Shenlong Lists

[INXVI]

Hi, so I've been soloing Shenlong since M3E dropped and he's definitely my kind of master. I've enjoyed all the games I've played even if I've lost a good few of them. The list I've been running usually includes:

Shenlong

Students

Low River Monk

Wandering River Monk

Samurai

Then a combination of Charm Warders (against Demise/Summoners), Fermented for tankiness and Idols (push and heal) Sensei Yu (chi stacking, fast and tankiness) Lone Swordsman for damage, Tanuki for focus and condition removal.

So I'm wondering, am I missing any key models that have been useful in your games? Is there a fine balance between Monk models and Versatile models, or even out of keyword? How do you rate the other Monk models such as Lotus Eaters, HRM or Archers? What kind of lists have you been running and interesting techs you've tested?

I know the list is influenced by schemes/strats but this is more to get an understanding of what I may be missing from my arsenal and to discuss what models work. Any advice is appreciated.

[yames]

I've found that lotus eaters are great against anyone that makes markers. (Parker, Titania,Mei Feng, etc)  the other thing they bring is condition "immunity" for the cost of a chi. Great against condition based crews (Tara, kearis, daw)

I usually use 1-2 archers as ranged threats usually not bringing samurai while there good I like that you can give archers fast and other effects since there monks. 

High river monks I find are good solid beaters. While there damage track seems low, the stat 8* with burning and flurry helps rack it up. They also have ruthless and a good zero action Push 3 and focused for 1 damage ( Which I believe with sensi Yu gives you a chi too) 

[Erik1978]

You've lost quite a few with Shenlong? 😮

I already know a few people who ask me to not field him. He seems VERY strong.

I usually have 1 LRM, cheap healer who can also give Shenlong 3 Chi in turn 1. HRM are always doing great. Yasunori is good with Shenlong since Monks can heal him pretty easily.

[Nikodemus]

6 minutes ago, Erik1978 said:

I usually have 1 LRM, cheap healer who can also give Shenlong 3 Chi in turn 1. 

How are you doing three? You get 1 if Sensei Yu is near. Totem can transfer one from LRM to Shenlong. Where's the third Chi coming from?

[Hanna]

LRM 2x Concentrate, after this Shen Long use Spiritual Alignment to transfer 3 Chi Tokens form LRM to himself. But you can get much more out there.

 

[Cursed25]

23 minutes ago, Nikodemus said:

How are you doing three? You get 1 if Sensei Yu is near. Totem can transfer one from LRM to Shenlong. Where's the third Chi coming from?

you could even get a forth one on Shenlong if you concentrate once, bonus action concentrate by discarding a card and attack Shenlong with the staff to do 1 dmg on Shenlong which gives him 1 chi with Sensei nearby and the distracted will help fuel his fermented style upgrade!  Tahn Shenlong only use 1 action to gain the 3 chi from the LRM

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

5 minutes ago, Hanna said:

LRM 2x Concentrate

you mean Concentrate once during its activation and then for the second time after Shen attaches Low River upgrade? you can't concetrate twice.

[Hanna]

1 minute ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

you mean Concentrate once during its activation and then for the second time after Shen attaches Low River upgrade? you can't concetrate twice.

You can. Shen Longs Training Grounds: Friendly Monks may ignore the Once per Activation restiction of the Concentrate Action.

[Nikodemus]

16 minutes ago, Hanna said:

LRM 2x Concentrate, after this Shen Long use Spiritual Alignment to transfer 3 Chi Tokens form LRM to himself. But you can get much more out there.

 

Oh yeah that would work.

I think I'd rather have my monk move up some and not just spam concentrate, but that's playstyle.

[Cursed25]

18 minutes ago, Nikodemus said:

Oh yeah that would work.

I think I'd rather have my monk move up some and not just spam concentrate, but that's playstyle.

you never want your LRM near the action and with his long range heal he can stay a little behind for one turn!  this also gives a nice power boost to Shenlong!

[Nikodemus]

10 minutes ago, Cursed25 said:

you never want your LRM near the action and with his long range heal he can stay a little behind for one turn!  this also gives a nice power boost to Shenlong!

