Yan Lo Question

[Alexifer]

So, I saw a statement in another thread that went something like this:  "X model may be good with Yan Lo, but why would I play Yan Lo?"  I'm not trying to call anyone out, but I've seen statements similar to this in other threads and I'm wondering what the mentality is behind it.  Is it because he just doesn't fit the Resser "theme" of summoning?  Is he legitimately bad?  I really like the look of the models in his box and I like his background story.  So is he bad or just different?

[Deadmuppet]

All masters are good. His strengths are like all masters unique. He can be used in two ways. A pure support master or a semi beat stick. Both relly on him getting some early chi to power up his defencive upgrades.

As a support master with a few key big models he has the ability to bring them back then heal them with niece removing slow. If their spirits he can also make 4 spirit models all take a 1 ap.

I think he is a mad master.

Damaru or however u spell it as the key summoner with corpse bloat and summoning upgrade with chiaki the niece being able to remove slow and push with trigger.

[zFiend]

Haha. That was me saying that.

In my eyes he is among the worst if not the worst master in the game. He really doesn't do all that much from what I've seen and what I've played. He can endure a lot in a given circumstances if he has gone the right Chi paths and have gotten those running.

He can move models around and grant armor and summon an ancestor back once a game with half the wounds. Which isn't all that much to write home about considering the other masters in both of his dual factions. There is not a single game I would prefer him over the options in Rezzers or Thunders. He lacks the master presence and impact on the table.

This is just my opinion though.

[PraetorDragoon]

First, what doesn't work for a different player might work for you. What works for you might not work for a different player. 

 

His greatest strength is going the right Chi path and choosing when to go the right chi path. This results in him being a bit generic imo. He does however, have some nasty tricks in store, the most powerful is Transcedance. While armour +2 is a nice defensive buff, it also grants the Spirit characterstic, which has a suprising amount of synergy. The most obvious being Path of Spirit "Fury of the Yomi" (All spirits make a 1ap action) and Adversary which gives a to attack flips from spirits. Of course, this trick will work better in Ressers than in ten thunders.

 

He does have his tricks, but they might figure out a bit more to field on the table. (Also, Brutal Kharaka isn't that great. Better to just use his spirit blast in close combat)

[DeleteAccount]

Brutal Kharakura  is relevant though if you want path of Bone, that extra inch of engagement really lets you appear out of nowhere and generate mayhem, but yeah, when you don't need the inch or the higher weak damage, spirit barrage all the way.

 

I haven't been able to pull support Lo, I mostly just use "DESTROY LO". I don't think he is anything too amazing because of his slow start (he is horrible without ascending defensively, any relevant threat WILL kill him without the correct upgrade), but once you have incorporeal or impossible to Wound and get Hunpo Assault, he suddenly becomes a one man death squad dealing death wherever he goes, if you also manage to get to Chi 3 for the Ca 8 on spirit barrage you are punching gigantic holes while controlling the table and hell, any free style teleport is powerful, even if it's 2 AP, more than once I used Hunpo Assault into nowhere to place a scheme marker.

 

Moral o the story, he can become outright unmanageable and once he has both his defensive layers, he becomes one of the hardest masters to take down, period, but time will pass while he gets there and at the end of the day, you can only ascend once per turn, so you really have to be at your wits on when do you want to save chi or not. I barely use Transcendence myself since I'm stingy with my Chi till Lo becomes a force to be reckoned with and most times the match is too advanced or I'm too busy beating things into submission to bother armoring up my guys, but if I ever manage a support playstyle, it's golden.

[Dr. D. Mcmourning]

He is just an optimal master but most important so funny to play with, as Razhem mentioned there is a point he becomes unbeatble i tend to not make a full ancestor list. I mix him up with belles or nurses, depending on the oponent im facing, there are some crazy tricks if you manage to position a model in contact with izamu, which is really easy using lighting dance properly and then steroid him with a nurse.

