whodares

Point taken, but I didn't forget about the Komainu. They are just a lot more defensive than the Monk. As you mentioned, their triggers are not built-in, unless they are near an Ancestor, which I find to be a drawback. If I have an Ancestor there, that scheme runner would probably be dead meat anyway. Allow me to give a comparison between the models: Monk of High River vs Komainu Df6 vs Df 4 Ruthless vs Hard to Kill & Armor +1 Disengaging strike brings Burning 2 vs nothing Can drop a card to do a 3 AP charge vs nothing Focus gives +1 focus vs + when near Ancestor Ml6/Df/1" vs Ml6/Wp/2" Damage track of 1/2/4 vs 2/3/4 built-in trigger to grant burning vs non-built-in trigger to grant either burning +1 or slow 2" push vs 3" place in base contact nothing vs 6" Ca counter ignoring range From this comparison you can see that the Monk is a LOT more offensive. Being able to ignore Wp duels means a couple of defenses such as Terrifying will be invalid. He also has a larger threat radius as he can push 2", charge for 6 and have 1" range totaling for a range of 9". Drop a card and get 3 attacks which all inflict burning which pretty puch increases his low damage track of 1/2/4 to at least 2/3/5 and a possible 3/4/6. Something which also shouldn't be overlooked is the fact that Armor has less of an effect on him. The built-in means you ALWAYS get the burning. Hit the opponent 2 out of 3 times and you will do 3 damage. Hit the opponent 3 times and you will do 3 + 2 = 5 damage. Compare that to the Komainu who will do a maximum of 3 (2ml + 1 burning). Yes, when you hit 2 times with Komainu, you will do thesame amount of damage vs armor as the Monk, but the Monk has the potential to go way higher. Imagine you have 2 high and 1 other decent card in hand. Komainu can put out 2 burning and do 2+2+burning 2 on the opponent. Monk can do 1+1+1+burning 5 on the opponent. Komainu deals 6 damage, monk deals 8. If the opposing model has armor, Komainu deals 3 damage and monk deals 7 damage! That's a very major difference. I'm guessing the problem right now is twofold: Monk is bad has been almost a meme on these forums and people even refuse to see them in a positive light or what the potential is. Komainu and other 5 stone models are a lot more survivable than the Monk AND don't have to go face-first into combat. My personal guess is that the Monk CAN be used, but he will take time to get used to. I'm going to be trying him out and I suggest everyone to try thesame. Just don't charge him into a Nekima or something like that and then cry that he got killed in a single activation, that's not his purpose at all!

I'm actually liking the Monks of High River for 5 stones. It's true they are in a VERY competitive 5 stone bracket, but they bring something very nice for that price: ml6. I think they might be a decent cheap anti-scheme runner. Ml6 means you will hit a lot of things as plenty of scheme runners are on Df 5. Being able to charge for 3 attacks at the cost of a card is also decently nice. The main downside is that their damage isn't instant due to the burning and burning can be removed. With Shenlong it might even work better, free (0) focus for 2 focus and then charge in for a 1/2/4 with a possible 2 burning. Works even better if this guy got fast from Shenlong or Yu which means you can stack 4 to 8 burning on a single model while still doing 4 damage. With Lynch - not recommended, but can work - you can drop an Ace and get it back straight away. Never heard of card disadvantage It's true they are in competition with the Charm Warder and the Brother, but those are defensive models. If you need a decently cheap offensive model, I feel like the Monk of High River might be a decent choice. After all, killing models is the best defense. I'll probably be trying them out in the coming weeks/months to see what has become of them. It's a bit nostalgic for me as well, as the Shenlong box was my first purchase and I've always been trying to make it work. Unfortunately Lynch is my type of master, so Shenlong hasn't been working out that well for me

Well, the Primeval Conflux allows the Emissary to heal a friendly Fae for 2 Wounds or give Armor + 1 on a (0) action. It can give the Cyclops that extra lease on life. Also don't forget Cyclops can heal itself for 2 Wounds if it drops a or can go up to 4" range if it drops a when it activates. This can potentially keep it safe(r) when combining it with the Hard to Kill. Bultungin seem like really nice models indeed. It is dependant on the opponent dropping scheme markers to reach it's full potential though, but a 5 stone model that has ml 6 is never bad. Book 5 really upped the power level for all factions, but I'm not liking the way they are doing it. So many high stat lines or attack/damage lines which make buying the new models a must for competitiveness. I understand from a business point-of-view, but that doesn't mean it's a great player-wise way of doing it. My poor Yan Lo with his 5 Df and Wp is crying in a corner somewhere

I said I wouldn't respond to the Titania vs Collodi anymore, so I won't. Soon you will all see when people get more used to the newer upgrades of Titania. Take a look at the Cyclops. It's a Fae (I think) Enforcer with a decent damage track that gets more reliable as he loses a couple of wounds. It can also place 2 50mm Ice Pillars in base contact, which means board control. It's an enforcer though, so your generic Conflux will not boost it. He is a decent scheme runner hunter, but does cost 8 stones to bring. Grootslang can also work fairly well if you bring the Gorar as he can really dive in with his Lairs, soak up AP, dish out some damage and then come back. This guy can do wonders on Guard The Stash. Tooth + Rougarou + Emissary is already a fairly decent investment and the combo doesn't really "need" the generic Conflux to be worth it's points. It's more some sort of icing on the cake, but it does mean your Emissary becomes a lot less reliable and more dependant on your cards in hand. It also forces you to keep the Emissary close to Tooth and Rougarou, which locks down 25 stones on a single part of the map. When playing Titania, I would 100% pick the Emissary with the new Conflux and I really suggest you give it a try. You can really feel the reliability difference between the base version and the Titania version!

Losing 2 wounds isn't THAT bad, but it's something you have to factor in. If you're bringing in Widow Weaver and Hinamatsu with a total of 10 models, your other models are pretty much trash save for the Effigies. You'll have no reliable damage outside of Collodi and Hinamatsu. You're also forcing a certain activation order on yourself as you'll have to activate both effigies before you activate Collodi. This leaves openings that can and will be exploited. The slow Trigger works on masters, but the other ones - pseudo paralyze- don't. I also wish you the best of luck killing all the summoned models. They start with a decently high manipulative and their main function is just be an AP sink and give activation control. Hitting them is actually a boon for me. With all the weak models you're bringing, I'd rather argue that you can't win a war of attrition like that. Your minions do no damage and you are completely dependant on Collodi, Widow Weaver and Hinamatsu for anything. Titania can bring in several big beaters or a Tooth + Rougarou combo and just murder them as she pleases. You'd also have to ditch 2 cards anytime one of those models targets something else than Titania. A good player also knows not to aim for Collodi, you aim at his Puppets or Minions. The Levi problem was two-fold as he could also summon Abominations on those kills. For him it was worthwhile cheating up to 4 severes for those models, Collodi doesn't have that luxury. First off: you are correct on Sandeep. Mind slip of mine which took way too long to get corrected here. You can get a reliable 2 Changelings on your first Turn which can be guaranteed to 3 on Turn 2. At that point in time you'll have a rather minimal investment for a very good Emissary and 12 stones worth of summoned models. If you do the double summoning on Turn 1, your Emissary will have a cost of 2 stones because you have just summoned 8 stones for the cheap price of 4 AP and 2 7+ cards. The Dreamer requires a sacrifice in order to summon suitless, which means your total amount of activations are not increasing for that single summon. At some point you'll also have to summon another Daydream just to be able to keep the summoning going. The Twins and Coppelius also require high cards to get off and Coppelius is VERY vulnerable if summoned due to having 4 base defense. The Twins share conditions, which means you'll have to find a way to summon without Slow or you can ditch another 2 cards from your hand. I agree on you with the Stitched. They pair amazingly if you chain-activate them with The Dreamer. Going back above HtK means you can fire a big shot and not be scared of death. The downside to them is that they are squishy and easy to kill. Reactivate loses value if the model is dead before it can reactivate. It does take 2 AP if your shot didn't fail, swhich is why they are great. They do require a 9 to summon, so you either sac a daydream or a stone. 9 is already on the higher end of the spectrum as well, so every summon you do leaves you more and more open. 7 on the other hand is a middle card, which makes it a lot more dispensible. I thought about using Tooth and Rougarou with Collodi, but you're sacrificing too much in order to get that off. Their min damage 2 also doesn't help them and you'd be relying on a model already being within their range. On paper it sounds good, but in practice I haven't seen it work yet. Too much investment in a small area. Perhaps this is due to the skill of the Collodi players here or perhaps the map lay-out. I'll trust you on this one. Stitched and Illuminated are great models, but Stitched is a double-edged knife and Illuminated needs to be close range already. Putting Collodi that close to your opponent is a very dangerous playstyle which can and should be punished. There are counters to her, I'm aware of that. The point is that you need to have inside knowledge on your opponent in order to actually bring that to her. Are you going to go Mei Feng when your opponent declares Neverborn? Are you going to bring Katanaka Crime Boss as a default pick against her? Can your Crime Boss actually survive long enough against her? A lot of the things you listed are indeed strong against her, but you'll only bring those if you know it's her specifically. If you bring your Crime Boss against Lynch or Zoraida, you're in for a very very bad time. I'll just leave this here now and let Santa continue on his Tactica. Just don't blame me when I can come back in a couple of months with the obvious "I told you so" remarks

