Nikodemus

Seems pretty rare to want to own a full box of any given minion. I've got two Monks of High River ready. Most of the time I'd rather take a Torakage but in some match ups having one or two monks is fun. If I need a bunch of 6ss minions I just get a pair of monks and pair of Torakage, rather than three monks. I opted to only build one Wandering River Monk. I guess two could be useful in some scenarios, but they're so expensive and specialised that I'd rather have other options. I've got Monks of Low River coming in, initial plan is to build two. I guess sometimes having more cheap bodies and healers could make three worthwhile, but personally I'd rather get more variety within my crew. No plans to get Fermented River Monks, mainly because I already have some punchy mid priced minions. I'd assemble at least two, maybe three if I got them though. They seem like a fun minion to spam a bit. But it's worth mentioning that I'm cheap and I'd rather buy a minion box, then sell 1-2 models away to keep costs low. If I were less frugal I'd probably own a full set of each just in case.

I've heard horror stories about Gremlins. How are newer Gremlin plastics? Zipp? Wave 3 stuff? I've had a lot of issues with Wyrd plastics but I mostly own older stuff. I bought Big Jake on a lark and he was a breeze. I'm just wondering if it's something they had issues when first getting into plastics?

Since I've only been playing since late summer or so, I'd be happy to spend the next 12 months playing GG2016. I doubt that'll happen. Interference does nudge me towards using more, cheaper models rather than relying on big expensive characters which I normally gravitate towards. That's nice, even if it isn't my favourite strategy. I guess it could be interesting if they changed suited schemes. Hunting Party, in a vacuum, certainly contributes to my preference on using big expensive models over many minions. I could do away with that. I haven't played enough to have a strong opinion beyond that. I do like Take Prisoner being a double. That gave me a thought, would the game suffer for having more schemes that aren't suited but pop up on more than once every 1/14 flip? Just as an example I'm ecstatic whenever Frame for Murder is in the pool but I don't think I'd like it being on a suit. I don't want to lose my Take Prisoner but it would be cool to have a few more schemes that pop up a bit more often like that. Maybe remove a few schemes and put a few on 1-2, 3-4 or something like that. Though I suppose that would hurt diversity and be Bad. Maybe I should just play more often to see those schemes more

Relatively new player here. When was GG2016 published? I assume we can expect a similar date for GG2017.

I bought some badass Samurai with gatling guns. Shop owner asked if I wanted a game with those minis. Once I saw some ninjas I was sold. Unfortunately store was out of ninjas so I had to make do with kung fu monks to start with.

My card says 'enforcer'. Is there an errata I'm not aware of?

I got into boardgames a few years ago. Turns out board games these days have a lot of minis and online painting tutorials. Little while later I realised that there are a lot better minis out there to paint. Little googling later I quite innocently purchased a box of Ten Thunders Samurai. Store Owner/Henchman was quick to reel me in and I left the store with a demo game in my schedule. That was this summer, so I'm still fairly new to all this. Gotta say despite being new to painting and miniature games it's been a good, welcoming experience. One would think it could've been alienating playing with players who were playing Warhammer back in Xth edition. But no, everyone's been cool. Fun times.

If I'm doing five awesome attacks a round I don't mind wasting one for black joker. Even if it does hurt when it wastes a red joker. I agree that + is good enough that I wouldn't automatically use my only upgrade slot on an already expensive model to get a round of ++. There's always Samurai you can use to fish out the joker early on. No idea if Asami list can fit one in though.

