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Yan Blow?


Patzer

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One of the strongest players in my local meta plays Yan Lo and is amazing at it. I've gotten stomped by Yan Lo before. He's got movement tricks and Crew durability and surprising offense and Crew support.

 

There's also another big benefit for Yan Lo in tournament play that's a little bit above-the-table but well worth considering: He's a lot easier to transport than most Resser Masters. If you're flying, you don't need an extra suitcase for him. You can carry your Yan Lo stuff on a single tray. That kind of thing. A lot of that is a factor of his Summoning mechanic - you don't need to bring 50 models for Yan Lo to do his thing!

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Side note: Then you should paint him up really cool.

 

/whistles innocently

 

 

Also, Aaron is staff and what he says is official DGraz so you have to paint Yan Lo now (it's only in rules forums that it's not official ...*)

 

*I made this up - paint him anyway

I can only follow one order at a time........Yan Lo is on the list of the 10T commission I'm working on, but when I asked for them to give the man a name, the name spoken was Ototo. If you need a hint on how they might look, the last couple posts in my painting thread is the beginning of that commission (I will be following the theme throughout the project).

 

Playing him to theme sucked and continued to suck even after people had grokked how to use him.

Also note that you winning with a given Master isn't indicative of anything re:that Master's power level since you are a really good player. In Malifaux, skill plays a much bigger role than model balance since the balance is currently so good. But I really shudder to think what you would do to your meta were you to get excited about Dreamer or Levi.

I don't deny that playing him to theme sucked (even though I did it anyway) but it was legal....and masters today are still played outside the box like that.

 

Not sure how to respond to your second point without coming off as an arrogant ass (because I do agree that skill does mean quite a bit).....I think I do okay, but I think the guys at my LGS just let me win because they don't want to see me cry anymore ;)

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I bought his crew box because it looked good, and the Ashigaru looked really cool. Already thinking of a paint scheme for him, but it will probably be months before the crew is done. I run an ancestors list mainly with Yan Lo, Soul Porter, Chiaki, Toshiro and Izamu with the remaining points in ashigaru (because they look great more than anything) and maybe a canine remains depending on points left.

 

I go straight to Yan Lo when certain schemes show up. I like to take him when turf war and protect territory are options as the crew seems great at moving up to the centre, spreading out a bit and holding ground. Ashigaru are fairly tough to shift for their points and Toshiro can sit behind and buff them in close combat, summoning extra Ashigaru as well. Yan Lo and Chiaki heal / remove conditions and it's quite demoralizing to an opponent when Izamu dies and is then resurrected again and then is healed and has slow removed by Chiaki. Once Yan Lo is tooled up with the ascendant upgrades he's hard to get rid of and I use him to lighting dance enemy models to wherever I need. I can see why some schemes and strategies might not be suited to him but when the right ones come up I really like playing him.

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I think someone here said it best. Yan Lo doesn't do anything that another Resser master doesn't already do better. So its like... YO! Why Yan Lo Bro?

But as I alluded to already, that can be said of any generalist master. Let's look at my favorite....Marcus and compare him to others. He can be really fast and do Schemes well.....faster and better than Colette? He can beat people up and make them pay for coming after him.....better than Ironsides? (who by the way almost single-handedly wiped out half my Marcus crew when I swarmed her to take her down....including Marcus himself). He can de-buff enemies.......better than Raspy who can Paralyze half your crew every turn? He can be tough to take down.......tougher than Ramos? Or Colette? Or Kaeris? Or Ironsides? But that doesn't make Marcus weak. It's how you use all those different things that make the real difference.

 

There's always going to be some specialist that beats out a generalist in some area or another.....but I don't need my master to be the best at something, that's why I get to hire a crew. And again, I think a lot of it boils down to play-style. Lots of people like a specialist master...then they hire crew to do the things the master can't. Other people like specific models to do certain jobs and a master that can throw his support to wherever and whatever is needed. Like me, I like redundancy in my crews....I take models that are good at certain things but if one falls, my master can generally fill the gap that was left....in that way my game doesn't fall apart because I lost one or two "lynch-pin" models since I don't have any lynch-pins.

