regleant

I am going to give a different perspective. I don't compete in national tournaments, and rarely have taken Out of Keyword models. They just aren't necessary. That said, VERSATILE models is where Ten Thunders excels. And these will hold up regardless of which Master you run. Dawn Serpent, Fuhatsu, and Samurai are my top 3. That said....

In keyword,

• I like the Beckoners because Lure is awesome. Lure is able to deny your opponents points by walking them away from strategy and scheme markers, and enable your own scoring for the same reason. 
• Illuminated are some of the best all-round beaters we have in the entire faction. It is one of the few models where I would say that running 3 makes sense.
• Kitty is a great model, very versatile in her kit, highly mobile, and surprisingly able to put out damage when needed.

While I own Mr Tannen and Graves, I've never used them. Gwyneth has an interesting kit, but I personally haven't been able to make her click, yet.

Oh, and don't put all your eggs into the Brilliance bucket.  It's an interesting mechanic, but doubling down on it will eat a lot of activations and accomplish very little on the board. 

Hope that helps.

2 hours ago, Jesy Blue said:

The only thing I take OOK is Mr Tannen into Qi and Gong, because more Distracted and Wp duels to make in Distraction auras is a wonderful thing.

I had a Fuhatsu led gunline list, so Katanaka Snipers were OOK because there was no keyword on the Leader; it's now led by Cherri Bomb (Sidir) with Fuhatsu hired into it, so they are officially OOK now.

Samurai are great Versatile models for a gun line.  

This looks like a "you had ONE job" meme. Someone failed to follow instructions and you received an extra card that you shouldn't have.

Jorogumo have Extended Reach, which is great defense tech in some match-ups. 

That reminds me, I hired Jorogumo into a Misaki list where every single model had Extended Reach. It was great fun for me! I don't recall if I had 1 or 2 in the list, but my opponent about flipped the table on me for building that list. 

1 hour ago, scarlett fever said:

Occasional picks are Kitty and Kunoichi, but they're for specific situations. 

Please explain these. I can't even find a use for Kunoichi in keyword, let alone out.

2 hours ago, Jinn said:

Low River Monk is a good one if you need some dedicated healing.

I just bought some last month, but my gaming group hasn't been getting together, recently. I am curious to see how they play out. You prefer them over Tengu for healing?

There's been no action in this forum for over a month, inactivity not seen by any other faction. So..., starting a random conversation to drum up interest.

NOT COUNTING VERSATILE, what is your favorite model to take out of keyword and why?

Recently I tried Izamu with Youko2, and I think the extra movement tricks she brings really helps him out. Worth the 11 points? Not yet sold on that, but it is certainly fun to throw on the board!

I can only speak to a few Ten Thunders masters. The new Youko (Qi and Gong) is lightyears ahead of her original incarnation and quickly became one of my favorites. Ironically, she is strong taking a bunch of non-keyword models. The rest of the keywords feel either neutral or weaker, to me.

Not that anyone wants my two pfennig but...

1) It's a game. There are villains. Villains are intended to be bad guys. Just because you are personally offended by some piece of the story does not mean that you should remove everyone else's enjoyment as well. After reading Levi's fluff, I am immensely more interested to see what happens. Similarly, just because I might play Levi on the table does not mean that I adhere to or approve of all of his fluff-related actions. You gotta' separate the two concepts.

2) This whole conversation reminds me of an SNL skit, where (if you don't want to watch), a bunch of evil geniuses get together to compare their evil inventions, and after 2 cartoony inventions (freeze ray & shrink ray), The Rock displays his child molesting robot and everyone else is offended for being "too evil."

On one hand, I support this. 10T would love it.

On the other hand, this skirmish game of 7-9 models on the table will start scaling upwards, and I don't know if people want that...

On 6/2/2022 at 6:37 AM, IamW said:

What about the Comfortable Hat Upgrade from white Rabbit Co? It states "this models controller and friendly models may treat this model as a scheme marker." Could the model score the first point of breakthrough by himself just by standing in the enemy DZ? 

This is good, the fact that it says "this model's controller...." whereas the other abilities don't state it that way. I'm finally sold on the original conclusion.  

I am busy at work so will probably end up breaking into multiple posts.. that said, I think you meant "Last Blossom" not "Syndicate."  

