuff you thanks to Asura. Let's face it, staying in LoS of an enemy model is already easy to do. Saying this is a downside means this is a downside for any model. Better not take any models then, so you also can't score VP from this? So in about 75% of the games, they might give away VP. Then you have to look at what you are gaining from giving away those VP. You are gaining almost full control of the game. I don't mind giving you 3VP if I can pretty much guarantee getting 10 myself. If I can get that level of control in any other faction, it would be nerfbatted instantly in the next errata.

That's the entire point of why I think it's too strong. Kill them and "waste" AP and activations on them or don't kill them and give your opponent 2 free models which are pretty strong thanks to Asura's Ability. If you both have equal activation count and you have to spend 2 activations just to kill free summons, you have activation control. After all, models that are stuck killing the free stuff can't actually do whatever you brought them for. Does Ply and Shed Blood work on Peons? Because Mindless Zombies are Peons after all. Last time I checked most schemes and strats can't score off of peons, so that point is a corner-corner case so to say. Any master could use them to blast off, but they have to be within a certain range of other models for that to work. Misaki now has 8" range and Sonnia has 3 blast markers. Asura can place her marker 12" out, which means they can block quite a lot of range with them. I agree with you 2 free models don't win the game by themselves, but they sure as hell make it easier. Especially when these free models can use Asura's support kit to be a credible threat to almost every single model in your crew. Hamelin's entire gimmick is the rat engine and that just serves to pad his activation count and get a model from it. A lot of people consider Hamelin to be strong because of this. While Asura herself doesn't quite work like that, she tries to go for thesame end effect: outactivation of the opponent. I'd say she's too good at that. At least Hamelin stil has to hit a decent amount of (own) targets to get his engine going. Asura gets the Zombie for free.

To give a bit feedback on this: I'm not saying only these 3 models are making Ressers OP. I'm saying these models in their current form are OP and are pushing the faction way over the line. I also mention not wanting to write up about certain masters as those problems are already known. Nicodem was already considered to be one of the strongest masters in the game and he just got 2 models that help him even more. I don't see how that helps faction balance? Asura Rotten is probably the most annoying release for Wave 5 as she gives you free activation control, damage and support all in a single package. She doesn't even cost 10 stones... Kentauroi are semi-riders with great mobility and damage. They enter the game with enough wounds to use their Charge AND drop a corpse marker. Please tsart the engine even faster? To the 10 Thunders: I've mained them for 1.5 years and another year I've been swapping between Thunders, Neverborn and Arcanists. Thunders are by far the weakest of the bunch there and have never gone above middle-of-the-pack. They finaly gained power in Misaki, but that was quickly taken away. It was a counter against Nicodem after all, can't have that in the game. Please don't pretend like Thunders can have nice things. We had Yasunori and Terracotta Warrior and they have both been increased in stone cost. yasunori is the only rider standing at that cost and that's only because Thunders has easier access to pushes. What people forget though is that those things also cost stones and AP. I don't understand the nerfs Thunders have gotten when there was far more game-breaking stuff left untouched and most of that stuff comes from Ressers. That's the last I'll say about Thunders here, this thread is about the Ressers and how Wave 5 broke them even further. Giving a slow-starting faction a normal start while taking away none of the strenghts has made them a bit too strong. A small anecdote from what I've gathered from local ressers players: they don't like playing the top masters as it's too boring. Nicodem has his turns pretty much planned out with little-to-none difference in how he operates and Kirai functions as a Nicodem-lite.

