Why play Ten Thunders

[whodares]

27 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

...

 

Makes sense when you put it like that. If that is how you want to do it, then I can see what you mean.

29 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

If you have bad luck with flips and draws you need to go through more of your deck. I had a lot of issues with cards until I started playing lists where more or less every action was at a positive. Just flipping more cards will let you win duels eventually. Nothin works if you flip really bad and your opponent flips good, it's like rolling all ones in a game of 40k (although at least here you will at some point start to flip better if you go through your entire pile). That doesn't represent faction power.

My good cards did indeed come ... when I was rolling for damage on the Hazardous terrain. RIP 13 netting me 5 damage

 

29 minutes ago, knghtpiper said:

@ Whodares: For your comment on Kang, bringing models that can hurt enemy models is not being sneaky it is being smart.  Bring the right crew to help counter what your opponent is not being sneaky but properly playing as a big part of this game is crew composition.  People are not going to think you are being win at cost gamer if you bring Kang to match against Titinaia.

Also if you can give Shenlong a break and play someone else for a while, then come back to him with fresh eyes.  

Target-counterpicking your opponent in a friendly training match sounds like poor sportsmanship to me. If somebody did that to me, I would never play against them again. Unless your opponent agreed to it first in order to test out something.

Remember that at the point of crew selection, all the info you have are the schemes, strat and faction declared. You're not allowed to "sneak a peek".

In competitive, you can go full counter if you know your opponent. That environment is play-to-win and I don't think anyone can have qualms about that.

 

As suggested by several people, I'm going to switch to Neverborn myself and look at it from their viewpoint. I'll be starting with Dreamer as he's their strongest master and work my way down from there. Maybe my experiences there could shine a new light on the Thunders. So far, I haven't found a real reason to pick them over other factions as I feel the Thunders don't really have an identity besides pushbots.

[knghtpiper]

I guess we have to agree to disagree here, to me bringing someone like Kang when I think there is a chance that I would be facing constructs or undead is not being a poor sportsman, but just being logical, I am not a win at all cost player, but I do like being prepared.

Good luck with the break and I hope you get better with Shenlong, while I do not play him anymore, he was fun master to play, especially when you go full Kung Fu with the his crew. 

[Fetid Strumpet]

As an aside from the main topic, I feel Kang is a very badly designed model. If the argument is that he is a balanced choice against Arcanists and Ressers, and that what you get in effectiveness vs cost is fair, then there is no reason to restrict his bonus to just undead and Constructs, and his ability should just be opened up so it affects pretty much everything in the game. If the argument is that he is better than his cost vs specific traits and that's ok because you never know if those traits will be relevant, that argument only holds valid in a fixed list format, because you know if you face Ressers or Arcanists a solid portion of their lists is likely to be affected by the ability.

Frankly, since Aaron seems to favor the route of aggressive errata, I hope Kang is on the block next go around and his ability is either opened up to affect pretty much all the common traits in the game, because if he is balanced against easy to target traits then there is no reason to restrict him to only being a good choice in those battles, or they serverlly curtail his ability and limit it to only less broad keywords such as Horrors.

[Tokapondora]

54 minutes ago, whodares said:

Tried that, got 2x min damage. Thank my bad card luck for that.

Unless you tied both times, you can easily have cheated in a 6+ for 3 damage. Either way, doing 4 damage to the Emissary turn 1 is plenty. It is what lets any 3 AP beater kill him.

54 minutes ago, whodares said:

Don't forget about his Titania. She is a couple of inches closes with the possibility to place and debuff the target, unless he targets Titania.

You can only hit the Gorar if you have vision on him. As he can stand behind both the Emissary and the building, I would like to know how you would actually hit him? Sure Izamu is 3" with 3" range. doesn't help you when Gorar is 4" away from you or hiding behind the Emissary.

You also expect to win the Initiative flip for turn 2. If you lose that flip, you lose your biggest threat in your crew. That's a pretty big gamble in my opinion.

Not sure how you're going to remove the Hazardous Terrain. It can only be removed by hitting an enemy model with blasts and then overlapping the blast with the marker. You need to place at least a chain blast to reach the marker. I might be missing something here, so I hope you can solve this riddle for me.

