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Book 5 wishlist!


Da Git

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Armour

IMO Ten Thunders are better equipped than most factions to deal with armour. Off the top of my head we have the Samurai, the Hard Worker upgrade, Lone Swordsman, McCabes Sabre and if you're using Yan Lo, the Goryo. I believe that's as good as, if not better than most other factions.

On top of that we've got better access than most to Focus attacks, which allows for nice boosts of damage and is a good way to minimise the effectiveness of armour.

Do we have armour pen? Yes? Is it easy to use? No.

Samurai – slow, short ranged, low hit points, usually taken as a ranged piece with melee as backup. If you take it as a pure melee piece, you are wasting a 14” ranged attack (because you need the 3 extra hps). Because the damage track is 2/3/5, you might as well take Mr Graves, who for the same cost puts out the same damage verse armour one - 2/3/5, and better damage against unarmoured (worse against armour 2+). To make things worse, the 0 point upgrades mean they cannot take Recalled Training, meaning your big beater loses the single best upgrade in our faction.

Hard Worker Upgrade – This is so expensive to use. There are only 7 models that can use this, and everyone of them has a 0 point action you are losing to use it. Are you really going to not use Locomotion on Rail Golem for this? Even your basic Rail Workers are giving up positive flips to offence and defence to use it. On top of this it costs a card. So that means, in an average turn, you have one or maybe two cards you can discard without seriously eating into your hand. It has use on Kang for him to buff his own attack, but even then you are not healing that turn. It can be a pretty frustrating decision to make.

Lone Swordsman – 1 in 4 chance, cannot stone for it. Occasionally armour penetrative.

McCabe's Saber – Our only genuinely useful armour pen in faction. Fully functional, cool mechanism… but master restricted. If you face Joss/Howard/Metal Gamin spam, as I so often do it is boring to be forced onto one master.

Goryo – This was a huge buff for Ressers, a tiny buff for us. Not only is it one master only, Yan Lo is seriously gimping his squad to find space for a seven point minion. There are two styles of Yan Lo play I have seen advocated – small minions spam to get his chi up fast, and big ancestor reliquary. Neither of those crews comfortable squeezes in a Goryo. And while the Goryo are solid on their own, they really need a spirit crew to maximise the Adversity, which TT cannot provide. They are pretty models and I am really glad we have access to them, but they are not the armour pen model everyone (but you!) strongly desires.
 

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Scheme Runners

For specifically running schemes we've got Tengu, 10-T brother, Low River monks, Yokai and Wandering River monks, all of which are fantastic in their own way, depending on exactly where and when you want those scheme markers. If you want a cheap, indepenent Scheme runner then Yokai and 10-T Brothers are your guys. If you want a independent scheme runner who's near-impossible to counter then look no further than the Wandering River Monk, who's absolutely worth the 7SS you pay for him. I used to think 10-T were lacking in scheme runners, but that's really not the case any more.

Yes, we have plenty of expensive scheme runners. What I want is cheap ones that actually work. Shadow Effigy is great (like everyone’s Effigy), but that is it. Tengu are just awful, because their movement is conditional, and if they are in LOS they are dead. Again, McCabe has the solution here with Guild Hounds, but our four point scheme runner is literally the worst of all seven factions, so it doesn’t seem unreasonable to request something in this area.
 

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Master/Models w. Blast

You mean besides Misaki, Mei Feng and Shenlong? ;) All three have good melee attacks that can put out blasts, and they're made all the more dangerous with positive damage flips from Stalking Bisento (for Misaki) and/or Recalled Training. Outside of Masters there's the Shadow Emissary, Yamaziko and probably a few others I can't remember off the top of my head. I think we're pretty good for Blasts.

Sigh, yes we can do melee blasts. Do I even need to state the obvious that isn't the same kind of gameplay as Wong, Rasputina or Sonnia? Diverse game play makes for a more rewarding experience. That means a ranged Master (beyond Lynch's 8), would ( A ) add more fun and ( B ) give more tactical choices.
 

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7-value attacks

The question here isn't whether we need a 7-value attack stat (you missed Yan Lo BTW, who can get up to 8), but whether we need more ways to deal with Df 7 models. And to be honest, I don't think we do. As above we've got access to blast and there's a bunch of models who can choose to target Wp too. Easy access to focus and positive flips reduces the need for a high attack stat too.

My personal bugbear is the Viks, and finding a way to manage the 7 defence at positive filps keeps me up nights. That having been said, I think 7 attack models should be pretty damn rare, and I personally don't mind there are not a lot going around. Here at least I feel like we are in the same boat as everyone else – no one has a lot of 7+ attackers, they are deservedly rare.
 

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3-SS minion

Eh, this is neither here nor there to me. I've never had a problem with Interference (I usually play Misaki for it, though Asami and Mei Feng can summon if you really feel that's necessary for the strat), and model count/out-activation has never been too much of an issue. Some kind of Oni hound thing would be neat, but I wouldn't say it's strictly necessary.

 

Cool if you don't care either way, obviously many people would really like the choice to take one. They are now pretty common in other factions.

You need to give me some tips for Interference, because against summoners I really struggle. Especially Ramos. Armour and summons. Blergh.
 

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Damaging Ca-attack actions

Other than the Shadow Emissary we've got Lust, the Komainu, Yan Lo, the Obsidian Oni and of course Hungering Darkness. Plus alot of the Book 5 models look to have Ca-based attacks too. Then there's Izamu and the Lone Swordsman, who have triggers to ignore incorporeal (which is what you're really after, right?). Honestly this is something I've never felt a need for.