Bit of walking (or charging) never killed anyone 

And my Shen didn't exactly lack boosts when I tried him out. But it's definitely a valid choice. I just have bad experiences with support models hanging too far back to be of any use when it matters.

[Erik1978]

It helps knowing the rules for Monks to begin with I suppose. The concentrate boost for one thing.

And as Cursed25 said: LRM doesn't really fall behind by standing still in turn 1 but if you want his 4 wounds in the front lines be prepared to lose him to a stiff breeze.

[INXVI]

I'm mainly losing because of stupid mistakes or positioning, a few was probably phrased wrong, it's only 3 loses, 1 win. One game I pushed Shen and he ended up being within an inch of my Samurai. He then proceeded to take 7 damage, after stones, from Sonnia's blasts, targeting the Samurai because of his df 4. Never making that mistake again.

And yeah I've taken a LRM every game, his passive heal is pretty good and means you can smack Shen with someone and he'll heal a bit when he activates. He usually gets killed pretty quickly though. 

I think that's the problem with the way I've been building my lists, too many support models, dying too quickly that I'm put on the back foot and have to play Shenlong more passively instead of beating face, like focussing on healing my claim jump target.

I'll give HRMs a chance, but on paper they don't seem that amazing, I guess the irreducible damage would hurt against heavy armour/shielded etc crews.

[Cursed25]

2 minutes ago, INXVI said:

I'll give HRMs a chance, but on paper they don't seem that amazing, I guess the irreducible damage would hurt against heavy armour/shielded etc crews.

I don't like HRM, I find them way too expensive for the dmg they bring and they are squishy as hell for an 8ss model. The irreducible dmg is cool but it's not built in and needs a chi. I'm pretty disappointed by them. I could see a place for one of them in a list but no more than that because they need to much support to fonction well.

[Modernpenguin]

23 minutes ago, Cursed25 said:

I don't like HRM, I find them way too expensive for the dmg they bring and they are squishy as hell for an 8ss model. The irreducible dmg is cool but it's not built in and needs a chi. I'm pretty disappointed by them. I could see a place for one of them in a list but no more than that because they need to much support to fonction well.

 

It's build in on the ranged attack though. Sure you can't flurry with it, but still. In melee, with chi it is easier to get those lower rams cheated in. You also have the low river style passive to fix your suits. They are really good anti armor tech for this reason. Risky maneuver with Sensei yu is juicy, (2 chi, or 1 chi 1 focus) and getting fast on a flurry model that deals irreducible damage?
The support they need is sensei yu and healing, both of which you would probably bring anyways. 

[Nikodemus]

24 minutes ago, Modernpenguin said:

(2 chi, or 1 chi 1 focus)

It's 1 Chi, 1 Focus.

Monks can gain Chi instead of Focus when they do the Concentrate action. But Risky Maneuvers doesn't do Concentrate. It just straight up gives you Focused +1, so you don't get a choice.

[Modernpenguin]

16 hours ago, Nikodemus said:

It's 1 Chi, 1 Focus.

Monks can gain Chi instead of Focus when they do the Concentrate action. But Risky Maneuvers doesn't do Concentrate. It just straight up gives you Focused +1, so you don't get a choice.

Oh yeah, my bad. It's 2 chi + 1 focus in total. (forgot the start of activation stuff). 

[DeleteAccount]

Played a game of Shenlong. Was mostly just screwing around. Brought Yu, 2 High River monks, a low river, a wandering river and the Dawn Serpent.

I definitely noticed that you need to have a VERY clean turn 1 to do your setup. Did a lot of flubs like letting my aspiring students and low river monk get too left behind and forgot some stuff (bonus action Focused from Yu as well as Laugh Off, and other interactions). Found the crew a bit on the stressful side due to the amount of crap one has to keep tabs on.

The High River Monk I was pretty scheptical on, and they do die to anything that looks at them funny, but I was certainly impressed by how one took out Snowstorm in an activation. It was fast, had 3 focus and 4 chi though. but still seemed impressive to me. Sensei Yu is... confusing, the Fast from the bonus action was gold, specially since no flip is required, having Shenlong use his bonus action to get Yu to do it again was pretty lucrative, but outside of spreading fast and giving Chi from his aura, Yu's own activation felt pretty lackluster, had a hard time getting places and once there seems like his only deal is to punch things to rotate hand.