If the Gorar is hidden anywhere near the Emissary, stop giving a fuck about your opponent's minions and kill the Emissary who should be at 6 wounds max by now. Again, this is turn one so your opponent will not be able to squeeze everything through that small opening and have it be in perfect position.

And if you can't let an Izamu survive 1 activation after you lose the initiative flip, you are possibly playing with a deck with 2 black jokers in it. And then you'd need 2 red ones to be in the attacker's side. And maybe let him have Armor Reduction too. Or you could consider an Izamu who can't have been hit more than once before that as something that will last the activation because he will only be in sight by the last activation, and even Titania will have to spend 2-3 ap just getting near there, then use her one attack to either pull the model in or deny him attacks on not-Titania (which means that you will focus all fire on Titania, giving her 4 attacks with min damage 4). This, by the way, all assuming Titania gets within 8 inches of your beatstick with all other models having gone before her standing in various degrees of in the way. 

Shenlong has blast. Blast someone near a marker and get rid of the marker. That was not a particularly tough riddle.

54 minutes ago, whodares said:

Titania's place made the threat range around 10", which would make it longer than Izamu's charge threat range. Would need a Yasunori for that.

Titania's place still only has 8" range. The model can be placed more than 10" away, but she still needs to be within 8". Which, by the way, puts her closer to your crew than any other model. Maybe take advantage of that horrible positioning of her.

54 minutes ago, whodares said:

Could have done that. I would then play 43ss vs 50ss game. He would then do thesame setup a bit further away. That would be beneficiial for me, I'll admit that. At that point in time it just becomes a slapping contest to see who breaks first. Given that they can break 2 models per turn if Teddy is in range, I don't feel confident that we can win such a punching match.

He would do it further away, meaning you have control of the center square, meaning you control both the entrance and flow of the game. You can now proceed to entrench yourself around that circle and bring it closer into your arms every following turn. Also, again, the Sniper can just do a fair amount of damage. to just about any model, which will mark them easier targets for the rest of your crew. You have gained position. You seem to underestimate the importance of that while simultaneously labeling your opponent's the source of all your trouble.

54 minutes ago, whodares said:

I don't have Sidir, but I do feel he is a nice model. I'm just wondering howmany models you are bringing to the table now? Yu(PD) + Izamu (RT) + Sidir is already 32 stones. Add in a peasant for the 34 stones so you only have 16 stones left. Sure hope you aren't bringing the Emissary. Else you will have less than 9 models and lose the activation control you speak of. Good thing we have so many great models at around 5ss that aren't the TTB and your crew doesn't need any soulstone cache to operate.

 You can use Sidir INSTEAD of Izamu. Or the sniper. You can swap out Yu for another threat, or the Emissary. There are many ways to build a list. And even then, totalling on 8 activations is fine too. Not ideal, but you'll manage. The Shadow Effigy is a great filler piece that can scheme to boot. The Pathfinder brings some nice blast, from the shadows, and can fill up that hole with a trap or two. The Komainu are just great models in general. There is plenty for you to work with.

54 minutes ago, whodares said:

If your swordsman can do the sunrise on the first turn, you will not kill anything. He will just do the Titania place and you will be forced to attack Titania. 5 Attacks in a single turn COULD kill her, but you better have the right hand to back that up!

Instead of properly playing you suggest that I use pre-existing knowledge to screw over the opponent in order to sneak out a win. Wow .... just wow ...

Yasunori does indeed have a 12" threat range. He could stand outside of the marker, outside the range of the opponent and go crazy inthere. So again: howmany models are you planning on bringing in these crews? Your plan requires activation advantage and you're taking all these big beatstick models or big support models.

If I win initiative, my Swordsman only comes out to play when my opponent has done all his activations. If I did not, I will still be able to activate my Swordsman last and judge at that moment whether I want to see another sunrise or not. A Recalled Training, a Sniper in wait and 5 actions allow me to put a big enough dent into Titania that her even just appearing into the open is akin to suicide. And even if my hand is these supposed 8 1's, I can just opt to only charge Titania, reposition 2", and the next turn discard 2 to go all out against either her or a model near.