I wrote my reply on the thread that had the picture. Then it went away when I tried to post grumblegrumble. It was a cool pic too. There's two upgrade decks: generalist upgrade deck and generalist upgrade deck 2. Both are fun to have but if on a budget go for GUD1, as that has many faction staples. Recalled Training (1ss): discard to gain +flips to everything until end of turn. Simple and effective. Might take a bit of manoeuvring to get most out of it but it's worth it. Death Contract (1ss + 0ss decoy): when this model is killed the killer must discard 2 stones or 2 cards or die. Oh and it and decoy are both face down so opponent doesn't know who's holding what. Doesn't make Ototo better and there can be better holders for it, but I like having this in a crew and Ototo is often focused on. If he's going to die might as well take something with him. Few upgrades I've been theoryfauxing (most games recently have been in an Ototo-less campaign so no field testing for me): Call the Thunder (1ss): (0) to force simple duels or suffer slow, competes with his heal but if you have other sources of healing it might be worth it. Doesn't seem very reliable but for a (0) I can't say no to slow or card drain. Equality (GUD2, 1ss): when enemy scores VP you get to pick 1) place a scheme marker, 2) heal a bit or 3) draw a card. Just seems like a solid upgrade to have. Heal and card draw is never bad and one key marker can net you that all important VP to win the game. The Peaceful Waters (GUD2, 0ss): nearby Low River Monks gain a heal action. You could give this to Ototo and hire a monk to follow him around. Though if you're planning on bringing a midfield support model it might be a better carrier for this upgrade. Smoke Grenades (GUD1, 1ss): attacks from more than 6'' away suffer a -flip. Since Ototo is a melee only model this should help keep him alive longer. Can also discard to place some blocking markers. Next is a leader only upgrade which bears mentioning: On Wings of Wind (GUD1, 2ss): (0) to push a nearby friendly model (Ototo!) and pushes the leader three inches end of turn. This is a really important support upgrade to consider especially if you're not getting Sensei Yu (Shenlong crew box) or Shadow Emissary. Less AP spent walking is more AP spent bashing skulls. And Ototo's skull bashing skills far exceed his walking.

You can order a single from here, but there's a minimum order size required: http://www.wargamevault.com/product/189838/Corpse-Bloat It's also available in the Generalist Upgrade Deck. Conveniently enough it also comes with all other Resurrectionist general upgrades from the first two books: http://giveusyourmoneypleasethankyou-wyrd.com/products/wyr20010?variant=1826476609 In fact it comes with ALL general upgrades from first two waves, regardless of faction. There's also Generalist Upgrade Deck #2 for upgrades from book 4, not that you asked for that.

Could you elaborate? Are you using Shenlong to tag enemies with -flips or burning to help Flames From the Heavens hit? Haven't really considered Obsidian Oni when playing Shenlong, but I guess a couple of 6ss minions tossing 1/4/5 on straight or positive damage flips makes for a good argument.

Lone Swordsman is not quite an autoinclude for me, but I play him more often than not. I do not play McCabe however, but Shenlong can offer similar push/extra-AP shenanigans so hopefully you get something out of this. I also don't do 30ss games so I no doubt miss some finer points. If the guy is playing hyper aggressively he will push and give nimble to the lone swordsman. That's I think 9'' of movement before spending any of Swordsman's actual AP. Could be more if I'm forgetting some McCabe tricks. Try not to leave precious models within charge threat and LOS. Remember that he can charge 7'', 2'' reach, with either (0) for a 2'' push or (0) for his special reactivate. That's potentially something dead in 20'' from his original position. That's a fact you need to live with. If all I can do with him is charge-kill Lenny or Trixie or etc. and get killed back, that's fine. Even trade is the bare minimum I'll go for, though more favourable trades are preferred. I assume McGabe will be even more happy with this as he can just toss a sabre to his pups to kill things. One way to frustrate me would be to only offer cheap crap like bayou gremlins or pigs to waste my AP with. If I'm going to kill something better that it's a 3 stone bayou, right? Even better if you have a counter charge set and waiting. He's a glass cannon. While he will pulverise most things in melee, that goes both ways. All he has is 7 wounds, df/wp 6 and hard-to-kill. With right cards in hand and a bit of luck you can bop him for a severe of 6 for first hit with killing blow coming in with your second AP. As a result I'm very careful with my swordsman since any beater worth his salt can paste him in one activation. At this point it becomes a game of manoeuvring and out activating. Bad thing is McGabe is good with that, but I understand so is Mah? So in summary? Don't let anything important get charged by Swordsman. Charge Swordsman with something hard hitting and/or expendable. Odds are you will lose models, so pick the ones that are most expendable. Does your opponent have the new upgrade pack? Be mindful of Death Contract if so. It's a face down upgrade with a no-effect double. If you kill the model bearing it you need to discard two cards or two stones or model that did the kill dies. Make sure you have necessary resources available before sending your big hitter to kill him.

