Yan Lo Beating a Dead Horse for Chi

[Veefy]

I read the blog from Kyodee and thought to bring  you guys some info on the new and improved Yan from a rezzer perspective. Its not much but I hope it helps.

I will only list the relevant actions and models associated with Yan and his usual crew. 

A) What does he do?

His main activity during round 1 is building chi. Although we can use a sacrifice such as a Night Terror to do that with I will point out a more convoluted but efficient solution by utilizing spirit beacon and a mindless zombie. 

The idea is to bring Asura and a spirit that can attach Spirit Beacon. Asura will place the Quarantine marker within 6" of said spirit and turn it into a zombie with her 0 tactical action. 

B ) How does he do it?

1. Yan activates, discards a card for chi and uses Spirit Barrage on the zombie who relents. 

2. The spirit will discard a card in order to spawn a seishin.

3. Yan charges the seishin and attacks with SB again. The seishin does NOT relent and you manipulate the duel and cheat a severe for your SB trigger netting you a chi. 

4. The spirit takes 1 damage to keep said seishin alive.

5. Yan attacks the seishin who relents for your reward, the 4th chi.

6. Yan heals the spirit and then cashes the chi for whatever Ascendant upgrade is needed.

I usually bring Philip and Toshiro with Yan as their combo will allow me to have the hand that constantly allows me to pull this combo off. In addition the corpse left by the zombie can be raised and turned into an ashigaru. Asura can later be used to provide more corpses, schemes for round 2 Phil or as a Scheme Runner.

C) What is the difference between rezzers and thunders?

I am not a fan of the TT yet one cannot deny their strenghts.

1) Access to the weasel and terracota warriors will provide additional healing to Yan. This can also assist with card draw.

2) Recalled training on beaters allows for heavy damage. One trick is to use the TW to switch the conflux upgrade on your emissary after it has gained fast.

3) Charm warder as the sacrificial unit allows for a nasty camo on Yan.

4) Emissary is great.

5) Low river monk and its upgrade increases healing and condition removal on a crew that is very likely going to use Follow Their Footsteps with Yan.

6) Chiaki can transfer the TW buff to Yan.

I love resurrectionists and below are some of our dirty little tricks.

1) My little helper. Not often utilized but Chiaki can transfer the buff to Yan on a critical turn.

2) Access to early mindless Zombies in addition to seishin for Chi generation

3) Philip for card generation and cycling is very powerful as many card will be used to meet TN and discarded for Chi.

4) We have Nurses For nasty conditions or situational buffs.

5) Rotten belles combined with lightning dance tends to break enemy formations easily.

6) I enjoy our Emissary and its walls that generate zombies quite a bit.

D) In summary

Yan lo on the TT will very likely pick FTF and its round 1 Chi generation is limited and not as recyclable as in the rezzer faction who can constantly produce corpses on its own terms. He will still generate what he needs in terms of chi but he will rely more on upgrade switching and heals than a rezzer. A TT Yan can be placed in many dangerous situations as he gets more accessible heals than a rezzer. With a great hand I have to say TT has a stronger Yan...

As a rezzer we have Philip so it is much more likely that we end up with a better and larger sized hand than a TT. We also do not have the nesesity of using FTF as I feel zombie and seishin allow for easier chi generation which in turn allows our Yan to buy his ascendant upgrades quickly.

This is the first time i try this... Hope its not too scattered...

[Paddywhack]

The Seisin trick with Spirit Beacon is nice, but requires you to get a good hand turn one. You need two severes, plus cards to discard. I don't always get even one severe. If you bring Datsue Ba with MLH you can pop 2 seishin turn one and have Yan Lo pull a similar trick, but is still pretty card intensive. 

I do like the Chiaki trick of moving Dark Protection. Could be useful on an early turn or against a gun line to close the gap. Yan Lo with his new upgrades is definitely a much stronger master. I think we will see him a lot more. 

I do agree that there may be more/better tricks for him with TT's though. They have some really good models. They have a couple of tricks for Chi generation and it is certainly possible, if perhaps not to everyone's taste, to have 4 Chi top of turn 2. 

[Nukemouse]

Don't zombies have 3 health to spirit barrages min two damage?

The emissary lets Yan make use of Brutal Karkarra so he can use hunpo without needing to spend 4 chi on blood first and its main weakness of not being as tanky as other ressur stuff is mitigated since reliquary can resummon it.

[Veefy]

Oops cant relent it with zombie,  Need to get a straight flip and hit a moderate.

[Paddywhack]

With the Emissary, the  Brutal Karkarra is what, Ml6? Weird Glowy Mouth Light can be Ca8 and is vs Wp avoiding many Df triggers.

Not bad, but I still think pretty well beat out by Blood Ascendant. 

[hydranixx]

Pretty much. Mindless Zombies with 3 wounds makes them really awkward. It'd be tempting to cheat on one end of the duel to ensure a straight flip, but then that's even more card intensive. Mind you, you could just get your recently summoned Seishin from Datsue to hit the MZ exactly once for 1 or 2 damage. That primes it for Yan Lo nicely enough.

