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Non-Ancestor Yan Lo


Shadowfane

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So, I'm curious.... (it usually leads to horrible, horrible things happening...)

 

After looking at Yan Lo, I've come to the conclusion that, whilst he obviously works with Ancestors, most of his synergy with them is on his upgrades, and without that one he could probably just be run as a board control Master (with lightning dance and terracotta curse, etc) without using a single ancestor (just using the soul porter to push and help with chi.

 

So, has anyone tried that? Yan Lo sans ancestors? :)

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A couple of the local guys run him sort of that way. They typically take ancestors in their list but seldom take the upgrade to resurrect them.

In our casual group I would say it works. 

They focus on getting Yan's chi high enough to get the first 2 upgrades, Incorporeal and impossible to wound, and ignore the last one.

I think it's quite viable. 

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I've tried this with decent success, using Yan Lo to lightning dance enemy models into a kill-ball consisting of Kang, Ototo and Yamaziko. I do still take Chiaki, since she's so useful in general and pairs very well with the old man. I use last blossom minions for scheme running with smoke and shadows. Yan Lo's synergy with his ancestors begins and ends with Reliquary, which is optional in the first place.

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I love the ancestors, but I don't load them up too much. Chiaki is annoying. When I take her, more often than not I don't use her for much. When I don't take her, I spend 5 turns wishing she was there. So I typically always take her now. Depending on what I'm needing to do/up against, Toshiro or Izamu typically make their way into the crew. Yin I hire with other masters a lot more than with Yan Lo. (love her with Brewmaster)

 

Lately though, i always try to make room for some variation of Fermented River Monk, 10T brother, Tengu, High River Monk, 10T Archer, or Samurai. i find a ton of usefulness out of all of these depending (of course) on what i need to get done.

 

So while i probably wouldn't run Yan with no ancestors at all, I certainly don't fill my crew with them.

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Ancestors are his TRAP!! a few of them are good but to many will limit you.

Disagree.

 

I take them all and do just fine. That's not saying that not taking them won't work. I think the OP idea has plenty of potential in theory.....I just haven't tried it yet so I have no real comment on it.

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I really see no reason to not take the ancestors or at least 1-2 of them with yan lo. The ability to resurrect them is one major way he shines. By skipping out on ancestors you are missing one of his biggest strengths for really no reason. Sure lightning dance is good, but it's even better if the model you dance with ends up near yin or izamu.

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On the other hand, he brings a lot of unique abilities to any 10T crew that their strong models can really appreciate. Adding extra armour to the squishier 10T minions (like Torakage or Archers, for example) can make them much more survivable in those do-or-die moments (and 10T brothers can achieve armour +3 with his help), while having your ranged pieces (snipers, archers) taking an extra action thanks to his ascendant upgrades can be particularly devastating against some crews, and of course every crew appreciates healing. The Ancestors are powerful, and more so with Yan Lo, but that doesn't mean they're ideal for every game, and they have an in-built inflexibility from taking up 80%ish of your crew resources each game.

 

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to take them, just that Yan Lo has a lot to offer any crew he joins, not just the Ancestors (and that the extra he does offer them - reliquary - is an upgrade, so can be left off to save a stone).

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I only take the summon with Izamu, but that doesn´t mean I don´t like having other ancestors around. I just don´t really value much bringing ancestors back outside of Izamu since Toshiro and Chiaki´s upgrades are a big part of why I use them, Yin just doesn´t seem to mesh well with what Yan does, so she goes with other masters. But yeah, no real need to use ancestors, it´s more about them giving you something you need in your crew than being synergy pieces. It´s the nice thing about Yan, he can work with anything.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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