Most important thing first: get a few games in. Figure out what you think your crew lacks and go from there. For terminology, when I say "beater" I mean someone who hits hard. "Scheme runner" is a guy who concentrates on your "get markers/models/interacts at X locations" schemes to get you points. "Scheme" is an objective you need to fulfil to score points. When I say premium/budget I mean in-game cost unless specified otherwise. Misaki was the first box I bought and I've been mainly concentrating on "asian looking" Ten Thunders for now. Re: Shenlong Crew Box. Sensei Yu is a great support piece for Misaki/Ototo, and High River Monks are decent enough despite the bad rap they get. I usually field a mix of one to three Torakage and/or High River Monks depending on schemes/opposition. They're not completely interchangeable but I've had similar experiences using both. Shenlong is also a really fun master to play if you enjoy his jack-of-all-trades style. But I don't think it's a high recommendation. If you just want to play Misaki for now, Shenlong is useless. Monks while neat roughly fill the same job as Torakage. And since you're not a competitive tryhard I really don't see the appeal of buying the box just for Yu. But if Shenlong interests you, and he is mechanically very distinct from Misaki making them a good master pair, go for it. Do you have General Upgrade Deck 1? It comes with general upgrades for all factions, really good buy. There's upgrades there that really spice up your game. There's also General Upgrade Deck 2, which has a few neat upgrades. You want to get that too but I don't think it's similarly necessary right off the bat. You lack shooters. There's a few options native to Ten Thunders. Fuhatsu is an expensive piece in both soulstones and $, haven't used him. Snipers are near universally praised. Archers are a bit fragile but can shoot into melee without hitting Ototo/Misaki, just bought them but can't comment yet. Samurai I've had lot of good experiences with, can also handle themselves in melee. Mean sword and optionally a high health pool. Shadow Effigy is a cute little mini ninja. All around a solid cheap piece. Helps with marker based schemes, can buff any leader to stay alive longer and is simply a cheap resilient activation. Yamaziko is a great multipurpose budget henchman. Free walk, high WP, immune to horror duels, min damage 3, blasts on demand, nasty discard trick, anti-charge. Does she sound stupidly awesome? She is. She also folds like paper bag. I personally really enjoy using her. With skill and finesse I get a lot out of her but I can't just throw her willy nilly and expect her to survive. If you want even more beaters than just Misaki & Ototo, look at Izamu and Lone Swordsman. There's also Kang but he comes in a separate crew box (Mei Feng). Izamu is probably more similar to Ototo, being a big, expensive piece that hits hard. Unless you're collecting everything Ten Thunders, or prefer his rules/visuals over Ototo I'd skip. Great piece, but perhaps a bit redundant if you're set on Ototo (as I am). The Lone Swordsman is a bit more like Misaki than Ototo/Izamu. He's a scalpel not a hammer. He's got a trigger for every suit and with the right one he can kill anything. He's also a bit more fragile. Izamu and Ototo like tying up the enemy, being in the thick of it. Swordsman likes picking individual targets and removing them. He's also a reasonably cheap piece for his combat power. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of him. At his best he removed thrice his cost in models by the time he went down. Great complementary piece for any TT crew, whether they want something to supplement their big beater or a budget option to replace that big beater for a particular match. Wandering River Monks are excellent premium scheme runners because they can "leap" (basically jump a large distance over other models/terrain) and still have their normal amount of AP to do what they like. Everything I've read indicates Tengu are excellent budget scheme runners. I reckon they'd complement each other in your arsenal, but right now if you want a sturdier scheme runner you can get by with Torakage and do well. Few things I'm looking at, things you might want to look at, are Low River Monks and Ama No Zako. Low River guys remove conditions and can heal with an upgrade from Upgrade Deck #2. They're also dirt cheap which can be good for some schemes and are a wee bit sturdier than Tengu. Ama No Zako is a high cost henchman Oni that flies around at high speed, hits hard and does some nasty tricks while at it. I don't have Jorogumo or Dawn Serpent, but some schemes really benefit from big beefy minions and these guys are it.

More efficient to do it with focus. He gets +2 focus from his first focus action, getting up to +3 focus by either spending 2AP or 1AP+(0) from Shenlong. If you were using defensive stance you'd have to spend 2AP AND (0) from Shenlong.

Oiran, Ten Thunders mercs, are Ca8, but they lack an in-built suit.

You got it right. FAQ entry 75 clarifies this:

As the rulebook puts it: Wokou Raiders are outcasts so can be hired by any outcast crew. They are Last Blossom so can be hired by Misaki due to her "Infiltration: Last Blossom" ability. I don't have access to the new book so I can't say for sure if they're mercenaries or not. If they are, as mercenaries up to two can be hired by any master.

