Theoryfaux: Asami

[Tokapondora]

Not saying she's not gonna get there, just saying she won't get there unharmed. And her leaving her position near her crew to wander off into the horizon tremendously weakens both her and her crew. 

[Skitt_Happens]

2 hours ago, Tokapondora said:

Set Up and Detonate I get, though I think you'd probably have an easier time Wandering River Bombing them in (especially Set Up), but Occupy, Breakthrough and Entourage? With her minions having a habit of disappearing and her not getting through enemy lines unscathed, why would you take her over say McCabe for these?

Teleport into their deployment, summon 3 tengu for breakthrough, 3 Yokai for occupy. Job done.

[Tapdancer]

3 Yoki for occupy, is brutally easy, especially with kamatachi for especially excessive movement

[tomjoad]

She'll also be my first thought for Interference, Extraction, and Guard the Stash. If there are two or more schemes that all score at the end of the game I'll lean towards Asami+Feigned Weakness. She's quite good at Take Prisoner. If the scheme pool is very interact heavy, I might go with Shenlong. If I only feel like bringing one Master in my bag for some reason, I might go with McCabe.

[Tokapondora]

Even then McCabe with a small army of Hounds seems more reliable. It doesn't require 3 8's in a single turn and an extra 3 9's in the lategame to pull it off. And sure Asami can creep up the board all game long and zap in at the last second, but McCabe can do all of his business all game long and at the last turn take up to a 32" sprint if he has to. And for all these schemes scoring with sheer numbers, summons still disappear before you score VP, so you need a very constant stream of markers and high cards to keep that up, dedicating a lot of resources to things you can also do by simply hiring cheap models and letting your master pose more of a threat. 

I'm not saying she can't be used for any of those schemes, but I would argue she isn't the best. 

[Skitt_Happens]

4 hours ago, Tokapondora said:

Even then McCabe with a small army of Hounds seems more reliable. It doesn't require 3 8's in a single turn and an extra 3 9's in the lategame to pull it off. And sure Asami can creep up the board all game long and zap in at the last second, but McCabe can do all of his business all game long and at the last turn take up to a 32" sprint if he has to. And for all these schemes scoring with sheer numbers, summons still disappear before you score VP, so you need a very constant stream of markers and high cards to keep that up, dedicating a lot of resources to things you can also do by simply hiring cheap models and letting your master pose more of a threat. 

I'm not saying she can't be used for any of those schemes, but I would argue she isn't the best. 

The difference is: your opponent can do something about McCabe and hounds. Yes, it takes some medium/high cards for Asami to pull these tricks off (don't underestimate Tannen's leave it to luck aura if you can get him in the mix too) but by the time you do it, your opponent will just be left staring at the 3 Yokai standing in the corner of his deployment zone, with little they can do about it - you are scoring 3vp for occupy.

If it was easy, it wouldn't be fun!

[Clockwork_Fish]

Terrain is also a factor.  Asami can use place and push effects to ignore terrain that McCabe will have to walk around, and her opponent's will have a hard time reaching her.  If she's just sprinting across a 20" kill zone, then sure she's going to die.

[InvokeChaos]

I like her for Interference, Extraction and Guard the Stash. I also really like her for Collect the Bounty. Yokai reign supreme with strategies. For Collect the Bounty, they can lower their flicker to wink out with a built in soul-burn and kill well above their class, then deny your opponent points by going into the nether. For Extraction you can pop a couple in to help guarantee moving the marker or score. You can pop one or two in for Guard the Stash. Interference? Pop in a Yokai. Only Headhunter is not ideal as you can't interact with her summons. But you can still deny heads with sacrificing your yokai to the flicker gods.

Scheme wise, take prisoner is great with her. As is occupy their turf. I did Undercover Entourage on last turn one game. With her healing and mobility, that's a great one. Being able to bamf into scheme markers to deny scoring potential is great too. Really I don't think there's anything particularly "off-limits" for Asami, but by nature I don't tend to go for interact heavy schemes. I just feel their are better masters for that, but she can absolutely do them. Her movement shenanigans allow for some nice stuff, and you can deny convict labor pretty easily with her. 

[Clockwork_Fish]

Finally got Asami on the board yesterday for the first time.  Fought against spirit Molly and ended up losing 2 - 4, but I learned a few things.  I brought along Betty, Amanjaku, Obsidian Oni, Dawn Serpent, Sniper, and Shadow Effigy.  I wish I'd left those last three at home. 

Shadow Effigy never got a chance to cast remember the mission because he was fighting Asami for cards, and his (0) was only useful once (preventing Yin from cursing Asami with WP and Ca).  A 10 of anything is a potential Obsidian Oni or Yokai. 