Also important to note; that condition lasts until the end of the next activation. If I reactivate, I can concentrate the second half of my attacks on the Emissary.

There is a reason why we get to see the board and declare a faction and see the schemes before building a list. If you refuse to take any of this into consideration, you might as well show up with a list and never deviate from that. If Im playing to win, I'll take Kang versus Ressers. Not to be sneaky (as Ten Thunderry as that might be), but because the game allows for you to prepare with knowledge. You don't want to do that that's your loss (as has become apparent).

My plan benefits from activation advantage. It does not need it at all. If you don't know how to turn a 6 wound Emissary into a 0 wound Emissary with a Yasunori up to 12" away - no matter how many activations your opponent has left - the problem might be you.

54 minutes ago, whodares said:

Killing them is indeed key. You have to kill the Emissary before he can place down the second marker. If you don't, the rest of your crew will be in hell in trying to score points for the Strategy.

By focussing Emissary, you let his Teddy and Tooth roam free doing whatever they want.

You also have to cover more distance than the opponent as he can safely stay on his side of the board with a threat range of the entire Extraction area while you have to pull everything together to even get close to him and cheat a high card OR take 1/4/5 damage (1/2/3 in case of Izamu).

Luckily you can kill the Emissary and you can cover more distance; movement tricks are pretty much Ten Thunders' thing. And as Teddy and Tooth are free to roam as they please, so can you let your crew's dangers swarm the board. TT has plenty, and you can fit a lot of them in your lists. His models are 2(upgrades)-11-10-8-7-6-3-3 SS Swap a 3 for a peasant and a 3 for a 4 and you now are now one activation up for the same price. how scary you want your models to be after that is up to you.

57 minutes ago, whodares said:

Howmany high cards are you planning on having in your hand? IF everything goes perfect, then your strategy WILL work. I'm not denying that. HOWEVER you have to be realistic. You don't have 9 ghigh cards in your hand. You will have max 3 high cards in hand after using the LRM/Emissary combo. Are you still sure you want to cheat those damage flips from sniper for that?

Your plan expects your opponent to herpderp do whatever without seeing what you are doing. The opponent also reacts to the situation. The alpha strike is very easily spotted in 10 Thunders, let's not kid ourselves there. He'll just stay back a bit more or place his models a bit differently to handle the alpha.

 

In doing an alpha strike, you sacrifice the model being thrusted forward. You kill the Emissary, that's great! You just traded your beater for their Emissary while most of their damage is still intact. You've only placed a slight hindrance in the Neverborn plan while you lose the biggest stick you had lying around. THIS is where I have a problem with the strategy that you proposed. Am I maybe not seeing how your model will survive an alpha up to 16" away from the closest healer? If you can show me the benefit of this, perhaps I'll see why this strategy could work.

 

Also, you just explained my first bullet of my summary. If this was your reaction to the "dozens of other options", it did not work.

With a straight flip on my sniper, I have bigger odds of getting 3 or 5 than I have getting a 2. Don't need a hand for that. Though it is nice to know I can cheat if I feel the 5/6 damage will off a model I can't play around.

My plan expects you to look at what your opponent is doing and react. You have a speed and positioning advantage; Im expecting you not to waste it. If the Alpha strike is anticipated, the only way to counter it is to not put the marker at our half of the center bubble. If they do that, you don't even have to alphastrike because you can simply fill the center board in your now far less threatening field. Him staying back is precisely what I want since apparently him being out there is what's giving me such a huge problem. Him even just putting a marker in the center allows your sniper to shoot him twice. And generally, if you push hard enough, allows you to get something in his face if you feel he must die. If you're not willing to pay this cost, learn to live amongst the markers.

It will no doubt mean the death of the beater you sent out there. It will not, however, make your beater vanish into thin air once he's killed the Emissary. Especially if activated last, he can have at most one attack done against him. So your, say, Izamu now has 2 wounds and has killed a model of similar SS cost. He also has 7 wounds left with armor 2. And a 50% chance of activating first to immediately pop that Recalled Training. And one last attack should anything finally kill him.

