whodares

40 minutes ago, Adran said:

Starting with Lelu is a double edged sword. Summoning in Lelitu will make lelu slow. Lelu is obviously better when you start with him now due to the upgrade, but it depends on what you are trying to do as to is the upgraded lelu worth it. You always have the option to use something to damage Lelu yourself if you really want the extra healing on lelitu. 

Dreamer Summoning is very different to Asami summoning in what you need and want. Dreamer  first turn summons can easily stick around the whole game due to the healing from him if they are ignored by the opponent, where as Asami seems to much more summon for the right now with much less forward planning. The Dreamer needs to plan around his waking condition to sort his healing aura as well as how many times he can summon each turn. 

 

I would probably be more likely to use the generic upgrade on the emissary than the dreamer one if I'm summoning. 

Good catch on summoning Lilitu. I would say that on turn 1, you should have 2 low cards you can ditch in case you don't have a card to offset the slow.

Dreamer can also summon in models without slow if he has the right suit in hand or stones AND sacrifices a daydream.

I'd say he has enough options to bring in the other twin without slow.

Your comment on Asami is right on the mark. My experience with Asami is that she mainly just summons Yokai.

Either the Yokai can drop a scheme marker (if he lasts into the next turn as he starts insignificant due to summoning) or he's just thrown into the enemy for ml 5+flip on charge attacks.

I'm guessing the first 2 turns you summon quite heavily with the Dreamer and afterwards use him more for positioning/distraction/force replenishing.

The generic upgrade has an extra stone for cards action (losing your hazardous terrain action that turn) and +-flip to minions. For which of these effects are you taking it? I feel like Dreamer doesn't really use that many minions and therefore the + flips are wasted on him. Since he uses stones pretty heavily, I'm not sure whether or not the other 0 action is worth it.

First question: How do you guys feel on starting with Lelu in your crew? This way you can start your game with his upgrade. The +1 defense makes a huge difference for his toughness.

Second question: if I start with Lelu, summon Lilitu and then accomplice on Lelu, does Lilitu still get the extra shared healing from Regeneration and Dreamer? Since Lelu is already at full wounds, he doesn't heal, so it doesn't get shared? If I'm wrong here, this could have quite an impact on the way they are played.

Third question: how good do you feel the Emissary is with Summoning Dreamer? I find his Hazardous Terrain to be an extremely powerful zone control tool, but his upgrade is a purely for the Chompy playstyle. It could be good if you can actually kill the model that is pushed to you, but it could also bring your dreamy little summoner in some serious problems.

Bonus question: please give feedback on my core build: 

I'm going to be switching from Ten Thunders to Neverborn and I'm going to be starting with Summoning Dreamer. I already have some experience with summoners (Asami), so I would like to get a good idea on how both the masters and the factions compare in this regard.

My core would be

- Dreamer with Dreams of Pain and Otherworldly

- 2 daydreams

- Lelu with his 0ss upgrade

- Coppelius with On Dreaming Wings

This would leave me with 22 stones left for extra utility. This does depend on my question above. If a full health Lelu activation does not heal Lilitu, I might take him out.

Justification for the models:

- 2 daydreams due to the errata. Having an extra one for the push/emergency situation is always nice to have

- Lelu: depends for a part on the healing question above. I feel his new upgrade allows him to go further in front and he still keeps his 2 AP without having to stone for a card. This allows for a much better turn 1 setup together with Lilitu, as she will be a lot more further on the board on turn 1

Coppelius: Very powerful scheme/anti-scheme running model that can also summon models himself. Granting Flight to those Alps allows for them to be a serious annoyance as they can pop up wherever they want.

Put them Together with Tooth to make a murder zone. Bonus points if you add the Emissary with +flips for minions.

You get Tooth Challenge = lure = pounce from Rougarou.

Tooth's attack also has a built-in push, so you can get up to 6 attacks from a single Tooth. Combine with with Emissary + flip and you have 6 attacks of ml6 with +-flip that have a trigger for a + flip on damage. Damage track of 2/3/4 is also nothing to snuff at.

33 minutes ago, anencephalous said:

That is frankly baffling to me, given that they give a definition for "enter" - (if they are pushed, moved, or placed within the terrain). To end a movement within a terrain, you have to already entered it, that seems self evident. 

This all comes down to reading the rules in the way they are intended to be played. If they had wanted to have had a check for Hazardous Terrain at the end of the turn, and then they would have written when entering, ending in, or activating in terrain. I imagine the reason they didn't is that it is hard to imagine a scenario where someone might end up in terrain without having first entered it!

Likewise for the Hungry Land tokens, if that had intended it to be special, undodgeable terrain (I imagine magical, grasping vines), they could have written "Hungry Land Markers are Ht 0, Severe, Hazardous Terrain which deal 1/4/5 damage. Any model which ends a move or push within 3" of a Hungry Land Marker must pass a TN 14 Wk duel or suffer damage 1/4/5. If they take damage in this way they are immune to further damage from this Marker for the rest of the turn".

It seems to me the intent is to make the tokens AoE effect a slightly weaker version of the normal Hazardous Terrain (since you also don't have check on activating within 3"). But that does assume a of reading Hazardous Terrain where entering means entering, not entering means ending.

Entering means ending for the 3" aura around the Hazardous Terrain, not for inside of it. Read my previous response again as I have detailed both sides there.

5 hours ago, -Loki- said:

This is a game where you should be second guessing your opponents force as well as picking your own. As you said, you pick your crew after knowing what faction your opponent is running and what you have to accomplish.

If I declare Neverborn, I would not be shocked, or offended, if in a friendly game someone brought more condition removal than they usually do. Neverborn place a lot of conditions which have some pretty debilitating effects. The fact that my opponent knows this when they make their crew is part of the game. I'd be picking a few models that are good at countering, or making me more effective against them as well.

If they are looking at the models you're grabbing out of your case as they make their list then that's cheating. They're not meant to know your list as they make theirs. If they're just good at assuming what you're going to bring based on your faction and, if they're common opponents, your playing habits, then that's just being good at the pre-game.

My comment about counter-picking was about a FRIENDLY practice game. If you're going to be the guy that brings a full anti-Titania crew against your opponent because you know he is practicing her, you should really reconsider your methods. If you do it in competitive, that's a different story. Competitive = play to win. Friendly = play to have fun and try out new things.

4 hours ago, Da Git said:

Woah, wait...  You're saying the entire Faction is horrible after one game that had a perfect storm of bad terrain and bad flips/hands and you're opponent had awesome flips?  Ok then... You're going to be in for an expensive time going through all 7 Factions after a bad game...   Maybe I should invest in Wyrd!

Seriously.  I'd like to think most people have had those horrible games where absolutely nothing you tried works and your opponent's deck is on fire (I've certainly had several!)...  Try taking a deep breath, do yoga/pilates, drink herbal tea, listen to death metal, whatever you do to relax...  Take a few days.

All this sounds really condescending, but I find it really helps when I get crushed.

Didn't even read the first line of my post ... Been playing the faction for OVER A YEAR and I haven't had a single match where I felt I had an edge due to going for the Thunders.

For the rest, advice seems decent.

I actually do have Asami, but have been on an Asami streak. I find her to be the best master in the faction by far. I don't really like the Flicker mechanic though, as I find it annoying to have my models disappear. Especially since they require fairly high cards (9+ for Yokai, 10+ Oni and 13+ Jorogumo) to get off. I also hope the next book brings some additional good Oni for the 11 and 12 card range. Right now I almost exclusively summon Yokai as they can consistently last longer than a single turn.

I would bring Kamaitachi + Terracotta Warrior and Nefarious Pact on Asami with me, but I'm guessing that has to do more with the style of play you select. Yasunori, while having high damage, is easily killed if focussed by the wrong model. The Terracotta Warrior is really good for keeping him alive.

My statement in the other thread:

2 hours ago, whodares said:

If you stop in the 50mm marker, there is no walk duel. You just straight go for the damage flip.

If you stop within 3" of the marker, you have to take the walk duel. If you fail that duel, you have to take the damage flip.

 

Flight has the following description:

Flight: This model is immune to falling damage and may ignore any terrain or models while moving.

 

Incorporeal: 

This model ignores, and is ignored by, other models and terrain during any movement or push. Reduce all damage this model suffers from Sh and Ml Attack Actions by half.