Shenlong I didn't get to use fully, since ice pillars made his life hell, but his versatility to make him be a support master on the flip of a dime is fantastic, letting him work even if he can't put his force to bear. Aspiring students are also amazing now that I noticed that copying a Shenlong action is a bonus action, though they also die to a stiff breeze. Does mean that their 1 AP actions are mostly just there to move and generate Chi/Focused which isn't a bad thing anyway.

Low River Monk was fine though wasted due to positioning and the Wandering River Monk sadly never managed to leap.

The big disappointment was the Dawn Serpent. Just don't see the appeal or what it really brings to the table compared to other similar costed models, not really expecting to field that one again any time soon unless somebody makes me see something important...

For the future, aside from bringing Sidir and an Obsidian Oni vs Rasputing, I'm thinking on dropping some of the monks and bringing more versatile models. Mostly wondering what to keep though, a single High River Monk seems like a nice missile, but Yu seems like an important piece of the puzzle to get that bad boy feed and I wasn't thrilled with him which makes the High river less compelling. Low River is a shoe in and a Tanuki seems wise for condition control. Wandering also seems like a reasonable take but Fermented the more I read, the more lukewarm I feel about them.

[Nikodemus]

17 minutes ago, Razhem said:

The big disappointment was the Dawn Serpent. Just don't see the appeal or what it really brings to the table compared to other similar costed models, not really expecting to field that one again any time soon unless somebody makes me see something important...

I've been quite happy with Dawn Serpent in Plant Explosives. Mv7, Flight, Agile, Enforcer. That's what I read on its card. Put two bombs on it and off it flies. It's also good with schemes that play similarly, breakthrough/power ritual/search the ruins etc.. But I often go for something else for those.

It's big problem is no extra AP (either interact or attacks would be nice) and being a 9ss model that doesn't really synergise with other keywords. This makes it a fairly specialised hire for me, but in that role I've been happy with it.

[Modernpenguin]

20 hours ago, Razhem said:

Played a game of Shenlong. Was mostly just screwing around. Brought Yu, 2 High River monks, a low river, a wandering river and the Dawn Serpent.

I definitely noticed that you need to have a VERY clean turn 1 to do your setup. Did a lot of flubs like letting my aspiring students and low river monk get too left behind and forgot some stuff (bonus action Focused from Yu as well as Laugh Off, and other interactions). Found the crew a bit on the stressful side due to the amount of crap one has to keep tabs on.

The High River Monk I was pretty scheptical on, and they do die to anything that looks at them funny, but I was certainly impressed by how one took out Snowstorm in an activation. It was fast, had 3 focus and 4 chi though. but still seemed impressive to me. Sensei Yu is... confusing, the Fast from the bonus action was gold, specially since no flip is required, having Shenlong use his bonus action to get Yu to do it again was pretty lucrative, but outside of spreading fast and giving Chi from his aura, Yu's own activation felt pretty lackluster, had a hard time getting places and once there seems like his only deal is to punch things to rotate hand.

For the future, aside from bringing Sidir and an Obsidian Oni vs Rasputing, I'm thinking on dropping some of the monks and bringing more versatile models. Mostly wondering what to keep though, a single High River Monk seems like a nice missile, but Yu seems like an important piece of the puzzle to get that bad boy feed and I wasn't thrilled with him which makes the High river less compelling. Low River is a shoe in and a Tanuki seems wise for condition control. Wandering also seems like a reasonable take but Fermented the more I read, the more lukewarm I feel about them.

In my opinion, Sensei Yu needs to be smashed up to the action. I won't be sad to double walk him up the board to get him where he needs to be. He has decent defensive tech, can stone, and more importantly he has his build in card draw on his melee. And you loooove your card draw as shenlong. Improving your hand quality, will increase your chances of beating your enemy's hand. 
His aura + bonus action also brings a ton of versatility. The aura is obviously strong (and great for HRM especially), but the best part of it for me is the defensive tech it can give to your unactivated models. If they get hurt, and not killed by the first attack, they get a chi and can spend that defensively to dodge the 2nd attack. 