 

The way i play ressers i normally strugle with people who is using counter spell like rasputina or sonnia, with yan lo this isn't much of a deal since he doesn't need any suit for his ability to success so you can outposition those beastly masters who are not really resilent with lighting dance.

 

Always bring datsue ba with him she has a lot of synergy with yan lo's crew, she can make any spirit to perform a walk action with her 0 ap action, she can take an upgrade which summons seishins, those little spirits are so good with yan lo, in turn one you can take one down to gain an extra chi since they have 2 WD you only have to surrend the defensive seishin and you are getting a free chi, and then while the game is running they can position in contact with the master when it activates, which brings you a model to target with lighting dance as friendly, if that's not enough they can actually heal to and give you the outactivation you sometimes need against some crews.

[Rob Lo]

Yan Lo is to me, the least synergistic of all the resser masters, and that's not a bad thing. The other guys, you think of the base list you'd take with them, and all those guys have game mechanics reasons to be on the field at the same time; Belles to put things where Seamus wants them, infect and catalyst all over for McMourning, etc. Yan Lo is different, you naturally want to bring his Ancestors, and they're all very good in the situations they're good in (yes that statement makes sense to me), but the sum of them isn't a great big ball of well oiled parts. Where the other masters are the guidepost pointing the direction for what that crew will be doing, Yan Lo is the guy who shows up and says 'You all go walk your path, I'll be over here on my own.' 

 

There are of course some synergies with him. He can play well with spirits and he may want to have Ancestors on the board. But he's the master that says your crew can be anything you want it to be. This lets you bring 50 stones worth of exactly what you think will accomplish your strats and schemes, without having to dedicate 20 stones to getting the poison engine or corpse marker engine or whatever going. Bring strong models whose purpose is "put points on the board", not "set up this chain of events to make that other guy shine". If your opponent has a hint of any other resser master you may bring, they can perhaps tailor to that. You can tell them up front you're bring Yan Lo and it doesn't greatly help them. Assuming an ancestors/spirits list is great way to be run over by a crew that has none of them.

 

It's one thing to summon a random minion and send him out to munch brains, it's a very different thing when your enemy spends AP after AP to down Izamu or Yin and then you bring him back and heal him up. It is a disheartening thing, and that alone is worth it. The only thing better for a Yan Lo player than someone who has never fought him before so you can pull off all the neat tricks and confuse them into a win, is an opponent who does know his tricks, and will go to great, great lengths to avoid being anywhere near ressurectable Yin or Izamu. You dictate the path the game walks down.

 

His Ancestor upgrades allow you to react to the enemy crew. Sometimes you want hard to wound early, sometimes you want incorporeal. Eventually you probably want both, and against a slow moving enemy you'll probably have them both by the time it matters. Against a fast opponent or with close deployment, you need the right defense quickly and he can do that.

 

Then there's lightning dance. Take a look at your opponents crew. Pick one guy you'd like to kill most. Now take that guy, find a good spot right where you'd rather he stand, away from the support of his crew, and place him there. While you're standing in the middle of the rest of his friends, throw a terra cotta curse on them, and wave goodbye as you jump back to that other guy and place him even further from his support and surrounded by your hand picked crew of destruction. Lightning dance is a positional game unlike anything else in Malifaux. Your opponent can almost never account for all the possibilities of how you might use it. Move the enemy offensively, move them defensively. Hell, move Yan Lo defensively. Pull him out of being surrounded by the enemy heavies and jump across to an enemy model off to the side, place it away anywhere to not have to deal with disengaging strikes, then two incorporeal walks through a forest to a nice safe anti-Assassinate corner of the board. 

 

Loads of reasons, but the truth is, you play Yan Lo because as a kid you watched hour and hours and hours of old Kung Fu movies on Saturday morning, and the ancient guy with the white beard was always the badass with style.