Your responses over the course of this thread make very clear what the issue is here. You can swap factions all you want but it will not make you a better player. Encounter this list with Neverborn and you'll at best be able to mirror it, because all the problems you've had facing them with Ten Thunders will not disappear when facing them with Neverborn.

[Ludvig]

I think Kang is pretty cool without his auras and just hard worker with some foundry models. He helps with all horror which really isn't restricted to undeads, he is decently durable and he has solid damage himself against any model. He isn't much weirder than armor-ignoring models or models with relic hammers, they are all abilities that will be more effective against certain enemies.

All the factions can field all-undead or all construct lists but all the factions can also field lists entirely without any of those keywords.

[Dogmantra]

3 hours ago, whodares said:

Anything else? Checked the thread, all came down to thesame. Flank and lose points and just take the damage and alpha him through mid.

Nothing about McCabe getting 3 easy points from Claim Jump and holding back a little to hand out lots of Slow?

27 minutes ago, whodares said:

My good cards did indeed come ... when I was rolling for damage on the Hazardous terrain. RIP 13 netting me 5 damage

Your opponent flips hazardous terrain damage.

[Ludvig]

3 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Nothing about McCabe getting 3 easy points from Claim Jump and holding back a little to hand out lots of Slow?

Your opponent flips hazardous terrain damage.

Yeah, 16ss for 5 activations also gives a decent amount of control and alpha potential while likely getting you those 6 scheme vp.

Just think how horible it would be if you flipped for hazardous terrai against your own models! That would lead to even worse deck screw-overs

[whodares]

15 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

Nothing about McCabe getting 3 easy points from Claim Jump and holding back a little to hand out lots of Slow?

Your opponent flips hazardous terrain damage.

Really? We were playing that wrong then. I had to flip the damage myself. No wonder I never had any good cards then! Since we never play with hazardous terrain, we only see it with the Emissary. That takes out quite a bit of power away from the Emissary.

Also my apologies about forgetting about McCabe. Since I don't have him, I didn't factor him into my bullet list. Since I have no idea, I'll take your (and Ludvig's) words for granted as working tips.

[Ludvig]

27 minutes ago, whodares said:

Really? We were playing that wrong then. I had to flip the damage myself. No wonder I never had any good cards then! Since we never play with hazardous terrain, we only see it with the Emissary. That takes out quite a bit of power away from the Emissary.

It's useful to have a rules manual or device with the pdf rules handy when you play, no one can remember everything.

[whodares]

4 minutes ago, Ludvig said:

It's useful to have a rules manual or device with the pdf rules handy when you play, no one can remember everything.

We have such options available, but looking up everything you disagree on can prolong the game for quite some times. We go a coin flip/dice roll and the winner's rules are used.

We usually look it up after the game, but forgot to do it. Since I won the roll last game, we decided to use thesame ruleset this time.

This was completely my fault as I should have done my proper research.

[anencephalous]

"The Hazardous Terrain is an 8" circle. If you stop in the circle, you have to take the duel. Since models only ignore terrain while moving, they have to take the effects after ending a walk/push in it."

I have never seen it played that way.

The card reads: "Hungry Land Markers are Ht 0, Severe, Hazardous Terrain which deal 1/4/5 damage. Any model which ends a move or push within 3" of a Hungry Land Marker must pass a TN 14 Wk duel or suffer damage as if entering it." 

If you were entering it, you would be immune to terrain. Moreover, you are at the "end" of a move action, not "after" a move action, so you still ignore terrain anyhow. 

You still have to make the Wk duel, but you don't suffer the effects.

Ergo, Huggy or Ama are your beaters of choice here.

[whodares]

5 minutes ago, anencephalous said:

"The Hazardous Terrain is an 8" circle. If you stop in the circle, you have to take the duel. Since models only ignore terrain while moving, they have to take the effects after ending a walk/push in it."

I have never seen it played that way.

The card reads: "Hungry Land Markers are Ht 0, Severe, Hazardous Terrain which deal 1/4/5 damage. Any model which ends a move or push within 3" of a Hungry Land Marker must pass a TN 14 Wk duel or suffer damage as if entering it." 

If you were entering it, you would be immune to terrain. Moreover, you are at the "end" of a move action, not "after" a move action, so you still ignore terrain anyhow. 

