We have a summoning master!

[Tokapondora]

I honestly don't see this summoning as being stronger or as strong as most other types in the game. The key advantages of summoning are increasing your activation pool, scheming for cheap and changing your crew composition on the fly. Coming in with slow, the inability to interact and 1 turn of lifespan unless she has specific resources around her deal with that for the most part, I'd say. She can't sit back and spam hordes, she has to be in the center of everything, with a measly pool of 10 wounds, and for the most part just the ability to send some minion-sized missiles at the opponent (which also costs her 1 wound) which blow up the turn they're created.

[Fetid Strumpet]

But she can. Let's assume that all her totem does is give +1 condition. All she needs is one corpse or scrap and on turn 2 she can summon a full health Jorogumo that lasts till the end of the game. Or whatever oni she wants to summon. I've been playing summoner a along time, and I feel I have a very good handle on what balances them out. I'll totally admit I could be wrong, but the normal limitations and costs of summoners look to have been abandoned in her design. Added to the fact that her resource cost is even lower because of her ability to bring Tannen along and get even better card usage. Time will tell of course, and I very much hope I'm wrong.

[Tokapondora]

Flicker +3 on turn 2 would last him to turn 4. And in doing so she would have to discard the corpse or scrap marker, which is bound to be somewhere amongst enemy lines, meaning you're forced to put yourself out there and are largely limited to 1 summon you really want to last. And I'm gonna assume that totem isn't made of titanium either, meaning he's gonna find himself a prime target of hate as well. Her summons may not take damage, but they take a sizable hit to time. If she stays back and poops them out in droves they won't last beyond turn 1/2, if she joins the fray she can have some more impactful summons at the cost of exposing herself to danger.

[Fetid Strumpet]

We are going to have to agree to disagree since unless you were a playtester, and therefore probably have actual direct experience with her, it's all arguing over things neither of us have direct experience of. So I could easily be wrong, but then so could you. I really think you are overestimating the downside of the time aspect. It isn't as much of a downside as you seem to think. To me she looks almost but not quite pre cuddle Levi powerful. And that's without upgrades. But again time will tell. 

[hydranixx]

26 minutes ago, Tokapondora said:

Flicker +3 on turn 2 would last him to turn 4. And in doing so she would have to discard the corpse or scrap marker, which is bound to be somewhere amongst enemy lines, meaning you're forced to put yourself out there and are largely limited to 1 summon you really want to last.

I'm completely new when it comes to Ten Thunders. So I must ask, are there any ways to generate these markers within faction using just the crew itself?

I imagine that in the worst case, you can simply buy a cheap minion of your own and kill it on turn 1 to access its scrap or corpse marker, not unlike some of the more common turn 1 Ramos plays?

If you're only spending 4 ss for a cheap minion and half an activation from another model to kill it, in order to potential unlock a 9ss model that lives for 3 turns, that seems like a big deal. If you see tonnes of condition removal, you simply keep your cheap minion alive to contribute to the game in other ways. 

Ultimately, from turn 2 onwards, you have the choice of getting what you need, where you need, and if you want to spend extra resources, then it comes in with extra borrowed time to work with. It seems strong, no doubt. I think time will tell where on the power curve Asami goes.

[santaclaws01]

1 hour ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

But she can. Let's assume that all her totem does is give +1 condition. All she needs is one corpse or scrap and on turn 2 she can summon a full health Jorogumo that lasts till the end of the game. 

As opposed to, say, Nicodem who can summon a model at only Half wounds without slow, can heal them up to full himself, and has in faction ways of generating corpse markers with no enemy interaction at all.

As soon as you start throwing in corpse/scrap markers and her totem's AP, which we don't even know how hard it will be to get off, it's no longer "resourceless" summoning.

[Rathnard]

So I've been playing tabletop wargames for almost 20 years now, and this kind of discussion invariably comes up with almost every major release in almost every game system since the beginning of time. Rumours or bits of rules will surface, and the forums will pick up on it and extrapolate on those rules. And in many cases, there's a few people who'll conclude that X is overpowered or broken in some way...

...Except that all this is based on a fragment of the rules, sometimes incorrect, often taken out of context and always without actual in-game experience. Sometimes these concerns turn out to be well founded. But more often the criticism dies down once the full rules are available and people get in-game experience with them. 

 

This isn't to say that Fetid shouldn't voice his concerns. After all, isn't that what rumour discussions are for?  But it'd be wise not to jump to any conclusions about Asami (which, I should stress, Fetid HAS NOT done) until we have the rules on hand and some games under our belt. To draw a recent quote from another thread... 

On 7/21/2016 at 0:50 AM, Fetid Strumpet said:

Besides, even having the back of the card wouldn't tell you enough about the master and how it plays, because you wouldn't have access to the upgrades, or models that were designed with the master in mind. It might give you a little better picture, but not much of one. Consider Jakob Lynch, but ignore any information about the Hungering Darkness or any of his upgrades, would fully seeing his base card give you much more information about how his crew actually plays? You'd need his card, all the cards of models that can interact with him, and all his upgrades to get a sense of actually how he really works.