Dawn Serpent and Sniper did their jobs turns one and two before getting bogged down in the Molly Mosh Pit.  The Serpent may be super accurate but it's damage is really lackluster for it's points, and it couldn't use it's fire breach in melee (though that did help out the Oni on turn two).  On the other hand, there's so many casting actions in the crew that at one point it healed up seven wounds with it's 0 action.  Next time I'll try her with a couple monks, and probably Lust for additional shenanigans. 

I'm on the fence about Amanjaku.  His spells are hard to cast in a crew that's starved for cards, but on the other hand he hits respectively hard for a totem and he's really tough to remove.  I ended up forgetting about trying to increase flicker and instead he spent the last two turns chasing after a Canine Remains; of the fun they had!  And yet I don't think Kamaitachi would have done better; too many card discards.  Maybe Malifaux Child instead?

[InvokeChaos]

Got a few more games in with Asami, and went with a "core" list approach. I'm really digging it so far.

Running Hanna, Anna Lovelace, Chiaki and Monk of Low River as my core. Heavenly Designs as an auto take with Equality on Asami. The Peaceful Waters normally on Chiaki. 

The double rush plus arcane reservoir is SO good for Asami. Anna's abilities really help out as well, and the Swirling Damned is one of my favorite casts right now. Hanna can copy condition removal, heals and Swirling Damned. She's a bit expensive for that support role, but I am dead serious when I say that Arcane Reservoir turns Asami up. I had so many problems getting her to consistently do things each turn, now I'm solid, summoning 2-3 things a round. It was fantastic.

I still struggle on proper scheme selection, but I've started to look at taking Yokai as my starting scheme runner(s) and pretty much always taking Convict Labor. It's so easy to complete with her.

I've run Tannen a few times, but honestly I think I can drop him, though his cooler ability is pretty amazing for my support bubble. Especially with Manipulation on him and Chiaki. 

[Paradigm]

I've now played Asami a few games, and I've been thinking about the situations in which she excels. I first tried playing her as a summoning factory, building the rest of my crew to work good defensively while Asami summoned things to deal most of the damage. I picked models like Obsidian Oni to generate scrap, Tannen for the aura that prevents cheating as well as occasional buff to summoning, Low River Monk for placing scheme markers for Asami to eat while also removing slow from summoned models, Brothers for schemes and Yin for being a tar pit. I felt that this was a fun way to play Asami, but it was very inconsistent. One game I got great cards for summoning, and managed to swarm my opponent with tons of Yokai and an occasional Jorogumo, and I won with a decent lead. Two games I hardly got any masks most turns, and often could not summon more than one or two Yokai while also using up all seven soulstones by turn 3. I think I barely lost one of those and tied one. When I didn't get the right cards, the rest of my list didn't pack enough punch to actually do much. In short, this play style felt potentially good but sadly very inconsistent.

I have also tried playing her in quite a different way, and with great effect. Rather than playing her like a summoning factory, Asami actually works extremely well as a scheme master. Undercover Entourage is extremely easy to do with her potential movement of around 22" in one turn (with Heavenly Design), especially if you have a decent amount of blocking terrain. Detonate the Charges and Set Up are trivial with Asami being able to summon a Yokai at the end of turn one upfield, and then next turn having it drop a scheme marker, walk, and then use it's 0-action to drop a second scheme marker while lowering Flicker to 0, thus being sacrificed and placing a third scheme marker due to being within 10" of Asami. The same trick works extremely well for Covert Breakthrough as well. When using Asami like this, I prefer building a crew that is more independent. Snipers, Brothers, Shadow Emissary, Shadow Effigy, Lone Swordsman, Yin and Graves are the kind of models I want for this. One of the big advantages with this play style is that you don't need as many soulstones, and Asami doesn't use nearly as many cards from your hand. This makes all the other models perform much more reliably, giving the crew more flexibility and making it less vulnerable to bad flips.

Given this I believe I will mostly look towards Asami as a specialist for performing certain schemes. I feel that we have other masters that provide better damage output for the same Resources (AP and cards), and still other masters who provide more flexibility for the games where you're not quite sure which schemes you want to take. Though I will of course also play Asami now and then simply because she is really fun, even if she is not the optimal choice!

[Da Git]

2 hours ago, Paradigm said:

Detonate the Charges and Set Up are trivial with Asami being able to summon a Yokai at the end of turn one upfield, and then having it drop a scheme marker, walk, and then use it's 0-action to drop a second scheme marker while lowering Flicker to 0, thus being sacrificed and placing a third scheme marker due to being within 10" of Asami.

Not sure if this is what you mean, but the Yokai can't interact on the turn they're summoned, even through their 0 action. Works if you can wait till the next turn though. 

[PeregrineFalcon]

56 minutes ago, Da Git said:

Not sure if this is what you mean, but the Yokai can't interact on the turn they're summoned, even through their 0 action. Works if you can wait till the next turn though. 

Was going to say the same thing. @Paradigm, a summoned model is slow, and more importantly cannot take interact actions the turn it was summoned.