Ever since Wave 5 has come out, I have yet to actually find a weakness with the current Resser faction. My current rant is about 3 specific models released in Wave 5 which should have never been released in their current form. I will not talk about specific masters as that would only make it longer to type on why Ressers are currently by far the strongest they have ever been and why no other faction can even come close to the dominance of Ressers. Kentauroi Summonable models with a 13" threat range with ml6 3/4/6 damage track and built-in Poison+1 damage making it an effective min 4 damage model. To top it off, they can charge out of engagements and ferry models AND drop corpse markers after charging. This card alone is pretty much 3 models stuffed in a single card and then made summonable. I'm not sure what could be wrong with that ... Asura Rotten Yo dawg, I heard you like activation advantage so we gave you a free summon. The summon sucks, so we are allowing it to use your attack so it can still hit hard and should not be ignored. Oh yeah and your markers also force TN14!!!! wp duels in a 3" area or they take damage. Ofcourse you don't want this model to go in melee, so we're giving it a 10" range non-randomizing terrain-ignoring shot that can stack a condition that lowers df, wk and cg. It also has a built-in trigger to stack even more fore every one of your markers closeby. Wanna make sure your heavy hitter won't cover any resistance. Lampad Lampad has gone mostly under the radar due to the OPness of the previous 2 models, but the best way to describe this would be High River Monk on crack actually dealing damage AND having a built-in summoning mechanic. Ml6 with 1/2/3 is not impressive, but he has a built-in burning AND a built-in trigger for more burning (every grants +1 burning extra). Just hitting the opponent ONCE grants you 1 damage and 2 burning. Charging an enemy would grant you 2 damage and 4 burning guaranteed with a possible (0) action giving another burning. Then you can save up a tome and deal more burning. If the opponent ends an activation within 3", he gets another burning. Stacking burning is so easy on these guys, HRM wishes they could die to become these guys. As if the damage wasn't enough, they summon a friend just like them if an enemy model dies within 10" of them due to burning. Not thgat hard considering they can easily stack 5! burning on a single model. I'm rather amazed I haven't seen this guy on more lists. It might be because they have just been released and a lot of players don't like proxying. The pattern these 3 models have is that they have support and high damage all on a single card while making summoning trivial to do. Asura gives you a free model every turn, Kentauroi gives you the corpse markers and Lampad just duplicates because of his damage. Asura's damage isn't the greatest, but she can make Mindless Zombies into a very real threatwith Ml6 so they actually start doing damage. We're not even talking about masters, yet these models alone can outsummon entire factions without sacrificing anything in return. Asura has been on every single Ressers list so far and that's because she just brings too much advantage to the table. Outactivating your opponent is one of the strongest things you can have in thise game and Asura does this on her own for a (0). Kentauroi get summoned and just wreck whatever you're bringing which is what 3/4/6 with Poison +1 tends to do. Lampads are currently ignored because Asura is already a must-take and you can bring more master-specific models to the table. Even then Lampads are still a viable choice for activating late in a turn, stacking the burning and getting another free Lampad off of it. And you WILL get that off because nothing can even come close anymore in activations.

Collodi can have all Effigy buffs at thesame time. They apply a condition on him and they work as long as they don't specifically get overwritten by other effects. HOWEVER he can only pass around 1 buff and that is at the time he gets it. No saving up, getting in position and then distributing.

Shenlong and Yu can become immune to the damage from burning and poison and they can swap between Low River Style to cycle it so you potentially remove up to 10 conditions per Turn from just those 2 models. If your entire crew is revolving around conditions, Shenlong makes it pretty impossible to get your combo off. Blasts are very poorly worded and I've had that ruled once against me, hence why I always play like that now. The actual wording in the rulebook: So it seems you are right and I should have looked it up half a year earlier. Give me a minute, going out to ***** a Judge, fml But still the original point stands. You can hide out of LoS of the attacked model and not get blasted thanks to that.

I see, that sounds reasonable. I've mainly seen NPE being used in League of Legends where it does stand for New Player Experience. By your wording it sounds like quite a lot would have to be reworked though as counter-matchups should then be labeled NPE. I mean, if you play a condition list and I bring Shenlong or Hamelin ... such fun when your entire mechanic is ignored ...