 

While moving and during any movement or push. Since you end the move/push, I see this as not being while or during movement.

If I have seen this wrong and those models would indeed be immune due to the wording, it takes out a lot of power of the marker indeed and makes it a lot more manageable.

If you end the movement on the marker itself, you don't take the damage as you are immune to it WHEN ENTERING it.

If you end the movement within 3" of the marker, you have to go for the walk duel. If you fail that duel, you have to take the damage AS IF ENTERING the hazardous zone.

The ambiguity is because of the wording on the abikities themselves. When exactly does a movement end? Is it when the action end or when the model decides to stop moving? I feel like this could use an entry in the global FAQ as it has been the point of discussion for over 2 years by now. We need a clear cut answer on this instead of the interpretation that we are using now.

There are cases for both taking and not taking the damage depending on how you explain the part of "ending a movement", which is what makes it hard.

If looking at it realistically, it makes sense your flying model takes damage when he stops and lands on lava. However we know some things in this game are not realistic (looking at you vantage point and shooting range).

I play it so that the model does take the damage if he lands within the marker of the marker. After all, he has ended his movement and is not moving anymore.

However, others say he's taking his duel at the end of the movement action before the action has fully completed and thus he is still "moving".

I feel like you can take either rule and they would both work if you can just explain your viewpoint.

Take what you feel comfortable with and roll with until. That's the best we can do until we get an official statement regarding this situation.

5 minutes ago, anencephalous said:

"The Hazardous Terrain is an 8" circle. If you stop in the circle, you have to take the duel. Since models only ignore terrain while moving, they have to take the effects after ending a walk/push in it."

I have never seen it played that way.

The card reads: "Hungry Land Markers are Ht 0, Severe, Hazardous Terrain which deal 1/4/5 damage. Any model which ends a move or push within 3" of a Hungry Land Marker must pass a TN 14 Wk duel or suffer damage as if entering it." 

If you were entering it, you would be immune to terrain. Moreover, you are at the "end" of a move action, not "after" a move action, so you still ignore terrain anyhow. 

You still have to make the Wk duel, but you don't suffer the effects.

Ergo, Huggy or Ama are your beaters of choice here.

How we see this:

If you stop in the 50mm marker, there is no walk duel. You just straight go for the damage flip.

If you stop within 3" of the marker, you have to take the walk duel. If you fail that duel, you have to take the damage flip.

Flight has the following description:

Flight: This model is immune to falling damage and may ignore any terrain or models while moving.

Incorporeal: 

This model ignores, and is ignored by, other models and terrain during any movement or push. Reduce all damage this model suffers from Sh and Ml Attack Actions by half.

While moving and during any movement or push. Since you end the move/push, I see this as not being while or during movement.

If I have seen this wrong and those models would indeed be immune due to the wording, it takes out a lot of power of the marker indeed and makes it a lot more manageable.

4 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

It's useful to have a rules manual or device with the pdf rules handy when you play, no one can remember everything.

We have such options available, but looking up everything you disagree on can prolong the game for quite some times. We go a coin flip/dice roll and the winner's rules are used.

We usually look it up after the game, but forgot to do it. Since I won the roll last game, we decided to use thesame ruleset this time.

This was completely my fault as I should have done my proper research.

15 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Nothing about McCabe getting 3 easy points from Claim Jump and holding back a little to hand out lots of Slow?

Your opponent flips hazardous terrain damage.

Really? We were playing that wrong then. I had to flip the damage myself. No wonder I never had any good cards then! Since we never play with hazardous terrain, we only see it with the Emissary. That takes out quite a bit of power away from the Emissary.

Also my apologies about forgetting about McCabe. Since I don't have him, I didn't factor him into my bullet list. Since I have no idea, I'll take your (and Ludvig's) words for granted as working tips.

27 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

...

 

Makes sense when you put it like that. If that is how you want to do it, then I can see what you mean.

29 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

If you have bad luck with flips and draws you need to go through more of your deck. I had a lot of issues with cards until I started playing lists where more or less every action was at a positive. Just flipping more cards will let you win duels eventually. Nothin works if you flip really bad and your opponent flips good, it's like rolling all ones in a game of 40k (although at least here you will at some point start to flip better if you go through your entire pile). That doesn't represent faction power.

My good cards did indeed come ... when I was rolling for damage on the Hazardous terrain. RIP 13 netting me 5 damage

29 minutes ago, knghtpiper said:

@ Whodares: For your comment on Kang, bringing models that can hurt enemy models is not being sneaky it is being smart.  Bring the right crew to help counter what your opponent is not being sneaky but properly playing as a big part of this game is crew composition.  People are not going to think you are being win at cost gamer if you bring Kang to match against Titinaia.

Also if you can give Shenlong a break and play someone else for a while, then come back to him with fresh eyes.  

Target-counterpicking your opponent in a friendly training match sounds like poor sportsmanship to me. If somebody did that to me, I would never play against them again. Unless your opponent agreed to it first in order to test out something.

Remember that at the point of crew selection, all the info you have are the schemes, strat and faction declared. You're not allowed to "sneak a peek".

In competitive, you can go full counter if you know your opponent. That environment is play-to-win and I don't think anyone can have qualms about that.

As suggested by several people, I'm going to switch to Neverborn myself and look at it from their viewpoint. I'll be starting with Dreamer as he's their strongest master and work my way down from there. Maybe my experiences there could shine a new light on the Thunders. So far, I haven't found a real reason to pick them over other factions as I feel the Thunders don't really have an identity besides pushbots.

51 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

Alright.
Turn 1 - if your opponent brings out his Emissary in the beginning of the turn and plops down his Marker in the center, you then have your entire turn to plan out your attack on him. He will be around the center line and as that diagram shows, around the center point. He can't go back there until turn two. You then get to shoot him twice with a sniper (where you focus for Sh6+ on attack and  on damage) which should average at around 2-4 damage, up to 6-10 if you're willing to cheat in. Or he cheats in constantly, reducing his hand while you with you numerous  flips and Emissary should have a 4-5 card advantage over him

Tried that, got 2x min damage. Thank my bad card luck for that.

51 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

Then, weakened and in a very suboptimal position, you can hurl something big and scary in his face - yes through the horrible horrible markers - and finish him off. Ideal would be Izamu, but most of TT's beaters would do. At this point luring will be hard since everything from your opponent walking upfield will be funneled in that tiny gap and it would require two walks, through the narrow gap around his Emissary and any models that may have walked up+the tooth's 0 to lure the beater in (if you left the beater close enough to the centerline rather than 9" away from the Emissary as you should), leaving you to first hit the tooth once, then immediately activate and promptly crush whatever it can get to. If at this point the Gorar is magically also within 6" of the center, you hit the Gorar. You should be able to leave Recalled Training since this beater should not be anywhere in sight until your 8th activation, which may well be after your opponent has done his last activation. You can then start the next turn, pop RT and kill something else. Whether you bother ever removing that hungry hippo marker or not is very much up to you.

Don't forget about his Titania. She is a couple of inches closes with the possibility to place and debuff the target, unless he targets Titania.

You can only hit the Gorar if you have vision on him. As he can stand behind both the Emissary and the building, I would like to know how you would actually hit him? Sure Izamu is 3" with 3" range. doesn't help you when Gorar is 4" away from you or hiding behind the Emissary.

You also expect to win the Initiative flip for turn 2. If you lose that flip, you lose your biggest threat in your crew. That's a pretty big gamble in my opinion.

Not sure how you're going to remove the Hazardous Terrain. It can only be removed by hitting an enemy model with blasts and then overlapping the blast with the marker. You need to place at least a chain blast to reach the marker. I might be missing something here, so I hope you can solve this riddle for me.

51 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

If your opponent doesn't bring out the Emissary at the start you can easily fill the space where the first marker would go. With that you've forced an opening into the center bubble and can proceed to shoot and ultimately charge or drag in enemies that try to come within 8", since that is about their maximum range.

Titania's place made the threat range around 10", which would make it longer than Izamu's charge threat range. Would need a Yasunori for that.

51 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

Hell, you can "From the Shadow" your Sniper in that narrow gap and block your opponent from even getting there in the first place. Will cost you your Sniper (though he might catch a Gorar in the face), will also let you dump your entire party onto the center board before your opponent gets there.

