Dendrophile

Echoing what others have said with Minako. She's my main henchman, makes it into the majority of my crews and summoning Katashiro is a large part of how I play. Two models that haven't been mentioned: Jin from the title box makes it into the majority of my crews as well and I think he's phenomenal for what he costs. In the average game I can usually deny my opponent one or two VP and score one of my own in the turn that he unburden. So for what he costs I see him as one of my most valuable models. I'm really keen on the Wokou raiders, not everyone is high on them but for me they can be amazing beaters and good for denying the opponent scheme marker based schemes. Everything else outside of those boxes are situational for when I use them Thunders has amazing versatile models and my most regular takes are the Dawn Serpant, Samurai & Lone Swordsman. Some people like him a lot but I hate Ototo! Rarely take him

Misaki 2 on the other hand relies on Keyword models much more! Her Spreading Influence ability is limited to "Last Blossom or enemy model[s]" to drop the shadow markers so friendly versatile and out of keyword models don't enable this ability. Misaki 2 also makes a lot of the keyword triggers more useful as some will drop the extra shadow markers. Then triggers such as Shadow Pin or Unworthy Of Her Attention are easier to achieve as there are probably shadow markers in range The majority of the keyword (minus Yamaziko and Crime Bosses) have the ability to gain Fast through Assassin, or Life of Crime with the Wokou which are also ways of getting out shadow markers

I've got most of the Faction and played a lot with Misaki, Shenlong, Youko, Yan Lo and Mei Feng. Misaki is my favourite by far and I've been solo mastering her this year at tournaments. I love the playstyle, kind of got addicted to Arcane Reservoir and love the bonus action to shuffle cards back into the fate deck. As said above, Misaki has a fairly straightforward playstyle but there's capacity to go into more depth and play a range of playstyles from killy to schemey but also pseudo obey with Oyabuns Command and also some summoning with Minako. Her in-keyword models have great movement or movement tricks, good damage output and good for getting scheme markers but are dreadful at taking damage so you will lose quite a few models over the game. One of her keyword mechanics of Charge Through which is a positive to damage flips when you've charged which is great for damage output but I've found that Last Blossom synergises quite well with Oni as the Flicker Tokens (although different) can end up in the same place. If I have a killing scheme (Cursed Objects in current GG) then I'll take Ama No Zako and some versatile models rather than staying in keyword as Last Blossom models will largely go down to a stiff breeze when facing a beater! Ototo seems to get a lot of game play when people take Misaki, which I don't really get as Ototo is pretty trash in my experience and opinion. For the same soul stone cost you can take Bill Algren who is infinitely better. As a henchman then Minako Rei is much better. The only time I would take Ototo is if my opponent has a beater than I need to tie up with a model that I can afford to have do that. I've taken Shenlong 1 & 2, Youko 2, Mei Feng 2 and Yan Lo to tournaments and had fun with all of them but not the best success, but that is more to do with my inability to hold lots of information in my head at any one time so now I solo master Misaki!! I'd personally say that Ancestor/Retainer covers everything really well and I'll be trying to do more of that keyword as well

Hi, Can I put my name down for this one. Greg Packman. Can pay on Friday

Money sent, do I need to pre-register as a faction? If so then Ten Thunders!

Hiya, could I book a place for this please. Greg Packman. Will send payment asap

I've found Mei Feng is pretty good for Cursed Objects as so much of her crew has armour and with Mei Feng 2 you can dish out a lot of Shielded. I've had some luck with Misaki in Cursed Objects. The Torakage die off pretty quickly so I tend not to take them for that strat, I either use a smaller crew with more enforcers or take the Thunder Archers or Snipers for the ranged attack and keep them at a distance

Misaki because of the Unburying and Abandon Honor After that is Shenlong as I love the Monk keyword and I'm having a bit of success at the moment using the crew with Wandering Style and moving enemy models off scheme markers!

