Jinn

I've never considered Arcanists to have particularly strong Ruthless models. Mech Rider isn't a strong offensive model so Ruthless isn't a huge deal, Joss and Borgmann are both 2AP beaters that have no mobility and need to be taxed in OOK, and Raspy is low power and more of a debuffer than a blaster. Dreamer is a very strong option against Arcanists due to their lowish Willpower (especially on contructs like Soulstone Miners) and the armour ignore. If you want to win bring Stitched and use Lucid Dream to pull face cards out of your deck and use them as a secondary hand for cheating for them.

Because it's opposed and range 6" you'll almost always want to go for your own Master/Henchman.

"When this model would Cheat Fate" means you have to have an opportunity to cheat fate in the first place. Betrayal means you cannot cheat fate unless you discard a card first. Consider another ability, "Tell No Lies" on False Witnesses that causes models within 3 to be unable to cheat fate at all. Do you think Stitched can Fiendish Gamble in that aura?

Envy can apply sin unopposed with his bonus action, which has come up pretty regularly for me to finish off a model with a guaranteed 3 damage.

You truly don't see how an action ignoring Concealment could be interpreted to not treat the target as having Concealment? How do you decide which aspects of Concealment to ignore? It doesn't ignore concealing though, it ignores capital "C" Concealment.

Are there any rules supporting that interpretation though? Given triggers/actions are often shared across models and there are often cases where parts of them can't be used by the model in question it would be very helpful to have something more ironclad to support this interpretation. I would strongly prefer to rely on what the rules actually say rather than just assuming the intentions of Wyrd based on the order in which certain models were released. If there is currently no actual rules support for this interpretation then I think it ought to be errataed, for new players if for nothing else. I can't really begrudge someone for ruling that this trigger can't be declared against models in Concealment but not within 3" of a Shadow Marker as it stands, given it is what the rules seem to actually say. Wyrd pls fix

Thunder Archers have the following action: Blessed Longbow Rg: 12" Stat: 6 Rst: Df This Action ignores Concealment. Target suffers 2/3/4 damage, ignoring Incorporeal. Shadow Pin: Target must have Concealment or be within 3" of a friendly Shadow Marker. When resolving, target suffers +1 damage and gains Staggered. If the Thunder Archer is ignoring Concealment with this action can they still treat the target as having Concealment for the purposes of declaring the trigger? Before English Ivan (who treats Concealment as a , rather than ignoring it entirely) came out these guys were the only model in the game with this trigger, which implies to me that they are intended to be able to declare this against models that would normally benefit from Concealment, but rules as written I can't see a justification for it.

Well unfortunately the high powered masters of the faction are Asami, Shenlong, McCabe, Misaki, and Yan Lo (5/8, you picked the three that aren't amazing haha). Malifaux is a game of skill however and you will be able to win against qualitatively stronger crews if you can focus on eking out every VP you can. Fuhatsu is a great Versatile and might be able to win you some games almost alone. Samurai and Tanuki are the all star versatile minions of the faction, and they can fit in any keyword's crew if you really want them to. Extra focus from Tanuki on Huggy is extremely nice and having Fuhatsu or some Samurai to obey can really open up your offensive options.

The stealth upgrade will help a bit, but those are some pretty high powered masters. You'll have to outplay them as you probably won't be winning a straightforward brawl.

The only real problem with the Honeypot crew is Lynch himself. The keyword has quality models that make up for Illuminated and Graves, and Huggy is up there for being the best Totem in the game. If Lynch wasn't so slow, squishy, and so low range then the crew would be quite good IMO. Also, how does this crew not have a single instance of the Burn Out trigger? It would be very thematically appropriate. I'd love it if Lynch had that on his Friendly Handshake.

I don't think it's unreasonable to compare the power level of two Masters from different factions. For example, last edition (where Master power level was mostly solved) you could easily compare Nicodem to Ironsides and tell that they weren't on the same level. It seems pretty absurd to say that two Masters shouldn't be compared given the point of the game is a competition between two crews to score the most points. Who cares if they don't share a faction, some crews are better at scoring than others. I don't know if I've simply missed the point you're making or if I have a completely different view of balance than you.

I don't think Bunraku are particularly good, but they do have Risky Maneuver which lets them push 3" (and suffer a damage, ouch). They can leave an engagement and interact, or place two scheme markers in a single activation, the things a schemer needs to be able to do. The reason they're not that great is because to use them properly as a schemer you need to constantly put chip damage on a model that relies on armour to survive in a crew that is already struggling.

If it was one to one that doesn't mean it has to directly cancel. If they reverted Distracted to being to attack and damage (which it was in the beta) then the crews that rely on it won't be so screwed by focus. You would still be able to focus and attack, you just wouldn't get the to damage while also bypassing distracted.