Could have done that. I would then play 43ss vs 50ss game. He would then do thesame setup a bit further away. That would be beneficiial for me, I'll admit that. At that point in time it just becomes a slapping contest to see who breaks first. Given that they can break 2 models per turn if Teddy is in range, I don't feel confident that we can win such a punching match.

51 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

Sidir would've let you deal fair amounts of slow/damage or drain a lot of cards since they're all clustered up and deliver a final focussed Sh7/8 shot at a prime target to boot, all from the safe distance of 12", which again his 8" reach can't quite get to. 

I don't have Sidir, but I do feel he is a nice model. I'm just wondering howmany models you are bringing to the table now? Yu(PD) + Izamu (RT) + Sidir is already 32 stones. Add in a peasant for the 34 stones so you only have 16 stones left. Sure hope you aren't bringing the Emissary. Else you will have less than 9 models and lose the activation control you speak of. Good thing we have so many great models at around 5ss that aren't the TTB and your crew doesn't need any soulstone cache to operate.

51 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

You could've had a fast Lone Swordsman discard 2 of your 9 cards and maybe a Recalled Training to make absolutely sure you'd get rid of the Emissary and possibly more.

If your swordsman can do the sunrise on the first turn, you will not kill anything. He will just do the Titania place and you will be forced to attack Titania. 5 Attacks in a single turn COULD kill her, but you better have the right hand to back that up!

51 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

If you knew your opponent had a habit of running Fae you could've gone for Kang, who hands out free  flips to attack and damage to all undead, which seem to compose the key part of his crew. 

Instead of properly playing you suggest that I use pre-existing knowledge to screw over the opponent in order to sneak out a win. Wow .... just wow ...

51 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

Yasunori would essentially be an Izamu who doesn't need to even get in anyone's threat range by any stretch of the imagination, AND be immune to the markers. 

And-so-on and-so-on.

Yasunori does indeed have a 12" threat range. He could stand outside of the marker, outside the range of the opponent and go crazy inthere. So again: howmany models are you planning on bringing in these crews? Your plan requires activation advantage and you're taking all these big beatstick models or big support models.

51 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

Ultimately, if you find the abilities these models bring so troublesome that you can't play around them, kill them. That is what it will boil down to. And there's various ways to do that. All of them involve putting yourself out there, however. Which is only fair, since by using these abilities your opponent is putting himself out there as wel. With Df5 in a lot of cases, to boot. And somehow he is doing great.

Killing them is indeed key. You have to kill the Emissary before he can place down the second marker. If you don't, the rest of your crew will be in hell in trying to score points for the Strategy.

By focussing Emissary, you let his Teddy and Tooth roam free doing whatever they want.

You also have to cover more distance than the opponent as he can safely stay on his side of the board with a threat range of the entire Extraction area while you have to pull everything together to even get close to him and cheat a high card OR take 1/4/5 damage (1/2/3 in case of Izamu).

51 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

Now I'm sure you can list the numerous ways this might all go wrong because a Sh 6 against a Df 6 will naturally fail or do min damage no matter how much focus you've got coming out of your ass, and your opponent with that very last activation will always have the exact right model to walk 15" and 8" lure your last model and then somehow your model will be unable to do anything in its activation because reasons so you might as well not bother - but maybe, just maybe, you can try actually considering how this might work. Not how it will without a shadow of a doubt fail. How it could work. Maybe you on your streak of horrible losses and bad results versus the thread full of people who seem to do quite well have a slightly different, if not warped, perspective on this. Maybe all the wins of the people here aren't just a series of flukes and maybe there actually is something to what the people here say. 

Howmany high cards are you planning on having in your hand? IF everything goes perfect, then your strategy WILL work. I'm not denying that. HOWEVER you have to be realistic. You don't have 9 ghigh cards in your hand. You will have max 3 high cards in hand after using the LRM/Emissary combo. Are you still sure you want to cheat those damage flips from sniper for that?

Your plan expects your opponent to herpderp do whatever without seeing what you are doing. The opponent also reacts to the situation. The alpha strike is very easily spotted in 10 Thunders, let's not kid ourselves there. He'll just stay back a bit more or place his models a bit differently to handle the alpha.

In doing an alpha strike, you sacrifice the model being thrusted forward. You kill the Emissary, that's great! You just traded your beater for their Emissary while most of their damage is still intact. You've only placed a slight hindrance in the Neverborn plan while you lose the biggest stick you had lying around. THIS is where I have a problem with the strategy that you proposed. Am I maybe not seeing how your model will survive an alpha up to 16" away from the closest healer? If you can show me the benefit of this, perhaps I'll see why this strategy could work.

Also, you just explained my first bullet of my summary. If this was your reaction to the "dozens of other options", it did not work.

1 hour ago, Tokapondora said:

The dozen or so other things said in this thread.

Yes, the Sidir trick which came down to thesame thing as Izamu. I grouped them together.

Anything else? Checked the thread, all came down to thesame. Flank and lose points and just take the damage and alpha him through mid.

48 minutes ago, Joachim said:

- Tbh: having 9 cards and/or stoning for cards gives you an above average hand by definition. If you had some bad hands even for a couple of games than that is no flaw in tactic or models being bad, that is just luck of the draw. And in that case this entire discussion is also mute. 

- Why would you only get minimum damage versus a df5 model with no other defensive tricks? you're minimum even with that or higher and you have access to a lot of focus, and the sniper has built in plus flips. With focussed attacks you will get a lot of straight flips for damage. Saying that you'll only hit weak damage is a very worst case scenario way of thinking and also very unrealistic.

 

In conclusion: Knowing you personally and having played a lot of games I think you need to be more positive and focus less on random effects such as card draw and not compare as was said earlier your worst case scenario versus the stars aligning and always hitting with everything for the opponent. With that way of thinking every faction in the game will be the worst. Let's just have some fun next game

 

You know the shitty luck I had with my hands so far. Second turn I stoned for cards, used the LRM/Emissary trick AND STILL only got 2 high cards.

SNiper hitting minimum is something you saw happen as well. Get straight flip for damage, get a minimum damage. Looks at hand and either have to cheat 1 of the 2 high cards I have for severe or go with the min damage. Cheating out 1/2 high cards you have leaves you open for the rest of the game. You give your opponent free reign over you and he can do as he pleases as long as he has a single high card in hand. You should also be able to verify that as that's what happened in the last 3-4 games we played. Neverborn have so many high card burning effects that you just HAVE to let some through if you don't want to give over complete control.

You've seen my card draw in the game. Lost turn 4 and 5 on games where I had twice your models due to cards (Bettari got 4 chances to kill something and still didn't get a single good flip so she died).

But that's just my card luck in general -.-

9 hours ago, Joachim said:

1. I must admit that the map in combination with the strat and scheme pool were perfect for titania so I picked her (I also own zoraida).

2. I fairly quickly killed a TTB (unfortunately with Titania, which was a mistake as frame for murder was in the pool) so one flank was gone and the opponent never moved up the other flank which allowed me to set up in the center of the board without worrying about any of the flanks anymore. 

3. There wasn't really a huge damage threat from any one model such as a fast pushed izamu or lone swordsman. Everything in my army had df5 (teddy has df3), so that really sucks against ten thunders and all of their focus, but the lack of a big threatening beater made me feel a bit safer.

4. You stayed back with everything, allowing me to set up my hazardous terrain while only losing my emissary at the top of turn 3, get rougarou and tooth into position, and let teddy and titania move up to the left flank and already threaten the only safe place for you to get into the extraction zone. Also making sure that models are partially behind terrain prevents them from being pushed which is something that was mentioned a couple of times.

I think I would have used all the crazy movement 10thunders has to move into and around the upper building and push through the severe terrain on the other flank or push something like an izamu past one hazardous terrain marker. But move up pieces and apply pressure as it was very easy for me to control the flow of the game after turn 1. In this game with this crew I think you would have needed to uses blasts from focus with sniper, emissary and shenlong. Then you can easily remove the gorar and start taking down my models.

 

In summary I think ten thunders have various very solid models, as well as some great upgrades. One of the most annoying things to go up against is their crazy amount of pushes in combo with fast which can make any beater extremely dangerous. They also have tons of focus, effectively denying cover. Against df5 neverborn models thats scary to go up against.

I hope these comments help.

