Versus Ten Thunders

[Nicodemic]

So i am having some troubles with a local player who uses exclusively Ten Thunders, i am posting to get some ideas from people more experienced in playing or fighting Ten Thunders as to models within faction that are good against them.

I wont post the master's being used because building against a specific master doesn't help you in the long run and you would never know the specific master in a tournament.

So in general what models or masters and even play styles do you consider, or fear seeing if your a Ten Thunders player, when they declare Ten Thunders.

My opponent will probably see this and laugh

[Ferossa]

Each Ten Thunders box plays differently from all the others; that's their main (some would say only) strength. As with all tactical games, you need to determine:

1. How you are planning to win (schemes/strategies).
2. How your opponent is planning to win (crew choice will give hints, but not always).
3. How your opponent is trying to accomplish their objectives (What are they doing? Where are their models? How are they interacting with the game?)
4. How you can STOP your opponent from accomplishing their objectives (killing models, destroying markers, etc.)
5. While accomplishing YOUR objectives

There's no trick to winning Malifaux. It always comes down to out-thinking your opponent. Ten Thunders can be the tricksy faction, but no more so than Gremlins. Learn to read the board and read your opponent, you'll go a long way.

[The Zinc Lich]

Agreed.

 

There is also the important concepts of "questions" and "answers" when you are looking at the match up versus an entire faction. A question is a group of models that do something extremely specialized and powerful, while an answer is a group of models with the abilities necessary to not lose versus the question. For example, Ten Thunders can bring 4 snipers who deploy From The Shadows and can shoot into your deployment zone on turn 1, and they can give them Focus very easily. Do you have a good answer for this (in Ressers, the answer is usually Belles)? If you don't have a good answer, are you bringing stuff that is particularly vulnerable to focused gunfire?

 

Kang provides positive flips versus Undead models, and can bring Archers to blow up your dudes from out of Line of Sight. Do you have a way of getting to those archers in your list? Do you have a way of killing Kang outright? He also provides immunity to Horror duels, which is a good answer to a lot of horror lists.

 

Mister Graves can accelerate a beater (usually Izamu) a truly frightening distance. Do you have a way of killing or otherwise nullifying Izamu quickly enough that he doesn't kill everything and/or prevent you from getting your schemes done?

 

Chiaki is another really popular addition to 10T lists. She provides reliable condition clearing, functioning as an answer to The Hanged and a lot of Poison tricks. Do you have anything in your list that Chiaki shuts down?

 

Ototo and Sidir both have Laugh Off, which means you can't Lure them. They both provide excellent answers to Belles. Does your list rely on Lure to bring enemies into your threat range?

[Nicodemic]

Definitely all valid points and are things we all need to be working on getting better at for sure but i was meaning in crew creation.

What i mean is when you hear lets say guild, you know that often (there's always exceptions) the guild crew will be shooty and include a higher number of high cost models.

, so do you build to outnumber the guild to gain activation control or do you out muscle them with big dudes of your own?

Looking through the books TT seems like a faction that is well balanced with models who hit hard or can be hit hard both at range and melee with most starting at 5ss, so do you build your crew to bypass the higher stats, flood the board with targets, do you take tough models to soak the high potential damage at range or melee?

Of course its strat and scheme dependent and after playing them frequently you can gain a good idea of who your going to see, but as far as your general "core crew" what qualities do you look for in your model choices when facing Ten Thunders.

[Fetid Strumpet]

You don't.

 

Ten Thunders is so wildly varied that attempting to build your crew to contain models with specific synergy against 10T is just not going to work. TT as a general rule, have very little faction identity, and what they do have as faction traits tend to be things you can't build against, as in models with really good across the board stats, and free focus.

 

Realistically if your opponent declares TT and you don't just happen to know what crew you are facing because you know your friend only has one TT crew, then Just build a strong crew that would work no matter who you went against. Anything else and you are gambling your anti-tech is going to be a worthwhile investment.

[Nicodemic]

True enough, just probing for faction weakness i guess, thanks.

[Fetid Strumpet]

As a faction, TT has all the faction weaknesses of all the other factions... you just won't know which one is up against you to exploit until they reveal their master.

[The Godlyness]

Uhh kill kang. From what I hear if some one is playing TT hears ressers they grab him for his super buff. I personally have never used him but I hear about him a lot.

Most ten thunders have am model count of 7 some times less rarely more since TT anything is expensive. So as a Resser activation control and making more things than them goes a long way. Muwhahaha I find is great just to make them burn activations and maybe they might do damage. Maybe. 98% of TT is living so horror duels are actually generally effective and burn resources.

But there is no one list to rule them all. Build to strategies and schemes and play your game. Hindering them is a bonus but end of the day vp is vp.

[MasterDisaster]

The things I'd probably always take against 10T are the following, however they are great against anything so 10T aren't the exception and this of course is entirely Master dependent on your part..

 

1. Rotten Belles

2. Nurses

3. Some form of Condition Removal. 

4. Scheme runners (Ressers have plenty and probably some of the best!)

5. 10T Undead against 10T! You have access to Izamu, Toshiro, Yin, Chiaki, etc... Ressers do Undead better than 10T. Beat him at his own game!