The Misaki player needs 2 10+ cards AND 2 severe cards to get the combo off vs 2 severe cards of the defender. Do tell me which player here needs the "God Hand" to pull off the combo? How bad is your positioning if a weak minion can see your entire crew in a terrain-filled board? Being able to hit 1-2 models with a huge card investment is fine as far as I can say. Smart players see Misaki with The Storm and play accordingly. Positioning is key against blast masters. You are also incorrect in your calculations for the blast range, even though I've already explained it several times in the thread. You have to make the blast calculation from the model that gets hit. You get 8" from all sides of the target + 2" from the blast marker is 20" total. Add to that the base of the targetted model, which can be 30-50mm, so you actually have a bit more than 21" raw hitzone. Then it depends on who/what that model can see and if he has LoS to the blast marker as well. Any wall in between them means he will fail to hit if you are not higher than the wall, even if the blasted model is higher. If you hit a 1" gremlin and you try to blast from him, anything 1" will block that part of LoS to the blast marker and therefore make it invalid. Thesame for 2" and stuff, it really is more limiting than you might think unless you play with no LoS blocking terrain. In that case, I would bring Shenlong, Yu and Emissary with 2 snipers and do focussed 28" range sh5 (+1 focus Yu) hits of 2/3/5 damage with blasts from the Emissary (0) action. Same deadliness as Misaki and completely safe as you can just stand in deployment and laugh. Nicodem has been considered strong from pretty much when he came out. He suffers none of the weaknesses of other summoners, yet has all of the strengths of other summoners. Then they continued to give him more and more tools, breaking him more and more. Kentauroi are just the latest part of this, but the UK players hated his guts even before wave 5. Viks and Misaki both make mince meat out of whatever models they target while punishing bunching up. If you say Misaki has no counterplay, then a Ml7 min 5 damage 4 aoe attacks Vik is considered stronger. They both kill whatever they see and Vik CAN ignore armor, HtK, HtW and all that stuff, while having a built-in Recalled Training. Vik also doesn't need as many high cards as Misaki as her min damage is Misaki's severe damage. Yet nobody sais Vik is OP as they learned to position properly against her and not let het get 4 free hits on 5 models. the counterplay for Misaki is funnily enough thesame as Vik: let her hit an inconseqential model and counter-attack right after. Doesn't even have to be thesame Turn, they are horribly out of position if they can't take away enough models when they do go in for the kill. NPE stands for New Player Experience. Any crew has the possibility to be NPE, but some such as Nicodem and unnerfed Storm Misaki were most-certainly NPE. If an experienced player calls out NPE, I ask them how long they have been playing and if they know what a new wave release is. Not reading up on new waves or not even reading cards as an experienced player is not an NPE. It's just an idiot that loses and wants something else to blame for his loss. If I see you bring a blast master and they stack my entire crew together, am I allowed to even call it NPE when it's just an experienced player being foolish? Can I call NPE on Rasputina when I first play against her and go "nah dawg I don't need to read your cards, I'll wing it"? Experienced players are not allowed to call NPE on something as the N in NPE is missing. It's just a casual player meeting something for the first time and not paying enough respect to it.

I agree that it needed a nerf, just not on all fronts. First of all the conditions required for this to work. Your opponent needs to have 4 severe cards in hand, because you can be sure I'm going to spend all my severes in trying to block that blast attack. Misaki's Thunder has a stat 7, so against a Df 5 model cheating a 13, he still needs to cheat at least an 11 to have the attack work. Then he still has to cheat in ANOTHER severe for the damage flip as the chance to flip severe on at least negative flip is too low. So that's 2/6 cards in his hand already burned for severe cards. Second attack just thesame. If you use 2 severe cards, he's going to need at least 2 10+ cards just to even get his attack through. Either he has the luck of the devil or he built his hand and you could have seen it coming. Second of all: blasts and LoS misconceptions. The model that gets hit with hte attack (weak minion in this case) needs to have LoS to the blast. if your minion is 2" high, he can't see over a 2" wall. He also can't see through dense forests and whatever is LoS-blocking. Blasts placed there won't do any damage at all. 12" free placement of blasts sounds great, until you start factoring in unit placement and LoS which can make that 12" rather limiting. EVEN MORE is that the model suffering from the blast damage ALSO needs to be in LoS of the weak minion. No LoS on both blast and blasted model = no damage on that model. I don't know what terrain setup you're using, but the ones we run don't really allow for too many of those sniperlike interactions. Third: model placement. Unless your opponent is a new player, chances are your blasts will only hit 1-2 models. You're spending almost all your high cards on this attack, so why shouldn't a master be allowed to do this kind of damage? Your master is also diving deep in enemy territory and chances of a counter-attack are rather high. For all the risk you're taking for this attack, why is it not allowed to have a decent payoff? Fourth: defensive abilities. Armor makes your blasts pretty weak. The entire point of The Storm was that you could reliably blast with Misaki and that the blast actually did damage. Now Armor +1 takes your severe damage blast from 3 to 2 damage, which certainly isn't all that stellar. You also have Hard to Kill which it couldn't ignore even before the nerf. there are other abilities, but these are probably the most common and we all know Thunders struggle to deal with these things. Fifth and last: NPE. If Wyrd really cared about NPE they would just nerf several masters such as Nicodem, Hamelin and Sandeep. Instead they give them even more things to play with, further making them more unmanageable for newer players. Tell me how a new player is going to beat Nicodem when he doesn't even know what an Alpha Strike is? Even experienced players think Nicodem is too strong, yet he gets even stronger and stronger. Hamelin was known to be a big NPE and the current GG18 holds him down a bit, but that doesn't mean he's easy or enjoyable to play against for a new player. If you're talking more something in the style of Misaki for NPE, look no further than the Viks, their Whirlwind trigger becomes an aoe min 5 damage on everything in range. Sure sounds counterplayable for newer players /s. My point is there are so many things that destroy newer players that haven't been touched for ages and some have even been buffed. Side-note Should you then hold down Misaki who become our first Tier 1 master EVER for something like this? Even before the nerf Misaki still had trouble playing against the current Tier 1 masters Nicodem and Sandeep. If Misaki was really as powerful as everyone claims, she should have destroyed these masters, yet that was not the case. Why are Thunders (and Gremlins) the only ones getting consistently shafted? We've never been a top contender, yet the top contenders get EVEN MORE stuff. I thought Wyrd was finally aknowledging the problem in Wave 4 when we got Yasunori, but apparently Thunders are not allowed to have strong models?