1. Can't argue with that

2. Turn 2 he died and you managed you pull something else close as well with your 8" place. Flanking means giving up Extraction points, while you get to place the marker 3".

3. That was a mistake on my part, your emissary had def6. Some of them were in hard cover, most in soft cover.

4. You placed down the first hazardous terrain before I could have  reasonably pushed myself beyond it. If I pushed myself that far up that early in the turn (activation 1-2-3), you would have 8" placed that model with Titania and then Lured it with Tooth. I don't plan on throwing away a big model turn 1.

Can't use blasts from sniper if you have an average hand. I needed to use the LRM combo to actually get a card that was 12+ so I could guarantee a hit was going through. Also don't forget I need to get a moderate damage for the blast to actually activate.

Tons of focus is only within 6" of Shenlong. Even then he requires that model to sacrifice it's own 0 action. Most Ten Thunders models have good 0 actions, so this is not always a boon. For the sniper, yeah sure. Lone swordsman? Hell no! Izamu in the middle of an opposing crew? Hell no! Sensei Yu? Arguable whether or not you want to spend a 6 to try and get the second condition from SHenlong's 0 or not. If you need to switch stance, this isn't an option.

6 hours ago, anencephalous said:

Firstly, everyone here is keen to defend the TT, which is fine, people do that. But it bears noting that we are not a strong faction. I don't believe is it controversial to say with this year's schemes we are a mid placed faction at best. Last year we were a bit stronger, and even then no one was saying we were the best faction, or even the top three. We certainly are not the worst, but if you go back and scan over tournament results, you usually wont see a disproportionate number of TT players clustered towards the top end. If faction power is important to you, you may indeed be playing the wrong thing. It is also worth noting, however, that Neverborn are also not top of the pile. There is a big gap between the powerful Dreamer (even with the cuddle) and the rest of their leaders.

That having been said, TT are solid, and can win games. One problem with the faction is that we specialise in movement and support, and that requires a lot more experience to win games than many other factions. I know I lost a lot of TT games when I started playing, because I couldn't work out what to do with all the possibilities of a TT turn, and I didn’t have enough Malifaux spacial awareness to know where my guys should go.

On to some specifics. Firstly, if the hazardous terrain is annoying you, bring a crew that doesn’t care. Huggy, Ama No Zako, Yasunori, Yin, Chiaki and Tengu all ignore terrain, so bring some of them.

Secondly, if lures are a problem, we are literally the best faction to counter it. We have anti-move tech coming out the wazoo. We have heaps of Laugh Off as well as Braced on Fuhatsu. Strongest is Sidir with By Your Side, since he has Laugh off, which makes the first lure in a big area a waste. Finally, if you get pushed out of position, we always have a model to bring that model back just as easily. If all that fails, you can just merc in Anna Lovelace, although here that seems overkill! The Smoke Grenade upgrade is usually good anti-lure tech, but here you have mostly short ranged pulls, so it is less effective in this case.

Thirdly, I often find the best counter to a lure play is a lure. If you split up the lurer's/pouncers, they are much less effective, and either give up a model or waste lures bringing it back. We have Beckoners (w/Lynch) and Oirans (conditionally) at 18”. Performs are a steal at 6ss and have 12”. After that you have as many pushes as you brought – Lust, Sensei Yu etc, to bring them closer, or just shoot them down. Against that crew the WP 5 Rougarou seems the optimal target. Get him away from terrain, away from lures for pounce, and focus him down (he has only HtK for defence).

I've never gone into a gam thinking "I can do this better than the opposing faction". Movement tricks are fun, but suck when movement is being punished (ex hazardous terrain, Extraction/Guard the Stash).

I'm not denying I have won games. The games I won were because the oppoent was just trying out models or I got a full counter setup (shenlong with emissary/LRM vs Zoraida focussed on conditions).

The Hazardous Terrain is an 8" circle. If you stop in the circle, you have to take the duel. Since models only ignore terrain while moving, they have to take the effects after ending a walk/push in it.

I will not deny fighting lure with lure/push makes sense. The thing is I first have to go through a hazardous terrain with 1/4/5 damage. Rougarou has 5 def, but 9 wounds and HtK. Since our min damage in faction is low, we will need a lot of attacks to get him down.

What this thread has provided as solutions so far:

1. Place Izamu up front and go for extreme alpha strike.  Be prepared to lose Izamu the second turn while the opponent sacrifices Gorar to get his minion back.

2. Go through the Hazardous Terrain and try to lure/push your enemy out of position, preferable also in the Terrain. While this helps, it requires me to bring several models also into the Terrain. He can sacrifice the Gorar to get the model back AT THE CENTER OF THE MAP. I might get points for Extraction but he has more models there and gets to place it 3" further away from me.

3. Place Izamu in the Terrain and blast him. I like how spending 2 complete activations in order to remove a 0 action sounds like a fair trade of power.

ANything I missed?

27 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Oh, thanks! Paint is a higher form of art  

You declare factions after you see the map in normal games but if you are practicing for a tournament this seems like a really smart system.

 

Nothing in your opponent's list has a range of more than 8" and all those models look like they're well into their side of the zone so you should have been able to hold it from your side. Did you walk the two brothers up there and protect markers while healing and pushing with Shenlong and shooting with your sniper? Something like that is what I would have done probably. The rougarou hits hard but shouldn't be too fond of that sniper barrage. Considering a crew that bunched up and the possibility of sending in a fast, recalled training:d Shenlong with that fire blast attack to just go apeshit on them and you should be looking at an awful lot of damage. Alternatively you could use the Emissary to give his and the sniper's ordinary attacks blasts on all focused damages. 

 

Claim jump should have been easily done on one of the flanks.

It's not really done for that. I only have Ten Thunders where my opponent has several factions,including Lady J, Zoraida and Rasputina with December acolytes. The acolytes are imo on a whole different level compared to our sniper, but that's a discussion for another time.

My paint skills weren't great as I mentioned. The full 6" of Extraction zone that I could stand in were all covered by the Hazardous Terrain. If I wanted points, I had to go inside of the damage zone. Since I didn't have an Izamu, all my models would take full damage. Going inside the zone would open me up to the place effect from Titania and then the Tooth + Rougarou combo that I mentioned.

My starting hand was not great, only 2 high cards. I used the LRM-Emissary combo, but they also gave me lower-end cards oround 6-ish. Because I tried going for the Sniper 2x sh6, I bruned through those high cards but got really bad luck on the damage flips. I wonder which goddess I angered for all my bad luck.

I should have gone for claim jump, but thought my crew could hold out long enough for me to just Mighty Gust a brother with 3 tokens at the end of the game. Unfortunately said brother died in turn 3 when Titania placed him next to her.

After turn 2 he always had the advantage of having more models in the Extraction zone, so he started moving it down 3" every turn. This forced me to bring my crew over the hazardous terrain marker and into range of the chokepoint which now had both markers and the Tooth-Rougarou killing combo with the Emissary providing backup. I tired providing cover fire with my Emissary, but he failed the walk duel and flipped a moderate for 4 damage. I cheated the flip for shenlong so he wouldn't take damage. Now that I think about it, only Yu managed to go through the Hazardous terrain without cheating. Needing a 9+ (wk5) is fairly brutal.

For the SHenlong blast to actually do damage, you need a severe hit. Else the damage drops back down to 1. It's something I used to kill off his Emissary, but by that time the game was already over.

42 minutes ago, necroon said:

The Terrain markers created by the Mysterious Emissary impact the opponents crew, as well, with the exception of the Emissary. They require a 4 or higher and the range in which they can be placed is not by any stretch of the imagination "far" at 6". They cannot be placed touching another model, Marker, or terrain. There can never be more then 2 of them, either. Make sure you aren't letting these damage flips be cheated as Hazardous damage is not cheatable (Rules Manual page 74). 

The Waldgeist looses his trees if he is moved or pushed: Airburst that sucker. Preferably into  the Hazardous terrain. No ? No Sh? No problem! Cameo and cover won't help Mr Waldy here and he won't take kindly to making that Walk duel. Sure it's probably only 1 damage but that's 1 damage and and out of position Waldgesit which is usually a dead Waldgesit. 

Airburst Thorn and the Rog away from eachother. Airburst Airburst Airburst. As primarily a Neverborn player I can safely say I both envy and loathe Airburst when I see it. I also really want to reiterate@Ludvig's points about straight pushes, terrain, and Tooth's Push. 