Why is a Seishin (a rezzer model) the 3 of crows? As far as I know every other card in the faction decks are from the associated faction, and Seishin have never been hirable in TT.

Really? I could have sworn there was an FAQ. I must be going crazy. That is weird though, how does that even work? I'd think if you couldn't block LoS by standing on it then you couldn't block it by standing slightly off of it as in both cases the same effective sightlines apply. It shouldn't be a balance issue as 40mm models exist. Seems weird. Still, as Maniacal_cackle said, a 30mm blocking LoS to a 30mm is definitely used as an example in the rules.

Note this is only if they're a 40mm or above, given 30mm models can't block LoS between two other 30mm objects. I do think that the syndicate crew has a good chance to be very high tier. This much power, versatility, and consistency is going to be devastating in a strong player's hands.

Could go for Crooked Step, that ability that was on a few models in the beta. It was something like: "At the start of this models activation it may place within 3 inches." Half the range of a leap but it's automatic.

My problem with this way of looking at it is: Blackmail is limited because in niche situations controlled bonus actions can eat masters -> if your opponent knows this they don't bring the few models this affects -> Blackmail is limited and doesn't eat masters if your opponent is aware of it, or Blackmail eats a noob's master and they have a bad experience. It is an unsatisfying mechanic because it is very restricted due to a few disgustingly overpowered combos in a few niche situations that only inexperienced opponents will ever fall prey to. That's just bad design; if you get rid of the bonus action thing it fixes both the blow out noob games and the poor performance versus more experienced players. Win-win.

I still think Youko is just plain bad as a Master. She certainly doesn't look good compared to Lucius and the Nexus. Blackmail needs to be reworked into Obey IMO. The range restriction on Blackmail just kills it, and Youko could really use some versatility which obeying her own models would give her. Also, Obeys can't control bonus actions, which would fix the niche swingy matchups where Youko could just eat an inexperienced player's master. Slightly off topic, just need to beat this drum whenever I can.

When was the Emissary nerfed? I don't see any Errata. The main way Yan Lo plays differently in TT is he will likely never run Toshiro, as there is no efficient way to generate corpses in Thunders. Shenlong was nerfed pretty hard in the Errata, he lost Drunken Kung Fu. He will now be only turning s on attacks/resists into s, not damage flips. Something to be wary of from Ten Thunders is the high quality models with Ruthless they have access to. Look at The Lone Swordsman and Fuhatsu, which are versatile, and evaluate whether your crew is okay with fighting them. The Thunders' general upgrades are quite good as well, with one of them having Stealth and Unimpeded, and another turning off Resistance triggers for enemies while engaged.

I think focusing fire on a single model is pretty important in both scenarios (I'd prefer to get three attacks on one thing to kill it than four attacks spread across two and killing neither), which is why the Yasunori kind of sucks at both roles now. The problem with the Yasunori is that it didn't have the utility that other riders had and it made up for that in offensive capability and costing less (more than made up for it, though it was likely not as overtuned as the pale was). Now after the nerf it is much weaker defensively than the other riders, much weaker offensively than all but the mechanical, lacks Ride with Me, and doesn't have an "Ultimate" ability like the other riders AND it was bumped up to cost the same amount. It just didn't need so many rushed nerfs all at once. I can't see the reasoning behind dropping its defences, drastically dropping its offensive capability and then increasing its cost by a point all at once. I'm worried that this is just what the Yasunori is going to be this edition, that they won't be willing to revisit it in future errata.

I use (used, in the case of the Yasunori) both, it's really not on the same level. Imagine they also increased Archie's cost by a soulstone on top of his nerf, that's what they did to Yas.

Make sure you're using the Errata version of the Yasunori, and are using the Errata rules in general. Yasunori was nerfed pretty hard in the Errata.

What's his role?

Kaeris herself is quite tanky though, so if you just grab versatiles like Envy and Steam Arachnid Swarms you're left with a very tanky crew. If you use Envy to give Kaeris focus on turn 1 then she can double walk + charge with a focused shot up to 26" away, more with Ride With Me from the Rider. The Eternal Flame can double walk and then move a Pyre from up to 20" away because it is a bonus action, meaning if you go for the blast trigger with Kaeris you can easily put multiple enemies in contact with a marker on turn 1. When I play Kaeris I want all of her pyres either under her firing positions for Blaze of Glory (~8" away from the enemy crew) or directly in the path of the enemy crew, ready to be moved through/under them and discouraging their advance. This is why I think that wasting Pyres to set up defences for Borgmann/Firebranded/Gamin when they probably aren't going to get to the action until turn 2 or 3 goes directly against what Kaeris as a master should be doing during a game. I think Borgmann is a decent hire if you're expecting to need Ruthless, but he's just too slow to leverage his Greatsword or Bladerush.