 

Anyway, I can't finish this post without at least giving my opinion of Asami's card too.

As Fetid pointed out she's got the makings of a strong summoner. Bringing models out on full wounds could be intimidating, especially with the (1) charge to effectively negate the Slow condition they just got. But there's limits to this. For one she needs to be close to the action, and even with Df 7 and Hard to Kill she's nowhere near the resiliance of your average Resser Summoner. The summoned models are also only able to charge if they're not engaged, so a smart opponent is probably going to make it their mission to get right in Asami's face to prevent those (1) charges and put pressure on Asami herself, which in turn will force her to deal with the enemy models instead of focusing just on summoning.  

Then there's the Flicker Condition. Obviously Condition removal would be a serious threat to Asami's summons. It also means that her summons are rarely going to be "fire and forget". Unlike Nicodem, Kirai or Dreamer for instance, Asami can't just poop out a Tengu and let it run off to place scheme markers or control table quarters. The Flicker condition means that her summons either need some corpses/scrap to boost that flicker high enough to last a 5-turn game (eg. 3 corpses for a model summoned in Turn 2), or you need to look after those summons by continuously increasing Flicker with her totem (assuming, as Fetid pointed out, it can do that). In fact even if the Totem can increase the Flicker condition, we still don't know how he does it and what resources he needs for it? How many AP does it take? What's it's range? Does it have a TN, or does it require other resources like cards or corpses? We don't know any of this so it's difficult to conclude how easy it will be for Asami to keep a summoned model in play. 

 

Basically, it's difficult to come to any conclusions about how Asami plays without seeing the rest of her crew cards and upgrades, and without having a few games with her ourselves. Is she balanced? I couldn't say. Maybe she'll turn out to be so overpowered that she'll put M1E Hamelin (pre-errata) to shame. Or maybe her relative frailty for a summoner and reliance on Flicker (and thus weakness to condition removal) will make her one of the worst Masters in the game. So by all means, keep discussing her. But let's avoid making anyt rash conclusions about her until we at least see the full rules.

[D_acolyte]

My thoughts:

She is lacking chain activation which I find really makes a summoner better but other then that I put her summoning well under The Dreamer and close to Molly but still a little under. This is mostly do to the tool box she has open for summoning: Tengu, Obsidian Onis, Jorogumo, Yokai. It has a scheme runner and is very combat heavy but unless the yokai have some tools that they bring it not really that full. Other then her playing/messing with how people thing of VP and this summoning she is lacking.

Take Molly, The Dreamer or Nickodem. I feel all of them are not only better summoners with a better toolbox of models to use but they also bring other neat and useful tricks from giving negative flip to fast or pushing there models. She is not bad but if you remove her summoning she seems a bit hallow to me. Oni's Stregnth is nice but the rest is meh, her attack is sub par for a close attack on a master and I do not want to people close enough to tendril unless I am bringing my models to her.

[clockworkspide]

After reading Asami's card, I want a set of translucent plastic Jorogumo or Obsidian Oni, which would perfectly reflect the transitory nature of the models she summons.

[mythicFOX]

I'm getting flashbacks to my lively debates with Fetid about Ramos' summoning during the M2e open beta.  We both had strong opinions about summoning when we had all the information. 

I think it's too soon to say one way or the other where the lovely Asami Tanaka will sit on the power curve. As it is for any master in the absence of most of the rules that'll come in their starter box.  My sense looking at her though is she's going to use her summoning more like an attack than a crew size increasing tool.  So more Molly than Nicodem/Ramos IMO.

Was eyeing the move to TT before this but now I'm sold.  Asami's going to be my new master.  

 

Bwahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa

[qoob]

Prove me wrong but she has the Nefarious Pact upgrade which prevents Johan and Co. from removing conditions, right?

[Myyrä]

Think about how huge a pain in the arse Lady Justice is going to be against her. If she can kill Asami, she can after that wipe out everything she summoned with a single AP. Unresistable condition removal is also going to mean that Asami has to be pretty careful with positioning her summons, unless her upgrade makes all her models in play immune to condition removal, which doesn't sound that likely to me.

Removing scrap and corpses is going to be a pain as well.

[Skitt_Happens]

10 minutes ago, qoob said:

Prove me wrong but she has the Nefarious Pact upgrade which prevents Johan and Co. from removing conditions, right?

So it would seem. It will be interesting to see which of her upgrades are limited, as per my previous post, I think there is going to be a lot of competition for upgrade slots.

Can't find the quote now, but someone said she had a sub-par ml attack... Really? I think some people are commenting here from other factions without considering how she fits into the faction as a whole: Misaki is 10T dedicated melee master with ml7, 2 2/4/6 and auto-kill on ; Asami has ml6, 1, 2/4/6 with an auto-kill (all be it an easier to avoid one) on .  I think you could play Asami without summoning a single model. This is where she gets really interesting: learning when to summon and when Asami can do the job herself?