Sensai Yu should be able to use those markers to your advantage just as much as your opponent can, if not better, with Airburst's Range of 10". 

Can you highlight were the Tooth/Rog and Wald/Emissary set up their 1-2 punches on the map for turns 1,2, and 3, please? Or help me understand where they are getting situated? 

Ask and I shall comply. Please forgive my shoddy Paint skills.

My map highlights end of turn 1 with the second marker placed for reference.

The top-left H is the first Hazardous terrain marker placed down. The second was placed the turn afterwards.

Ti = Titania

R = Rougarou

To = Tooth

E = Emissary

WG = Waldgeist

The 2 empty circles are the terrain the WG placed down

The crates (square with X in them) are height 2 blocking, climbable.

I started on the top-right of the map to maximize the amount of area my sniper could cover. My opponent started more in the center to avoid my sniper as much as possible. Because I had to deploy first, my opponent could counter my deployment.

9 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

If there is a chokepoint you can try to get a scheme marker there, should be doable quite early game. Now the hungry hippo -erm- land marker can't be placed. it would be fun to see the board, some of this sounds like it had to do with you creating a really unbalanced board before the game. Blocking off too much of the access to the strategy with impassable terrain isn't very good. What if you had faced Raspy or Sonnia who can straight up deny you a part of the board for the entire game?!

We have a rotation of 6 different maps which were inspired by tournament maps we've seen passing in the battle reports. Before each match (friendly) we roll a die and setup the terrain accordingly. This map would have been a good map if it hadn't been for Extraction. Every type of map has it upsides and downsides and you have to live with them. Factions were declared before maps were rolled so no unfair advantage on that point.

1 minute ago, santaclaws01 said:

He should be able to get it off two focused shots turns one and two all at Sh6. Sensei Yu is walk 7, he can very easily hand a little back, and Shenlong's aura is big enough that he can be in position at the top of turn 2 to give the sniper (0) focus and be in position to get to the center of the board. And why are you only on min damage? You have focus shooting into a bunch of Df 5 models, you should very easily be able to get off severe multiple times.

 

I explained the situation in a previous post. First he lets the walgeist make the cover and then he stands behind it. This means you have 1 + to attack instead of 2. 

3 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

Also the Emissary can only place down 1 a turn at range 6, so he's either over-extending on turn one or not placing two down until turn 3. This makes him a prime target to be picked off by the sniper because at worst he can put you on a single negative flip. for damage.

Due to the wording "within range and LoS", the actual area he can place it maximum is 6" + 49mm keeping 1mm of the marker within range and LoS. This is a whole lot more than just 6". Unless I've been duped by him and we've played it wrong? That could also be a case and could remove a LOT of the frustration of said marker.

8 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

Then hold Izamu slightly back and push him into position after Tooth moves, or go for the Rougarou after it gets in position to pounce on the Tooth's target. You have access to 19" of pushing on Izamu, or whatever beater you go with. Use it.

If you station Izamu inside of his own charge range to the models, he will be able to be lured himself. If you wait until Tooth moves, your opponent will already have lured another model and messed you up or used Titania to bring something to her. Kind of hard to charge when you're engaged.

10 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

How was Shenlong getting pushed? You're at Df 6 with two upgrades you can use to boost your Df. LRS gives you defensive like candy and HRS allows you to flat out boost your Df above what your opponent can flip or cheat to. And again, LRS is only 1 part of the equation. Misdirection is the real key here, because it allows you to shunt off the attacks that hit you onto your opponent's models unless they discard. Have a problem with Hungry land markers still? Well Shenlong can get 2 focused attacks off a turn to get rid of them and still have a third AP to attack with. Or he can heal up a model 6-12 wds a turn, along with himself healing another 2 at the end of each turn because of Equality.

Teddy ripped Shenlong apart (Rip ml7) and Teddy can push-follow him automatically. Defensive is indeed what kept shenlong alive for a bit longer, but even he can only hold out so long against a dedicated teddy hellbent on killing him. Misdirection only works if there is another model closeby and that just wasn't the case. Just shenlong and Teddy duking it out in hazardous terrain. Teddy has regeneration 2, so he was at a slight advantage there. Now I will admit I had some bad luck and rolled a severe on the terrain damage, which made sure Shenlong could never try and do anything back and was already throwing everything just staying alive.

Also don't forget that defensive gained from Low River Style only lasts until end of turn and not start of next activation. Ever seen a Teddy flurry a shenlong without defensive after he wins initiative flip? It's not pretty for Shenlong.

You can only have 1 Equality so it's either on Izamu or on Shenlong. If only we could have it on both

I had a choice: swap style on shenlong ,get rid of 1 hungry land marker and then lose master and Emissary OR try to delay the inevitable and go for healing flips. I chose the latter and it didn't work out. I can argue that at that point in time the game was already lost. Turn 2 my opponent could move away the Extraction marker 3" and thereby forever keep it out of my range. Due to my stubborn healing , I managed to get 2 points from it and 3 point from Frame for Murder, but my opponent got 9 points. He could have gotten 10, but actually forgot to cash in 1 point.

I'd argue that this time the map and scheme pool were just not in my favor. Having the hazardous terrain in the single chokepoint leading to the Extraction marker is BS especially with the amount of terrain that marker covers. It covers 8 inch of death zone. Since you have to walk fully through it with your base and all, even the smaller models need to have a move of 9 inch and in Izamu's case 10" if they want to skip the duel.

2 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

Why is your Sh6 sniper with a double positive to hit and single positive to damage having trouble hitting a Df6 model? Queen's Champion does nothing while on Titania. TT has plenty of ways to hand out focus and positives mean your opponent having positives isn't an issue and you can very easily get rid of the hazardous terrain markers. Also you seem to be ignoring terrain as well if that single 8" push is able to get your models in for killing.

And are you forgetting that Izamu has armor? He shouldn't be down 6 wounds from just Tooth's activation, especially when he can heal himself. We also have the best way to mess with Titania's scheme markers, because she's dropping them all near models, just use Mighty Gust on a model and move 3 of the scheme markers up to 8" back. A condition to only be able to attack Titania isn't an issue when you have 3 models with condition removal.

Also you're talking about anything with Ml/Sh5 is apparently useless(they aren'tt), but the majority of your opponent's crew is Df 5. The only model with higher than Df5 is the Emissary and the Gorar. So for the most part you'll be having a stat advantage while attacking. And if you're really worried about putting a model into her crew, grab Shenlong with LRS, Equality and Misdirection. He can literally just hang out in your opponents crew the rest of the game forcing your opponent to attack his own models.

Sniper has sh5, not sh6. He only has sh6 when he uses focus when being within 3" of Sensei Yu. That happens in first turn and after that never again. Due to soft cover, his attack has a single + flip which means you need to get lucky to do better than min damage, which is 2.

Regarding Izamu's damage: Tooth can put 3 attacks on him (3 damage) into Rougarou who pounces into him (another 3 wounds). Izamu takes at least 1 wound from going through the terrain unless you spend a 10+ card on not taking that. If the Neverborn player gets Red Joker on any of those damage actions, he cuts down Izamu before he can even activate.

My shenlong actually did have Low River Style, but he only got close enough once to use it. Then he got pushed into the hazardous terrain 3" every single turn ticking up damage onto him. Eventually he had to start healing his own wounds. By the time that happened, most of my crew was dead. The sniper did indeed try valiantly, but shooting into engagements just isn't his thing. Got the worst luck and had to target my own model who was engaged with 3 others...

47 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

Why do we have to look out for all this terrain that doesn't seem to hinder your opponent's perfect positioning one bit? Clearly they have plenty of space to manoeuvre without a hitch but somehow we are stopped dead in our tracks when we want to push or shoot or charge or do anything. Ultimately only you know your terrain and how to play around it, but those are decisions you will have to make playing the game. Just as your advances can be thwarted by terrain, so can theirs. Your crew is much more mobile so you should be able to get into a much stronger position quickly. If you find them being able to set everything up perfectly while you can only watch in horror as their insidious trap opens its maws before you, you might want to have a look at the board setup. 

In your game, your list was too weak. If the Emissary is your only big gun you know you've messed up crew assembling. Well surprise, your opponent can now tear its way through your crew without fear of retribution. Shenlong is indeed a force multiplier. If your crew consists of an Emissary and a sniper for offense, there is fuckall to multiply. It was neither sturdy nor scary enough, and it sounds like you've encountered similar set-ups before so you knew what you could expect.