The best beatstick our faction has right now is by far Yasunori. The only thing that comes close is Kang vs undead/constructs, but otherwise nothing in faction can even hope to come close to Yasunori. Yasunori has 3 hits pretty much guaranteed every single charge due to the double on his attack on Ml6. This means a minimum of 3x3 wounds, which is something most other beaters can't even reach due to only have 2 AP. If you don't want to get Yasunori, I would rather recommend Izamu due to his synergy with Shenlong. Armor +2 means he will be harder to take down, he has a self-heal and Shenlong's heal gives him a lot of extra durability. If your opponent can't bypass the armor, he always takes only 1 damage from an attack and Low River Style heals for 2, so every master AP can possibly take away the damage of an entire activation. Izamu also has Melee Expert, so he gets a third AP for an attack. I would not recommend getting Mei Feng's box at this point as you already have Shenlong to try out. You can be much more efficient in spending that money on a Yasunori as he also works perfectly with Lynch. On the topic of the High River Monk: I've really been trying to take these guys after the errata which lowered their costs, but it hasn't really been that effective yet. Most of the time I already have enough beatstick power, which means I need scheming power and HRM are purely offensive. They are great as scheme runner killers, but for scheming we have the Brothers. Brothers beat almost every other model in the 5 stone cost range for utility. I'd say Charm Warder also comes close, but overall the top pick (for me) is still the Brother.

I'd put her on tier 2 as well. The nerf on The Storm hit her hard in a lot of matchups (Looking at you Arcanists) and her general gameplay hasn't really been buffed. Her saving grace is Terracotta Warrior swapping The Storm for Stalking Bisento when necessary, which I haven't really seen used for some strange reason. Right now she feels like Asami when it comes to games: dominant in specific matchups, ok in general matchups and downright bad against counters. Unlike Shenlong who can work around his counters why playing the scheming game, she doesn't have the flexibility to do that. Then again I'm not sure Shenlong belongs in 1.5, but more something like 1.75. He's probably our best master, yet gets outclassed by pretty much everyone in Tier 1 and 1.5. His strong point is that he's never a bad pick due to his flexibility, which makes it easier to take him to single master tournaments. Can't say that about Misaki.