Definitely read through the forums, as there are some good write-ups on those Masters, already. Also seems you're going with the first version of the Masters, not the latest? I personally find the 2nd iteration of Youko far stronger, and the first version of Misaki stronger. That said, I lose horribly with both Youko1 and Misaki1, so don't take "how to win" advice from me. 

Youko1: I personally love Deadly Performance box with her. Both the Kabuki Warriors and the puppets are great value in the right matches. I also get a lot of mileage with 2 Geishas in my lists. Having the cheap Lure is great, but the Distraction aura for negative Willpower flips are situationally awesome, and their basic attack gives Slow... which is a Willpower duel. Bill Algren goes into all of my lists. Loading up on Distracted condition seems like a fun idea at first, but don't rely on it.

Misaki1: Personally, I don't think she needs her keyword much if at all, and you can find many ways to play her. I've had the best luck with "All the Shadow Tokens" using Crime Bosses, Mikako Rei, and Toakage. Ototo goes into all of my lists. Thunder Archers are straight up garbage and I don't recommend them, for the simple fact that once they are engaged, they just cry in a corner and wait to die. No melee weapon and no reliable means of escaping melee combat is a bad combination. The Snipers are much better for ranged support. She does have a few notable bad match-ups, mostly Molly and Tara. They both take aware her 'bury' trick.

Now the best part: 10T has the best Versatile models in the business. Dawn Serpent, Samurai, Lone Swordsmen, Fuhatsu (though less so post-nerf) are all solid additions to any list. For a while, I used Versatile models as my core, and hired in the keyword models around them.  Misaki has some notable dirty tricks with Yamaziko and her Great Teacher ability, giving ALL Friendly Millions a positive to all duels, not just Friendly Last Blossom. So the Samurai just go nuts with her. 

13 hours ago, Jinn said:

Love the theme so far. Well-Versed looks like it's the keyword ability, which seems basically like a worse version of getting ato one flip a turn, which is pretty minor power wise, but maybe the leader has a way to amp the ability.

Maybe a little better when you can discard that Black Joker  

15 minutes ago, muraki said:

I also dont know if you guys are newer players or not, if your opponent has other crews, throwing something a bit more melee focused / less high damage aggression into youko for a bit could help you get your sea legs with her a bit more.  

I just had this image of the other crew being von Schill 🤣

So while I don't believe that any match is unwinnable, you are definitely in a bad spot in that match-up. Youko1 is also playing in hard-mode.

6 hours ago, Sebastian Hudert said:

My list:

Youko 1, Chiyo, Kabuki, Bill Algren, 2x Bunraku, Kunoichi, Hinamatsu (Schemes chosen: Spread them Out, Claim Jump (Bill))

Encounter:

Break the line with Flank Deployment with scheme pool: Vendetta, Catch and Release, Spread them Out, Breakthrough and Claim Jump.

The strategy markers were distributed kinda to the flanks with two to the far left and two to the far right side.

 

Your list is a solid in most cases, imho, but fighting Parker has issues. I would not use Kabuki in the list because he doesn't like being up against Ranged. His best features will never come into play. Kunoichi helps with Tools for the Job, but I have been struggling to find better uses. To replace those, you could go with more ranged options like Samurai (high armor to take ranged hits, and a solid gun himself) or Fuhatsu. You could look at more board control with the Geisha (I really love these models for cheap lures, and their Sharp Wit makes them frustrating to deal with, also they have Distraction for your fun abilities). Or you can look at mobility with the Dawn Serpent. This is a personal favorite of mine as Flight and Agile gets him exactly where he needs to be, and he can heal himself as a bonus action, and Hard to Kill ensures he can do this.

Of course, I don't know how much blocking terrain you had or what the board state looked like. It sounds like you didn't have much terrain at all if you were focused on hugging the Strategy markers. No forests to hide behind? Buildings? Fences? Concealing terrain?