In your mind, everything your opponent does will work 100% and everything you do will fail. This will make you see any action you take as an autoloss, make you afraid to take actions, and as a result you'll get whittled away as your opponent carries out as he pleases. I could counter everything you've described with my pitch involving absolute perfect board position, a godly hand, plus flips out of the ass and the stars and planets aligning, but that's not what's going to happen. 

 

Ultimately if you really feel TT isn't for you, by all means switch, but it isn't suddenly going to solve the problems you have. Those you can only solve through listening to advice and moreso trying to envision how that advice would work. People aren't suggesting you random stuff, they suggest it for a reason. Try seeing how it could work, rather than trying to see how it would fail. Because as it is now it feels you're trying to find vindication of your sense of helplessness, rather than genuinely look for advice.

 

My apologies if this comes across as harsh, but I've been dealing with players in similar positions and the core what it boils down to is that they will not listen. They'll gladly complain and sulk and call it unfair, but any notion of advice people give get brushed aside with an It's no use and It's just these models. It's become this insurmountable wall for them and they can't see past how it snagged them the previous times. 

Next time, try asking your opponent why he felt it was so easy. Ask him what things he felt were lacking from your side of the table and what allowed him to carry on so uninterrupted. Listen to people, and don't be afraid to actually try new things.

Please look at the terrain waldgeist creates. Please look at the terrain the Emissary creates.

Emissary terrain just plops down on your part of the map and you can't do anything against it. Well, you can hit your own model in it with a blast attack. Great plan, right? Wasting so many resources jus to get rid of a 0 action that comes back next turn.

I have included a drawing of the map we were playing on. In the center there were 2 houses, the left side is a climbable hill 2" height. Some crates and severe terrain. The triangle are dense forests. 

I was on the top side of the map. My opponent placed his waldgeist next to the building and plopped his cover terrain. Then my opponent put his Emissary in cover of that new terrain and put down a hazardous terrain marker on the alleyway leading to the center. This blocked the entire alleyway for me unless I was prepared to take all the hazardous terrain checks against him.

A bit later he put down a second piece of the hazardous terrain and yes, they stack. Going through the alleyway from turn 2 would require 2 high cards or a possibility of 2x 1/4/5 damage. he placed the first marker a bit more to my building while the second was placed to make sure I had to take a really long way around the building. Such a long way that I would have to give up Extraction points while he could move the Extraction marker as he pleased.

Now that I have included the map, you might understand the dilemma a bit more.

6 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

...

Good points and I agree with you. However our faction doesn't have that many terrifying models. I know of Huggy and Illuminated. Are there others?

I don't know McCabe as I've never even seen him in my local meta, so I will take your word as a veteran McCabe player. I'd argue against putting saber on something as squishy as a wastrel though as the Tooth lure runs automatically into a Rougarou as well. That's 2 ml6 +flip attacks against a def 4 wd 5 Wastrel. But you can always throw the saber on something a bit more durable and it will have great succes indeed.

9 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

....

If you save Izamu as your last activation, you will still have done all your pushes before my last activation. if I saved up Titania, I will do a place on you that forces you to target me.

I feel like almost nobody here is taking terrain into account and just playing on a blank map. Sniper will have difficulty hitting due to cover. His focus gets around that, but def 6 is really bad news for the sh6 sniper.

In my game I killed their Emissary on T2. My emissary got pulled into his, but managed to land the final blow thanks to blasts. then my emissary died. I got shenlong into range and started havoc, but Teddy came around and murdered half my crew with his ml7 and thus managing to constantly move the Extraction marker. At the end of turn 4 I only had 1 peasant, 1 Sniper and Yu. The rest had died to the terrain, Teddy or Tooth + Rougarou. Props to Titania for doing an 8" place on my brother and getting him eaten by teddy.. I managed to cross the centerline with 3 models who died while trying to give me Extraction points.

My high cards were either used on winning duels to keep a model alive for an AP longer, not taking damage from terrain or getting unlucky 13 flips on terrain damage (happened 2 times ...).

Neverborn Emissary with the standard conflux should almost always have priority in killing as he's a force multiplier on the level of SHenlong and Yu combined with the +-flips in a faction that thrives on their minions. At least that's how I see it.

9 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

I'm surprised at how much faith you have in his 6 card hand while your 9 card hand doesn't even get a looking at. Or, conversely, have the Shadow Emissary put up his focus aura, and while the sniper takes shots at either of them guarding the Gorar with a focus blasting his way into the Gorar, a 0 focussed Izamu can deliver that second blow, blasting the Gorar to pieces and then kill one and possibly get the other down a notch.

edit; also, how are these models both in perfect position and luring you in while then also being able to both activate and dedicate all of their attacks on this Izamu that should really just be standing about 9" away when your crew initially outactivates him? Again, 90% of this seems to be in your head.

I am starting from a turn 2 perspective.

You have 9 activation thanks to summoning a peasant, he has 8 activations.The opponent stays out of izamu charge range (6" charge +3" attack range). even after 10" push from Shenlong + Emissary. You can dedicate all your pushes to him and get him up 16", which is almost at the center. Can't hide from him then.

However, if you push up that far, you will have done 3 activations so far: LRM, Emissary and Shenlong. Those 3 allow your opponent plenty of time to get in position. If your alpha strike gets read (which it most likely will), they can turn it against you quite easily. Titania can give you a condition that forces you to attack her or discard 2 cards to even be able to attack. If she has "The Queen's Champion" on her, you can't even kill her with your 4 AP.and you are 6" into the enemy deployment zone ready to be combo'd to infinity by the combo I described.

The 9-card hand is quite a big deal as it will help you survive some more. You might even get lucky and get 4 high cards (11+). Just remember the opponent also has 6 cards in his hand and + flips to all attacks. You WILL need to burn some of those high cards. More high cards in hand = less in deck = you will need to cheat more. At least, that's been the situation for me. I must have really bad luck with the cards then I guess?

I'm guessing I've been getting really bad card luck for the past year then?

6 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

You're setting up a worst case scenario imo. In your example your opponent is always flipping really well and you're flipping badly. I'd also suggest caring less about taking damage. 10T is probably the second strongest healing faction and even so, there are acceptable losses. If it wasn't scoring you points, it wasn't that big of a deal to lose.

Kill the Gorar first.

I agree with your assessment to a certain point. My assessment shows that you need to cheat a whole lot more cards than your opponent. It seems likely that will happen due to all the +-flips he gets. I don't mind sacrificing a model, but that combo can 1-turn kill swordsman (or Izamu if they get lucky) before he can even retaliate.

Killing Gorar is not so easy as you need to have LoS on him to engage. The bases of Rougarou and Tooth aren't small by any means (50mm iirc) and he can easily hide behind them. He just has to be within 6" of the center of the board. If there's terrain to cover his sides, he's even safer. The only way I can see to really get to him is by taking a sniper up high and shoot him. But he has 6 def, so that's not really going to be great.

4 minutes ago, Cadaverousbirth said:

Here's a fun situation. Shen and the Emissary push Izamu up with Fast. When they Lure him he may take 1-2 points of hazardous damage and get a couple free attacks on him doing 2-4 damage total after armor. Then they have a 4AP Izamu in their face with RT, who can also heal himself, and smash face. Not even including the free attack given from the Knight, nor the free attack he gets if he dies later. Sounds fine to me.

1 point of terrain damage means he has 8 wounds left. def 4 vs ml6 on + flip means all 6 attacks go through. They get +-flip from trigger on 2 attacks, which puts them on neutral flip to cheat. Let's ignore that for a bit and say they just do min damage on all flips. That's 6 damage taken, Izamu only has 2 wounds left.

Izamu activates and goes to town on them.

Tooth has 7 wounds armor +1 and hard to wound def5 vs ml6.You will not be able to cheat damage unless you focus. Killing her will take at least 2 AP if you don't focus and get good flips (possible thanks to RT).

Rougarou has 9 wounds and hard to kill. Killing him will require at least 3 AP of your Izamu.

You can only kill 1 of them and that one comes back via the sacrifice of a Gorar.

You can do your healing flip and heal up 2 wounds (3 if lucky) and get back on 4 wounds from death.