The rest has been pretty accurate so far. I've never used Samurai, I just can't find any room for them in my lists. Yasunori already takes a big chunk (13-14 stones) which means they suddenly become rather expensive. I agree with @Hermit that they can be used as card flippers for Lynch. I would run them with Jigoku though just to make sure their own attack doesn't backfire on them. @Dr Mittens gave you a nice summary already of available options, so I'll just talk about your last question: Mr Graves. To start off: yes, he can work in Thunders. His slow walk is offset by pushes from either Shenlong, Yu or the Emissary which means he spends more time hitting people with his lamp. In my Lynch crew, I ALWAYS run Mr Tannen. Cheating second while forcing the opponent to discard a card first is such a powerful combination. This also means this variation of Lynch could run Graves with the Tannen synergy, which could be powerful if you can get Tannen his permanent manipulative. For Shenlong he's more like a budget beater. His low defense makes keeping him alive rather difficult, even with the heals from Shenlong and/or Yu. I would prefer not to run him inthere because there are many better options available such as Izamu, Yasunori, Swordsman, ... Generally I just run Yasunori and the Emissary though, which already gives Shenlong enough punching power to make your opponent think twice. This doesn't mean Graves is bad per se, it's just that he is outclassed by other models for what your crew is trying to do. Run him if you like, he works. Just don't expect to win serious tournaments with him, unless you can figure out some niche build. For your first game, I strangely enough recommend you to run with Graves. The reasoning for this is that you already know this model's inner workings, which grants you more freedom in learning the rest of the crew. Once you figure out the Style switching with Shenlong and Yu and when to swap to which Style, you can check out Yasunori. Otherwise his crew can become overwhelming rather fast. I personally found Shenlong to be a high learning requirement master as he can just do so much at thesame time it becomes overwhelming. He was my first master, which was in hindsight not such a great idea. You already have experience with Neverborn, so for you it will be fine. That still doesn't mean figuring out his playstyle will be easy. Starting with Shenlong is easy, using him and his support models optimally is very, very hard. Perhaps a funny note: I've been a rather dedicated Thunders player until about a year ago where I've been exploring other factions. I've been collecting some Neverborn and Outcasts, which means you're doing the reverse of what I've been doing

This looks like a decent starting point, but it's lacking in one thing: damage potential. Right now pretty much every Thunders crew uses Yasunori. He costs as much as a master box, but he's highly recommended. If you really just want to test out the faction, I suggest you proxy him to get a feel on whether or not you like running him. Currently your list has almost exclusively ranged damage. Don't get me wrong, Katanaka Snipers on Turn 1 with a double focussed shot buffed by Sensei Yu is a fearsome sight to behold. Sh5 (+1 from Yu focus bonus) means you are hitting the attack with and damage with which means you will generally be hitting and able to cheat. This does require good positioning and a rather open map to work out. However you have no melee threat. Shenlong's damage track is not really that great and neither is Yu's. Both are more used as support pieces that can go in if you see an opening. My most run damage dealers in a Shenlong crew are Yasunori and the Emissary. Since you're just starting out, proxy them. If you don't want to proxy them, it really depends on what type of game you are trying to play. Both my Lynch crew and my Shenlong crew generally run both these as the combination is just sweet. Izamu could be used as a cheaper alternative. Another recommended model would generally be Terracotta Warrior, but he requires a big Enforcer/Minion that needs protecting. Hence again my suggestion for Yasunori and the Emissary. If you really just want to keep it basic, all you need more is Terracotta Warrior and Izamu to really open up the playstyles. Your starting selection looks solid. I would not recommend the Wandering River Monk right now as we don't generally need those guys. With Wandering River Style (on Shenlong or Yu) you can already move markers quite a bit and we have tools to get other, better models in position. Neverborn use Silurids, but they don't have the mobility the Thunders have.

The Trigger mentions it uses the VP of the target model's crew. Feigned Weakness specifies that your opponent has to have more VP than you in order to get a summon off. I agree on the comeback strats and Kodoku does not use a differential, so it shouldn't matter all that much. The point is that you have to let your opponent get VP in order to get the max value out of the action in case you obey one of his models. Since the point is to win 10-0, this seems rather Wyrd (pun intended). I'll agree that winning vs 0 VP is generally not possible, but it does mean that you go in the game expecting to give up some points. I don't play with that mindset, but perhaps I should?

The semi-stacking on the Kodoku Trigger is probably something I don't like at all. It encourages letting your opponent score VP and the entire point of the game is to score as much as possible while denying as much as possible. The fact that Kodoku stacks on up to 3 enemy VP is counter-intuitive to the entire concept of Malifaux. What I also don't like about it is that it's more something you don't really have control over. While the Riders can guarantee their stacking mechanic from Turn 2, you need to win a duel to even be allowed to use yours AND win the duel with the right suit. This is a lot more card-intensive and I've almost never been able to meaningfully use Kodoku due to this. Then you also have to account for the "minion-only" clause. Yes, it's not enemy only and you can use it on your own minions. Yes, it then uses your own VP which is not counter-intuitive. It still takes away at least 1 card which could have been used for something else.