You have summoned 2 changelings in a game with her, woohoo. You can do that pretty much every Turn which is why it's such a problem. Almost every single summon in the game requires a 9+ and that's for good reason: activations and AP are king in this game. The Emissary can summon decent models on a suitless 7. They tried to nerf summoning in gg18, yet they still allowed this beast to roam free. I just don't understand it. Collodi has 10" range, which is decent. His Triggers are also good, I'll admit that. The thing is those triggers work after damaging, which means they can be stoned away. Those Triggers also don't work on opposing Masters, so no controlling Lady J, Sonnia, Titania, ... His on damage does help him, but let's not kid ourselves by saying severe damage 4 is that great. In order to get the 4 AP, you need to take 2 damage as well, leaving him more vulnerable. If you can bring Collodi to a mid-ranged fight, he's probably not gonna like it for long. You also bring Hinamatsu and Widow Weaver, which is a decent cost already and throw away a great activation advantage you could have gotten. I haven't seen that happen too much, so I won't comment on it. Don't try it against Titania though, she'll have 9 activations at Turn 1 with more beaters than you have. Lilith is a better control master, no arguing there. But does that reliably bring in the VP that Titania can bring in? Titania also brings in some beaters, so it becomes a matter of who can kill/VP/deny better. I still feel Titania does better than Lilith no those things on a reliable basis. Pandora is still middle-of-the-pack. She got some buffs, but let's not kid ourselves and say she's top tier now. Collodi won't be doing much if he gets the Condition Behold My Glory. Dropping 2 cards everytime you want to attack something other than Titania doesn't seem to be that great if you want to control my entire beater lineup. I'm playing on nationals-level in my backwater hole of a country, but I still fell confident to say that a lot of people are bad at this game. If you only judge a model by damage, you just plain old suck and need to get better. By that logic the luring models are the worst models in the game as they don't have a great damage track for their costs and they are mostly just utility... The Emissary had the problem of being unreliable in doing what he's trying to do. Needing a mask for his Hazardous Terrain and for the summoning left much to be desired. Getting a single 7+ wasn't that hard to do, but could get rather obnoxious if it was an 11 or 12. You don't want to pay that kind of a price for a changeling. Thankfully he's very versatile thanks to his Triggers. Yes, they share the Overpower Trigger, but he also has a combat-condition removal and a Scheme, Corpse AND Scrap marker removing as his Trigger. So what can he do? Board control with his Hungry Land Marker (which heals him), summoning (suitless with Titania) and a decent damage track with great Triggers that can solve a lot of situations (also free with Titania). This forum lauded the Shadow Emissary as one of the best, but they forgot his major downsides. Mysterious Emissary had barely no downsides and was viable in almost every single crew, but was relegated to crap-tier because of a 2/4/4 damage track. Titania was considered bad, useless and obsolete when she came out. I argued against it and was shot down. Several months later people understood how she worked and she got on the decent-tier with S-tier on several schemes. I feel that Titania was worth S-tier even before Wave 5. You could take her as a single master to a tournament and expect to do really well or even win. Now they gave her 2 amazing upgrades AND buffed the Emissary to crazy amounts of strength My guess is that more people will pick her up in the coming months and she'll be demonstrated in her true glory: top competitive players picking her up to score those wins. I wouldn't even be amazed if she already got a light jab on the coming January errata if Wyrd can see the potential they've unleashed. I'm fully expecting the Conflux to get errata'd due to the sheer amount of strength it now gives. This might be a bit premature indeed, but this is how I see it now. I really can't see any reason as to why you'd pick up something besides Titania with the Emissary if you really want to guarantee that win. Just a slight remark as you might have perhaps wanted to word it differently. You mention the models were universally rated as mediocre, but that they were probably underrated. This means those models were already good, yet the players couldn't draw out their potential and they needed a game-breaking buff to actually be seen as worthwhile. I can't fault the models or the designers for that, that part is on the players. You can look at League of Legends as a great example of this. They constantly have this problem, especially with newer stuff being released. People can't really venture well outside their comfort zone and make bad calls because of it. I don't want to see another Leveticus-type year of competitive meta, which is why I'm already posting this.

People keep saying that the emissary wasn't that powerful, yet he ranks on the top of my personal list. Being able to summon significant 4SS models, blocking off parts of the field with Hazardous terrain and better triggers than most emissaries sure sucks ... You're not slowing down your crew at all to do the summoning, except on Turn 1. Arguably Turn 1 doesn't really matter all that much. Double walk on 2 models vs interact + walk + 2 summons means you'll be gimping yourself. Everyone keeps raving about ACTIVATION CONTROL OP, yet now the emissary can do it for a 7 and he's just fine? He's not too strong, he's just fine? Pact doesn't mean she HAS to go after your master. It means she can pretty much kill anything without resistance. No soulstones and no healing means every single models is now a rather easy target for her to go after. Royal Indignation works well to absorb as much AP as possible. Min 3 on a minion still only means 1 damage is coming through to her. If an enforcer hits her, she can just stone it away. The only counter to it is damage that can't be reduced, while there are far more possibilities that also cut through armor. It reminds me of Yin with her own version of Hard to Wound, Mass of Viscera. You also mention that your master can do damage to her, but that's pretty much HOPING you have a master that fulfils that task. Imagine if Dreamer or Collodi are your master for that game, they both can't do squat to that. Especially Collodi with all his minions. Good luck killing Royal Titania who can stop 2 damage on every attack without lifting a finger. I don't see Collodi as far better than her and I'd love to see your reasoning for it. Dreamer can summon better, which is true. However the important part of that summoning is gaining activation control and the Emissary does that even better. Dreamer needs to sac a Daydream to guarantee a summon, use a stone to guarantee a summon or summon a Daydream. the Emissary doesn't need a mask, he just needs a 7. Where Dreamer can summon a Daydream, the Emissary can summon a Changeling. Yes, the value that Dreamer can summon is better. At that point in time you're either burning severe cards (masks) or severe cards and soulstones/Daydreams. You're also spending Master AP to get close to thesame effect as the Emissary. Dreamer's summons also come in at 1 wound, which means they are vulnerable to pretty much anything. Summon 2 models and you can only accomplice 1, leaving the other wide open to get AP-traded on. It's even worse if you have something with FGF closeby as that can kill your new summon if you fail the duel. Lilith and Pandora can do their things too, I'll agree on that. The question is whether or not they can actually do things better than Titania at this point in the game. With things I mean scoring VP, actually winning games. I'm not arguing that I can ping-spam better than Pandora. I'm talking about playing competitively and I currently don't see Titania losing to out to any of our other masters. When Titania just came out a lot of people said she wasn't good. I've always said she was good, nobody believed me. After a while people finally saw her value and she moved up on pretty much every tier list. On some tier lists she was already S-tier before wave 5. Now wave 5 gave her 2 broken OP upgrades while also making the Emissary broken OP with her. When taking Titania with the Emissary, it's like facing 2 masters at once. Balance-wise this shouldn't have been allowed and I'm not even sure how this made it through playtesting without getting severly nerfed.