The enemy can then activate either Rougarou or their Emissary and finish the job.

Your Izamu might be able to live through the turn if you did your activations right, but he will drop the next. You have lost a 12 (due to recalled training) ss model while they have lost a Gorar.

12 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

I've heard many players argue McCabe is a lot better in thunders. I usually play him in guild myself and have only tried a game or two in the thunders. You could try to search the forums for the discussion on McCabe and read pros and cons for yourself from players who havetried both variants more.

You could try getting Titania yourself (or borrow her for a game) and see if it is as easy as you think. Thatis usually very helpful to identify what moves your opponent does that shut you down.

Mei Feng with vent steam a couple of times would mean that your opponent will be at a bunch of negatives unless trying to ml you (in which case they are suffering damage from their own hazardous terrain). If you pick a crew with good wk values or that can take the damage on the chin you will force your opponent to come to you and disrupt their plan.

Point taken. I will look up some more intel on McCabe instead of just relying on the people from my local meta.

The problem for me is not really Titania, but more the strong minions that the Neverborn have. Getting something like Tooth and Rougarou in the 6" bubble of the Emissary makes them extreme forces to deal with. Getting a +-flip on almost everything you do is really, really strong. It allows Tooth to cheat the lure against Yasunori, even though Yasunori has a built in - flip to wp targetting. Getting ml6 attacks with + flips onto it is also really strong. These minions are dishing out thesame amount of damage as an Izamu or LS just because they have ml6 +flip. This damage will come additionally to the damage you took from walking through the hazardous terrain placed by the Emissary.

It feels to me that a lot of people here are looking at a lot of things separately and then it's pretty OK and I'm just overreacting. I'll try and demonstrate what I mean.

You have 21 cards that are 9+ to pass the walk duel from the hazardous terrain. Even if you pass all the checks, you need to bring in at least 3 people through the terrain in order not to take the damage. That leaves you with 18 9+ cards left in your deck and hand combined. You will not get everything lucky flipped, so you have to cheat at least 1 of those 3. So now you lost a decent card from your hand and have less options of manipulating results. Tooth challenges you with a +-flip. You will have to cheat this one if you don't want to get closer to Tooth.  You get unlucky and your opponent cheats higher. Now you've lost 2 high cards from your hand and your opponent 1. You are at 17 9+ cards in your deck and hand due to cheating. You get pushed to Tooth next to Rougarou. Rougarou can take a pounce ml6 with a +-flip thanks to the Emissary. You decide to take the duel and lose, but don't burn a high card. You take 2 damage because the opponent got minimum damage. You can now take an attack against Tooth (Challenge of Summer), which fails. She can take an attack against you which you cheat in order not to get into the push chain with Rougarou.

Current situation: 17 9+ cards left, you took 2 damage and your hand is thinned out by 2 high cards.

Tooth attacks. with ml6 +flip. You have to cheat this one, because else she gets a push which will once again trigger Rougarou. This happens a total of 2 times. Even if you manage to cheat all those away, you have needed to cheat 4!! high cards. It seams reasonable to assume the other player also has some decent cards.

You don't have enough cards to save your model from a single activation by Tooth unless Tooth gets really unlucky on the +-flip attacks. Tooth's damage track is 2/3/4 with a trigger to get +-flip on damage. Rougarou has 2/3/4 with rams trigger for +-flip on damage.

You somehow manage to survive the carnage, push Tooth or Rougarou into the hazardous terrain and kill them. Gorar gets sacrificed and the minion is resummoned (and can activate again because it's a "new" minion).

This is the situation I'm describing and only features 4 models: Gorar (backup plan in case a minion dies), Tooth, Rougarou and and Emissary within 6" of both to give +-flips to attack. Yes, I admit this is a heavy investment in Soulstone cost. 25 Soulstone cost, but you get a whole lot in return. 3" past centerline is now Hazardous terrain that your opponent has to cross if he wants to get points. Your opponent can go via the sides, but then loses out on victory points. The first model your oppoent puts in the hazardous terrain will die due the ca6 +flip wp Challenge of Summer that brings you into the Rougarou death loop.

I have had this happen several games and I just can't see a way out of it. Because of the combo between Tooth and Rougarou, I feel like there is no way to actually get close to those models and be able to kill one of them. And even if you kill 1 of them, sacrifice the Gorar and get it back with a renewed "Slow" activation.

14 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

@whodares

With McCabe as your master you can careen into them, likely killing something decent. When you charge you try to make sure that you end up in base to base contact with a couple of lurers so that you are immune to lures from those models. You will also have df 7, wp 6 qith positives. Not sure if I would use the Yasinpri there.

When placing markers through any means except interacts it is allowed to place the markers in a pile under the base of the model. That makes them really hard to remove with most marker-targeting abilities (especially if  the model is Sidir who can't be moved or pushed by enemies).

There is always the problem of lists not winning games but playstyles winning (and I don't have time to try and make a good list today, might try tomorrow). 

If they are scoring for extraction they can't reasonably be safe from your models at the same time.

Focusing into aoft cover still lets you cheat damage. That and not being at a negative to hit is rhe major thing (except or snipers who also have plus flips built in).

I admit I don't have McCabe and haven't seen much of him. Feedback from other players tells me he is much stronger when played in Guild, which would disqualify him for me. If the feedback I've gotten about him is wrong, I will retract my words and admit you are right.

Placing markers un a model or closeby a model for StR means that model will be forced to go into the hazardous terrain and subsequently into lure range as well. I am not sure how that "Laugh Off" works against a place effect, but my gut tells me that a place effect also doesn't work on him. He could blockade the markers for a couple of turns, but you just have to make sure you don't move him in the slightest or he can take another hazardous terrain duel. But I will agree with you that Sidir would be a good choice IF the rest of the crew lived long enough to actually allow you to stand on the markers.

I played a sniper, but the sh5 is his biggest weakness. He got 2 shots with Yu in proximity, so he got 2x sh6 at the start. That was about the only time he ever did damage. Sh5 isn't reliable and he also can't shoot into engagements. I find Sniper to have been good in the second book when he came out, but has been lackluster afterwards. This is more a problem with the power creep that has been introduced slightly in Malifaux of which a very good thread passed a while ago. The conclusion was the average Def and WP of models has been increasing whenever a new book came out and that pretty much doomed all sh5 - ml5 models. It's the reason why you never soo a Jorogumo. 9ss minion with ml5 ... Have fun sending a 9ss model on scheme runner killer duty.

25 minutes ago, Cadaverousbirth said:

The salt is overflowing.

I think part of the problem is that you're playing into Titania's game too much. She eats scheme markers and loves placing down her own...so don't take those schemes.

Also Ten Thunder Brother's have that aura where friendly scheme markers can't be removed so that should help a lot, unless Titania can get around that (I'm not sure).

So, game plan for this pool.

Shenlong, Wandering, Servant of 5 Dragons(cuz Neverborn), LRM upgrade

Peasant

Emissary, Dawn Conflux

LRM

Lone Swordsman, RT

Izamu, Equality

TTB x2

Kill them and hold the middle. Score Search the Ruins with the TTB after they're dead, or push up afterwards for Breaththrough. You should be aggressive, and likely trade 2 VP for Frame (Swordsman) so that's a wash. Hungry Land markers are...not...that...scary. Sure it's a 14 Walk duel, so save some cards for it if you're nervous. Izamu doesn't care with his Armor+2 and heals from Shen/LRM/Equality, and the Emissary can be behind, smashing fools with his 'free' Focus+2. Remember those Silurids? Try hiding when I still have a +/+.

Dropped Yu since Titania will eat his markers anyways and you should be focused on killing things. Shen and Emissary provide all the crew support needed to get to, and hold the middle.

OR, you can give up, sell your stuff, and play Neverborn. It's up to you, if 10T don't speak to you (and apparently you can't be swayed into liking them), don't play them.

 

Salt is overflowing indeed because I find that our faction needs a boost.

Titania cannot get past the TTB scheme marker protection directly, but she has a ca6 vs wp duel (wp5) for brother that places him in base contact with her. Protection of markers is now gone.

You mention to kill them and hold the middle. Do note they have lure and pushes into pounce. In order to get close to them, you walk through hazardous terrain. Please don't tell me you think your opponent will let you heal your models before luring them away out of range of your healers.

