New Player - Mei Feng Help

[spect_spidey]

I am a new player and I am looking to use Mei Feng as a master for Ten Thunders. I have read several posts on this site and Pull My Finger regarding Mei. I am aware of the summoning crew you can do with Toshiro. I am curious as to what possible fluffy and competitive builds that are available for Mei Feng. Is her Emberling, Kang, and Rail Workers auto includes? How many Rail Workers do people usually take? Should I consider Metal Gamin or Komainu? How fluffy would people consider Obsidian Oni? Are their other options that I am not aware of? Is it a good idea to take Foundry models from other factions? Any assistance is greatly appreciated.

[spect_spidey]

Here is a crew that I came up with. I am not sure how fluffy or competitive it is. 

Mei Feng - Seismic Claws, Vapormancy, Recalled Training

Emberling

Kang - People's Challenge

Mechanized Porkchop

Katanaka Sniper

Obsidian Oni

Rail Worker

Komainu

This gives me 8 models and a 6 SS pool. Any recommendations on changes? The idea is to make use of the Mechanized Porkchop, Rail Worker, and Komainu to provide Mei with Railwalk opportunities. The Oni to hand out Burning or to help with placing additional scrap markers. The Katanaka will provide some ranged support with placement hopefully allowing him to cover the majority of the board from a covered position. Kang to help hopefully hold down an area. I am not sure how fluffy this would be though since I only know the little provided on the website and in the 2nd edition rulebook about Mei Feng or Ten Thunders.

[Adran]

Making a "fluffy" list is a very personal thing, and what 1 person considers fluffy is completely "anti fluff" to another (A couple of "contentious" fluff areas would include  "should Nekima be in Lilith lists", or should the "guild starter models run with Sonnia or McMorning"). As such I'll leave that up to you. Personally I'm happy for models which the crew can hire to be used by that crew, and just accept that they might look a little strange together. 

In my mind there is no such thing as an auto include in a list, so I wouldn't always use Kang, or a set number of rail workers. 

The first thing that comes to mind when I read you list is that you have almost maximised the amount of money spent to get those models, its 6 different boxes. This might not be an issue for you, but early on the differences between an obsidian oni, rail worker and Komainu possibly aren't enough that I would suggest getting sets of all 3, and then using 1/3rd of each box. (later on as you expand your collection, then yes this may well be a good idea. ). 

The second thing is the game is not one of Fixed lists. You find out what your mission is, and then build to meet this. When you start there is a lot of advantages to use a fixed list, you don't have quite so much to think about, and will get a better idea of what everything does. To that end its a lot easier to learn the game if you have multiples of the same model rather than multiple different models. 

My advice is buy a little (so typically the crew box and maybe 1-2 more boosters) play with what you have, and then look for areas where you feel you want more. 

I personally barely use Railwalk when I use Mei, but others really like it. So I don't find it worth flooding my crew with constructs and scrap, but it doesn't mean you are wrong to go that way, but you might find that it doesn't work for you either (Or is could be the best thing she does for you). 

[spect_spidey]

Adran - Thanks for the reply. If I were to take your recommendation and buy the crew box plus one or two boosters, which of the four boxes above would you recommend to start with? Or should I look at other models? I know Mei's crew lacks ranged attacks. Would I be better off with Oni, Snipers, or something else? I want to try and get a good fluffy/competitive base that I can adjust as needed. Is there a SS amount that I could start with as a base and add to, say 25 or 35 SS? 

[StormLordXIII]

I find Katanaka snipers to be great utility pieces with good damage output and solid scheme running options (although every time you are not shooting with them, they may be wasted). They're points pricey but complement Mei well as she often prefers close combat! Their box is relatively cheap price wise too. 

[spect_spidey]

12 hours ago, StormLordXIII said:

I find Katanaka snipers to be great utility pieces with good damage output and solid scheme running options (although every time you are not shooting with them, they may be wasted). They're points pricey but complement Mei well as she often prefers close combat! Their box is relatively cheap price wise too. 

I have the Von Schill box that I had already bought. How would you compare the Katanaka Sniper to the Friekorps Trapper? The Trapper seems to be better in melee. The Sniper offers a free range 6 attack compared to the Trapper's situational free movement action. They are the same cost in a TT crew. Could I use the Trapper and buy something else for now?

 

I am curious about the Oiran with Rail Workers. I figure since a Rail Worker is slow, he could pair up with an Oiran and use their ability to bring enemies closer to the Worker to help them get into melee faster.

 

I have created a crew on this principle and at 50SS it would give me 9 models using Mei, Kang, Trapper, Emberling, 3 Rail Workers, and 2 Oiran. I wonder if they would be good at any of the schemes or strategies.

[Dogmantra]

37 minutes ago, spect_spidey said:

. How would you compare the Katanaka Sniper to the Friekorps Trapper? The Trapper seems to be better in melee. The Sniper offers a free range 6 attack compared to the Trapper's situational free movement action. They are the same cost in a TT crew. Could I use the Trapper and buy something else for now?