Schemes: I agree with Claim Jump, though Hinamatsu may have been a better choice. Armor 2 can go a longer way than Bill's one-time heal for survivability. Though Hinamatsu has better odds of getting to the enemy and higher potential damage output if you flip masks. The other options are tough. Breakthrough may have been a better choice as it's much easier to score that first point, and just don't expect to get the second. You can use your excess pass tokens to line it up. Getting Spread Them Out is usually a favorite of mine, but maybe not in this particular matchup and deployment. I would almost say to choose Catch and Release with a Bunruku. You just have to be very careful in lining it up, because you never know when your opponent is going to gak your models at a whim. There's a huge risk in any scheme where you are relying on a specific model to live.

6 hours ago, Sebastian Hudert said:

• He kept his distance and pinged away with his guns. The one monolith in the middle was stolen of its cover ability ("blow apart" or what the name is from Mad Dog) and with that he killed my Kabuki and one Bunraku in on Mad Dog action. 
• My remaining crew to the right did never really come close enough to charge, as we had to hug the buildings and monoliths for los blocking and cover

Everybody in your crew has Lure. Don't be afraid to use it. Also see my above advice on how to combat the distance.

6 hours ago, Sebastian Hudert said:

• Him having arcane reservoir and being able to draw cards from various effects simply killed Youko dead. She had one activation where she could put out some distracted, but that was basically it. He almost all of the time had a bigger or as big as hand as me, so Riddles in the Dark did not to a thing. The distracted chain therefore also kille my options with the Kunoichi and with We own you.

Yep, I found the same problems with her new design where the game impact depends on the opponent's cards in hand compared to yours. Note that it's okay if your opponent has more for the abilities to work! In my last game with Youko1, we always ended up having the same number of cards, so Riddles in the Dark did nothing.  As awesome as Distracted is, I've only been able to stack it in 1/3 games. The fact that Focused now counters Distracted 1:1 makes it even weaker.

7 hours ago, Sebastian Hudert said:

• Also the bubble effects from Youko are 6" around her and there was never anyone there... so this aspect of her was also gone

If your opponent stayed away, this is more of a good thing.  

7 hours ago, Sebastian Hudert said:

• Scheming also did not work really as he simply removed or used my scheme markers

You need to use your plethora of Pass Tokens to ensure that you activate uninterrupted, last. Score your schemes at the end of the turn, where your opponent can't remove them. Don't try to pass them over multiple rounds. Better yet, don't use Scheme Markers if you don't have to.

Hope this rambling helps!

8 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Raw Power captures just the traditional strength of a master (and the crews they are likely to lead). Some crews just have devastatingly powerful tech (often with the weakness of falling over to certain tech).

Flexibility captures how many different situations a model can handle. From the 16 different strategy and deployment combinations to the thousands of scheme combinations to the 54 enemy masters you can face... There's a lot of scope to be good in different situations. Flexibility captures how many different situations a master can handle competently.

I think this is off to a good start, but you need to define the terms a little better. For example:

Flexibility: 

• Mobility?
• Capable of taking hits? (Armor, Shielded, Hard to Wound, Hard to Kill)
• Capable of making attacks?
• Capable of X / 12 Schemes?
• Capable of dropping markers even while engaged?

Raw Power:

• Punishing numbers in attacks (e.g. Min 3 damage troops, 6+ damage capable)?
• Mobility? 
• Capable of taking hits?
• Causing questions for your opponent to answer?

There is a lot of potential overlap on how different people will think of these terms. If I see that a keyword is flexible, I might think it's easy enough to throw them into a scrap. But that might not be your intention at all. Also, neither of these metrics really take into account the most important item: Scoring. Some of these traits (e.g. mobility) will make scoring various Strategies and Schemes much easier, even though it would traditionally be rated lower on the Raw Power and even Flexibility scale. But then we get into the 10-dimensional problem...

Anyway, good start. Just offering some thoughts.

I am a 10T player but have opponents that have used both Nekima and Tara, so my answer is from an outside-looking-in perspective.

1) It sounds like you're engaging the enemy. I don't think Tara often wants to engage - she wants to distract the enemy and run schemes. She is an awesome scheme runner, herself. I've seen her score 4 points in a single game.

2) Mature Nephilim are prime targets to Bury, then push them as far back as you can when they unbury. Ignore them as much as possible, or throw sacrificial models to tie them up.

3) Same as above, except for Nekima. Expect that she's going to kill whatever she reaches, so you should dictate which those models will be.

4) Don't be afraid to sacrifice important pieces (e.g. Talos) when it means you will enable scoring points.

