Playing against Som'er

[mr_raspberry]

Hey folks,

 

relatively new player here. I am setting up a crew against Som'er and it'll probably be against the mass summoning tactic. Depending on the schemes and strategies that show up during setup the crew might change, but the general idea was a bit like this:

 

Misaki

+ Disguise

Shang

 

Ama No Zako

+ Recalled Training

 

Katanaka Sniper

Katanaka Sniper

 

Wastrel

Wastrel

 

Monk of the Low River

 

 

Misaki is there for scoring points, as are the Wastrels.

Katanaka Snipers should keep the horde of my back as would Ama No Zako who can feed on lots of Ht 1 models.

Monk of Low River to give some heal and otherwise hold important objectives.

 

Idea is to have a good trade off, between model count, blast damage and trying to get objectives when necessary

 

The rest of the points will be spent ad hoc. Any suggestions or ideas for that kind of setup?

[Adran]

Misaki with Recalled training charging into the middle of the summoning section and using the Thuder attack is probably the best way to clear out mass numbers of Gremlins.

Samurai also do pretty well against mass gremlins.

Target Priority is a vital skill. Kill the slop haulers, and the whole thing will slow down.

 

But don't let the summoning distract you from scoring points.

[scarlett fever]

That advice is on the money.

Do what Adran says.

[szendroib]

As a Somer player (not the summoning factory kind but still):

 

Snipers are golden. What stops gremlins are armor, hard to wound (quite low min damage all around), blasts and terrifying. Zako looks good against bayou gremlins on the paper but if Somer brings liquid bravery he can turn all his bayous into wp6 with the help of his 2 totems. Than cheat from the fate deck. It will pass the terrifying quite often without draining his hand. I wouldn't count on devour quite often but it is fun when it happens. I think Yin could work quite well, if she is in hard cover the enemy attacks with double negative to both attack and damage, it is quite huge. Than if she gets into melee she can shut down half the crew with a little luck and/or damage them during disengaging strikes. I'm not sure I would use Wastrels as scheme runners because df4 is bad against the gremlin horde. Ten thunder brothers would go further for the extra 1 ss.

[EntrepeNinja]

You could also look at a Yamaziko. Cheap and effective, with blasts and a good range. Can engage a lot of gremlin stopping shooting and charges. Also- if you decide it's time to make a run on the big man, a nimble, focus hit will make it count, as opposed to a charge which can be squeeled away from.

 

ENinja

[D_acolyte]

Kill the slop haulers or the gremlins in one go because both will limit summoning. also do not plan on having a hand.

[Omenbringer]

As a Somer player (not the summoning factory kind but still):

 

Snipers are golden. What stops gremlins are armor, hard to wound (quite low min damage all around), blasts and terrifying. Zako looks good against bayou gremlins on the paper but if Somer brings liquid bravery he can turn all his bayous into wp6 with the help of his 2 totems. Than cheat from the fate deck. It will pass the terrifying quite often without draining his hand. I wouldn't count on devour quite often but it is fun when it happens. I think Yin could work quite well, if she is in hard cover the enemy attacks with double negative to both attack and damage, it is quite huge. Than if she gets into melee she can shut down half the crew with a little luck and/or damage them during disengaging strikes. I'm not sure I would use Wastrels as scheme runners because df4 is bad against the gremlin horde. Ten thunder brothers would go further for the extra 1 ss.

 

Consider deploying the Katanaka Snipers way up field to start punishing the summon factory before it really gets started. If you are going to activate them early then focus on killing the Slop Hauler, if going later then focus on the wounded Bayou Gremlin's. Both of these will dramatically slow the summon factories potential and go a long way toward pulling its teeth.

 

I disagree quite a bit with the parts mentioning Hard To Wound and Armor as viable counters to gremlin aggression. These may work outside of the summon factory (especially with more elite crews), but within it they aren't so effective. The low minimum damage just encourages the Gremlin player to focus on hitting often (ties still succeed), instead of particularly well (which Bayou Gremlin's aren't particularly likely to do anyway, even with cheating). When only one model is doing this it isn't so imposing, however, when 4 or more Bayou Gremlin's each focus on the same target the hits add up quickly. Hard to Wound actually helps quite a bit as well by increasing the odds the Red Joker will show on one of those many damage flips (due to adding even more to the damage flip), not to mention increasing the likelihood and speed of cycling the deck and possibly reintroducing that Red Joker to the mix. I am sure some will disagree with me, but it has rarely failed me, especially with enough Bayou Gremlin's contributing.

 

I would parrot the recommendation to replace the Wastrels with something else instead. I would look at the Torakage with the actions granted from Smoke and Shadows upgrade instead. They can hide from the Gremlin hordes and then pop out in the action. This of course depends upon how you want to run Misaki, Stalking Bisento or Disguise.

 

Kill the slop haulers or the gremlins in one go because both will limit summoning. also do not plan on having a hand.

 

If facing the summon factory focus on the lowly Bayou Gremlins. They wont be difficult to kill most times, especially if injured, moderate damage from Misaki will kill them in one go regardless. Once they are gone, Som'er can only summon Piglets (and then only thru his melee trigger). Without access to cheap disposable Bayou Gremlin's that can relent the attack and increase the likelihood of dying to weak damage flips from Som'er, it wont be happening as often. After that the Slop Haulers are good targets as a lot of Gremlin abilities are predicated upon hurting themselves to increase effectiveness.

 

Misaki is actually fairly well equipped to counter the loss of a control hand. She has a high WP and the Katanaka Snipers come with built in modifiers on the attack. The Ten Thunders models also have decent combat stats, high enough to function well even without access to cheating. Dont be afraid to burn Soul stones to prevent it from happening, since once they are gone her melee strikes benefit.

 

Hope that helps a bit.

 

[mr_raspberry]

Many thanks to all of you for the great tips. I'll try Yin + Yamaziko for Ama and check if there is room for torakage over the wastrels. We'll see how it works today ;-)

[mr_raspberry]

Short update after the game:

 

I was able to stop the gremlin machine in turn 2. The snipers were indeed well worth their stones, as was Yin. I did not get much use out of Yamaziko, but that was not her fault but the War Pig's ;-). As she was my bodyguard model, I lost three points there, should have stuck it on Yin. The opponent had Bishop who caused a bit of mayhem as was expected.

 

In the end I lost 8:4, but next time I'll know what is waiting for me. Thanks again all around for the help. Greatly appreciated

[BigHammer]

To add to Omenbringer's point on Misaki and control hands, it's actually a very bad idea for Som'er to have no hand against her; Misaki is best played with Misdirection, to which the only defence is a control hand - if she still has stones, she can add a mask to any defence duel to have any attack against her hit another model, and if not she will have a positive flip on defence built in for a greater chance of a mask (and possibly more if she's used Recalled Training on that turn).

 

In addition to unopposed Misdirects, having no control hand also means that her assassinate trigger can only be stopped by stones, which can get expensive quickly, so even if she's only doing weak damage, there's an excellent chance that those two wounds will still kill an important model outright.

 

On top of all that, she doesn't massively rely on her control hand to accomplish anything. With Recalled Training and Thunder, she can wipe out a large swathe of clumped up gremlins in one activation, and with Stalking Bisento she has enough positive flips against a single target to murder it with ease.

 

Half of how I play Misaki involves not activating her until my opponent's control hand is as depleted as possible, so having my opponent discard their entire hand at the start of the turn is a (nearly) perfect scenario. Sure it's nice to have a few high crows in hand, but who needs them, really? And if your opponent is going to be comparing hats, you don't need to waste stones on cards (even though I rarely stone for cards with Misaki, because Shang).