My first turn with Shenlong is much like what else has been said! Using the bonus actions on Shen and Sensei Yu to give a lower cost Monk fast. I nearly always equip Wandering Style first turn to get the extra movement from Shen and the Students. Plus the extra Chi Tokens on the Wandering Monks can be very useful as they are such squishy models! My default crew (not looking at Strats and Schemes would nearly always be Shenlong 2x Aspiring Students Sensei Yu 2x Wandering River Monks 1x Low River Monk 1x Thunder Archer 1x Charm Warder That leaves me with 13ss which I then might spend on a versatile model (normally Dawn Serpent of Lone Swordsman) or another Thunder Archer or the Four Winds Golem if I need to move other models around the board. I rarely take High River Monks. On paper they look good but on the table they really don't hang around long and are disappointingly easy to kill. Ruthless and Flurry mean that I may occasionally take them when those abilities are required but the Lone Swordsman also has Ruthless, is the same cost, has a suit choice for triggers ability and is just all round a better model!!

Yeah agree with all the above points but a couple that I would add. He's good to send into your opponents main beater to tie them up; dishing out fast and his other abilities is VERY valuable From a GG3 perspective, (no comments yet since the new GG) when it comes to Strats such as Guard the Stash, Covert Operation and Carve a Path (to a lesser extent) his Laugh Off ability as well as his attack moving other models out of the way is almost a game winner in itself! On the Charm Warder front, against a summoning crew then taking two would make sense but I've found that in GG3 more players seem to keep the bulk of their crew some what central on the board (personal playing experience); this would only benefit a crew taking two charm warders. Saying that though, I've only ever taken one per game as the other 7ss I usually spend on a Thunder Archer or other Monk

Based on gaming experiences then for me the most difficult masters to play against were Asami, Hamlyn and Pandora. Asami's crews marker removal made it very hard to play, Hamlyns blight tokens can dish out a lot of otherwise avoidable damage and Pandora dishing out conditions to then use them for ping damage or just ruining your game play was not fun at all!

I'm a big fan of the Thunder Archers. Good for sniping off scheme markers, handy to stay back in deployment to deny some end of game scheme points, good damage and built in stat on the gun attack. Chi tokens from shared Monk keyword can be really useful to win you duels if the card flips are close. You can stack up Focus on them early on to make the attack duels more in your favour. Wokou Raiders are also quite useful, built in positive and good damage to their melee option plus the 12" gun gives another ranged option for a keyword that doesn't have too many of them. Their ability to move or remove scheme markers can be invaluable for scoring and denying scheme points. For versatiles I love the Dawn Serpant, Shadow Emmisarry, Lone Swordsman and Samurai. Dawn Serpant is my most frequent option but depending on the strats and schemes they all add a lot of value. A lot of people rate Fuhatsu but everyone I play against tries to kill him as early as possible so I don't get much use out of him!! Yasanori is a beautiful model but his current Errata basically rules him out of ever being chosen

I'm a huge Misaki fan!! My usual crew is Misaki and Sheng with Ototo as an auto pic 9/10 times Torakage and Thunder Archer are also nearly always auto pics for me as the Torakage movement is brilliant, but they can go down very easily so Silent Protector can be useful to give them Hard to Kill. The Thunder Archer is brilliant as it can sit back and either snipe off enemy scheme markers or shoot at enemy models and I reckon that of all my damage dealing models then the Thunder Archer usually averages the highest amount of damage for me. The Chi tokens are brilliant and the blast damage is always useful! The Sniper and Katanaka Crime Boss are very situational for me based on the Strat and Schemes but are good in their own ways Minako is great for scheme marker pools as the Katashiro are brilliant for this Recently started using Jin Baccara who I am really getting to like Dawn Serpant and Lone Swordsman are great verstiles to run with Misaki, so are the Samurai and Fuhatsu

I've been loving Mei Feng 2, I didn't really work out how to use Mei 1 but having a lot of fun playing Foreman! I think she may get Errata'd at some point soon but at the moment, everything that she can do you can do with minimal resources so I've been playing with a 50SS crew and taking 0SS into games. 'Iron Plating' takes care of enemy damage and also bringing in the Shadow Emissary takes care of redrawing the Control Hand if needed. Mei 2 and Sparks just go around buffing friendly models or healing, then put/remove conditions on enemy models. That frees up the rest of the crew to dish out damage. All the armour, shielded and Ride The Rails makes her great for Cursed Objects and summoning Metal Gamins if needed is so easy! I'm a big fan!

Another vote for the Low River Monks. Out of Keyword they cost 5ss so you can't really go wrong with that!!

I'm finding GG3 better for 10T, can't fully explain why though!! Shenlong with the Four Winds Punch on the Wandering Style seems to work very well given how much positioning is needed for the strats Playing with Misaki 1 and Mei Feng 2 and find they play better than in GG2