[MasterDisaster]

I've also been known to make similar comments as mentioned in the OP. zFiend and I have discussed this in length and we both agree that he is just plain dull. I've played him a couple of times and played against him a few times as well. I am by no means an expert on the old guy but whenever I'm playing Ressers or 10T I think to myself "Why in god's name would I take Yan Lo whenI could be taking X or Y instead?". Almost every other Master in his respective factions can get the job done quicker, more effectively or in a more interesting way. I don't think he is necassarily unbalanced or bad, he works... kind of. He just kind of floats around the board handing out mediocre buffs, heals a little and boosts himself with Chi which has never really seen much use outside of giving him the Aspects. His Upgrades are totally boring and the ability to revive each ancestor once per game whilst useful just doesn't inspire me at all. 

 

The problem I have with him is he is uninspiring to play with. He tries to be a Resser and 10T but never really reaches the full potential of either. His unique thing is the Chi mechanic which is not nearly as interesting as Mei Feng's Railway and Melee prowess, Lynch's card manipulation and Brilliance, Seamus' gun and back alley tricks and Kirai's movement and spirit shenanigans. He is by far the least appealing 10T master to me because he just doesn't seem to do anything that wows me unlike Shenlong, McCabe, Mei Feng, Lynch etc who are all VERY different and fun. Every time I've used him I walked away feeling like I'd played an Ancestors crew that he just happened to be in for the ride. This isn't to say I lost the game or he did nothing but his impact on the game was marginal at best. Every time I've used Yan Lo I wish I'd taken Nicodem or McMourning instead so I could have actually had some fun with the Master rather than just blow his AP for the sake of actually activating him. Subsequently zFiend and I have started calling him Yan Blow because we don't think he is all that good and we just find ourselves blowing his AP on anything we can to get his activation over with so we can use the good stuff like Izamu or Toshiro. 

[Sezar]

That was my experience with him as well for the first 5 Games I used him.... But on the 6th? Ohh man something clicked on me then and suddenly it all worked like a charm, whiping a deadly Perdita Crew out of the table in 4 turns playing Reckoning

[PraetorDragoon]

That was my experience with him as well for the first 5 Games I used him.... But on the 6th? Ohh man something clicked on me then and suddenly it all worked like a charm, whiping a deadly Perdita Crew out of the table in 4 turns playing Reckoning

 

Care to share your tricks on how you made him work? Maybe we can learn from it.

[zFiend]

Care to share your tricks on how you made him work? Maybe we can learn from it.

Yeah I'd like to hear those.

[Rob Lo]

At the end of the day, it's entirely possible to just not like a master. I have yet to find an awesome reason to bring Kirai to the table, but I know others like her and she can do great things when put in situations where the things she does are great. Don't even get me started on Marcus, because I will fall asleep.

 

People gravitate towards masters than interest them, where they like the stories and can see their own version of the stories play out on the table. You can pull off crazy stunts that you find awesome when inspired. If that interest isn't there, no amount of awesome upgrades will put it there.

 

I can see the number of people drawn to his story being fewer than say, Seamus or Misaki, and mechanically, I think he could have used.. something. But all things considered, he's a sound choice and decently competitive given a standard pool of models to pull from. I know when I put him on the table, people will stop and think about it for a minute, rather than "Oh look, another Nico".

[Math Mathonwy]

Yan Lo is to me, the least synergistic of all the resser masters, and that's not a bad thing.

I would argue that Tara is quite a bit less synergistic.

[zFiend]

ResserBob (digging the name btw.) you bring up very good and convincing points.

Also, the Yan Blow originates from Math. Our friend built his Yan Lo but didn't realise it had a beard, so he just put it together. When I saw it I immediately thought of a blow up doll and started laughing. Math being the good guy he is, took part in that and named that particular Yan Lo as Yan Blow. :D

[PraetorDragoon]

At the end of the day, it's entirely possible to just not like a master. I have yet to find an awesome reason to bring Kirai to the table, but I know others like her and she can do great things when put in situations where the things she does are great. Don't even get me started on Marcus, because I will fall asleep.

 

People gravitate towards masters than interest them, where they like the stories and can see their own version of the stories play out on the table. You can pull off crazy stunts that you find awesome when inspired. If that interest isn't there, no amount of awesome upgrades will put it there.