You forgot Dreamer, which I would personally place on 1.5 as summoners have more "outs" than most other masters. I'm also not certain on placing Shenlong on thesame level as Hamelin, Kirai and Lilith. In general I'd say these masters all have a lot more ways to be flexible than Shenlong. Kill Shenlong's big beater model (aka Yasunori) and almost all damage output just drops from the crew. Do thesame for any other one on 1.5 and they are not in as much trouble as Shenlong is. He's not tier 2, but also not tier 1.5, but the Thunders weaknessess don't really help him out here either.

Do note that this means you can't take any other upgrade besides those 3. Terracotta Warrior does not allow swapping when you have gone over the legal starting limit for upgrades, which is 3 in this case. More on-topic: I'm also going to try and run Fortify as my third upgrade, together with the 2 new ones. Thanks to Wave 5, Yan Lo can actually reliably get +3 on his stats instead of +1 or +2. Wave 5 targetted his Chi dependency by quite a bit and I felt he has been running smoother since. That said, I do still prefer him in Thunders as I barely have Resser models and Thunders has Yasunori and Terracotta Warrior. Another neat trick with the Warrior by the way: protect Chiaki and let her pass all her conditions to Yan Lo. He can now have the protection from the Warrior That has caught quite a few people off-guard, including Resser players that think they know all his tricks.

That's why I said discount LJ or Sonnia. It depends on which upgrade she brings. Stalking Bisento is LJ, while The Storm is Sonnia.

I'll agree with you on the fact that a focussed attack can do thesame damage as 2 attacks, but that depends on the min damage of those attacks. You also have to be in range to place said attack, which means you can't do a focus charge unless the master is Shenlong. Even then Shenlong has a 6" aura so that's not crew-wide all the time. It's also not correct that the models have a damage track for Focus when only 1 master can easily hand out focus. The rest of the masters don't have that luxury and are therefore less competitive. There's a reason why Shenlong has always been the S+ master for our faction, yet our faction still hasn't performed up to par on big events. I would generally like the higher min damage as you can get more luxury out of that. As you mentioned, either attack can be stronger under different circumstances. I do feel higher min damage outweighs the focus as it just is generally better and can give you more freedom (aka charge, move attack, ...) instead of always needing the focus-attack-cheat damage. I also completely agree with it when you say Focus is less card intensive. That's a big part of why to use focus. You mention missing 1/2 attacks and that it skews the equation. You can get that thrown back and say that your opponent can cheat your focussed attack and you might not be able to even cheat for the equalizer. Now you have 0/2 AP that hit while the other situation had 1/2 that hit and actually did damage. Focus forms a big "CHEAT NOW TO STOP DAMAGE" flag for a single card. I was perhaps a bit harsh with my wording. I agree it's not a flawed premise, but rather a flawed execution right now. When half your faction mechanic is dependant on a single master (Shenlong) it leaves the other masters longing for more. Shenlong embodies the Ten Thunders, while others just try to work with it. lore-wise this is perfect, but game-wise this is lacking. Due to the fact that Thunders are an elite faction, we are almmost always getting outactivated. This means you have to put Misaki in danger while the opponent has an easier time negating possible damage tracks from Misaki. You are not going to rocket shoot her 10" on the opponents side of the board without any backup as that would be suicide. That's a really, really big gamble which will not pay off against experienced players. The tricks Thunders have that have been mentioned so far are Misdirection and .... umm? Even then Misdirection is not a guarantee as your opponent gets the option to drop resources and still have the attack go through. You're also reliant on having a second model within the 2" range as you can't misdirect back onto the attacker. Right now Misaki is either a discount Sonnia or a discount Lady Justice and both of them are safer (Lady J Swordfighter) and easier to pull off, while having thesame level of threat and damage. I really have difficulty seeing as to why Misaki can't be allowed a nice thing that would make her our second S+ master while still not being overly oppressive.