You still have to make the Wk duel, but you don't suffer the effects.

Ergo, Huggy or Ama are your beaters of choice here.

How we see this:

If you stop in the 50mm marker, there is no walk duel. You just straight go for the damage flip.

If you stop within 3" of the marker, you have to take the walk duel. If you fail that duel, you have to take the damage flip.

 

Flight has the following description:

Flight: This model is immune to falling damage and may ignore any terrain or models while moving.

 

Incorporeal: 

This model ignores, and is ignored by, other models and terrain during any movement or push. Reduce all damage this model suffers from Sh and Ml Attack Actions by half.

 

While moving and during any movement or push. Since you end the move/push, I see this as not being while or during movement.

If I have seen this wrong and those models would indeed be immune due to the wording, it takes out a lot of power of the marker indeed and makes it a lot more manageable.

[Fetid Strumpet]

From my understanding of the rules you have it correct, not the previous poster.

[Ludvig]

There has been some discussion since it is slightly ambiguous but I think most people play it as you taking damage when you end the move in terrain a you did Whodares. 

[Somnicide]

The thing I've found in this game is the worse my hand management is, the worse my flips are and the more they matter. I found in the past I'd try and cheat stuff that really didn't matter all that much and then be out of cards when it did.

It was hard to realize that more often than not I was the reason I was having such bad luck, and it didn't really resonate until I watched a game with the best player in the club and saw how often he didn't cheat, and just accepted a flip on a straight. If the opponent flipped a weak, awesome, because either he took min damage anyway, or awesome because the opponent just lost a decent card out of their hand that was likely earmarked for something else, and was then dependent upon luck to enact the basic plan.

 

edit: This also goes for those "nice to have but actually unnecessary" which 10t has a lot of. Also cheating a moderate for damage when much of our stuff only steps up a single point or even 2 - it's often not going to kill the model in the same turn. I've really tried hard to spend the game only cheating what is necessary and it makes a big difference.

[Ludvig]

The 6/7 you cheat for two more points of damage (and a blast hitting two or three other models since in this case the emissary was involved and the opponent was bunched up) would likely not have been enough to win a duel. Other than that I rarely cheat damage flips and try to save cards for really important stuff.

Being focused if your own red joker hasn't popped up yet means your opponent often feels forced to beat your natural flip (which hopefully was higher to begin with) since they're not sure if you are going to cheat red joker damage and oneshot them. 

[-Loki-]

12 hours ago, whodares said:

Target-counterpicking your opponent in a friendly training match sounds like poor sportsmanship to me. If somebody did that to me, I would never play against them again. Unless your opponent agreed to it first in order to test out something.

Remember that at the point of crew selection, all the info you have are the schemes, strat and faction declared. You're not allowed to "sneak a peek".

In competitive, you can go full counter if you know your opponent. That environment is play-to-win and I don't think anyone can have qualms about that.

This is a game where you should be second guessing your opponents force as well as picking your own. As you said, you pick your crew after knowing what faction your opponent is running and what you have to accomplish.

If I declare Neverborn, I would not be shocked, or offended, if in a friendly game someone brought more condition removal than they usually do. Neverborn place a lot of conditions which have some pretty debilitating effects. The fact that my opponent knows this when they make their crew is part of the game. I'd be picking a few models that are good at countering, or making me more effective against them as well.

If they are looking at the models you're grabbing out of your case as they make their list then that's cheating. They're not meant to know your list as they make theirs. If they're just good at assuming what you're going to bring based on your faction and, if they're common opponents, your playing habits, then that's just being good at the pre-game.

[Da Git]

Woah, wait...  You're saying the entire Faction is horrible after one game that had a perfect storm of bad terrain and bad flips/hands and you're opponent had awesome flips?  Ok then... You're going to be in for an expensive time going through all 7 Factions after a bad game...   Maybe I should invest in Wyrd!

Seriously.  I'd like to think most people have had those horrible games where absolutely nothing you tried works and your opponent's deck is on fire (I've certainly had several!)...  Try taking a deep breath, do yoga/pilates, drink herbal tea, listen to death metal, whatever you do to relax...  Take a few days.