Is there actually any reason to pick a master besides Titania for the Neverborn right now? The Emissary buff is completely broken and Titania is probably the best Jack-of-all-trades without any weaknesses. Emissary broken: suitless rare 3 summon (Changeling) on 7+ guaranteed triggers on anything you do still as powerful as before Titania Can become the best tank in the game with Royal Indignation while still easily completing almost any scheme Can become a complete summoner or henchman counter with Pact of the Grave Spirit (no healing and soulstones, +1 damage to masters and deal damage equal to damage taken) Is already a decent tanky model thanks to Impossible to Wound and Rejoine In Rebirth Neverborn-style dumps a ton of duels on your opponent of WP13 Rather high damage for such a tanky model: 2/3/4 which can (easily) become 4/5/6 Behold my Glory means you have to target her or dump 2 cards for just 1 Soulstone Taproot allows her to get out of harms way for the cost of a mask My biggest problem right now is the buff the Emissary got with her. Wyrd knew suitless summoning was a problem due to Sandeep, yet they introduced another one. Turn 1 you just drop 2 scheme markers with 2 other models and you can basicly get an Emissary for a measly cost of 2 Stones due to the 8 stone summoning. Comparing this summon to The Dreamer just shows how insane it is. Dreamer can suitless summon a Daydream which is Insignificant, low wounds and has no attack. Emissary can summon a Changeling which can copy any action at stat 4, has pounce and becomes significant next Turn. Dreamer brings in damage in his original list just like Titania, but can't really summon in big beaters unless you bring Tannen and hope his gimmick works. Titania brings in the Emissary and she still has about 35 stones you can spend on damage without any drawback. Collodi brings in a ton of activations, but they are individually weak. It's also hard for him to summon new models when they die. He has to have models using AP to drop markers, a lot of Titania's theme has marker drops built-in. It's why Dig Their Graves is so easy on her. Titania also becomes a problem as she doesn't have any weaknesses anymore. She can do everything just as good as other masters, except killing models. Not that a lot of things can survive 3 AP of Titania, but she doesn't have the minimum damage to truly be a damage beast - thank God for that. I really hope Wave 6 burns down some of the Emissaries power as the free Changeling is too crazy and allows Titania way too much freedom in her crew selection. The second part they could change on her kit would be to reduce the power on her Limited upgrades a bit. Too much is jammed into 1 card for a measly 1 Stone. Imagine Lynch, Zoraida or Lilith having their upgrades be 1 Stone with some extra functionality added on topof those upgrades. So to go back to my original question: is there actually any reason why you'd pick a master besides Titania if you're trying to win? I can't really see a reason.

Get a Beckoner in your crew and just Lure models out of place. I used to have thesame problem and a Beckoner almost completely fixed that for me. She allows you to keep Lynch more in the back while still reliably blowing up a model per Turn. I'm hoping to finish my next part of the Tactica by Christmas and after that I'll be writing the part about strategy and tactics (that I know) to be usuable with Lynch. Perhaps that would help you find a playstyle that suits you. On Gwyneth: I like her model and the tarpittyness she brings, but I'm not really certain on what to sacrifice for her. I mostly run Lynch extremely offensive, as in every model except for the Beckoner is a killing powerhouse. Lynch, Huggy, Yasunori and an Illuminated make for a scary list and you still have stones left for other utility such as a Beckoner. On Yu: I used to play him with the Huggy Missile tactic, but I've stopped doing that with the Wave 5 upgrade Cheating Bastard. It's not that the tactic has grown weaker, it's more that Cheating Bastard brings in a scheme marker dimension to Lynch that makes schemes like Dig Their Graves easy to complete. But seriously, just play Beckoner with him. I play him more to the Neverborn style and it has been working splendid so far.

I've played Yan Lo a couple of days ago, but lost due to an extremely bad matchup. Everything was Ca based (Reva burning crew) vs my Incorporeal crew. Still I felt the power of Yan The Man! I managed to get both his 4 Chi and 3 Chi upgrades with some Chi to spare in Turn 2 and just went to town with him. Nothing like a Ca 8 aoe attack with min 3 damage I can see great potential in Yan Lo, but the matchups are still very important for him. The Charm Warder trick is nice, but I expect that to get fixed eventually. As he is right now, he still needs it to get going as too many things can now bypass Incorporeal. My second sleeper strong pick is Lynch. I've been rather busy, so I haven't had the time to finish my Tactica (yet), but Cheating Bastard upped his power level several times. I must admit I underestimated it a bit at first, but came to terms with it after a couple of games. Luckily it's an AND/AND game for the Thunders as we can always swap back to The Rising Run with Terracotta Warrior when things get dicey for Huggy. It feels great revealing a mask on his activation and just using Final Debt straight away with 10 cards in your hand without having to try and get Brilliance from another source. Still sucks vs Hamelin though

We've had this one come up a couple of days ago and we weren't sure on how to proceed. The action itself a duel to gain burning +2. The Trigger is "after succeeding" and forces Burning models to take a TN 10 Horror duel. Does this mean that you can put burning on something and then get a horror duel on thesame model? Seems rather strong for a (0) action that can work map-wide with only an 8 ( for trigger) needed to succeed.

I'm not an expert when it comes to Yan Lo, but having Instinctual is huge for him. Normally you'd "waste" 3 (0) actions on getting your upgrades, but now you suddenly get 3 turns where you can actually use a (0). Granted Turn 1 probably won't use another (0), you still have 2 Turns extra. Most of the time you'll probably be using that for a Lightning Dance, as he can cast it once as a (0). This frees up 1 AP already, just by being there. Then you have his new 4 SS upgrade that grants him a 4th AP and a better attack that can scale up to Ca 9 with 3/4/5 as damage track. If you kill something with it, you heal ALL Ancestors, including Yan Lo for a low-ish amount. The downside is this attack only has 2" range. Previously I would spend a Turn with Yan Lo with the following actions: Lightning Dance enemy into beater if possible Attack enemy with Ca 8 Lightning Dance back to safety (0) If the situation allowed it, I didn't use the second Lightning Dance and either used Terracotta Curse or just 2 attacks. Now I can do something like this: (0) Lightning Dance Spend 3 AP on an attack (Ca 8 if long-range, Ca 9 if enemy within 2") (1) Lightning Dance back to safety (0) You can get the 4 Chi rather easily on Turn 1, which means you can go crazy right from Turn 2. One of his upgrades, forgot which one, increases his Chi generation which allows him to get to critical mass faster instead of only Turn 4-5. Then he also got that upgrade that lets him swap upgrades for Chi and you can mold him for whatever you need him to becomes that Turn. I think anyone can see just howmuch more power those new upgrades have given Yan Lo. To comment on the "low" defenses of Yan Lo, it's true the stats aren't that great. He can however get Impossible to Wound AND Incorporeal from 2 of his cheapest Ancestor upgrades. This means his only weaknesses should be high minimum damage Ca attacks, such as Rasputina or defense-ignoring attacks. I've been maining Lynch for a couple of months now, which opened my eyes on how powerful he is. I'm planning to play some games with Yan Lo as soon as the Charm Warder comes out for that perma-Disguised combo he has.