5) The whole "give an opposing model fast" trick does get convoluted and can backfire. It's good to have in the back pocket, but don't rely on it.

I won't answer the soulstone question. I have an addiction and like to have 6-8. This is probably far more than most people. 

1 hour ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

Magic is an interesting comparison.

In Magic, only a small fraction of those thousand cards will be competitively relevant.

And as you say, you learn them quickly. They're very simple compared to a Malifaux card - I would say one malifaux card is as complex as dozens of Magic cards.

A dedicated mtg player will learn all those cards in a week, since you can grind so many games.

And even with the ease of learning cards, in Magic only releases from the last two years are legal in standard tournament play. So they essentially have a cap on how many cards you need to know at once.

I agree with what you wrote about 80%. Not that you said anything wrong, but there's a bucket of context that would need to go with each statement. 🤣 I also don't want to go down rabbit holes on off-topics. So...   I deleted everything I typed and am sticking with this. 

I may be in the minority on this one, but compared to other competitive games (e.g. Warmachine), not fully understanding an opponent's model or keyword isn't as big of a detriment. Nothing in this game is wiping out half of your crew from a single mistake (which can and will happen in other systems). Have I had OP opponents who reduced my chances of winning to 1%? Absolutely. But it wasn't due to models or keywords that I may or may not have seen before. It was due to a strong opponent. I think the balance is pretty tight within this game. Sure, there are tweaks needed here and there, but I've never felt like there was no chance to win. They way that Schemes and Strategies are designed, you have options other than straight-forward engagements.

That said, there are 50 new models per year on average? That seems like a big number. And I can see from an ultra-competitive standpoint, they might want to keep up with every nuance. Now let's compare to Magic, where there are literally 1000 new cards every year, is 50 new models that big of a deal? Magic has a far-larger competitive and casual player base than any miniature wargame, and while there are certainly grumblings about the number of releases, WotC is doing quite well. The only caveat, I guess, is that a game of Magic takes 15 minutes while Malifaux takes 2 hours, so the investment into a loss isn't as significant and you learn faster.

I am a competitive player, first, and hate "beer and pretzels" style of games. I started from 40k back in 2010, moved to WMH, and most recently Malifaux, and my only complaint is that the rules are not precise enough and not well-supported in the forums. Too often I see discussions on what a rule could mean or is intended to be, rather than a definitive authority from Wyrd saying "This means X." And to me, that is the only thing that would cause me to leave Malifaux to fulfill my competitive itch.

EDIT: Woof, didn't intend for this to be a rant. 

11 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

That said... I think it is all remarkably well balanced for how much stuff came out. Titles are significantly better than non-titles I think (last I checked it was something like 83 wins for titles vs 59 wins for originals when they faced each other), but at least now the power level is spread over the various factions and there's no one faction or playstyle dominating.

If every faction gets broken at the same time, there's a lot more leeway!

So let's be honest, here, not everyone has had a chance to play against the Titles to understand how to counter them. This would lead to an inordinate number of wins. As they start proliferating the community and people learn how to combat them, I expect things to even out. Some of the comments I've seen in this thread are more "It's new therefor scary" moreso than factual statements about why particular titles may be too strong.

Personally, the titles I've played (10T) have been hit or miss, some I hate compared to the original, some I love.

Overall, I have no doubt that some are too strong. Perfect balance is never going to happen. But fixing those should be handled more like a scalpel, targeting the few problem children, more so than bashing on the Titles concept as a whole. Honestly, I think it worked out far better than I expected it, too. And game balance is not the first problem I wish Wyrd would address... or even the second. Definitely top 3, though.

Random update. Twice now I ran:

• Youko, Unseen
• Chiyo
• Bill Algren 
• Samurai
• Dawn Serpent
• The Lone Sworsman
• Izamu, the Armor
• 4 Soulstones

First against Von Schill, where we tied 4-4 due to forgetting a few key rules, such as Bill should have healed and gained Fast after my opponent revealed a scheme. Oops!  Second against Euripides, where I won 5-1 after I tabled my opponent on Turn 5.

