Asami experiences

[bfrench]

Hi all,

 

Full battle report will be posted sometime in the next few days.  Otherwise I thought I'd jot down some of my experiences for both myself and anyone else who is interested.  Please feel free to contribute, but leave theoryfaux to the other thread.  Please limit speculation to actual experiences and how to extrapolate that as opposed to "well I read this and think it will work like ...."

I'm going to try and run her for my next 6 games to try and get a solid feel. 

First experience caveats:  I was playing against a long time table top gamer, but he has less than a dozen malifaux games under his belt.  I'll be interested to see how this works against him in our next meeting now that we both know how it works and to see how it stacks up against the other local guys. 

One ability that we found which completely changed the game was Bettari's The brid and the snake.  This ability is a permanent 6  which shuts down all enemy Df/Wp triggers. No flip, no target number, it just doesn't happen.  In our game he had hired Colette and this completely changed the game allowing my crew to completely cut through her built in defense shenanigans. It certainly allowed for Bettari and the rest of the crew to hit like a ton of bricks without worry that Colette would disappear. This may be corner case, but I can think of more than a few times this would come in handy particularly against gremlins.

I didn't hire any Yokai, but did summon two.  The first one was somewhat lackluster and didn't really do a whole lot.  The second however pulled off a nice 1 AP charge after the summon gaining the  to attack flips.  The built in soul burn trigger (  to damage) definitely made it worth summoning this guy over the obsidian oni in the situation I was in.  The bonus +1 flicker when they're summoned helps too.  Also loved the place effect when the flicker condition is lowered (which it is with soul burn).  Allowed me to jump him out of the way to the backside of Colette to allow for LoS and another charge.

The Jorogumo I hired and the one I summoned in both had difficulty hitting.  The focus +2 that Asami can hand out helped some in that regard, but also made them priority targets. I've only used one in one other game.  For 9SS they are super intimidating, but I'm not sure I've figured out quite how to use them effectively yet. It just makes it hard to justify when I could swap in a henchman that might provide more benefit for a near equivalent cost (toshiro or yu).

The 10T brothers shined per always.  However, they had some awesome synergy with Asami helping to keep scheme markers down and the enemy from using them for abilities. This gave her the opportunity if need be to consume them to heal.  Their card cycle on a ram for their zero action was also a huge a boon.  Between that and Asami's draw a card at the end of her activation (nefarious pact) and Bettari's with The Fate of Mortals that allowed you to draw a card each time an Oni killed an enemy model within 10  I was able to pull off some nice hand cycling. 

I'm a believer that activation control is huge.  Having not run a summoner before this becomes a serious bonus for 10T crews which for me have always been fairly elite.  With the triggers on most of the oni to drop scrap or corpse markers after damaging this allows for bringing in models with a high flicker value ensuring that they'll stick around for another turn or two. The activation control certainly lends itself to some schemes including public demonstration, exhaust their forces, and catch and release.  While I realize the summoned models can't interact the turn they come in, it does give you an activation to burn which allows for other models to take care of the interact actions.

The Fate of Mortals upgrade also proved useful to keep flicker up on my summons.  We were playing Guard the stash and I only had one summon phase out the entire game.  I can see how this upgrade will prove useful in most games for keeping summons in and my next time around I'll be less hesitant to summon in multiple models on turn 2 for activation control if I know they're going to score the strategy point.

For Asami upgrades I went with On Wings of Wind, Nefarious Pact, and Heavenly Design.  I think my next game I'll likely drop on Wings of Wind.  It was semi useful and I had some appreciation for the 3in push at the end of activation, but I think that slot could easily be substituted with something more useful as heavenly design seems to fill that roll. For crew hiring someone had pointed out that none of the Oni drop markers when they die.  It was unfortunate that my 10T archer got ganked on turn 1 by a coryphee duet, but it also let me summon a jorogumo on turn 2 with flicker +2 so not a complete waste.  The 1AP charges proved useful, although the disguised and constantly in motion certainly slowed down my ability to capitalize on that. 

 

That's all for now.  More to come over the next few weeks  

 

 

[Richard matthews]

This is excellent thank you.

i have had 1 game with Asami, i have never played a summoner before, there are a few things I'm was amazed with that I've discussed below

First of all i have to say yokai, what a model,  just the damage output of it due to the fact i was able to get quite a bit of flicker on them they made 5 attacks from 2AP. 2 from 1AP charge, 2 from ram trigger and 1AP which i was able to increase my flicker by 1 on the tome trigger, I was very impressed with them

the amount of scheme scrap and corpse makers that you could drop as well would make Nicodem cry, every time i looked at a card i was like and he can drop a marker  

LRM are amazing never really used them before but condition removal to remove slow off summons and a heal on asami after she has been helping things charge for 1AP

These are just my initial thoughts as like i said I've only had 1 game with her