I'll try to add some Neverborn combo's in this guide, but my main focus is Ten Thunders. I haven't really looked at the Neverborn since Wave 5 upgrades leaked, so I'm fairly rusty there. I also played him mostly themed in Neverborn, while my Ten Thunders lists are more focussed on winning. So I'll try, but it won't be complete

I haven't played with her yet, but I'll try her out as soon as she's released. You seem to be following the same train of thought and playstyle that I'm going for, namely bringing victims to you instead of pushing your models towards them. I do wonder who I'll drop as she fills a completely different role than the Beckoner, namely tarpit and short-range place vs long-range luring. Having 2 decently-priced non-combat models with Lynch hasn't worked out for me. I think I'll try Gwyn without Yasunori and with 1-2 Illuminated extra and see howmuch the Brilliance works out. But I'll cross that bridge when i actually have the model My main use for the Illuminated has been as anti-scheme runners. Their charge means they can come from quite far and they can pack quite a punch. Other scheme runners usually don't have the raw power to deal with them and an Illuminated generally needs 2 activations to kill the opponent. Once they have finished that job, I send them to the middle to flank or tarpit some beaters. My main picks right now are Lynch with Cheating Bastard and his 2 default upgrades, Huggy, Yasunori with Equality, Tannen, Beckoner and Terracotta Warrior. That's already 35 stones used up, but you have a really powerful crew that can bring the fight to multiple fronts. I usually complete the list with a combination of Illuminated, Effigy and Brothers. This brings me some very powerful scheming on top of having the ridiculous offensive power of Lynch and Yasunori. I go completely crazy on Turn 1 and 2 and try to reduce the opponents threats to my crew, even if I have to sacrifice Yasunori to get it done. I generally still have the upper hand in fights thanks to Huggy and Lynch, while my opponent will continue to lose more and more ground due to the beckoners luring models in range of the Card Dandy. It will be hard for your opponent to make a comeback if you then have a strong model such as Illuminated on the side pestering or outright killing his scheme runner. I'd like to highlight again that I have Tannen as a must-bring right now due to how crazy he is with Cheating Bastard. It forces very tough choices on your opponent on when and what to cheat, which adds an extra layer of complexity for the opponent, but not for you. You can take revenge for Tannen if he does manage to kill him because he'll have to spend some precious cards and AP on it while being close to either Lynch or Huggy. There hasn't been a model yet that I couldn't blow up in an activation with Lynch and Cheating Bastard's reveal Brilliance makes this even easier as you won't even lose a card to force Play for Blood. I would also like to thank you for the Death Contract clause you mentioned. It slipped my mind as I didn't check those cards on the app.

Checked the App just now and it only mentions it being non-leader within 6" with an Upgrade and not Revealed Upgrade. Regarding Death Contract/False target: in my current crew builds I don't use Emissary, so I won't spend the stones on those upgrades. They are a godsend, together with Hidden Agenda to space out as many upgrades as possible to keep your crew pushable. Death Contract does cost a stone, so it depends whether or not you want to pay that price and make the Emissary cost 11 stones to be perfecly usable. Also something to note it that you won't always be able to use The Rite of Strength as the target model needs to be within 6" of the Emissary and costs a 1 Action. I prefer to do a walk + double focussed attack vs the walk + push and fast any day.

Completely forgot that one exists. I don't have Oiran and it's been several months since I've last played the Emissary. Cut me some slack here instead of making such an aggressive comment

Thanks for the encouragement! I used to prefer him for Neverborn as well, even during Wave 4 with Yasunori. It did become a 50/50 for me there though. Ten Thunders is now quite superior after Wave 5 hit the shelves in my oponion due to the Terracotta Warrior giving an unprecedented amount of flexibility to Lynch. Being able to swap his limited upgrades is huge. I'll be adding the Samurai and the Emissary to the list. I've never used the Samurai though as I feel his only real value with Lynch is the flips he has and is quite limited in the rest. I prefer bringing a Sniper for board/deployment control or an extra Illuminated if I want to go for crazy damage. I used to bring the Emissary as a must-have, but that recently changed with me getting Yasunori. Bringing both is not really an option as they are extremely expensive. just the raw soulstone cost alone would bring them to 23 stones with a more realistic 28-29 stones if you bring Equality on Yasunori and a Terracotta Warrior. Since I bring 3 upgrades on Lynch for a cost of 4 stones, I only have 17 stones for rounding out my crew. I feel this is too little for my playstyle, but ymmv. A psuhed-up fast Huggy can be devastating, but you need to keep in mind he needs to hold an upgrade for it, which will cost you stones. I mostly recommend this if you're going a themed crew with a couple of Illuminated/Stitched and Beckoners. Thanks for the feedback! I'll agree with you that the Samurai can be great, but giving him the Emissary's Fast push feels like a waste to me. We have many models which can bring a lot more to the table than just a low amount of damage and card cycling. While this can force your opponent to burn cards, you should always keep in mind what you could also get instead of that Samurai. For a stone less you can get an Illuminated or a Beckoner and I value bringing at least 1 Beckoner/Lure model quite highly. Adding in 2 stones let's you bring in 2 extra Brothers or a Brother and Terracotta Warrior. Flipping many cards means you'll get Aces, that's true. There is such a thing as trying too hard to get them though and I feel like the Samurai fits this category in a Lynch Crew. Lynch is not dependant on his Aces, his crew is. Most of his crew only cares about 1 Ace. Once you have that, you're never letting go of it. The only exception could be the Ten Thunder Brothers who have a neat trick with the Ace of and any other random Ace to get free cards. Nowadays Lynch can use the Ace of for his Cheating Bastard, but any 3 cards are good enough to get going. I'll make sure to mention my pro's and contra's of the Emissary as he still seems to be quite popular among players. I personally stopped using him due to my playstyle, but that doesn't mean he's not good. I'll also add in the Samurai and I hope I do him justice even though I've never played him. I'm hoping to finish the third part this week, but writing this down takes a lot more time than one might imagine. Just the Darkened minions alone took me several hours. Then you paste it here and notice your formatting has gone to hell Still looking for a way to get proper indenting to have nice blocks of text here instead of restarting at the start of the next line for any description. The third part of my Tactica will cover models outside of the Darkened that work well with Lynch and the fourth part will be strategical advice, thought it might be a bit biased towards my playstyle. I'm still in doubt whether or not to include the Shuffle mentioned a couple of posts ago as I feel this is such a gimmicky list that it doesn't really have a place here. It plays completely opposite of what Lynch usually tries to achieve and is just plain bad in a lot of scenario's, while I'm trying to go more into general advice for my list here.

Added the Darkened minions to the list. Next up on my list will be general models that work well with Lynch. That list will most definitely include Yasunori, Ten Thunder Brothers, the Effigy and a Terracotta Warrior. I'm in doubt about using the Samurai as I've never used them and I don't see the need for them either. More suggestions are always welcome!

Added Gwyneth Maddox, Mr. Tannen and Mr. Graves. Here's to hoping I can finish the Darkened tomorrow!

I thought it was obvious as it's an end of the activation Ability not an Action. I'll add it though, since you were kind enough to write such a nice text I was in doubt whether or not to add a reference to the Terracotta Warrior here or not. My next post will be about the Darkened thematic crew for Lynch and the one after that will be about general models such as TW that fit nicely with Lynch. Since it's still a while before I actually get to writing the part about the TW, I'll get to figure out a way to credit him there without being too intrusive. I don't want to mention TW at this time as I only have Lynch and Hungering Darkness written down and nothing about the TW yet. Thanks for the suggestions everyone, keep them coming

Fixed it. Even had the card lying next to me while I was writing this, so I'm feeling rather ashamed right now Thanks for the feedback!