All this sounds really condescending, but I find it really helps when I get crushed.

Ok, Kang's just a good solid model in general, not just against ressers & Arcanists...  Neverborn now have lots of Undead & Puppets are all constructs (Hello Collodi!), as is Teddy,Bad Juju, Voodoo Doll and the Rider, so there's a decent chance it might come up now.  HtW means he's only likely taking 1 damage from Hungry Land markers, the Neverborn big beaters really struggle against HtK, Immunity to Horror also helps against Neverborn (sadly it's only Living models)... Oh he also has his own Heal and a very solid melee attack...  Hard Worker might be a bit of a stretch if you don't want to ssem gamey, but it makes the Knights very sad... not to mention the Waldgeists!  If you think you're opponent's might take Titania or Collodi, he's very good, if you think they might take something else, well, he's still decent.  Remember you make your choice after seeing table and schemes...

Mei Feng with Vent Steam really shuts down a lot of Neverborn crews that have lots of Ca attacks... Wow cares about the Emissary's + (the range on this is only Aura 4, you said Aura6 earlier in the thread) to Attack when two Vents gives -- 

So what about something like this

Mei - 4ss cache

• Seismic Claws
• Vapormancy
• Misdirection

Kang

• Hard Worker

Toshiro

• Command the Graves

Shadow Emissary

• Conflux of Combat

Mech Porkchop

2 Monks of Low River

Summon Komainu (HtK so won't die straight away from Hungering Land Markers) with Toshie to block pushes or just make the opponent waste AP.  Also if a Komainu does get in their face & dies that another Railwalk target for Mei & another Komainu for Toshie to summon!  Kang (Pushed & Fast by the emissary turn 1) & Mei can do some serious whomping in combat. Mei can shut down all their casting single-handedly with Vent Steam (you should be looking to do this twice turn 1 after Rail Walking into Position. It also lasts until Mei's next Activation, so if you activate her late turn 2 it doesn't go away).

Looking at the board (which you know about before choosing crews, I'd probably go with Asami (yes, you probably don't have her, but anyways).  She has a 6" place so can jump over the buildings to completely ignore the Hungry Land markers.  Bettari ignores LoS & terrain when Charging.  End of Turn 1, try to have Asami & Bettari behind the central building, Turn 2 you can teleport to the other side, summon 2 Obsidian Oni to block their entire crew (and do 2 dg when they die!) & then probably walk away (hopefully only taking 1Dg from the Terrain).

If the Tooth tries to Challenge of Summer Yasunori (which he can't if he's blocks by Obsidian!), that's going to end very badly.  Yasunori has a 12" charge threat range (more if you fast/push him or use Asami's tendrils & Wrath of the Oni).  So if they Challenge him, Tooth needs to move within range whilst still being within 4" of the Emissary to not be on - & still being close enough to the Rougarou's 2" Ml to allow for pounce.  That's quite a feat in itself.  Kudos if your opponent manages it!  So Yasu takes a 1/3/4 (after armour) damage flip, the the Rougarou gets to punce doing 1/3/5 damage after armour.  Then Yasunori gets to make his attack, here you're guaranteed to to get 2 attacks if you haven't activated from the triggers, likely 3 attacks.  If you put all 3 on the Tooth, as long as one of them is Moderate, 3 attacks will kill him and then no more pounces.  & Yasunori can then activates next!  So Yasunori probably took around 4dg (a weak and a mod) to probably killing the tooth out of Activation)

As for the Gorar, there's no hiding from Bettari's charges, so go after that first, two weaks or one severe (which you can guarantee with built-in flay) will kill it.

This list would look something like this (I've used this a lot and it does very well)

Asami -6ss Cache - A Hevenly Design, Servant of 5 Dragons (because Neverborn), Something else if you're happy with a smaller cache, Recalled is always good...

- Turn 1 move up (0 teleport + maybe one walk) behind that central building, summon a Yokai (maybe getting Bettari to place if she went first) use tendrils, summon again or do whatever else needs doing for the last AP.  Turn 2 as above.