I like to run Shenlong & Yu pairing a lot, but I do think there's some redundancy there. And since Yu can be killed in an activation if your opponent wishes so I'd be hesitant to bring him alongside Shenlong for this strategy. I guess you could try to use him as a bait to funnel enemies into a killzone, but that sounds like it could end horribly for you. Ditto for using something like Ama No Zako to draw some killer enemies into less important areas while she (counter)schemes there. I would consider bringing in Jorogumo and/or Dawn Serpent myself. Sturdy minions that hit above their station. McCabe provides obvious synergies with his artefacts and minion specific reactivate. Add in a few sabre hounds and whatever you need for schemes. But since I don't own those models I'd probably just bring in a whole bunch of henchmen and enforcers and try my best to keep them alive with Shenlong's heals

Certainly. I didn't want to imply that his ml is bad. But TT has 3'' melee beatsticks, with as good or better damage track. With access to a third action without having to flip or cheat a specific suit. All without a merc tax. Without a spiffy gun or an instakill trigger either admittedly...

Lovely battle report as always. For some reason it never occurred to me to put Death Contract on a minion, even though the text is quite clear that it ignores upgrade restrictions. I need to give that a shot.

Yeah everyone likes plus flips. McTavish does go against my preference for giving Recalled Training to models that can get 3AP's worth of actions before being fast'ed, which Burt, Gracie and TT beaters can do. I'm ignoring his (0) that can result in a ml attack, as that seems a bit niche and I'm not really hiring him for his ml attack. Wonky triggers aside I can get better for cheaper in-faction. But that's a damn fine gun and I love my character models with rustic charm. And hey, he could make a good blot-the-sky/archer platform seeing as I don't own Sidir or Fuhatsu. And I'm sure Misaki+Lone Swordsman tag team appreciates not getting shot while engaged. Suboptimal? Probably. Cool beans? Heck yeah. Maybe I'll treat myself a gator for Christmas. We'll see.

Haven't had room for Equality yet, but I like it on paper. Seems like a solid pick for Show of Force if nothing else. Have had Death Contract/False Target for a few games now and I've been quite happy with it. It's probably not as incredibly awesome as I thought just by reading it, but I do like it. I haven't had a problem of people trivially discarding two cards, but it's only been a few games. Maybe it's just my opponents but I do try to encourage early cheating. And if all it does is discard two cards from my opponent I can work with that. Ideally my death contract-ee has done his job by the time he's done. As for who to put it on... Putting it on Lone Swordsman is really risky. Last game he sacrificed himself because a Peacekeeper saw another sunrise. I need to be more careful with that in the future. Yamaziko might be a good target considering how fragile she is. Or Sensei Yu if I keep shoving him upfield. Or any beater, at least if schemes are right. To sum up: early mixed success, still eagerly working on it. I've been arguing for and against buying low river monks for months now. I think their upgrade has pushed them up in the buy-list. Cheap bodies for when schemes require it. Cheap healing/condition removal other times, for 4ss it's appealing. 6'' range seems like a pain but thanks to their heal I'm eager to give them a try. Seem like a natural partner for Earth Samurai.

After a few more in-faction boxes I might consider mercs. Here's what I've been theorising while planning out my purchases. Burt in Ten Thunders sounds mean. Crackerjack timing alone could be worth it even if our buffs can make him quite bonkers overall. 8ss + upgrade doesn't seem unreasonable, though it starts competing with very viable in-faction stuff. Gracie is on my to-get list as I love the model. At 11ss before upgrade I reckon she might be a bit too expensive to ever be optimal pick. Still, Recalled Training + fast shenanigans for a potentially 5-6AP round on plus flips is nothing to sneeze at. Or slap a +WP upgrade on her for hilarity in certain match-ups. That one's definitely a joke build. I don't know how to feel about McTavish. Again I like the model but at 11ss without Gremlin synergies I'm not sure if he's worth it. TT has guns aplenty, but he does ignore cover and engagements. Might be something to look at once I get Misaki painted up.

Misdirection gives you a DF(mask) trigger which lets you pass off successful attacks to any non-attacker model within 2''. Great fun if enemies swarm you, but to be safe you can park an armour+2 9-wound Samurai to ensure there's always someone to take a punch. Most of our tech are discard-to-activate so not really useful as panic buttons for losing initiative. But as above posters say losing initiative shouldn't be as big of an issue if you use Brewmaster as a 12'' swill machine.

Good advice. And it's worth remembering that all Yu has is 10 wounds and df/wp 6. He eats stones like candy if you get hits in and Misaki sometimes likes to run with low cache. I trust him to stay alive thanks to being a backfield supporter with decent statline, but he can easily die in one activation if you get a big hitter in range. Losing an expensive support piece early in the game really hurts.