Waldo's Weekly - Youko Hamasaki Reveal

[Kyle]

Hey Wyrdos,

Waldo managed to weasel his way into the Beta. We kicked him out pretty quickly, but before we did, he managed to print off a few of the new stat cards. After throwing some “distractions” (don’t worry, Kyle will recover), we grabbed most of them back. He managed to keep a hold of a few, and said he would only give them back if we let him talk about one for Waldo’s Weekly.

With that, we are happy to introduce the new Ten Thunders Master, Youko Hamasaki. 

As a reminder, Youko is still in beta testing, so some of the Abilities and Actions discussed in this article might change between now and M3E’s release. With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s see what this mysterious woman has in store for us.

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Youko Hamasaki is the new proprietor of the Qi and Gong, the most widely-renowned brothel within the Little Kingdom (if not all of Malifaux City). While she might not appear imposing at first glance, Youko has her delicate fingers upon the pulse of the city and is adept at gathering information, secrets, and blackmail.

Youko’s Keyword is “Qi and Gong,” as most of her thematic models are drawn from the employees of that establishment. Each Qi and Gong model has the Leverage Ability, which gives its controller a Pass Token at the start of the Turn… provided that the opponent has one or more revealed Schemes. Furthermore, the model can discard a Pass Token when performing a duel to gain a positive flip to that duel.

Leverage lets a Qi and Gong Crew play mind games with their opponent right from the very start of the game. As soon as the opponent reveals a Scheme to score Victory Points, the Qi and Gong crew is going to gain a whole pile of Pass Tokens that they can use for activation control, initiative bonuses, or fate modifiers. Is it worth scoring early and risking such a swing in power, or is it better to wait to reveal Schemes, which gives Youko’s crew time to counter them?

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Youko’s ability to control the flow of the game doesn’t stop there, however. After an enemy model Activates within 6” of her, her Informants Ability allows her to look at the top card of either player’s Fate Deck and then gives her the option of placing that card on the bottom of that player’s Fate Deck. This Ability serves double duty, allowing Youko to either discard her own undesirable cards or to ensure that the opponent’s high cards end up getting buried back in their deck.

She also has Calm Demeanor, which allows her to draw a card whenever an enemy model within 6” discards a card. So long as Youko is near the battle, she’s going to be benefiting from the opponent’s misery.

Though fragile at only 10 Health, she is protected from enemy aggression by Disguised (which prevents her from being the target of Actions generated by the Charge Action) and Serene Countenance (which gives any Attack Actions targeting her a negative flip). She might not be durable, but she’s got plenty of tricks in her sleeve to avoid all but the most dedicated assassins.

Youko’s most impressive Action is most likely her Bonus Action, Backroom Dealings. It targets an enemy model and forces them to reveal their hand, giving Youko a glimpse into her enemy’s plans. The “Risking It All” trigger further punishes the opponent by letting you guess a suit before the reveal, which in turn damages the enemy model for one damage per card of the named suit in the opponent’s hand. This can be particularly damaging against summoners who often stockpile cards of certain suits. Her other trigger, “Shady Dealings,” reinforces her crew’s Leverage Ability: for each of the opponent’s unrevealed Schemes, they must discard a random card.

In addition to this formidable weapon, Youko also possesses Blackmail, which gives an enemy model the option of discarding up to two cards. For each card they don’t discard, Youko’s crew gains a Pass Token, providing further fuel to Leverage. Even if the opponent doesn’t care that Youko gains Pass Tokens, they may want to discard a card anyways; her “We Own You” trigger lets her force the target to take an Action… provided that the opponent discarded one or fewer cards.

Backing up her Blackmail capabilities is Riddles in the Dark, an amusing little Action that gives the target Distracted +X, where X is equal to the difference in the number of cards in each player’s hand (to a maximum of Distracted +2). This works whether Youko is up or down on cards, making it quite useful.

Rounding out her skill set is Information Network, a simple Action that lets her draw a card without having to flip any cards, and an Exotic Weapons attack that does average damage… unless she can get a model alone and declare the “No Witnesses” trigger, which allows her to deal +1 damage and ignore Armor if no enemy models other than the target can draw line of sight to her.

All in all, Youko Hamasaki is an interesting addition to the Ten Thunders roster, providing them with a true control Master who is more than capable of controlling the flow of information during the game.

[Tris]

A pass token from every model in her crew doesn`t seem like it got rid of completely outactivating an opponent 😕

 

Great artwork though and I´m glad Waldo keeps his good work up^^

[Primate]

Like the fact that she plays with other players hands, and the guessing stuff is fun. Hopefully her crew is bad enough that models actually need to spend the pass tokens to be good, making it a bit more of a decsision as to whether you use them or not.