 

The first 4 are very good regardless of who you are playing with or against.  5 is more for if you want to kick your opponent between the legs

[Kogan Style]

I've faced Lynch and McCabe, and from my experience you will probably want to avoid depending on Terror, unless you bring a Hanged AND get that hanged close enough to be effective. They have many ruthless models which ignore WP duels during their activation.

They do seem to have access to abilities that block lure, so I would opt for more models that have their own movement combos rather than rely on luring enemies in to close the range (i.e. models with leap, big mov values - not so much Punk zombies)

[Daysleeper]

I think PZs are great against 10T because a lot of 10T models get defensive real easy and the native   of the PZs Katanas is realy handy in situations like that.

[Nicodemic]

Yeah so models that can mess with theirs (through lure/paralyze/etc) and models to get past their good stats.

Now do people like to try and out activate with lots of models? Counter with our higher cost dudes? Or neither?

And as far as core models i see Ashigaru being good frontline troops with Armor and HtK, and maybe Flesh constructs to soak some sniper rounds, any thing else people think are good frontline troops against TT?

[MasterDisaster]

Out activating them really depends on their crew. McCabe for example can happily run with 8-10 models if he's running with Luna, Guild Hounds, Wastrels etc. They are all low cost and burn through your activations. Typically though a lot of their minions that you'll see commonly (Torakage, Illuminated etc) are at least 6ss+ and so their crews can often be fairly low in model count at around 7 or so. Ressers doing their thing can easily out activate the average crew with summons and lots of cheap models which we have in abundance. Our scheme runners are cheaper and often faster, we have 3 types around the 4ss category that are all very very good (Canine Remains, Necro Punks and Crooligans) and by taking or summoning a few of these you can happily out activate the enemy. 10T crews vary so dramatically from each other though so it's quite hard to say you should do this or definitely don't do that. 

 

Alternatively we can take on their heavy hitters with our own. Izamu, Rogue Necro, Valedictorian etc are all capable of putting out some nice damage and Ressers have some nice healing and support abilities about to keep them going. To add to this Ressers are great at crippling the enemy with conditions and the likes. Paralyze, Slow, Poison, Terror etc are all effective weapons can really hamper a 10T crew's ability to do their thing. They only really have a couple of reliable condition removal models and often you wont see many of them. Additionally we have some nice debilitating upgrades. Decaying Aura and Unnerving Aura for example can work wonders against most enemies. Nicodem is often my Master of choice when I hear 10T as I can summon minions that I'll need to counter the 10T problem. He offers insane support via buffs, debuffs or healing. He works well with Muahaha and Mindless Zombies and can summon to not only provide additional activation control but it also helps getting what models he'll need to get the job done. 

[Peanut Butter dude]

A lot of good information here, to throw in a little side note, don't forget that ressers are very good at creating tar pit situations for enemy models. most time ressers will have more models and depending on strategy and schemes tar pits will take out key models while ressers can summon more models to continue to achieve vp in my mind a model is worth it's stone cost if it burns enemy ap in a manner that allows me to achieve my vp in an easier manner.

[chris_havoc]

As a predominantly 10T player I would say one thing to really look out for is Misdirection if you are facing a 10T Master that is competent in Close Combat. So Mei Feng, Misaki, or McCabe. If you are playing a Master like Nicodem and you have a relatively bunched up positioning they will love it. Not all people play with them that aggressively but they can cause serious casualties and slow your game right down. Mei Feng and Misaki are basically impossible to tie down because of Rail Walk and Leaping Charge respectively but McCabe can be counterted if he charges into a clump by trying to get your valuable guys out of the combat and replacing them with expendable models so that hitting Misdirection is a non-issue. For Mei Feng avoiding big attacks that she Misdirects is a good way to go about dealing with her. Against Misaki there is almost no point to preventing the Misdirection by discarding cards as she will be able to punish you later in the turn by charging into something big and using her Assassination trigger to kill it.

Basically don't be overly tempted to discard the two cards to prevent Misdirection. If you know your opponent is planning to Misdirect your attacks then finding something other than attacking to do with your actions is not a bad idea. Another GREAT counter is to simply cheat to miss your attack thereby circumventing the whole ordeal. The Students and Valedictorian can counter the whole thing with their (0) but all three of those 10T's have good Wp stats so it's not a sure thing.

[Patzer]

Be prepared for Kang.

 

Be prepared to face some dedicated shooting from Katanaka Snipers, Fuhatsu, etc. They can get boosted stats and Focus in a verity of ways, so keeping in cover or have anti-shooting auras will help a lot.

 

They can heal a lot (TT-Bros, Illuminated, Sensei Yu can heal 4-8 wounds), so Decaying Aura is helpful.

 

There is a lot of interaction with Defensive Stance. So being able to attack WP is useful. Shikome, Onryo, Datsue Ba can all do this well.

 

There will be a lot of Hard to Kill models. Datsue Ba is good at dealing with this, as well as stuff with Flurry.

 

As others have said before, activation control can be quite easy to achieve if you run against some TT-crews.

 

TT in general doesn't cope with Armor very well. Grave Spirit, Izamu, etc. Might be solid picks.