[Paradigm]

Yeah, I was aware. I should've expressed myself better though. What I meant was that you want to summon Yokai at the end of one turn, and in the beginning of the next turn perform said sequence. Good of you to clarify either way!

@Da Git and @Peregrine Falcon

[D_acolyte]

6 hours ago, Paradigm said:

I've now played Asami a few games, and I've been thinking about the situations in which she excels. I first tried playing her as a summoning factory, building the rest of my crew to work good defensively while Asami summoned things to deal most of the damage. I picked models like Obsidian Oni to generate scrap, Tannen for the aura that prevents cheating as well as occasional buff to summoning, Low River Monk for placing scheme markers for Asami to eat while also removing slow from summoned models, Brothers for schemes and Yin for being a tar pit. I felt that this was a fun way to play Asami, but it was very inconsistent. One game I got great cards for summoning, and managed to swarm my opponent with tons of Yokai and an occasional Jorogumo, and I won with a decent lead. Two games I hardly got any masks most turns, and often could not summon more than one or two Yokai while also using up all seven soulstones by turn 3. I think I barely lost one of those and tied one. When I didn't get the right cards, the rest of my list didn't pack enough punch to actually do much. In short, this play style felt potentially good but sadly very inconsistent.

I have also tried playing her in quite a different way, and with great effect. Rather than playing her like a summoning factory, Asami actually works extremely well as a scheme master. Undercover Entourage is extremely easy to do with her potential movement of around 22" in one turn (with Heavenly Design), especially if you have a decent amount of blocking terrain. Detonate the Charges and Set Up are trivial with Asami being able to summon a Yokai at the end of turn one upfield, and then next turn having it drop a scheme marker, walk, and then use it's 0-action to drop a second scheme marker while lowering Flicker to 0, thus being sacrificed and placing a third scheme marker due to being within 10" of Asami. The same trick works extremely well for Covert Breakthrough as well. When using Asami like this, I prefer building a crew that is more independent. Snipers, Brothers, Shadow Emissary, Shadow Effigy, Lone Swordsman, Yin and Graves are the kind of models I want for this. One of the big advantages with this play style is that you don't need as many soulstones, and Asami doesn't use nearly as many cards from your hand. This makes all the other models perform much more reliably, giving the crew more flexibility and making it less vulnerable to bad flips.

Given this I believe I will mostly look towards Asami as a specialist for performing certain schemes. I feel that we have other masters that provide better damage output for the same Resources (AP and cards), and still other masters who provide more flexibility for the games where you're not quite sure which schemes you want to take. Though I will of course also play Asami now and then simply because she is really fun, even if she is not the optimal choice!

I agree.

I feel she is more a mobility master between all the movement she can get and all the pushes towards her she can do. He attack though not as good as a more dedicated combat master is handy and can be useful if you drain the enemy of there hand first. I feel her summoning is interesting but an unreliable aspect to base her play soli around. I am currently taking a short break from her to focus on Titania more but I will be back to her.

[DeleteAccount]

I've only dabbled on Asami, but to me it feels like she is mostly a fantastic generalist, at least if she is packing Heavenly Design. She can be VERY mobile, she can do burst damage if needed, she can burst another model to do burst damage, she can summon when relevant a model, be it as a stop gap or as a beater and she can push her own crew or the enemy crew around and she can also disrupt schemes with her healing trick. The cost she pays for all of that flexibility is that everything requires at least a 6+ to actually work which is what's making her demanding, but as long as you have a clear path every time she activates and you stick with it, you will get stuff done.

It's why I don't really see a pure summoner crew with her where everything is just support and you bring your beaters, but hell, that is not a list that works too well even with Nicodem simply because of how swingy pure summoner play is, good hands and suits and you will wreck shit, dodgy hands and you just won't get anything done as much as you would like (don't get me wrong, I love Nicodem, but my usual all support crew where I summon my beaters as had mixed results when my summoning hasn't been comfortably usable).

[mythicFOX]

Got in another tournament with Asami at the weekend. I'm three for three podium finishes with her now (3rd/15, 3rd/24, 2nd/30), which I'm pleased with considering I'm still making a load of mistakes with her.

Following the thoughts above I agree her speed and positional play capability is definitely an asset, AP efficient movement is very powerful in Malifaux.  She certainly plays as a summoner but as with any master there are times when just pushing the obvious button won't win you the game.  I got one of my bigger wins at the weekend by having Asami; Walk, Heavenly Design, (2) Interact to both score Exhaust their Forces and deny Leave your Mark in the same activation for a 2VP swing.

I also got a lot of use out of using her summons to rapidly change Bettari's threat vector so she could threaten the enemy and control space at will.  The right Asami crew can make the most of being very mobile. 