[Gnomezilla]

Ehh...’bad unless boosted’ is not a great place for a model to be *looks at the El Mayor tax on Guild master defenses*. I hope they don’t average 6 attack, 6-positive is brutal (ok yeah a beater or two is five but I don’t want spammed 6-positive across everyone*), and really hope I never find a 7 attack in-theme.

I don’t grasp hand reveal and control well so someone else can enjoy that.

 

*to my opponent tonight, yes, I am a massive hypocrite. Nom nom nom!

[Tors]

It states "most" models, not all. And i am pretty sure, like all abilities, those will also be balanced with ss-cost.

At least this sneak peak should end the 'over simplification'- worries. 

[Mike Wallace]

Hoffman: "How did you blackmail my robot?"

Youko: "He's got a thing for opium. And call-girls." /sinister smile

 

I love Malifaux.

[WWHSD]

21 minutes ago, Mike Wallace said:

Hoffman: "How did you blackmail my robot?"

Youko: "He's got a thing for opium. And call-girls." /sinister smile

 

I love Malifaux.

That's not Malifaux. That sounds like Futurama.

[Franchute]

To be honest, I'm glad activation control and card tricks would not disappear completely: these are among the things in Malifaux I like. I understand they have to be balanced, but this is another question.

[Primate]

1 hour ago, Mike Wallace said:

Hoffman: "How did you blackmail my robot?"

Youko: "He's got a thing for opium. And call-girls." /sinister smile

"We put the screws on 'im"

[yool1981]

This artwork is really unimpressive and conveys no charisma at all...

[Clockwork_Fish]

Love the art, and all her shenanigans sound really fun.  Do hope she knows how to use that sword, too.  But wasn’t she originally going to be dual faction Ressers?

Also ‘new’ proprietor of the Qi and Gong.  Must have missed the fluff, but what happened to the old one?  Trip and fall on hedge clippers, maybe?

[Clockwork_Fish]

5 hours ago, Mike Wallace said:

Hoffman: "How did you blackmail my robot?"

Youko: "He's got a thing for opium. And call-girls." /sinister smile

 

I love Malifaux.

Yup.  No worse than Abuela forcing one of her grandchildren to marry one of em.  I’ve been using shotgun wedding on the Riotbreaker lately...probably why Santiago is always so cranky.  🤔

[Gnomezilla]

1 hour ago, Clockwork_Fish said:

Yup.  No worse than Abuela forcing one of her grandchildren to marry one of em.  I’ve been using shotgun wedding on the Riotbreaker lately...probably why Santiago is always so cranky.  🤔

*sighs* *fetches the bolt cutters, snips, places wedding ring in the overflowing scrap bin*

This happens so much it’s been added to the stompybot loan-out checklist. Refill the soulstone, check oil levels, buff out any scratches, remove any jewelry...

[Da Git]

Go Waldo! You're awesome, keep going! (Get over it Kyle... that arm will grow back... I promise!)

Artwork & new masters were exactly what I was hoping (and quietly!) screaming for, so big thank you there! If I could scream a little louder, more fluff would be great...

On to Youko, Overall, I like the artwork and execution. If I could humbly offer two critiques, I think she's a bit sexualised with the shoulder of her kimono slipping off (yes, I know she works in a brothel, but I highly doubt the Oneesan (matriarch) would personally "service" the clientele) and the big one for me is the sword handle. The whole point of having the sword in the umbrella is to make it look like it's not a sword. However the handle clearly belongs to a sword. I'd like it to look like a continuation of the umbrella handle. See how this is a continuation, not an obvious handle. I also agree that I had an older woman in mind...

Otherwise really like it!

As an aside, katanas were about 3kg, that would make a very heavy and unwieldy umbrella (I'm willing to forgive this one though!)

[Tors]

1 hour ago, Da Git said:

On to Youko, Overall, I like the artwork and execution. If I could humbly offer two critiques, I think she's a bit sexualised with the shoulder of her kimono slipping off (yes, I know she works in a brothel, but I highly doubt the Oneesan (matriarch) would personally "service" the clientele)

Thats were you're wrong ;D

[yool1981]

2 hours ago, Da Git said:

she's a bit sexualised with the shoulder of her kimono slipping off (yes, I know she works in a brothel, but I highly doubt the Oneesan (matriarch) would personally "service" the clientele)

You would be dishevelled too if you had to drag this huge umbrella/sword all around your brothel all day .

The sword + umbrella are likely to weight around 6 kg...