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@Dgraz

Is that really fair to say though really?

You are basically saying Marcus is fine and he is a generalist, Yan Lo is being lumped into the generalist category therefor he is fine.

Your argument is that Marcus is the second best arcanist master at pretty much anything you want to do, but never the worst therefore he is a very good choice. I don't disagree with any of that, in fact I would say it's what makes Levi one the best masters in the game, just remove arcanist from my previous sentence. 

 

That doesn't follow with Yan Lo. 

He isn't the second best summoner the ressurs have, he might be the worst.

He isn't the second best at zone control. 

He isn't the second best at buffing his crew.

He isn't the second best at killing.

He isn't the second best at scheme manipulation. 

 

He is the bottom tier in nearly everything you could possibly want to achieve in a game. This isn't an issue of one master doing something better than Yan Lo, it's that most masters do everything better than he does. My opinion anyway, beautiful crew though. 

TL;DR: Not being good at anything doesn't make you a "Generalist" just makes you bad. 

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Because of this thread, I went out and tried Yan Lo for the first time last night.  I was pleasantly surprised with the versatility of this crew, and I plan on playing him quite a bit in the future. 

 

One of my loves is having a crew that can do well in many situations.  I don't care if its the best in each situation... I don't want to have to think between rounds at a tournament.  I want to set down my crew and go!

 

Hooray Yan Lo!  Leisurely gaming experience, and lots of fun tricks!

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Well, that argument is a whole different kettle of fish.....and one I'll have a much harder time having since I don't play ressers and I don't know them as well (I only play Yan Lo as 10T). The prevailing sentiment in this argument was that other masters were better at some things so that made Yan Lo a poor choice.....the same could be said about several 'generalist' type masters and that was what I was talking about....that being a generalist was not inherently worse than being a specialist.

 

I don't agree that he is bottom tier in everything....maybe not second best, but not the worst.....especially when you need to do something that your more specialized master doesn't have access to.......but I just don't have the knowledge off the top of my head to make a compelling argument about that.

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Some of his power is still locked up in unreleased plastics too. Shikome can do dark, evil things with Fury of the Yomi.

 

Komainu are also awesome looking on paper for how cheap they are. It's just going to be awkward summoning them with Toshi because of the scrap counters needed.

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Komainu are also awesome looking on paper for how cheap they are. It's just going to be awkward summoning them with Toshi because of the scrap counters needed.

They're better on the table. Since most crews have something that drops Corpse Counters, but not as many things that drop Scrap.....I actually start most of my games with two Komainu instead of Ashigaru.....Komainu are like really...really good. If they die, they drop scrap so I can summon more....and when other things die they drop Corpses, so I always have either option available.

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This is entirely anecdotal, but one of my friends has been learning Yan Lo mostly through using his themed crew.  Since he's my most common opponent I've gotten a handful of games against Yan Lo, and my initial take is that he's no better or worse than a lot of other masters.  I certainly don't think he's underpowered.  Yan can do some very powerful things like any master, and I've discovered some things that work well against him (i.e. Jack Daw). 

 

Maybe Yan Lo is very difficult to play well?  My friend is a very good player, so it's possible he's playing Yan to a higher level than most people, and that's biasing my opinion.

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This is entirely anecdotal, but one of my friends has been learning Yan Lo mostly through using his themed crew.  Since he's my most common opponent I've gotten a handful of games against Yan Lo, and my initial take is that he's no better or worse than a lot of other masters.  I certainly don't think he's underpowered.  Yan can do some very powerful things like any master, and I've discovered some things that work well against him (i.e. Jack Daw). 

 

Maybe Yan Lo is very difficult to play well?  My friend is a very good player, so it's possible he's playing Yan to a higher level than most people, and that's biasing my opinion.

 

That's very possible. I bet that if he just sat down and learned McMourning, and played him you would be screaming and tearing your hair out that McMourning is an OP pile of crap....which he almost kinda is.