Reserved for later use! Feedback is welcome and please teach me how to format this properly

Reserved

Darkness lurks around every corner It’s time to move on now that we’ve seen Jakob Lynch and Hungering Darkness. Next up will be his thematic crew which all feature the keyword “Darkened”. As we’ve seen on Lynch’ card, he can bring them into any of either faction without paying a mercenary tax. I’ll divide the Darkened models depending on their station. Henchman Gwyneth Maddox – 8 SS A newer model that will come out during Wave 5 and remains largely untested at the time of writing. Luckily the new book and app show us the card so theoryfaux is possible! Stats Gwyneth has a decent Df 5 and WP 6 with a slightly higher-than-average 9 Wounds. This means it will take a couple of hits to bring her to her knew. A Walk of 5 is nothing special for the Ten Thunders, but is decent in Neverborn. A Charge of 6 is nothing special, but you probably won’t be using it that much. Abilities Luck Thief Enemy models treat all modifiers as modifiers when dueling or flipping damage against Gwyneth. If the Attack fails, you heal 2 damage after resolving. This ability allows you to become a good tarpit. Can’t win a duel? Cheat it down so the opponent wins with a modifier and it becomes a instead. Almost guaranteed minimum damage. This can also work wonders against focused attacks as you can turn it against them. If you feel like you need health, cheat and win the duel to heal. You’ll be burning a lot of AP with just this Ability. Also keep in mind that this can combo with Misdirection. You’ll suffer the damage flip, but Gwyneth probably won’t mind. Rigged Deck You may look at the top 3 cards of your deck at the beginning of Gwyneth’s Activation. Discard any of those cards and place the remaining cards in any order on top of the deck. Ever wanted that first action to go off? Here’s a free pass to getting that! The Party Never Ends Models within 3 may not remove Brilliance. Strong in thematic Lynch crews, but I’m not going to be banking on this that much. It does combo nicely with her Tactical Action, which we’ll discuss in a minute. Attack and Tactical Actions Hidden Pistol A shooting action that can both use 2” melee as well as 8” range. It does randomize when shooting into engagements. The damage track is rather weak with 2/3/4, but the Triggers make up for it. Coated Bullet built-in Trigger that gives Brilliance after damaging. Pretty standard for the Lynch crew. Pip the Ace Discard a card to place a scheme marker in base contact with the target. Great for setting up schemes such as Dig Their Graves or Set Up. You can also shoot one of your own models and use the marker for other schemes if you don’t mind taking the damage. Come Play At My Table The Tactical Action I mentioned with The Party Never Ends a bit before. On a 7 of any suit, you can force every enemy model within 6” to take a 13 Wp duel. If they fail, you can place them into base contact with Gwyneth. Brillianced models suffer on the duel. I’ll Deal gives Brilliance until the end of the Turn to every model placed by this Action. This is good on 2 fronts: YOU are the one placing the model and they can’t remove Brilliance while within 3” of you. This is pretty much the perfect setup for some attacks from an Illuminated, Hungering Darkness or even just as an extra target for Lynch. Hit Me Reveal the top card of your deck. If it’s an Ace, keep revealing cards until it’s not an Ace. Draw every card revealed into your hand. Free cards are always great and you can combine this with your Rigged Deck Ability to get even more than 1 free card. What’s not to like? Enforcers Mr. Tannen – 6 SS This creepy man/thing is one of the reasons Lynch is dual-faction lore-wise and he’s just annoying to play against. Lynch amps this up to 11 with the new Cheating Bastard upgrade from Wave 5 as you’ll soon figure out. Stats Starting off with a decent Df 5 and Wp 6, his Wounds are average at 6. His Walk is 4 and he has no charge, but he probably won’t be moving much anyway. His main job is to be annoying and he doesn’t really need to move to get that part done. Abilities Manipulative 12 Targetting Tannen with an Attack Action while he hasn’t activated yet slaps you with a TN 13 Wp duel. You’d better succeed or your Action automatically fails. This makes for a nice card drain combined with his next Ability, Cooler. Your opponent will likely have to cheat in order to get past this as 13 is a rather high number to succeed on. Cooler Probably the main reason you bring Tannen. Enemy models cheating Fate within 6 of him will have to discard a card before cheating or they may not cheat at all. Placing Tannen well means your opponent can most likely only cheat 3 times. He’ll be hard-pressed to decide on what to cheat. Go for Hungering Darkness, Tannen or something else? Do I really need my action to go through? Since it’s ANY Action that happens within 6” of Tannen, it also means they don’t have to target him to get the annoyance off. This also combines extremely well with Cheating Bastard as you cheat second and the opponent has to burn 2 cards. It brings a high risk for the opponent as you might even then still block his attack if he doesn’t cheat high enough. Unimpeded Tannen ignores penalties for severe terrain when moving. Attack and Tactical Actions Pocket Knife A last resort attack in case all else fails. Ml 4 with 1/3/4 damage track does mean it might be worthwhile to cheat a moderate damage. The chances of getting in a position to cheat damage are questionable though. Bore to Tears A decent Ca6 resisted by Wp on 10” range means you can cover quite some ground. A weak damage track of 1/2/3 is fortunately not the reason why you pick this attack. The secondary built-in effect grants the Bored condition to the target which reduces its Walk and Charge by 2 until the end of its next Activation. Yawn Disallows the target to use Soulstones until the end of the Turn, which can be great if you’re trying to kill a Henchman or Master. This One Is Yours… pushes a friendly Mr. Graves up to 5” towards the target. This helps Graves immensely and can save him a nice amount of AP for positioning. Leave it to Luck Requires a 7 to go off and ALL models withing 6 treat as +2 and as -2. Can be great if you have a lot of in hand, but I don’t count on this Action and find it too risky to use. It can turn the tide however if you have a lot of medium in hand and need the powerboost to go over your opponent. So, What Brings You To These Parts … ? Tannen gains the Chatty Condition which means enemy models withing 6 may not take Interaction Actions. Great for blocking Interact-based schemes! Mr. Graves – 8 SS The counterpart of Mr. Tannen who’s hands hit a lot harder. This is your thematic beatstick and he can do this job quite well. Graves is also on the tougher side thanks to several defensive Abilities, but that doesn’t mean he’s hard to take down. Stats A low Df 4 and Wp 5 are the reason why I mentioned he’s not hard to take down. If an enemy is trying to hit Graves, he will succeed. Luckily he has 9 Wounds to counterbalance his low stats, so he can take quite a beating. His Walk of 5 and Charge of 6 are nothing special, but his Height 3 can block a lot of models from Line of Sight. Hiding behind the man with the big stick can be comforting after all. Abilities Black Blood Models without this Ability within 1” suffer 1 damage when Graves takes damage. Not a real deterrent for attacking Graves, but at least it punishes melee models for daring to mess with him. Hard to Kill While Graves has 2 or more wounds remaining and he suffers damage, he remains on 1 Wound. An annoying Ability that makes sure the opponent needs to spent more AP to get rid of him than necessary. Armor +1 Reduce all damage suffered by 1 to a minimum of 1 damage taken. Combine this with Black Blood and those minimum 2 damage models are pretty much killing themselves by attacking him. Ruthless Graves is immune to Wp duels during his activation. Great for getting around Manipulative and Horror duels. Attack and Tactical Actions Fence Post An Ml6 2” range attack with a damage track of 3/4/6. This attack is worth cheating on for severe damage and you have a decent chance of being able to cheat. Crushing Strike gives you a on the damage flip for each in the duel total. If you want to cheat that severe, this is the way to go. Your Fight Is With Me is built-in and gives a friendly Mr. Tannen within Line of Sight a condition that his Manipulative works even when he has already activated this turn. Graves looks after his buddy at all times Show Ya the Door Ml 6 resist by Df and needs a 7 to succeed. Push the target up to 6” and then push Graves in base contact with the target. It allows for a slightly larger move than a Walk and can be great to get out of scary situations. You can only use it once per Turn on a friendly model though. And Stay Out! Let’s you take a Fence Post Attack Action on the target. Keeping The Peace Needs a 5 to succeed and forces enemy models within 6 to take a TN 13 Wp duel in order to take Charge Actions. Card burning and AP denial are always great to have. Minions Illuminated – 7 SS The poster boys of the Neverborn are available in Ten Thunders as well thanks to being dual-faction. They are sturdy and have some healing tricks, so they can come back after taking quite a beating. Their damage is also nothing to scoff at, especially after your opponent has some Brilliance on him. The Illuminated are considered to be some of the best minions of their cost, but I barely take them outside of Lynch. Perhaps Gwyneth Maddox can bring some change to this if I ever find the room in my lists to slap both of them in. Stats An average Df 5 and Wp 6 combined with 7 Wounds make this model rather average. It’s thanks to the Abilities that it becomes sturdy. A