 

I can see the number of people drawn to his story being fewer than say, Seamus or Misaki, and mechanically, I think he could have used.. something. But all things considered, he's a sound choice and decently competitive given a standard pool of models to pull from. I know when I put him on the table, people will stop and think about it for a minute, rather than "Oh look, another Nico".

 

Those are some good points. No need to like all the masters. (Even though that is easy to do) But I would still recommend to not give up quickly. Sometimes it might take a few games before you find the click. (But if you don't find the click, then well, better move on)

[MasterDisaster]

At the end of the day, it's entirely possible to just not like a master. I have yet to find an awesome reason to bring Kirai to the table, but I know others like her and she can do great things when put in situations where the things she does are great. Don't even get me started on Marcus, because I will fall asleep.

 

People gravitate towards masters than interest them, where they like the stories and can see their own version of the stories play out on the table. You can pull off crazy stunts that you find awesome when inspired. If that interest isn't there, no amount of awesome upgrades will put it there.

 

I can see the number of people drawn to his story being fewer than say, Seamus or Misaki, and mechanically, I think he could have used.. something. But all things considered, he's a sound choice and decently competitive given a standard pool of models to pull from. I know when I put him on the table, people will stop and think about it for a minute, rather than "Oh look, another Nico".

 

The problem I have is I actually really like Yan Lo as a character, I like his fluff and models. What I dislike is how he plays. I'm in the same boat with Hamelin. I really want to like playing both of those Masters but I'll be damned if I can get into them. 

[zFiend]

I might have to try out Yan Blow one more time. Just for the rundown ResserBob provided.

I'd like to hear Sezars thoughts as well though.

[Sezar]

Well, I am not in any way a Yan Lo expert, and I could not tell you exactly what I am doing now differently than before, but up to that 6th game I had just gotten Severe defeats with Yan's Crew, and since then I win a lot more than I lose with it, and I am still playing almost exclusively puré thematic lists; usually 2-3 Ancestors, and rarely Izamu gets in (although in that Perdita game, Izamu was key both by absorving lots of punishment and dealing a fair bit himself too). I favour Chiaki and Toshiro a lot more than the rest, with Yin being the 3rd of them. I dont use to hire Belles, Nurses or any of the other "top" Resser models, but that is just because of personal thematic reasons.

That said, as others have already stated, Lightning Dance is key on my plastyle, as is a pretty aggresive Yan Lo, both with Brutal Kakkhara and the Reliquary. It is a really useful Action that allows Yan to break your opponent's tactic by disrupting the position of his key models, while at the same time puting them in high danger closer to your hitters, or at least taking them out of the real action.

Terracota Curse is also great for disrupting your enemies movility, especially against Crews that like to bunch Together and/or the ones with high number of weakish models (Collodi, Sommer...).

Both Lightning Dance and Humpo Assault give Yan Lo some really powerful movility, as well as Soul Porter's pushes, and Yan is by no means a Killer himself, but he is able to pull his own weight offensively as well.

Yan is also a bit weird in that he is usually not doping much on the first 2 turns, so he is usually not under a lot of presume himself, and once he has gotten Impossible to Wound and Incorporeal, my opponents use to forget any idea about killing him, so it is pretty rare to lose him in a game and also means he is most of the time free to do his bidding. And you can't even engage Yan Lo trying to slow him down there, because of his already commented movility!

So yeah, Yan Lo is versatile, maybe the most versatile Master in the game. He can play the buffing, debuffing, out positioning, Defensive, offensive, tough... What ever you need him to be. Sure, he is not a man to be feared, but is also one of his strenghts

[Rob Lo]

I would argue that Tara is quite a bit less synergistic.

 

Honestly I hadn't even considered Tara in my initial statement. Until recently I'd always thought of her as the Outcast who slipped in when someone left the door open at the Resser Club meeting. But she does at least play on the fast/slow and bury mechanic as do other models in her crew and the faction. Yan to me doesn't even go that far. "Hey, are you a spirit? Here, have some armor. Now go kill things( or die, I don't care), and get me Chi!" Neither are shining examples of a well tuned symphony, however.