You place a model to the front and it gets instantly lured into rougarou and Tooth. Lone swordsman dies from that as his only protection is Hard to Kill (and bulletproof, but that doesn't help against melee attacks). Izamu can hold it down a turn, but you have to move your entire force through the Hazardous terrain in order to be able to heal him AND get in range for the Extraction scheme. So we get to the end of turn 2 and either your entire force has taken damage from the Marker or did not get in range for Extraction. In case of the second point, the marker is now placed 3" further away from you. Good luck in getting anymore points from it in that case.

I understand what you're trying to do here, but this is a "Good in Theory" crew. Due to Gorar the first minion you kill comes back. Even if you send your Izamu or LS on a suicide mission, the model they killed comes back and you are down on a big damage dealer.

Save some cards for the walk duel from hazardous terrain is what I've been doing. You do need a 9 on a lot of models, which is already a fairly good hand. I don't know about the hands you've been getting, but I barely every get 3+ cards on 9+ in my hand, even after stoning and getting 3 more from LRM. I must be having really bad luck?

Even then that single (0) action is now draining your hand or high cards from the deck every turn or dealing 1/4/5 damage. Healing 4 damage requires 2 AP from Low River monk or Low River Shenlong/Yu. Unless they have a defensive and the tright trigger, then they can heal 4 damage in 1 AP.

Emissary can be behind, but he only has 7" range. This means he will have to stand in the Walk duel Hazardous Terrain in order to be in range to land attacks. The neverborn player will not place markers on his own half of the map to start the game off, so you have to walk the entire distance to the Extraction point through the terrain while he can sit there freely in his soft cover from the Waldgeist.

I will give you props on building the list. It looks really solid on paper, but once you get the game, it will fall apart quickly.

1 hour ago, Mutter said:

Hmmm, my only thought was 'Where to start?' ... O.o

TT have tons of synergy and so much scheme-marker control, it's almost comical. Just one example - you use LRM and you have trouble with Dig their graves? That scheme practically fulfills itself with one ot two monks (and somebody to smack the opponent down).

Like I said ... where to start?

Mind letting me know what synergy you speak of? I feel we barely have any OR that synergy is better used in the native faction of said model. Yan Lo and Lynch spring to mind, which are much stronger in their own faction than in the Thunders.

9 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

...

How will you protect your brother if they have an 8" place and lure? He also has to stand in the Hazardous Terrain markers the Mysterious Emissary dropped on turn 1 and 2, which is not good for the health of Said Brother.

You claim plenty of space in the 6" bubble to stand around. If he drops both markers to block that off, you have no space to stand around. 3" from either side and a 50mm marker. Well, unless you go stand on HIS part of the map, but I wish you the best of luck on that in neverbron crews with lures.

Killing the Emissary turn 1 when he can stand decently far away from the centerline in order to drop his marker. If he moves up, he gets to drop his marker, which is a big PitA to remove and either burns cards or health.

Covert breakthrough only scores points at the end of the game. This leaves the enemy plenty of time to react to it. But on Extraction they don't even need to react to it as they get Extraction for free while you lose wounds and activations to the hazardous terrain.

14 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

Dig their graves: Yasinori pushed up with a few scheme markers by Yu and then go to town? Bring models that can survive the damage flip from the hazardous terrain?

Bring Sidir who can't be lured and put a focused shot into one of their models? That means they're halfway dead turn 1.

Pushing up Yasunori will get you 1 point from Dig Their Graves, maybe 2 if you get lucky. After that he dies to the focus fire from the enemy. Sure, he can tie them up 1 turn. Let's just not exaggerate and say he is tanky enough to survive a turn. He has armor +1 and -flip to wp-targetting attack actions. put him next to Tooth and Rougarou and he dies that same turn in a single activation by Tooth. Mi6 with +flip to attack from the Emissary vs def 5 and then a pounce of Mi6 +flip vs def 5 for 2 attacks in a row WILL kill a yasunori rather easily. And yes, Yasunori will have to go inthere as he has to actually kill things.

And let's not forget the enemy can just remove scheme markers, unless you bring a brother upthere as well. If that brother gets up there, he will die the next.

Sidir is also 9 points. This means you have to drop either Yu or the Emissary yourself unless you only want 7 activations. Focussed shots get semi-negated by terrain which Waldgeists can drop or that is just natively there.

If you are so convinced that the Thunders are good, make me a list that could actually WIN the matchups vs neverborn. So far I haven't found a single one. For me I find it easier to just pick neverborn, get the Emissary and keep him in the back giving all the STRONG minions they have + flips to the attack actions that they can safely do thanks to to places, pushes,  lures and Hazardous terrain zone control.

So I've been playing Ten Thunders for a year now and I've reached a point where I'm going to throw them away. They always sound so great on paper, but then you get on the board and they are powerless.

My latest example

Extraction against neverborn. Lost 5-10 of which 3 points were given to me to not make me feel as bad.

The setup was:

Extraction

Claim Jump

Dig Their Graves

Frame For Murder

Search The Ruins

Covert Breakthrough

My list was Shenlong, 1 Peasant, Yu, Emissary, LRM, 2 Brothers and a Sniper.

Opponent played Titania, Gorar, Emissary, Teddy, Tooth, Rougarou, Waldgeist and another model that wasn't even needed.

Winning this against Neverborn seems impossible to me for the following reasons:

1)Extraction: Their Emmisary can make the entire zone of your board within 3" of the Extraction Marker Hazardous Terrain. Get withing 3" of the 50mm terrain marker and take a wk14!!!! duel or suffer 1/4/5 damage. The only way to get rid of it is by spending at least 2 AP (1 walk, 1 blast attack) for a 0 action of the emissary. We damage our own crew and spend at least 1 action on 2 activations. Good thing we have so many blasts, right? Oh right, using the Blasts of the Emissary also works if your enemy wants to use focus and means you have to focus up for the attack first as well. So then it becomes 3 AP (walk + focus + attack) + a (0) action of the emissary to get rid of the (0) action of the Mysterious Emissary so you can actually come close to the marker without instantly dying or cheating out high cards. Bonus note is their Emissary can drop 2 of those markers and they can both trigger their walk duel as they are separate terrain. Good luck getting any points from Extraction!

2) Claim Jump: Doable, but rather hard with all the lures the Neverborn have. Ever seen the Tooth (Autumn Knight with lure) team up with a pounce model? Her 0 triggers pounce and her attack has a built-in push. It's a 6-stat attack as well with decent damage. Did I also mention her lure gives her a free attack against you? So basicly you get (0) attack + pounce and 2 attacks + pounce. Bonus points if their emissary is nearby. They get +-flips on all those attacks. Even then they just have to engage your scheme runner and stand close to the marker. Scheme disrupted

3) Dig Their Graves: Hard for anyone that is not Titania. Sustained killing has never been the forte of the Thunders and now they even couple it to being close to a scheme marker.

4) Search The Ruins becomes impossible thesame reason as Extraction and Claim Jump. Even if you use a Wandering River Style Mighty Gust to blow the markers there, they can still delete the markers unless it's the very last action you take. In my case Titania just walked up and did a 0 to remove all 3 markers. If you bring a model within a few inch of the center, it dies.

5) Frame For Murder: Doable by both factions but easier for Neverborn as they have an easier time knowing which models you will be targetting.

6) Covert Breakthrough: This becomes a question of WRM vs Silurid. Silurid has way better defenses (Perfect Camouflage) than the WRM (Butterfly Jump) and still packs a very decent punch when cornered. Also don't forget the lures they have which can turn half the map into a murder zone from which there is no escape.

I've been going through GG17 schemes and strats and I honestly haven't found a single one which Ten Thunders can actually do better than Neverborn. I've been playing Thunders for a year now and I have never really seen a scheme pool and thought to myselkf "Oh, now I can deny my opponent points" ever since the Emissary came out.

What exactly am I missing here with the Thunders? Why do I always feel so helpless when I'm playing them? Why do I feel like every single other faction can outdo us on everything (except scheme markers IF YOU TAKE SHENLONG AND YU)

A bit of a rant, but I feel like the Thunders are one of the worst factions in the game due to not having any decent models or any real synergy in the models when comparing them to the other factions.

29 minutes ago, Da Git said:

I thought so too at first, but Sensei Yu gave it Fast earlier in the turn. 

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