2 hours ago, Da Git said:

As an aside, katanas were about 3kg, that would make a very heavy and unwieldy umbrella (I'm willing to forgive this one though!)

Unless she is very short, it's almost an Odachi sword at that point...

2 hours ago, Da Git said:

The whole point of having the sword in the umbrella is to make it look like it's not a sword. However the handle clearly belongs to a sword.

I don't get this handle thing either.

 

She has a face reminding me a bit of a fox. Perhaps she is a Kitsune.

[Clockwork_Fish]

Penguin’s trick umbrella has a sword, a gun, poison gas, is bulletproof and sometimes doubles as a helicopter.  Don’t question trick umbrellas.

I wonder if Kirai will be able to summon Batman?  😧

[Nathan Caroland]

Handle, actually good point, I'll have that fixed.

 

[Gnomezilla]

8 minutes ago, Clockwork_Fish said:

Penguin’s trick umbrella has a sword, a gun, poison gas, is bulletproof and sometimes doubles as a helicopter.  Don’t question trick umbrellas.

I wonder if Kirai will be able to summon Batman?  😧

...that would be a rather different ikiryo sculpt. 😘

[Mason]

20 hours ago, Clockwork_Fish said:

Love the art, and all her shenanigans sound really fun.  Do hope she knows how to use that sword, too.  But wasn’t she originally going to be dual faction Ressers?

...no?

Ten Thunders already have a dual Resser in Yan Lo.

[Mike Wallace]

1 hour ago, Mason said:

...no?

Ten Thunders already have a dual Resser in Yan Lo.

And the Ressers have a kimono-wearing woman in Kirai.

[Jesy Blue]

On 10/17/2018 at 5:45 PM, Clockwork_Fish said:

Love the art, and all her shenanigans sound really fun.  Do hope she knows how to use that sword, too.  But wasn’t she originally going to be dual faction Ressers?

Also ‘new’ proprietor of the Qi and Gong.  Must have missed the fluff, but what happened to the old one?  Trip and fall on hedge clippers, maybe?

Yes, they fell on the clippers.  They fell on the clippers ten times....

I love the look of her.  But I have one slight weeboo stylistic problem:  the obi.

The bow on the obi, the belt that holds a woman's kimono closed, is on the back for proper ladies, so they need help to tie it.

The bow on the front is what prostitutes use because they have to tie it back on by themselves over and over again throughout the day/night/whenever.

This is what upset me about Asami's model having the bow in the front, and now the head of a brothel, who also services special clients, would not have bow in the front.

Okay, my petty nerd rage is done.

I love the concept and the feel of the crew and the in game and player manipulation aspects of Qi and Gong.  Once 3rd happens I'll just have Asami and Youko and it will be a great thematic tag team I'm gonna be pleased with!

[Mason]

On 10/21/2018 at 12:41 PM, Jesy Blue said:

This is what upset me about Asami's model having the bow in the front, and now the head of a brothel, who also services special clients, would not have bow in the front.

Does she have a bow on the front?  I don't see a bow at all.

EDIT: Asami, not Youko. Got it!

[solkan]

On 10/21/2018 at 12:41 PM, Jesy Blue said:

Yes, they fell on the clippers.  They fell on the clippers ten times....

I love the look of her.  But I have one slight weeboo stylistic problem:  the obi.

The bow on the obi, the belt that holds a woman's kimono closed, is on the back for proper ladies, so they need help to tie it.

The bow on the front is what prostitutes use because they have to tie it back on by themselves over and over again throughout the day/night/whenever.

This is what upset me about Asami's model having the bow in the front, and now the head of a brothel, who also services special clients, would not have bow in the front.

Okay, my petty nerd rage is done.

Fellow empathic creature who appears to have lost your way, have you considered what it means to Asami that she had to tie her own bow like that?

Or have you considered any of the negative consequences of that stereotype that you appear to have internalized?  

[Bakuriel]

6 hours ago, solkan said:

Fellow empathic creature who appears to have lost your way, have you considered what it means to Asami that she had to tie her own bow like that?

Or have you considered any of the negative consequences of that stereotype that you appear to have internalized?  

Might not be intentional to her design, but I appreciate this line of logic. Asami would be keenly aware of the outward image she's giving off by tying her obi in the front and constantly internalizing the fact that nobody will help her do it properly. 

 

Conversely, the matron of the Qi and Gong tying hers in the back implies that she isn't an easy mark even if she does ply her trade like the other ladies, and if you do somehow succeed you'll be expected to help tidy up after the fact. Kind of adds some extra professionalism to her demeanor.