decent walk of 5 combined with a nice charge of 8 means they usually don’t have any problems getting into the thick of combat or can run schemes without much penalty. Abilities Armor + 1 Reduce all damage suffered by 1 to a minimum of 1 damage taken. This is what makes these guys decently tanky. Regeneration + 1 Heal 1 damage when you activate this model. Combining this with Armor is rather nasty against models with min damage 2. It means damage they take will stick less and you’ll have to burn more resources to get rid of these guys. Terrifying (Living) 10 Enemy Living models must take a TN 10 Horror duel if they end a Walk Action in your engagement range or target you with an Action. This is a rather easy TN to pass as most models only require a 5 or less to get to the 10. It can function as a card drain if they get an unlucky flip or just as a deterrent for attacking the Illuminated. Attack and Tactical Actions Hardened Brilliance A nice Ml6 means this attack will be fairly easy to hit with, but the damage track of 2/4/5 is holding it back. You’ll almost always get the 2 damage. Luckily this attack deals +2 damage against Brillianced models, which boosts it to the amazing 4/6/7 damage. This is crazy for a 7 SS minion! Flay means you can cheat the Damage Flip even on and it only costs a mask to pull off as the other one is built-in. Scintillating Cloud A ranged attack with a 2/4/5 damage track. Nothing special so far, until … Filled with Stars let’s you place a 30mm Brilliance Cloud Marker in base contact with the Target. Enemies within 1” of the Marker get Brilliance. Great as setup for a second Illuminated. Brillshaper A (0) Action that needs a 5 to go off and gives you a healing flip for 1/2/3 damage. Remember that tankiness I was talking about? This boy isn’t going down without a fight! Beckoner – 6 SS (as of the Januari 2018 Errata) The girl that’s bringing all the customers to the casino. She likes luring enemies next to your beaters, while not liking to be too close to the fray. I mainly use her for her Lure action as it can save the trouble of having to come to my opponent and instead let him come to Lynch. There is quite a lot of discussion on whether or not to bring her into the Ten Thunders as they have a lot of push effects. I consider her to be a staple in my Thunders crew and used to substitute her with Lilitu in a Neverborn crew. I value having a single Lure model quite highly with Lynch as he likes getting enemies close to he can show them his hand and bury them in debt. Stats A weak Df 4 with an average Wp6 shows you she really doesn’t like being up close and personal with her clients. She does have 7 Wounds in case snipers decide to target her. A Walk of 5 is decent for repositioning and I still haven’t found a way to be allowed to use her Charge of 8 as she doesn’t have melee Actions. Abilities Don’t Bite the Hand Brillianced models attacking her receive to the Attack flip. A good AP burner, but you have to keep in mind that Focussed attacks are probably going to hit harder as well. The Sweetest Fare If a Brillianced model dies within 3 of her, she heals 1/2/3 damage. Never had to use this one yet, but it can come in handy if something managed to charge her. The Party Never Ends Enemies within 3 may not remove Brilliance. Combines great with the previous Ability and allows her to stand close to Lynch and make sure he has Brilliance targets to go after. Attack and Tactical Actions Lure Move the target it’s Walk stat and end as close as possible to this model. This is her bread-and-butter, het main use. It allows you to bring enemies to you, move your own models out of engagements or just reposition them and works around obey restrictions. Combining this with Hungering Darkness’ Heed My Voice has allowed me to get numerous kills without really moving Lynch at all on the first Turn. Not That Kind of Girl lets you push her up to 4” in any direction after succeeding. Great for repositioning or if the opposing model did get a bit too close to your liking. It also allows you to make the opposing model take a bit of a different route as this triggers before you move the target. Despicable Promises 10” Range non-randomizing 1/3/4 attack means it won’t see that much use. The main use ofr it is the Trigger. Sales Pitch is the built-in Trigger that gives Brilliance on succeeding. Don’t need the Lure or any repositioning? Use this! A Pleasant Distraction Enemy Brillianced models within Line of Sight of this model are not allowed to take Interact Actions until the end of the Turn. Use this if you’re spreading Brilliance like hotcakes and want to deny Interact-based schemes. Stitched Together – 6 SS Creepy things that give you nightmares with gambling moves. Can’t get any more Neverborn Lynch-themed than that. These guys are not durable, but they can pack quite a punch. They are a double-edged sword though, so be care on how and when you use them. Stats A low Df 4 and Wp 5 are complemented with a nice 7 Wounds to make it at least worth bringing. Easy to hit and take damage, but their attacks are worth the risk. A slow Walk 4 and Charge 6 means these guys are probably only going to be walking on Turn 1 and perhaps even Turn 2. Abilities Hard to Kill When this model has more than 1 Wound and suffers damage, it can’t go below 1 Wound. It’s an extra AP sink for you opponent, but also plays quite nicely with his next Ability. Eternal Nightmare When this model suffers damage from an Attack Action and goes to 1 Wound, you get Reactivate. Really strong Ability and it doesn’t stop the Reactivate even if you get healed from another source. Rotten Contents After suffering damage, flip a card. On all living models within 2” suffer 2 damage. Great if you’re standing in the middle of an enemy crew. Bad if you’re standing in your own crew. Double-edged indeed. Attack and Tactical Actions Hooks A low damage track of 1/2/4 with 1” melee range means you probably won’t be using this attack a lot. I haven’t used it so far. Gamble Your Life Probably the signature Attack of the Stitched Together and most-likely his most well-known Attack as well. A Ca 6 resisted by Df giving a 3/4/7 damage flip ignoring any Fate modifiers and can’t be cheated. Sounds great so far. The downside is that YOU have to take the damage if you lose the duel. Certainly a gamble for ones life. A Game of Chance Ca 5 against Wp means you probably won’t have a higher stat than the opponent, so activating this later in the Turn might prove beneficial. You can only use this once per Turn. The winner of the duel draws 2 cards and discard 1, but the Triggers can make this fairly risk-free. Heads, I Win forces your opponent to discard a card if you win the duel. You get to cycle 2 cards AND force a discard on your opponent. Tails, I Lose lets you draw a card if you lose the duel. This means you can make it equal to your opponent as you both get a card. Creepy Fog Requires a 7 and turns the area within 4 of the Stitched Together into Ht 3 soft cover. A defensive option in case they have a lot of snipers. The Depleted – 4 SS The best way to describe The Depleted would probably be something like an annoying blob of Brilliance. They have the very cheap price of only 4 soulstones and they bring a very tanky tarpit to the table for those 4 stones. They are in direct competition with the Effigy when it comes to this role and I feel like they lose this trade-off unless you go for specific scenarios. Their tankiness comes from their huge amount of Wounds for their cost and 2 defensive Abilities. They have double the Wounds of the Effigy, but they get hit quite a lot more than him as well. They do go out in a burst of glory and offer Brilliance, so either of those 2 can be used more or less the same. Stats Low defensive Stats include Df 3 and Wp 4, but they have an amazing 8 Wounds. This is a crazy amount for only 4 soulstones and pretty much the only reason you would ever even include these guys. A slow Walk of 4 and Charge of 5 round it up, but the point of The Depleted isn’t moving around anyway. Abilities Insignificant A basic Ability that doesn’t allow The Depleted to take Interact Actions. Seems logical as they are so cheap, yet take so long to take down. Consumed When The Depleted is killed or sacrificed, it explodes and damages all models within 2” for 2 damage and gives them Brilliance until the end of the Turn. Just when you finally kill it, it decides to take a bite out of you! Hard to Wound + 1 Damage Flips against The Depleted suffer . Very powerful and the main reason he is so annoying to take down. If you have a min of 3 damage, you’ll still need 4 attacks to bring him down, partially due to his next Ability. Hard to Kill When this model has more than 1 Wound and suffers damage, it can’t go below 1 Wound. It’s an extra AP sink for you opponent and it also plays quite nicely with his previous Ability. Attack and Tactical Actions Smoldering Grasp A weak Ml 4 means you won’t be hitting much with it and it has an abysmal damage of 1/2/3, but at least it counts as a disengaging strike. Even worse is that it gains +1 Ml and when taken as a disengaging strike. When this guy gets close to you, the only way out is killing him! Burn Out makes the opponent discard a card if you manage to do damage on him. This can prove to be impossible against soulstone users due to your damage track, but can work great against non-soulstone users with low Df. Just a Touch gives your opponent Brilliance for the rest of the Turn. Great for setting up Illuminated charges or Brilliance abusers in general. Drawn to the Light His (0) Action allows him to push 5” towards a Brillianced model within 12”. The great thing about this is that it doesn’t even involve flipping a card. The bad thing is that it requires a certain amount of setup to be useful. Still, it’s a free action, so it’s great.