In recent games I've been getting a lot of use out of the Kamaitachi and Terracotta Warrior's interactions. Especially using the latter to leverage more use from Pact and Feign Weakness by tailoring Asami's load out to meet the conditions of the game.  I started one game with FW on Asami, my opponent scored Frame for Murder T2 (from my own Death Contract, d'oh) I summoned a Yokai from FW, then swapped that out for Equality after I evened up the score with my own Frame for Murder a few activations later.

If you take both Pact and Fate on her you can use the Warrior to switch out the one she doesn't need on the first turn of the game. Alternatively swapping Pact out for Fate afted a couple of draws before the end of turn two can give you the best of both worlds.  With extra bonuses if Kamaitachi's in range.  

[MrDeathTrout]

A few of my thoughts/favorite moments after a couple games with Asami...

I really like Ogaharu - While I don't think she will have a great direct impact on taking out enemy models her no Df/Wp Arua is key against certain crews.  But her biggest asset is the threat of doing 6 damage, with her basically built-in Flay.  Even if she's not able to pull it off its something your opponent cannot ignore and will disrupt their plans.  She's also perfect for finishing off model that almost died to other attacks.

Obsidian Oni - I love these guys.  My opponent had most of his crew bunched in a narrow gap between a building and a patch of sever terrain.  Asami activated early in the turn and summoned two Obsidian Oni right in front of his entire crew.  Blocking the gap and one or both of them engaging about 5 models.  He had a choice of burning a lot of AP going around them through severe terrain and taking some disengagement strikes, burning AP killing them and taking Explosive Demise damage, or wasting a turn doing not much.

Jorogumo & Performer - I summoned a Jorogumo, next activation I ran a performer next to the enemy master mostly to slow it down so it didn't charge into my more important models.  If figure the Performer was dead on his next activation, but he activated somewhere else.  So I charged the master with the Jorogumo and almost killed it.  If the enemy master killed the Jorogumo no problem, he's going away at the end of the round, if he killed the performer, no problem the Jorogumo would get Reactivate.

 

 

 

 

 

[Khyodee]

On October 7, 2016 at 10:18 AM, Paradigm said:

Yeah, I was aware. I should've expressed myself better though. What I meant was that you want to summon Yokai at the end of one turn, and in the beginning of the next turn perform said sequence. Good of you to clarify either way!

@Da Git and @Peregrine Falcon

Still can't do this, you can only do the interact if you can lower your flicker first and still be alive....so you need at least 2 flicker which you don't have unless you used a scrap or corpse when you summoned it.

[InvokeChaos]

44 minutes ago, Khyodee said:

Still can't do this, you can only do the interact if you can lower your flicker first and still be alive....so you need at least 2 flicker which you don't have unless you used a scrap or corpse when you summoned it.

Yokai summon in at flicker 2. 

[mythicFOX]

It can't interact the turn it's summoned. So it drops to one flicker before it can take the zero.

[Paradigm]

10 hours ago, Khyodee said:

Still can't do this, you can only do the interact if you can lower your flicker first and still be alive....so you need at least 2 flicker which you don't have unless you used a scrap or corpse when you summoned it.

Darn. I assumed that they would get to finish the action even if you used the ability at Flicker +1, but at a closer look it seems they disappear instantly when reducing Flicker. Good of you to spot that! Placing three scheme markers in one activation did sound imbalanced, and being able to place two is still great.

[InvokeChaos]

Really sorry for necro, but just a note on this Yokai thing, depending on summoning (able to interact) or not:

 

If able to interact, you can do this:

You drop a scheme marker for 1AP, 0 action to flicker and place, then drop a second marker. You still have 1AP left, which I usually use to walk into position. If I have used a yokai at flicker 2 to do this trick, then I walk to within 10 of Asami w/ HD to drop a third marker at end of turn when they flicker out.

 

If unable to interact (summoned in at flicker 2), you can do this:

Charge (if within 4" of Asami) or walk, then use 0 action to lower flicker and place, then choose to not interact (it's a may, not mandatory). Then when they flicker out at EoT, if within aura 10 of Asami w/ HD, they can drop a scheme when they flicker out.

 

Also, remember that Corrupted Essence is an interact, so you can use it for a variety of things. I use it to claim two squatter's rights markers and is often why I hire a couple of yokai into my crew.

[daniello_s]

Has anyone used Mr Tannen with Asami? Giving +2 to  flips looks pretty interesting (Hey! Jorogumo on 11+ instead of 13!). I wonder how does it work in practice.

[PeregrineFalcon]

Just now, daniello_s said:

Has anyone used Mr Tannen with Asami? Giving +2 to  flips looks pretty interesting (Hey! Jorogumo on 11+ instead of 13!). I wonder how does it work in practice.

Yes. It's good. But you're still using Tannen who typically sux. Its a balancing act to get him to work well in an Asami crew but I've had some good (a lot of) success.