Shadow Emissary is obviously awesome, but does have range 7.

I don't think the Komaniu has a cast attack, not sure what you were confusing it with.

Lust has a 1" Ca attack, that has a 1/2/6 track, lol (although to be fair on her non-stonable trigger she can also do 2 points on her push).

Yan Lo is a freaking master with a 2/3/4 track, that doesn't ignore cover, get + flips, penetrate armour or do anything exciting. It is less useful than the cast attacks on dedicated summoners like Molly and Kirai for god's sake. If your standard for excitement for cast attacks is Yan Lo, you have set the bar extremely low.

Obsidian Oni – fun model, but with range of 8 and min damage 1, he isn’t usually remembered as a casting legend. With help or focus he can put down some mid range damage.

Hungering Darkness – Melee casts, which are a different beasty again. Usually cool, but occasionally a hindrance (when I started my first crew was Lynch, and with only one master to draw from, I faced Bleeding Edge Tech every single Arcanist game).

Again, it isn’t that we have no cast attacks, we just don't have many, and so when someone says they would like some more, it doesn't seem unreasonable.

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As for what the 10-T needs, well, to be honest I think from the perspective of tactical options on the board, they're in a really good position. There's actually nothing that I feel the faction strictly NEEDS.

Could not disagree more. We do have a wide diversity of models, if your hip pocket can take the blow, and your speed painting skills are up to par. But despite that, we have some pretty obvious holes. We lack a true summoner master, and we lack a ranged damage dealer master, which is the natural counter to a summoner. We cannot match the opposing numbers, and we lack a blaster who could whittle down the opposing forces safely. I find summoner games come down to one, desperate alpha strike. If I don’t kill off the summon engine early, the game frequently spirals out of hand.

 

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Ronin are available for armor penetration. They are very much worth their points and with the available means for pushing/fast the TT have both an affordable and usually solid investment there. Everyone always forgets them though. With all the card draw and possibly free focus they can do some great tricks!

Shooting CA is something I agree TT needs, though I don't necessarily think it needs it in the form of blasts (just while we're stating opinions). While TT's actual SH options are among the best in the game, I fully back that Yan Lo is nothing to hold up to as much. I would not have minded closer ties to Gremlins with Wong being the bleedover and Brewie going full bayou, but that's not an option now really. Put it this way, Wong can't have the only mystical Asia magic book/scrolls/charms around. 

TT have scheme runners in spades though. You guys are fine there. 5 cost is the standard cost for a decent runner in my book.

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20 hours ago, anencephalous said:


 

Sigh, yes we can do melee blasts. Do I even need to state the obvious that isn't the same kind of gameplay as Wong, Rasputina or Sonnia? Diverse game play makes for a more rewarding experience. That means a ranged Master (beyond Lynch's 8), would ( A ) add more fun and ( B ) give more tactical choices.
 

 

Could not disagree more. We do have a wide diversity of models, if your hip pocket can take the blow, and your speed painting skills are up to par. But despite that, we have some pretty obvious holes. We lack a true summoner master, and we lack a ranged damage dealer master, which is the natural counter to a summoner. We cannot match the opposing numbers, and we lack a blaster who could whittle down the opposing forces safely. I find summoner games come down to one, desperate alpha strike. If I don’t kill off the summon engine early, the game frequently spirals out of hand.

 

Hmm, how many Masters with Blast are there? you Listed Sonnia, Rasputina and Wong. I can add Nicodem to that, but I trhink thats it. So that is almost 50% of the masters with a blast symbol in faction already!  So what Ten Thunders have is a unique angle on Blasting Masters. 

And surely Asami is a true summoner. I'd probably put her behind Nico, Molly, Kirai and Dreamer, but on par with Sandeep, and above Sionnia, McMorning, Seamus, Ramos and Sommer

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22 hours ago, anencephalous said:

Could not disagree more. We do have a wide diversity of models, if your hip pocket can take the blow, and your speed painting skills are up to par. But despite that, we have some pretty obvious holes. We lack a true summoner master, and we lack a ranged damage dealer master, which is the natural counter to a summoner. We cannot match the opposing numbers, and we lack a blaster who could whittle down the opposing forces safely.

 

I'm afraid this philosophy of design would reduce a difference between factions to merely aesthetical one at some point.

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I would like to see, at some point, enforcers that are based on the three storms from Big Trouble in Little China, Yan Lo being Lo Pan and all...

It would also be really cool to have dudes on motorcycles with guandaos, the Chinese cavalry spears.

Tanukis were on my wishlist, and it looks like they are coming!

It'd also be really cool to have a shaolin shapeshifter.

The trope of a magic sword that grants its user psuedo-flight-like abilities ala Crounching Tiger Hidden Dragon is cool.

I also wonder about incorporating more southern Asian myth into the TT.  I think that the bulk of the inspiration comes from Japan, Korea, and China, and it also seems that the Arcanists are delving into India with Sandeep and co.  That still leaves Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Viet Nam, the Phillipines, and Indonesia as other cultures that could cross pollinate a bit more into the Thunders.  Then there is also Siberia that can give us some icy cool stuff too.  The fiendish Guild won't stop their cultural genocide, and no doubt our neighbors are feeling the heat.

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