I’ve noticed our favourite gambler still hasn’t had any Tactica made, so here’s my attempt at it. Please be nice . Let’s start with a quick summary of the pros and cons of Jakob Lynch. PRO: Beginner-friendly Card-independent master that has a LOT of cards Obligatory card tricks reference Offense in defense thanks to Wave 5 High damage from medium range CONS: Not the toughest master Squishy master on medium range can be dangerous if you misposition slightly His death takes a bigger bite out of your crew than most master deaths First up is the man, the myth, the legend himself! Jakob Lynch One of the main damage dealers and threats in the crew. He needs the Brilliance Characteristic on the opponent to really shine, but can output this himself. If an enemy model gets within 6” of him, it usually dies as soon as Lynch activates. Stats A lower-end Defense of 5 and a decent Willpower of 6 coupled with 10 Wounds allow him to take a punch. He will fold under a dedicated attack though. Luckily he has built-in on both Df and Wp which will help his Ability Hold’em. A slow Walk 4 and Charge 6 mean you won’t be going far with him. There are ways to move him without spending his own AP, but he generally won’t be moving much. I’ve never even used his Charge as his non-Charge Attacks deal enough damage to get the job done. Abilities Ace in the Hole One of the main draws of Lynch are the card tricks he can perform and this is the main trick. This Ability lets you pick up Aces the get discarded during another friendly models Activation. This means you can have them go Defensive, drop an Ace and just pick it back up. More combos will be revealed later, but I’ll foreshadow now that Lynch likes cards in his hand. What better way than to get up to 4 FREE cards from flipping? None for Me Lynch likes Brilliance on his opponent, but not on himself. He won’t get Brilliance thanks to this Ability. Hold’em A defensive-offensive Trigger that makes the opponent take 2 damage after cheating in an attack action against Lynch. Even if the attack fails, he’ll still take the damage. This won’t be enough to deter enemies to attack you, but the required is built-in and free damage is always nice. Infiltration (Darkened) Having doubts on playing Jakob Lynch as Neverborn or Ten Thunders? With Infiltration, you can just bring his core crew with him to either side! You can bring up to 4 Darkened models with you. Attack and Tactical Actions Hold Out Pistol A decent Sh Action with a rather low Damage track of 2/3/4. Fortunately you’ll be using this for the Triggers, if you ever even use this Attack at all. The good thing about it is that you can guarantee getting the Trigger you want as you’re allowed to discard a card when declaring Triggers and use the discarded suit for this action. gives +2 damage, which turns this attack from low Damage to high damage of 4/5/6. Winning the duel makes the target Slow. Haven’t used this yet as I just killed things before the Slow Condition could activate. Death is the best disability after all! built-in and gives the target Brilliance after damaging. If they stone away the damage, they don’t get Brilliance. Card discard after damaging. Card advantage can be strong, so I can see why you would want to use this. Play for Blood One of my favorite attacks. It has a whopping Ca 8 and is resisted by Wp. The high stat usually makes it certain that you’ll be hitting your opponent. Just make sure you hit your opponent though, because else you’ll suffer the effects. The loser of the duel takes 2 damage without a damage flip! Just win the duel and BAM… 2 damage on the other guy. It shines with the built-in Trigger that gives the opponent Brilliance. Mulligan The first (0) action and also the one I use the most. Got too many low cards in your hand? Discard up to 3 and draw in another 3. Do note that you can’t combine this with Ace in the Hole as that only triggers on friendly other models. Pay up Flip a card for every enemy model with Brilliance in play. You get to draw all cards. Great for trying to get lucky or if you have the deck stacked. Otherwhise Mulligan seems to be the better choice. So now we’ve seen his base card and I’ve already made a mention several times of Brilliance, but nothing seems to be using it! This, my friend, is why Jakob Lynch has some of the best upgrades in the game. Limited Upgrades The main choice with Lynch is deciding which upgrade to bring. He has 3 Limited Upgrades which shine at different times. The question will be what your playstyle is and what you are expecting to happen. Endless Hunger – 2 SS The first one to be discussed will be Endless Hunger. This upgrade is an offensive powerboost for your Totem: Hungering Darkness. It grants Casting Expert for that sweet +1 AP for Casting actions and turns his Terrifying (Living) into Terrifying (All). I’ll have to admit that this is my least-liked upgrade as it is completely outshined by the other ones as of Wave 5. The Rising Sun – 2 SS Lynch gains 2 new abilities: Eternal Darkness and Slave to Darkness. Eternal Darkness stops Hungering Darkness from being killed and is instead buried. Slave to Darkness allows a buried Hungering Darkness to unbury in base contact with a model that dies within 6” of Lynch while it has the Brilliance Characteristic. Combining these 2 effects makes it rather easy to have Hungering Darkness always at the end of a Turn unburied and ready to go for another round of AP-absorbing. Cheating Bastard – 1 SS The new Wave 5 upgrade has a real tough time of getting value-checked. On one hand it has to compete with The Rising Sun, an upgrade which is extremely powerful. On the other hand this upgrade is ridiculously strong in its own right in both offense and defense. Trump Cards: Friendly models within a 6” of Lynch or Hungering Darkness always cheat second, even if they are losing the duel. Let that sink in for a minute. Cheating second is extremely powerful as YOU get to decide how things end and not your opponent, granted you have the cards in your hand. This Ability allows you to keep key models in play or force that key Attack to hit. It can also double as a resource drain on your opponent: does he let you get the attack or does he cheat higher, even though he’s winning the duel? The mind games you can play with thios can be quite fun! House Rules: show your opponent a number of cards from your hand and get stacking effects. 1 gives an enemy within 8” of Lynch Brilliance. This can save you 1 AP, which is pretty huge already. 2 allow you to place a scheme marker in base contact with Lynch and Hungering Darkness. No more trouble with Dig Their Graves or the like! 3 heals every friendly model 2 Damage. LoS is not needed, it’s just a blanket 2 heal. The amount of times this has saved me is enormous and also a huge AP drain on your opponent. The rest of the upgrades This is usually the part where I see 2 upgrades as auto-takes due to the power and versatility they bring for Lynch. They are both using the Brilliance you should have on your enemies and turn it into lethal weapons. Woke Up With A Hand – 2 SS The first of my auto-takes. This card is incredibly powerful in both damage and potential. Woke Up With A Hand lets you draw 2 cards if you activate Lynch as your last model. This lets you cycle 2 cards from your deck. Low cards are great to draw as they are not in your deck and you get a higher chance of getting high flips. High cards are even better, because who doesn’t like to draw 2 13’s? Final Debt is the main reason you bring this upgrade. A high Ca 7 going against Df means you’ll easily get it off. It then does damage equal to your hand size. This synergizes really great with the first part of the card as it’s a blanket +2 damage here. Do keep in mind you can only use this once per Turn. The enemy model also needs to have Brilliance, but it’s not like Lynch has any problems getting that done. Wanna See A Trick – 1 SS The second auto-take for me. This one is debated on whether or not to auto-take, but for me that answer is YES. 52 Pickup grants Lynch the Ability to reveal aces at the end of his activation. You then shuffle those Aces, the discard pile and your deck and deal 2 damage per Ace to an enemy model within 6” with Brilliance. This means you can drop 4 Aces and get a whopping 8 damage. It also allows you to make sure those Aces