Overall impressions:

• Youko, Unseen does not care about her keyword at all. All she wants to do is improve your own hand, control the opponent's flips, and push models around the board. She just sits back and does her thing quite safely. Honestly, only once did one of my pushes result in an attack against the opponent's model. It's the extra surprise mobility in getting to Strategy markers or into Charge range that's great.
• Rarely did I need to burn Stones for Cards. Using her ability turn 1 helps you get a stacked hand for turn 2, and from there, unless I got really unlucky in my draw at the start of the turn, I never felt behind.
• Killing-related schemes are completely viable, which previously I always avoided. The staying power and hitting power of this list is amazing. Youko adds mobility, giving you a trifecta when you need it.
• Running few, elite models feels like any small mistake can cost you. But the durability (and healing!) makes this work. Even though you have fewer models than your opponent in most match-ups, the extra Pass tokens will allow you to get several back-to-back activations at the end of the turn for uninterrupted abuse of the opponent.
• Izamu feels a bit expensive and overkill, but he's quite the tank. I don't regret taking him, though Hinamatsu might be a better play in some matchups.
• Tabling my opponent was phenomenal, and I pulled that off just once before in over 80 games. There was some luck where twice, a negative flip resulted in Severe damage. But still....

I'll definitely buy her when the model is released.

1 hour ago, TheUnseemlyOne said:

Not really.  That’s where the “unless stated otherwise” bit would come in.  “After shuffling the Fate Deck, place the set-aside cards…” would indicate you’re shuffling after setting the cards aside. 
 

That might just me being overly literal with the reading though. The other way makes more sense from a functionality standpoint. 

Please follow this logic through. You've discerned that the deck must be shuffled prior to placing the set-aside cards on top. But you stated first all of the cards of the chosen suit would be discarded. In what part of the timing rules do you discern that first you perform Hidden Ledger to choose a suit and discard them, then interject Mind Games to set aside 3 cards, then go back to Hidden Ledger to shuffle, then go back to Mind Games to place the set-aside cards on top?

.... as opposed to first setting aside 3 cards, then choosing a suit? 

It's a frustratingly written rule, especially the way "when resolving" is written:

• When resolving: These Triggers resolve with the Action’s effects (Step 5 of Action timing). These Triggers, depending on effect, may modify the effects of the Action as listed or add a new effect, so they only occur if the Action was successful. Any new effects are resolved last, unless the Trigger specifies otherwise.

So I have to look at a "Rules as intended" to make this functionally smooth, and after revealing the top 7 cards, there and then set aside my 3 cards with Mind Games.

3 hours ago, TheUnseemlyOne said:

I think the issue is that when “when resolving” triggers add an effect, the added effects are resolved last unless stated other wise, per pg 12. 
 

By that, I would think that you would discard all cards of the chosen suit first. 

The problem with this logic, is that if you complete all of the steps to Hidden Ledger first, there are no cards to set aside for Mind Games to resolve.

I want to be sure I understand the timing of Mind Games trigger, correctly. 

• Hidden Ledger: Reveal the top seven cards of the opposing player's Fate Deck and discard all cards of any one suit. Then shuffle remaining cards back into the Fate Deck.
• Mind Games: When resolving, set aside up to three revealed cards. After shuffling the Fate Deck, place the set-aside cards back on top in any order.

If I were to flip over (for a simple example) 13,12,7,2,8,4,1The steps would be as follows:

• Since the Trigger is "While Resolving", I can first set aside the 3 cards for Mind Games, meaning 2,4,1.
• Then I may choose Masks to be discarded.
• The 8is the only card that is shuffled back into the deck
• 2,4,1 are placed on top.

My opponent was not confident that this was correct, because normally Hidden Ledger text would need to resolve, first, which is selecting the suit (), which would include the 2and send it to the discard rather than on top of the Fate Deck. But by that logic, the Mind Games "set cards aside" would have to happen after shuffling, which makes no sense.

Confirmation? Thanks! 

Insurance: After another friendly model within 6 is killed by an enemy model, add a Soulstone to this Crew's Soulstone Pool.

I agree with this generating 2 Soulstones, because each model with the ability generates an independent stone. If the wording were based on the dead model, e.g.:

• After another enemy model within 6 is killed by an friendly model, add a Soulstone to this Crew's Soulstone Pool.

Then I believe it would only add 1. This is similar to Pandora's Auras.