Hunting Party with the Thunders

[Khyodee]

So I started making reference guides for my crew building with the Thunders. This is what I have so far for Hunting Party (its far from finished atm) and I'm curious for other more experienced folks to weigh in with their opinions.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qJdWHHImiuOoSZkr3YmOJQKoS-qyMyHmYyOkSQUXvrw/edit?usp=sharing

My Decisions on if something is bad/good vs a faction is based on this...
Guild (Good) - High Df, Anti-Range Tech, Anti-Living Tech
Guild (Bad) - Slow + Low Df (gets shot up early)
Resser (Good) - Ignore HtW, Anti-Undead Tech, High min damage, Anti-Terror Tech, Blasting
Resser (Bad) - Low min damage, Low Wp (terror issues)
Arcanists (Good) - Anti-Armor Tech, High min damage
Arcanists (Bad) - ??
Neverborn (Good) - High Wp, Fast, Anti-Terror Tech
Neverborn (Bad) - Low Wp, Slow
Outcast (Good) - Too much variation to account for
Outcast (Bad) - Too much variation to account for
Gremlins (Good) - Blasting, Fast
Gremlins (Bad) - Slow + Low Df
Thunders (Good) - Too much variation to account for
Thunders (Bad) - Too much variation to account for

[Paradigm]

I really like the idea of making a reference guide for how to adapt your crew to different matchups and schemes, though I feel it is going to be enormously difficult to establish good criteria for making accurate judgements. For an example, Shadow Emissary doesn't stand out in any particular way in your spreadsheet, but I have found him to be extremely good at Hunting Party. Being able to discard a card for Focus +2 and reliably deal 6 wounds to an opponent 12" away is incredible for killing many minions, and with all the focus you usually don't even have to cheat fate much. I would also like to argue that while Kang is good at making the rest of your crew good at handling Ressers, when considering strong models for scoring Hunting Party I consider Izamu to be much better. A third attack with similar damage potential due to natural positives on damage as well as Ruthless to ignore WP duels makes him great at killing even hardy minions.

[spooky_squirrel]

On top of the Emissary's threat, you may want to make allowances for when the opponent is actively defending against Hunting Party.

For instance, if an Arcanist player* decides to play Elite Colette or Ironsides, where the only peon/minion in their crew is a fast-moving flyer that is going to live in the corner of the table furthest from all other schemes/strats and out of LOS (or be sacrificed and re-summoned every turn). Anti-armor/high min damage isn't going to help there--something fast is needed. In this case Ama No Zako is far stronger than Kang, by virtue of being quick, a flyer, and hired as a scheme runner (at least, in my local meta). You'll also want to look at infiltration potential, such as McCabe's in order to deal with that scenario.

 

*for instance, me looking at the scheme pool and going "Exhaust their Forces" so that's Ironsides and Warding Runes, with a tanky Henchman and Warding Runes, with a Mage sitting back with Blood Ward, "Hunting Party" so that's 45-47 points of enforcers+ and a 2-3 point peon that's going to play hide and seek. What can I say? My first crew was "Closing Time" and I love the denial game.