I've often wondered about the interaction between Spirit Beacon and Yan Lo's Chi. But since he needs to hit Severe to get 2 Chi per Seishin, it gets very card intensive (you still need to summon your 1-2 Seishin first). I'm not entirely convinced it's that necessary either. Hitting 2 Chi on Turn 1 is usually all I need so simply killing a single Seishin and ditching a card gets me there. 

I'm thinking my first turn order of operations would most likely remain as it currently is: Datsue Ba bringing a single Seishin in, Yan Lo killing it and going Spirit Ascendant asap for that sweet (2) Fury of the Yomi Turn 1. Fury of the Yomi is ok in TT but it's amazing in Ressurectionists since Spirits in general are both plentiful and powerful in our faction. Any 3 of Phillip and the Nanny, Datsue Ba, Izamu, Soul Porter are good choices I use but I'm sure there's others worth trying.

Imo Follow Their Footsteps is still definitely worth equipping as a Ressurectionist, partially because we don't have any good general upgrades (Misdirection) that would actually be useful on Yan Lo anyway, and partially since only half the upgrade is actually about generating Chi; a major part is the free re-distribution of Ascendant upgrades and Chi. You can dump whatever Ascendant upgrade you don't really care about for the Chi required to cast aggressively and/or equip something more useful. In my experience and in my example, turn 2 I'd probably drop Spirit, elect not to freely equip, ditch a card and then cast up to 4 Lightning Dance at Ca8 if required, then pick Ash or Spirit back up for a (0).

As mentioned in Kyodee's write up, Blood Ascendant isn't really worth a damn if you don't have a least 1 or 2 Chi left over afterwards since the raw Ca stat is low to being with. You could make it work on turn 2 if the game has been exceptionally bloody (heh) but otherwise it's usually best to wait until turn 3.

[Veefy]

Yan does not need a severe to get a chi as the revitaliza trigger on SB procs on either a kill or a severe. I usually do aim for the severe once because ill want my spirit to use beacon to keep the seishin alive after the severe hit. Philip allows for the hand size and consistency needed to pull it off.  The breakdown of the needed cards include:

1. One severe

2. One Moderate

3. Two low cards to cheat down if necessary  (zombie and seishin)

Things do stack up so with the Yan lo and Spirit discard. So the concern about an alpha is very well noted. This is compunded further with Toshiro asking for a 9+ to summon, 8+ for giving it fast and finally a 7+ for Shards. Also I tend to use Necropunk so thats another 7+ for leap.

Regarding FTF. It is great and if you are not going for an activation where you attempt to generate 4chi then it is understandable that you pick it. I do go for the quick chi so Fortify Spirit remains my go to with Awakening and Rebuild Corpus. I dont tend to use Chiaki to remove conditions so using stones to bring me to 8def/wp  in order to evade feels like a better fit. Ill post one of my go to lists with Mr Lo.

[hydranixx]

I forget if Spirit Beacon can summon from Peons dying nearby. Is it non-Peons or just non-Spirits? If it's non-Peons you'd also need to actively summon your Seishin in, so don't forget to add another 6+ or 8+ card to the mountain of TNs required for everything to work efficiently in your list... ouch.

Let's assume the card gods favour you and all your TN duels are successful and Phillip does draw you a nice bunch of cards and you gather all the Chi you need and you have chosen not to take FTF... because you want Fortify Spirit instead (I've never seen anyone take that so it was a surprise reading it)... What's the next step?

Are you in the rush Blood Ascendant camp or are you holding onto most of the Chi for more accurate Lightning Dances? You've put in a lot of effort, your entire first turn's activation and all your cards to be precise, so share the grand strategy !

[Veefy]

Sure. The two lists are. 

Yan Lo + 6 Pool

 - Fortify The Spirit (1)

 - Reliquary (1)

 - Awakening (1)

Soul Porter (3)

Toshiro The Daimyo (9)

 - Command The Graves (1)

Asura Roten (8)

Philip and the spirit Nanny (8)

 - Haunting Cries (0)

 - Spirit Beacon (1)

Carrion Emissary (10)

 - Ancestral Conflux (0)

Necropunk (5)

 

The other is:

 

Yan Lo + 6 Pool

 - Awakening (1)

 - Follow Their Footsteps (1)

 - Reliquary (1)

Soul Porter (3)

Philip and the Nanny (8)

Carrion Emissary (10)

 - Ancestral Conflux (0)

Chiaki The Niece (6)

 - Pull Of The Grave (1)

Goryo (7)

Necropunk (5)

Nurse (5)

When using the list with the MZ trick I spend the chi on Blood Ascendant. Then play aggressively with the ashigaru and Emissary on round 2. Dont know if its the best but I save fast on the Emissary by ascending after its turn has passed. The porter helps push Yan and Emi around to keep it away but still in range to gather chi with his passive. Punk, Asura and Ashigaru scheme.

I get it, your strat is probably better than mine. Its still enjoyable reading the reasons. Good way to learn  Thank you for the replies.

[hydranixx]

There's rarely a set standard 'better' way in my opinion. Just variety and a hundred different permutations of a master! Best part of Malifaux I reckon.

I can see why Fortify has more value for you since Yan Lo appears to be your main source of damage. Wouldn't want him keeling over turn 2. Without Goryo or Asura yet I won't be able to give your lists a spin yet, but I look forward to trying it in the near future