Amanjaku

- good damage dealer in the mid-late game, also with Manipulative 13/disguised, he's good at blocking charge/push lanes

Ohaguru - Equality, Recalled Training

- Probably drops Recalled Training probably start of turn 2 to hopefully 1AP charge the Gorar if it's anywhere near the centre, then charge something else.  Df/WP6 with + should hopefully let her survive the turn & if she doesn't, then she'll have eaten a lot of AP

Yasunori - Smoke grenades

-This guy ain't being lured today!  Can either spearhead the assault taking a heap of AP to kill or as a reserve.  He can fly over the buildings to set up a Wrath of the Oni Charge & usually does 4 attacks on a charge (that's easily a dead Tooth or Teddy)

Chiaki - Hidden Agenda (so Obsidian Oni's can heal her)

- Oh, so Titania droped Behold my Glory on Yasunori? Not today... !  Also heals on the trigger, I often save my mod Rams for this.

Trapper

-can ignore armour on a masks, can gum up the extraction zone with Traps to block pushes/be annoying/waste your AP/maybe do damage.  Has a decent rifle with two great triggers, if you get mod/severe damage, then just wow!

Obsidian Oni

-there to Place scrap for summoning, can heal for a O + card.  Does good damage on Mods

So taking that terrain into account, that would probably be my first choice... 

Big thing here is, don't say 10T suck after 1 game!  Also, Lynch/Yan Lo/McCabe are awesome in 10T!

Good luck!

[Ludvig]

I'm not even sure counterpicking is always good. Several players with a lot better track records than me have said that they don't give the opposing faction a single thought but only go for crews they know will perform in the current scenario (map, strat, schemes). I tend to mainly pick my crew for the strat but sometimes I anticipate certain stuff from the opponent and pick a few models accordingly, that isn't cheating in any way. The game encourages you to think like that with certain factions having easier access to certain defenses and moves (less so the more books are released).

[whodares]

5 hours ago, -Loki- said:

This is a game where you should be second guessing your opponents force as well as picking your own. As you said, you pick your crew after knowing what faction your opponent is running and what you have to accomplish.

If I declare Neverborn, I would not be shocked, or offended, if in a friendly game someone brought more condition removal than they usually do. Neverborn place a lot of conditions which have some pretty debilitating effects. The fact that my opponent knows this when they make their crew is part of the game. I'd be picking a few models that are good at countering, or making me more effective against them as well.

If they are looking at the models you're grabbing out of your case as they make their list then that's cheating. They're not meant to know your list as they make theirs. If they're just good at assuming what you're going to bring based on your faction and, if they're common opponents, your playing habits, then that's just being good at the pre-game.

My comment about counter-picking was about a FRIENDLY practice game. If you're going to be the guy that brings a full anti-Titania crew against your opponent because you know he is practicing her, you should really reconsider your methods. If you do it in competitive, that's a different story. Competitive = play to win. Friendly = play to have fun and try out new things.

4 hours ago, Da Git said:

Woah, wait...  You're saying the entire Faction is horrible after one game that had a perfect storm of bad terrain and bad flips/hands and you're opponent had awesome flips?  Ok then... You're going to be in for an expensive time going through all 7 Factions after a bad game...   Maybe I should invest in Wyrd!

Seriously.  I'd like to think most people have had those horrible games where absolutely nothing you tried works and your opponent's deck is on fire (I've certainly had several!)...  Try taking a deep breath, do yoga/pilates, drink herbal tea, listen to death metal, whatever you do to relax...  Take a few days.

All this sounds really condescending, but I find it really helps when I get crushed.

Didn't even read the first line of my post ... Been playing the faction for OVER A YEAR and I haven't had a single match where I felt I had an edge due to going for the Thunders.

For the rest, advice seems decent.

I actually do have Asami, but have been on an Asami streak. I find her to be the best master in the faction by far. I don't really like the Flicker mechanic though, as I find it annoying to have my models disappear. Especially since they require fairly high cards (9+ for Yokai, 10+ Oni and 13+ Jorogumo) to get off. I also hope the next book brings some additional good Oni for the 11 and 12 card range. Right now I almost exclusively summon Yokai as they can consistently last longer than a single turn.