go back into your deck instead of the discard pile during the drawing of your new hand during the next Turn. Aces in the deck mean you have a shot of getting them in your hand, which then increases your Final Debt damage from the previous upgrade. Suggested by @I'm a Teapot! This ability is also pretty stunning in they way it provides the dmg. It happens at the end of his activation and is not resisted by the enemy. Also being paralyzed and or abilities giving -flips or restricting actions targeting enemy models do nothing against this ability because it is not an action and paralyzed models still begin their activation, then immediatly spend their ap and end the activation. Expert Cheater – 2 SS Card tricks are fun and messing with your opponent is also fun. I’m not a fan of this upgrade though as I feel like the utility it brings is not enough to offset the damage your other upgrades bring. A huge part of this upgrade also loses meaning if you take Cheating Bastard as your Limited Upgrade. Expert Cheater allows friendly models within LoS to cheat Fate face-down. Your opponent won’t be able to see what you’re doing and have to take a gamble. Did you cheat high, did you cheat low? A potential resource drain that synergizes with your Ace retention. Losing an attack can get funny if you cheat down an Ace, only for your opponent to throw a high card in order to stop you from winning. This card has lost some of its identity with the release of Cheating Bastard as cheating second makes the face-down cheating meaningless. This part only has value for models outside of 6” of Lynch, but still within his Line of Sight. Very niche if you ask me. Squeell is a defensive trigger on a that lets you push Lynch 4” away from an attacker after you are damaged with a Ml Attack Action. Great for stopping charges, but that’s about it. Burn Out – 2 SS I haven’t had the chance to really use this upgrade as it focusses on a playstyle I don’t use with Lynch. Summoning extra models, The Depleted, is great, but I don’t feel like it’s worth losing either of my auto-takes for it. It’s Better to Burn Out Then to Fade Away lets you summon a The Depleted whenever a model with Brilliance dies within 6” of Lynch or Hungering Darkness. The cost for this summon is discarding 2 cards. The Depleted comes into play with 3 damage and 1 extra damage per Ace you dropped for the summoning. This upgrade looks great on paper. Drop 2 aces and get a Hard to Kill model on 3 Wounds in base contact with the killed model. The downside is that it can happen when you don’t have 2 aces in your hand and have to make a tough call. Is The depleted worth 2 cards or do I need those cards to do extra damage? The second question to ask yourself is also which upgrade you’re going to drop in order to be able to bring this one to the table. There are ways around this and I’ll talk about this later. Addict – 1 SS This upgrade can also be given to Hungering Darkness, which is what you will probably do if you decide to use it. I haven’t used it ever since Wave 4 came out though as I’m not running very themed lists. Devouring Need grants friendly Darkened minions within Line of Sight a on Attack Actions and damage flips against Brillianced models. This also includes your own models, so be careful for Obey! Tricks with Lynch We’ve had an overview of everything Lynch has at his disposal, but how does it work? My general start is Cheating Bastard, Woke Up With A Hand and Wanna See A Trick for upgrades. If you have an enemy model within 8” Of Lynch, you can reveal a and Brilliance it. You can now Blast it with Final Debt. Is the enemy model still alive after this? You now have 2 actions remaining to get within 6” range for your Ace dropping with 52 Pickup. Almost no model can survive this onslaught of damage given that you have the cards in your hand to utilize it properly. Another trick is to reveal a for the Brilliance, kill the enemy model with Final Debt and then use your 2 actions to get within 6” of another enemy. You can easily Brilliance it thanks to the Ca 8 of Play For Blood and then drop your aces for a decent chunk of damage on that other model. We’ve finally finished the part that talks about Lynch, but what is this Hungering Darkness that has been mentioned several times already? Fear not, it is the next model that I shall continue! Hungering Darkness Lovingly nicknamed Huggy, this model is the preferred Totem for Lynch as it’s free. It costs 0 Soulstones to hire, so what’s not to like? Hungering Darkness bring a decently tanky model to the table that can pack quite a punch or can Obey your enemy models for you. It becomes near-unkillable With The Rising Sun on Lynch as he comes back when a model with Brilliance within 6” of Lynch is killed. I mainly use Hungering Darkness as an enemy AP sink while doing decent damage. Stats Starting off with a very low Df 3 and a decent Wp 6 means he will get hit rather easily. Fortunately Hungering Darkness has 7 Wounds and 2 defensive Abilities, which help negate this weakness somewhat. A high Walk 6 and the same amount of Charge mean he has a decent 9” threat radius. You also won’t have to worry about seeing your opponent as his Ht 3 means Hungering Darkness will be towering over most models. Abilities Terrifying (Living) 12 Easy enough to understand, your opponent has to take a TN 12 Horror duel if he ends a Walk action within your engagement range or targets you with an Action. Failure means the Paralyze condition and 12 if a rather high TN to reach. Most models float around 5 Wp, so they need a 7 to pass the TN. Terrifying functions more as a deterrent and card drain than as an actual defense as the opponent only has to pass it once per Turn per model. The Real Power You can select Hungering Darkness as your crew leader for formats such as Henchman Hardcore. The Real Power drops the Totem Characteristic it has to make sure it is allowed as leader. Incorporeal The second defensive Ability that our friend has and the one that can turn him into an amazing tarpit. First off you ignore other models and terrain during any movement or push. This also works for other models, they can move through you just as well. Line of Sight blocking still applies though! The second part of Incorporeal means you can halve all damage taken from Sh and Ml attacks that damage you. This can make your 7 Wounds last twice as long and makes it possible for Hungering Darkness to survive while being surrounded by opposing models. Don’t overextend though as there are many models that can ignore Incorporeal or damage reductions. Attack and Tactical Actions Tendrils A Ca 6 3” range attack that competes against Df. You’ll usually have a stat up here, so hitting this shouldn’t be hard. It has a low 2 minimum damage, but ramps up fast with the track of 2/4/6. You’ll also gain a on both attack and damage flips when the opponent has Brilliance. Talk about nice! It also has several really good triggers. Drain heals you for 2 damage after damaging A Sliver Remains gives the opponent Brilliance after damaging. Perfect for using on your first attack, followed up with the on the second attack and damage. Envelop ups the damage track to a whopping 4/5/7. 4 Minimum damage is a huge amount for a separate attack and can catch some people off-guard. Never underestimate the damage Hungering Darkness can bring to the table. Heed My Voice A midrange Ca 7 Obey that gains against Brillianced models. The obeyed model does consider Hungering Darkness as friendly so you can’t use it to fail a Horror duel on yourself. If you have another model with Terrifying, you can bounce it off there though. Getting the Trigger makes sure Brilliance is here to stay. The condition stays until the end of the game instead of the end of the Turn. This can be great as setup for later turns or drawn-out fights. Consume Brilliance This 0 action does not require a flip and heals Hungering Darkness for 1 damage per model with the Brilliance Characteristic withing 6”. Then those models must take a TN 13 Horror duel. A neat trick here is to hit something with Tendrils, Brilliance them and then force this duel upon them. TN 13 means it’s almost guaranteed to burn a card from your opponents hand. You can also use this to heal off of your own models such as Illuminated. Just make sure you can pass the Horror duel afterwards.