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When to use upgrades?


regleant

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For some background, I have about 20 games in of Malifaux across Monk, Last Blossom, Oni, and Versatile. Never once have I used an upgrade and I feel like I might be missing out on something cool.  I usually play with 4-7 available Stones. In what situations do you consider any of our Upgrades? When would you double up? And why?

Very curious on this - I'm looking to test some in games this weekend. My current thought is that with Last Blossom, 2 Snipers already come with From the Shadows, and adding 2 Samurai with the Trained Ninja upgrade to stand with them sounds like fun.

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don't fear to try things in Malifaux! 😉 this is a complex game and there's a lot of nice combos to find!

 

For example in Last Blossom, you could give Masked agent to Ototo for a nice combo with Misaki. Ototo can drop a shadow near him, so that when Misaki pops from it she is within 2'' of him. She can than uses The Oyabun's Command to make him charge and with the With me ability she'll also be placed in b2b with the charged enemy! This could lead you to be engaged with a model opponent was not expecting while also giving a charge to Ototo who hits really hard! The pre-nerf version was really strong (way too strong) against crew that use resistance trigger. Leveticus players hated to play against TT because of this upgrade. Now it's more in line and can still be useful against said resistance crews! 😉 

 

Trained Ninja is really good to protect some important models (Mr. Tannen) against range crew or help with movement issue of the Samurai as you already thought about 😉 Also unimpeded could be clutch on a board with lots of severe terrain!

 

Silent protector is one of my favorite upgrade! I really like to give it to a Beckoner in my Honeypot crew! She's now the perfect bodyguard for Lynch or Tannen. Because most often then not opponent will have Brilliance and thus will be on a :-flipto hit her. Hard to kill is always nice and if I don't need her anti-scheming bonus action, challenge just put more pressure on the opponent! 😛 giving Silent Protector to a Samurai is also something I like to do. They now have hard to kill and are already quite tanky so they can protect your other models well! It's quite an expensive combo but if opponent don't bring anti-armor, they rarely kill him since I also like to take healing in my crew (LRM or Tanukis) and if they do they have to commit a lot for this while the rest of my crew is safer! 

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1 hour ago, Jinn said:

Adding two Trained Ninja upgrades to a Last Blossom crew with three Torakage will make a gunline crew cry.

I've always enjoyed how the Torakage's attacks and charge range are just longer than the Stealth range.

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  • 2 weeks later...

To be honest, I think part of it is a playstyle thing; I personally would rather spend that SS on either another model, or save it for my cache--as I use my cache pretty heavily.

I think all of the upgrades for our faction are worthwhile to take if the circumstances are right.  I just generally would rather get an extra model.  That being said, yeah, adding Trained Ninja into a Last-Blossom list is hilarious. 

 

I think one of the greatest strengths of TTs is their ability to accomplish any task because they have all the tools they need.  The upgrades are a tool that can be used, quite effectively, to accomplish schemes and strategies.  However, if it's not a tool you want to use, don't use it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Silent protector plus Lucas McCabe plus Phantasmal Mask.

 

In more reality. Upgrades are situational changes to your crew that should augment what's there or patch holes. 

I'm not surprised you don't use them but some folks swear by them or utilize them for neat little tricks. 

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As an update, I put Trained Ninja on 2 Samurai in a Misaki list with 2 Snipers and Minako. My opponent about table flipped with 4 guns deployed halfway up the board just mowing his guys down as he came forward, with Misaki doing her thing. 

I still haven't figured out Minako, but that's for a different thread. :)

 

This was a pretty fun list to play! 

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Now, here's the devious part.... don't play that list again for a while against that sane person. Play some regular Last Blossom crews, do your thing like normal.  They're gonna be so on edge that you're a going to play a gunline again that they're gonna start making counter picks specific to that crew, which will be useless.  Then, after he's forgotten about it and let his guard down.... BAM NINJA GUNLINE!

Welcome To The Shadows!