His fast action is obviously great on beaters, I think it can be just as valuable on a wandering river monk to get that extra speed or another interact, as well as getting a low river monk into a better position, heal more targets etc. When he is in a good position you have a wider selection of choices. 

I feel like half the reason to bring monks is to get the synergy between shenlong and sensei yu. 
TLDR: Sensei Yu is a 9ss SUPPORT henchman. He enables the rest of the crew through aura's, card cycling (which helps with chi) fast, chi and concentrate with crappy cards. 

[DeleteAccount]

22 hours ago, Nikodemus said:

I've been quite happy with Dawn Serpent in Plant Explosives. Mv7, Flight, Agile, Enforcer. That's what I read on its card. Put two bombs on it and off it flies. It's also good with schemes that play similarly, breakthrough/power ritual/search the ruins etc.. But I often go for something else for those.

It's big problem is no extra AP (either interact or attacks would be nice) and being a 9ss model that doesn't really synergise with other keywords. This makes it a fairly specialised hire for me, but in that role I've been happy with it.

But at that point, why not just use Desper LaRaux? Costs the same outside of McCabe crews. can use stones, has Don't Mind Me and leap and is already ignoring everything while moving. He is worse at offense of course, but the Serpent isn't anything to be proud about and Desper is much better as a schemer.

As for the Sensei Yu comments from @Modernpenguin, you are right, it's just that he lacks style so he seems kind of "boring". Doesn't help that since he is so focused on supporting monks, if for whatever reason you don't bring 3-4, he should probably stay at home. On a similar yet different topic, how do archers behave? Setting up a gunline giving them fast every turn for example, has anybody tried that or pure gimmick?

[Nikodemus]

18 minutes ago, Razhem said:

But at that point, why not just use Desper LaRaux? Costs the same outside of McCabe crews. can use stones, has Don't Mind Me and leap and is already ignoring everything while moving. He is worse at offense of course, but the Serpent isn't anything to be proud about and Desper is much better as a schemer.

I'll preface this by saying I have neither used nor faced Desper. Assuming Desper hasn't changed since beta...

I like having a highly mobile min3 beater. Survivability-wise Serpent has htk and a wonky self heal. It has served me well. Desper can ss but at that point he ends up costing more than 9ss. But true, if you're looking for pure scheming Desper seems to be the guy to go to. At the end of the day I can see why someone would go for Desper over Serpent (or something else over both), but at the same time I'd have a hard time leaving out a min3 model. Not saying I need it. But I definitely feel I need it. Personal crutches and all that.

Probably a tad off topic but for me it's usually a choice between Dawn Serpent and Ama No Zako (ook). Both are mobile beaters with some scheming potential. Specialised hires, but ones I've been happy with.

[DeleteAccount]

What kills my interest in the serpent is that it's a 2 action 9SS model with a very wonky bonus action. If I'm paying 9 points for something, I expect either a Flurry/Rapid Fire, or an incredibly efficient bonus action. Katanaka Crime bosses are fantastic for 8 SS since their bonus lets them teleport and still have 2 actions to get stuff done. Serpent on the other hand will only ever place 1 scheme marker for example and since it can't charge while engaged, even though Agile is nice, it doesn't work towards it's strength as a beater since moving out to go into something else still cost you two actions. So what is it? A very expensive beater or a very expensive schemer that doesn't excel at either of the roles? That it's ranged attack is kind of a wet fart doesn't help much either. I get that it wants to be versatile and do two roles, but it's kind of meh on both which is what leaves me underwhelmed with it.

But hey, if it works for you, who am I to say much else? I'm just not expecting to reach for it any time in the future.

[mattbird]

I know people are writing off Fermented River Minks, but has anyone actually tried fielding 3 of them, spending the first turn giving each other poison 5 each, then going for the +2 dmg trigger? With Chi making them att7 with a potential built in trigger, this could be devastating. 

[TheUnseemlyOne]

I’ve not run three, but I have run them in pairs a few times now and they do quite well.  Two of them can get up to Poison+9 on turn one in ideal circumstances.