I would bring Kamaitachi + Terracotta Warrior and Nefarious Pact on Asami with me, but I'm guessing that has to do more with the style of play you select. Yasunori, while having high damage, is easily killed if focussed by the wrong model. The Terracotta Warrior is really good for keeping him alive.

[Joachim]

On 30/04/2017 at 0:58 PM, whodares said:

SNiper hitting minimum is something you saw happen as well. Get straight flip for damage, get a minimum damage. Looks at hand and either have to cheat 1 of the 2 high cards I have for severe or go with the min damage. Cheating out 1/2 high cards you have leaves you open for the rest of the game. You give your opponent free reign over you and he can do as he pleases as long as he has a single high card in hand. You should also be able to verify that as that's what happened in the last 3-4 games we played. Neverborn have so many high card burning effects that you just HAVE to let some through if you don't want to give over complete control.

 

You've seen my card draw in the game. Lost turn 4 and 5 on games where I had twice your models due to cards (Bettari got 4 chances to kill something and still didn't get a single good flip so she died).

But that's just my card luck in general -.-

Tbh, you can't really complain about hitting minimum damage on a straight flip, its about a 5/13 chance. If you expect to hit minimum moderate there and if not get frustrated than you'll be frustrated throughout the entire game. Cause it will happen one third of the time basically.

Also about the game you refer to. You had bettari, asami, LRM, kamaitachi and a yokai that would flicker out. I had titania full health, aeslin with queens champion on full health and thorn. I wouldn't just say double my models as 2 of them don't deal damage and one would dissapear. You had some whifs there but i also charged with aeslin, flipped black joker on damage and missed all the rest. So we both had our good and bad luck in that game.

 

I think you will just have to let go that you had bad luck during a game. Even if that's the case you can think about your crew composition and your tactics and learn from that and move on to the next game. And if you did everything right but got shitty luck at some crucial points than there isn't really anything you can do about it and it's certainly not due to playing 10T.

 

So i think we can pretty much close this topics as it already went on for pretty long

 

Edited May 3, 2017 by Joachim
spelling error

[Ludvig]

20 minutes ago, whodares said:

My comment about counter-picking was about a FRIENDLY practice game. If you're going to be the guy that brings a full anti-Titania crew against your opponent because you know he is practicing her, you should really reconsider your methods. If you do it in competitive, that's a different story. Competitive = play to win. Friendly = play to have fun and try out new things.

Actually the Titania player would get some very good practice for future games if you took a full on counter list. It is really helpful to practice against the absolute worst matchup you can imagine and it's better to come up against that and loose in a friendly game than when the stakes are high in a tournament. Friendly games can be competitive, the difference to me is that you can have a chat about life, maybe have a beer to go with your game, not that your list needs to be any different.

[-Loki-]

32 minutes ago, whodares said:

My comment about counter-picking was about a FRIENDLY practice game. If you're going to be the guy that brings a full anti-Titania crew against your opponent because you know he is practicing her, you should really reconsider your methods. If you do it in competitive, that's a different story. Competitive = play to win. Friendly = play to have fun and try out new things.

As @Ludvig said, friendly game doesn't mean you're just throwing whatever on the table. You're playing the same game, with the same objectives. There just isn't the added stress of a prize to go after, and the more relaxed atmosphere of the game itself. In friendly games I certainly don't expect my opponent to go easy on me.

And as he also said, it's a good chance to practice. Ask your opponent why he's doing something, and ask advice on possible ways to counter it. Use a friendly game as a way to learn, rather than ragequit because your opponent didn't bring a weak list.

[Math Mathonwy]

On 4/30/2017 at 5:00 PM, Ludvig said:

All the factions can field all-undead or all construct lists but all the factions can also field lists entirely without any of those keywords.

Gremlins with an all-undead list eludes me? As do Guild and Arcanist all-undead lists but there I might be overlooking something obvious.

[Ludvig]

1 hour ago, Math Mathonwy said:

Gremlins with an all-undead list eludes me? As do Guild and Arcanist all-undead lists but there I might be overlooking something obvious.

Either all undead or all construct was what I was trying to say. I reqlizethe mastera of somefaction won't adhere to this but I think it's safe to saythat Kang could get his bonus against several models in  any faction. More importantly: anyfaction can avoid the keywords altogether.