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12 hours ago, regleant said:

As an update, I put Trained Ninja on 2 Samurai in a Misaki list with 2 Snipers and Minako. My opponent about table flipped with 4 guns deployed halfway up the board just mowing his guys down as he came forward, with Misaki doing her thing. 

I still haven't figured out Minako, but that's for a different thread. :)

 

This was a pretty fun list to play! 

Why all love samurai? And how nice snipers now ?  any time i played them they was bad .  

About upgrades i love ninja on fuhatcu 

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On 7/8/2020 at 9:39 AM, Assdex said:

Why all love samurai? And how nice snipers now ?  any time i played them they was bad .  

About upgrades i love ninja on fuhatcu 

people love samurai because they are versatile fighters. also minions! they get the 3rd bonus of upgrades. they are good at shooting, nice in melee, armor 2 and with hidden ninja you give them both a big movement boost, as well as defensive tech. when people do come within 6" you can charge them to their death. 

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15 hours ago, Modernpenguin said:

people love samurai because they are versatile fighters. also minions! they get the 3rd bonus of upgrades. they are good at shooting, nice in melee, armor 2 and with hidden ninja you give them both a big movement boost, as well as defensive tech. when people do come within 6" you can charge them to their death. 

Also a self heal or concentrate as a bonus action. They basically don't have a real downside other than their speed, and as you mention with Hidden Ninja, less of a problem. Unless you need a scheme runner, there's not much that a Samurai can't do, and outside of poor positioning, they're resilient to mistakes.

Basically, the only reason to not take them, is that they don't inherently synergize with Keywords (ie, they're not putting out or using Brilliance in a Lynch crew, not Riding the Rails or providing scrap for Mei, etc). 

Do still want to try a game with Fufu, 3 Samurai, and some Tanuki. But getting the right table, and the right schemes and strat (and playing time, f'n COVID!) has been a problem. 

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1 hour ago, Morgan Vening said:

Also a self heal or concentrate as a bonus action. They basically don't have a real downside other than their speed, and as you mention with Hidden Ninja, less of a problem. Unless you need a scheme runner, there's not much that a Samurai can't do, and outside of poor positioning, they're resilient to mistakes.

Basically, the only reason to not take them, is that they don't inherently synergize with Keywords (ie, they're not putting out or using Brilliance in a Lynch crew, not Riding the Rails or providing scrap for Mei, etc). 

Do still want to try a game with Fufu, 3 Samurai, and some Tanuki. But getting the right table, and the right schemes and strat (and playing time, f'n COVID!) has been a problem. 

3 samurai and Fuhatsu!? you monster! xD

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19 hours ago, Morgan Vening said:

Also a self heal or concentrate as a bonus action. They basically don't have a real downside other than their speed, and as you mention with Hidden Ninja, less of a problem. Unless you need a scheme runner, there's not much that a Samurai can't do, and outside of poor positioning, they're resilient to mistakes.

Basically, the only reason to not take them, is that they don't inherently synergize with Keywords (ie, they're not putting out or using Brilliance in a Lynch crew, not Riding the Rails or providing scrap for Mei, etc). 

Do still want to try a game with Fufu, 3 Samurai, and some Tanuki. But getting the right table, and the right schemes and strat (and playing time, f'n COVID!) has been a problem. 

yea but/ i choose fufu with fast. he got more dmg on shooting. btw too may games vs collet, and its scary to put samurai vs her. 

and abou upgrades i loved samurai for bodygard but still very expensive .

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I find myself putting trained ninja on a tanuki a lot if I think my opponent will have any ranged threats. Then I just keep him behind the rest of my crew to hand out focus and healing, and if they want to get rid of him they really have to go after him which 9 times out of 10 is probably a bad decision. The added bonus of having unimpeded as well is super handy if I need him to run up a flank to drop a scheme or heal a key model. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Can also get them through WarGameVault, though you're looking at  $3 for a full set, and the General Upgrades Pack is $8, and you can always split them off.

Or you could print your own. The cards are available for download in PDF, so that's an option. Just sleeve them along with some cardboard (an unused M3E card if you've got spares), and you're all set.

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