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I also want to say that when people talk about a master being OP or UP in malifaux, they are saying that they are either picked more often or less often within a faction and across strats and schemes. If a master is a powerful pick on every strat and scheme and there isn't much of a need to even consider other masters in that faction, you  have on OP master. This is of course from a competitive perspective, because in normal games you can play whatever the hell you want.

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For my area, local metagame and all that, I do feel that he comes across as strictly a middle-lower master in the field. I win more than not by a comfortable margin, but it's his crew that does the heavy lifting and almost never Yan Lo himself.

 

It probably wouldn't be as bad, as already mentioned, if his melee was a better option because he could be a very interesting bomb. Personally I think Brutal Kakakkara etc. should have made the melee attack a CA like the totems spear, or allowed for an option to discard some amount of Chi for a :+fate  to melee and dmg flips because while he can be survivable when fully chi'd up his offense is not any better to a halfway prepared opponent.

 

 

Instead I have wonderful memories of Yin and Izamu doing filthy things to win games. Fact is that it's just not superbly likely that I'll play an Ancestor dangerously enough to get killed sheerly for the reliquary.

 

 

TL;DR Give Yan Lo some ascendent upgrade love to give him a bigger niche somewhere in the game. Call it a ghost strike that turns Melee attacks up a notch or something for like 2 Chi.

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I felt pretty much the same. Taking Yan Lo out of the crew in my games with not have impacted the end result all that much. 

 

To be honest thats how I like all my masters to be. I know you meant it as a negative, but to me that is one of his strengths. Its not warmanchine, I'm happy to be able to sacrifice off any part of my crew including the master for the win. I don't like battle plans which can be disrupted by killing off one of my models (probably becasue I do best with crews that can go and kill off that key model). Maybe why I don't generally have much sucess with summoners (or the Ressur faction in general), but do have success with Yan lo.

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I don't see that as a strength at all when it comes to a Master. If a model doesn't pull its weight in SS then it's taken less.

Your argument doesn't make sense either if you think about what was written, if the masters are essentially non-essential and you do well with a balanced crew than the Master choice wouldn't matter. Other than the totem(s), you can freely pick everything a Resser Yan Lo could pick with Kirai/Molly/etc. If you're not doing well with them and you are with Yan, then that directly points to Masters needing to be effective in some way enough to be "worth their SS"/picking them as a master.

 

 

Furthermore, the ability to sacrifice a master to secure a win is not the purview of general masters alone either. I have (and will continue to) cheerfully tossed every Master I own into a meat grinder knowing the resources they tie up, kill, or objectives that needed cleared and the scheme runner engaged.

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I don't see that as a strength at all when it comes to a Master. If a model doesn't pull its weight in SS then it's taken less.

Your argument doesn't make sense either if you think about what was written, if the masters are essentially non-essential and you do well with a balanced crew than the Master choice wouldn't matter. Other than the totem(s), you can freely pick everything a Resser Yan Lo could pick with Kirai/Molly/etc. If you're not doing well with them and you are with Yan, then that directly points to Masters needing to be effective in some way enough to be "worth their SS"/picking them as a master.

 

 

Furthermore, the ability to sacrifice a master to secure a win is not the purview of general masters alone either. I have (and will continue to) cheerfully tossed every Master I own into a meat grinder knowing the resources they tie up, kill, or objectives that needed cleared and the scheme runner engaged.

 

I don't know what Zfiend/master Disaster do with Yan lo. If he was just used as a glorified Scheme runner, then he would would be great, but not "feel" like a master to most people. Thats often how I end up using Tara, and it also works well. And that was my point, he might not do something big and showy like Nicodems/Molly/Kirai Summoning, and just kind of do general things that you normally think of other models doing.  It might feel like I'm not playing with a master, but Yan lo would be doing the role I set for him.

He can't just go and delete 1 model, but in my experience he will put out more damage on the enemy than any other Resurectionist master, its just spread in a similar way to Sonnia or Rasputina.

 

Most of my Crew selection actually doesn't matter who my master is. And I generally recomend if you're looking at a new master, to field your old crew just with the new master to see how they differ from what you are used to.

And i get better results with Yan lo for my style than I do with other Resurectionists.

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