Rules query already: flicker. Model comes in on +1, then remove all scrap and corpse markers within 1 and increase flicker up to +3 - I read that as flicker goes to a maximum +3, rather than +3+1 for +4. I don't understand how Fetid works this out:

7 hours ago, Fetid Strumpet said:

But she can. Let's assume that all her totem does is give +1 condition. All she needs is one corpse or scrap and on turn 2 she can summon a full health Jorogumo that lasts till the end of the game. 

that Jorogumo is sacrificed turn 3 + whatever Amanjaku gives her. If you talk about Amanjaku following her around all game giving +1 each turn, then why bother with the corpse in the first place?

[Kobayashi]

6 hours ago, D_acolyte said:

This is mostly do to the tool box she has open for summoning: Tengu, Obsidian Onis, Jorogumo, Yokai. It has a scheme runner and is very combat heavy but unless the yokai have some tools that they bring it not really that full. Other then her playing/messing with how people thing of VP and this summoning she is lacking

Remember Ama no Zako is also 10 Thunders and an Oni (given it's dual faction, but the way I see it, we can summon her, since it is just limited to 10 Thunders non-totem (removing the Kamaitachi from the list)).

So we also have her both 0s to play with.

*got schooled by Myyrä, taken back to home, fed lunch and back to afternoon school*

[Myyrä]

1 minute ago, Kobayashi said:

Remember Ama no Zako is also 10 Thunders and a Oni (given it's dual faction, but the way I see it, we can summon her, since it is just limited to 10 Thunders non-peon (removing the Kamaitachi from the list)).

So we also have her both 0s to play with.

The restriction is non-Totem minion though.

[Kobayashi]

4 minutes ago, Myyrä said:

The restriction is non-Totem minion though.

Already edited the typo ... and made a fool out myself acting all smug and wisecracker...

[Myyrä]

Just now, Kobayashi said:

Already edited the typo

That still won't change Ama to minion.

[Kobayashi]

Just now, Myyrä said:

That still won't change Ama to minion.

NOOOoooOOOoooOOOooo, cursed be you follow up word... well at least I can hire her...

[scarlett fever]

1 hour ago, Myyrä said:

Think about how huge a pain in the arse Lady Justice is going to be against her. If she can kill Asami, she can after that wipe out everything she summoned with a single AP. Unresistable condition removal is also going to mean that Asami has to be pretty careful with positioning her summons, unless her upgrade makes all her models in play immune to condition removal, which doesn't sound that likely to me.

Removing scrap and corpses is going to be a pain as well.

To be honest I already find Lady J an intimidating opponent vs Shenlong and he has nothing to stop condition removal. This doesn't seem significantly worse. You either try to avoid these match-ups or change up your play style when they happen.

[Skitt_Happens]

49 minutes ago, Kobayashi said:

NOOOoooOOOoooOOOooo, cursed be you follow up word... well at least I can hire her...

And that's not a bad option at all. She is an Oni, so Asami can give her focused +2: very nasty with 3/5/7 damage track.

[Lakshman]

26 minutes ago, Skitt_Happens said:

And that's not a bad option at all. She is an Oni, so Asami can give her focused +2: very nasty with 3/5/7 damage track.

What's more, you can use Ama's (0) action to make an Oni summoned by Asami take a (1) charge... And then take (1) charge with Ama No Zako and still have one AP left.

[trikk]

I think looking at her card the issue might be that: there`s not that much Oni. We have the Yokai from her box (unknown cost), Obsidian oni(6 ss) and Joroguno (9SS). Which kind of means if you don`t have a 13 all those 12 and 11 counts as 10s. 

 

She`s also a 10 Wds self harming model with Df7 and just hard to kill and no def trigger 0 I`d say you have to think twice before using those 1 AP charges.

[Kobayashi]

36 minutes ago, trikk said:

We have the Yokai from her box (unknown cost), Obsidian oni(6 ss) and Joroguno (9SS).

And the Tengu..

[Cadaverousbirth]

36 minutes ago, trikk said:

I think looking at her card the issue might be that: there`s not that much Oni. We have the Yokai from her box (unknown cost), Obsidian oni(6 ss) and Joroguno (9SS). Which kind of means if you don`t have a 13 all those 12 and 11 counts as 10s. 

 

She`s also a 10 Wds self harming model with Df7 and just hard to kill and no def trigger 0 I`d say you have to think twice before using those 1 AP charges.

Don't forget Tengu at 4ss. With Asami's upgrade to put down a scheme marker when a model is sacrificed you can get some good scheme running for "free."

[Cadaverousbirth]

And Asami has a heal. Tengu can give out Regen, Yu with Low River Style is a great healer, etc. As long as she doesn't get ganged up on too bad she should be ok. I say should like this isn't Malifaux