They're going to be pretty much interchangeable and the biggest downside of a trapper instead of a katanaka sniper is that you're using a merc slot which you might not want to do. I'd rate a Sniper above a Trapper most of the time (the trapper is better in melee in that it can push out for a card, but the sniper is better in that its sword actually has a better damage track than its gun). The trapper's disengage is better when there's one specific target you have to kill, while the Sniper's melee is better when you're just bringing them for consistent damage. Slight differences but honestly if you're just starting out & on a budget and you have the Trappers, miss the Snipers imo. Get something else.

[spect_spidey]

Any suggestions on what I should get instead of the Snipers?

[Adran]

23 hours ago, spect_spidey said:

I have the Von Schill box that I had already bought. How would you compare the Katanaka Sniper to the Friekorps Trapper? The Trapper seems to be better in melee. The Sniper offers a free range 6 attack compared to the Trapper's situational free movement action. They are the same cost in a TT crew. Could I use the Trapper and buy something else for now?

 

I am curious about the Oiran with Rail Workers. I figure since a Rail Worker is slow, he could pair up with an Oiran and use their ability to bring enemies closer to the Worker to help them get into melee faster.

 

I have created a crew on this principle and at 50SS it would give me 9 models using Mei, Kang, Trapper, Emberling, 3 Rail Workers, and 2 Oiran. I wonder if they would be good at any of the schemes or strategies.

Personally I think the sniper is better than the trapper, but there isn't a lot in it (and if you want to kill a certain target, rather than just kill things the trapper might be slightly better). I don't think they are different enough that its worth doubling up on having both if you are just trying to work out what you want. Later on, if you really like the ranged firepower, then I could see games where you would want 2 snipers and a trapper if thats what you want to do. 

The game isn't really about just trying to get into a fight. So there are times you might want to use the Oiran to bring your foe to you (Or help bring you to the foe) but I don't think doing so just to make a 4ss model be able to hit is worth it. Your list has a chance in several games. It is a little slow if you are trying to do things in the enemy half, but if you don't need to cross the middle to win, then you should be quick enough. I'd say its reasonable at Turf war, Extraction, Guard the stash. It might be ok  at scoring in Recon/interference, but probably won't do well at denying enemy scoring. 

I'm not going to recommend set boosters, because none of them are bad, if that's the way you want to go. If you want to build a core around Rail workers, and Oiran, then that will do fairly well. Or you could build around Obsidian oni and Snipers for example , which would also work but be a very different play experience. 

I don't build my crews in the way you are trying to do, but I know other people do build them that way. 

 

 

 

[spect_spidey]

I ended up buying the Oiran and the Obsidian Oni to go with the Mei Feng set. I will see how that works. 

[spooky_squirrel]

On top of what @Adran already pointed out regarding hiring crews to do a job and using the same crew for a handful (or more) of games to get a sense of what different things do:

Replay the same scenarios and do things differently. If you bounced around a lot with Rail Walk in one run, pretend it's not on her card in another run. See how her role changes, what else she can do, and what you can do when you're not using your hand to get her up the board.

I recommend taking notes on what happens, what went well and what didn't do much of anything. If you've got a local meta (gaming environment), playing in it will expose you to different factions, different masters, and different approaches to solving the same kinds of problems. It'll also help you figure out when to go pick a fight and when to turtle up and just get as many schemes as you can. Take advantage of the fact that Mei Feng is a generalist/denial piece that looks like a fighter.

Once you've gotten some familiarity with your crew and boosters, start reading through the various strategies and schemes and think about what those models might do for each one. Then flip a scenario (card for strat, two cards for four random schemes, and the always available scheme) and try to figure out how your crew would attempt to complete the Strategy and two of the five available schemes. If you're not sure about what a model might do for a scheme, there are resources such as the pullmyfinger wiki as well as distilled experience and theoryfaux here. If those don't help, try to figure out what that model would have to do to complete the scheme.
For example: Leave Your Mark  (GG2017) and the Rail Worker: Rail Worker with a walk of 4 would have to spend two full turns walking up the field just to get over the center line in Standard Deployment (12" away, you have to use 4 x 4" walks to cross over it) Then in the third turn he would have to walk, then interact. Emberling, on the other hand, with a walk of 5 can get from the edge of your deployment to the other side of the centerline in 3 walks. Komainu and Oiran have the same walk as the Emberling. Alternatively, if you spend the first turn moving your Rail Workers up, they get to the 14" line (4" off of the center) and Mei Feng could Rail Walk to one of them, then take two 5" walks straight over the line to place a scheme marker n the other side of the 6" from center line in Turn 2.
What this will do is get you to start thinking about your 10 points; specifically how to score those points with what you have. In Malifaux, it doesn't matter if you table your opponent or get tabled, what matters is how many points were scored.