 

The problem I have is I actually really like Yan Lo as a character, I like his fluff and models. What I dislike is how he plays. I'm in the same boat with Hamelin. I really want to like playing both of those Masters but I'll be damned if I can get into them. 

 

I hear you. I've played some fun games against Hamelin, mostly because of my opponents, but nothing about him works for me. I wish I liked Kirai more than I do, I really want to. The problem I see with how Yan is put together is, he's got a lot of neat tricks, you're keeping track of chi, shuffling upgrades, zapping models around the board, but for all that, his actual attacks, the down and dirty of him, is.. meh. At no point has anyone confused Yan Lo for Levi or Lady J when talking about attack prowess. If you want your masters to have that visceral punch (and really, who doesn't?), he's unfortunately not a top choice. Not even really talking just straight damage line here, just more along the lines of it being uninspiring. I would have liked to see his main attack have a chain lightning trigger mechanic. jump to another target at -1 damage each time, or something like that.

[Joel]

challenge accepted!

[MasterDisaster]

So yeah, Yan Lo is versatile, maybe the most versatile Master in the game. He can play the buffing, debuffing, out positioning, Defensive, offensive, tough... What ever you need him to be. Sure, he is not a man to be feared, but is also one of his strenghts

 

If I want that kind of versatility though I can take McCabe, he does pretty much everything you have listed here in a manor I find extremely more interesting and lets face it.... Indiana Jones vs. crusty old man? No contest! Additionally McCabe whilst not the heaviest hitting model out there can lay down some serious pain with his Sabre, he is definitely something that needs to be dealt with in the crew. Yan Lo can be ignored all game long without any major consequences. At least that's my experience. 

 

If I'm going the Resser route Nico is infinitely superior. He can summon anything he needs to get the job done. He buffs, debuffs, heals, summons like a boss and is capable of adapting to any situation, he also does all of this much better than Yan Lo does. I honestly cannot think of a single reason why I'd ever take Yan Lo over McCabe or Nico except for actually wanting to play Yan Lo.

[DeleteAccount]

OK, I agree Yan Lo takes some turns to get going, but him being something that you can ignore? When you are in bone you are pretty much the textbook definition of Wild Card, he can cover a huge amount of space on the table and beat the crap out of everything near that section of the table. If he has left over chi, those Ca 8 attacks pile up quick and start going in deep and if you don't have anything better to do with your last AP, give Armor +2 to a few guys and see your opponent cringe at the prospect of deciding what to put attention to.

[MasterDisaster]

OK, I agree Yan Lo takes some turns to get going, but him being something that you can ignore? When you are in bone you are pretty much the textbook definition of Wild Card, he can cover a huge amount of space on the table and beat the crap out of everything near that section of the table. If he has left over chi, those Ca 8 attacks pile up quick and start going in deep and if you don't have anything better to do with your last AP, give Armor +2 to a few guys and see your opponent cringe at the prospect of deciding what to put attention to.

 

Like I said, in my experience he is not a threat. Izamu, Yin, Chiaki and Toshiro are threats that need to be dealt with in their own right but Yan Lo has never caused either me or any of my opponents any serious trouble. Much like Hamelin who also takes a turn or two to really get fired up he just doesn't concern me. By the time Yan Lo is a serious threat (usually around turns 3-4 in my experience) 9 times out of 10 I've already murdered half his crew and am left staring down a hulked out old man who doesn't cause me much concern. 

[zFiend]

Hahahaha.

"I am ready to go! Wait. Where is everyone..?"

[enderwiggin]

I hate to say it, given that he was my first official M2E Master, but Yan Lo really does feel that way. He's not really that synergistic with his crew for the most part. He's not bad, but because he's not outstanding in any one area he feels very much the neutral duck in the pond. I have many times the memories of what the crew has done over what he's done. I can't say the same about any other master I've played with in M2E though, since they stand should to shoulder with their crews in memorable experiences.