Post-game thoughts on Youko 1 - please help me figure this out

[Sebastian Hudert]

Hi all,

I had a game with Youko 1 last night and it so did not go well at all. After the game my opponent and myself discussed and even between the two of us, we could not really figure out how I would ever have a chance of winning in this setup. Please let me share the encounter and my thoughts on it here. I would be very very thankful for you to help me figure this out and perhaps make me see what I missed.

His list:

Parker Barrows, Doc Mitchell, Mad Dock Brackett, The Midnight Stalker, Convict Gunslinger, Prospector, Bandido, Hodgepodge Emissary (Schemes chosen: Spread them Out, Breakthrough)

My list:

Youko 1, Chiyo, Kabuki, Bill Algren, 2x Bunraku, Kunoichi, Hinamatsu (Schemes chosen: Spread them Out, Claim Jump (Bill))

Encounter:

Break the line with Flank Deployment with scheme pool: Vendetta, Catch and Release, Spread them Out, Breakthrough and Claim Jump.

The strategy markers were distributed kinda to the flanks with two to the far left and two to the far right side.

My thoughts on crew list, schemes and deployment:

• We did not really do the tournament-like "chose encounter->chose master->chose crew". We simply both built a list, we wanted to play, so there is probably some optimization potential here with a) picking Youku2 perhaps (?) or a different lineup for me (although I could not figure out what that could have been).
• I chose Claim Jump as I thought I could keep Bill kinda safe and push him up at the end of a turn to score and potentially push him back again if needed. Did not expect too much melee to prevent scoring here
• I then chose spread them out as I thought with my Bunraku I would get two scheme markers on his side easily and the third one would come from Bill / Kabuki's New Horizon action
• I deployed half my crew to the right (Hinamatsu, Kunoichi, Bunraku) and the rest in the middle to get Bill near his center point and to get close to Parker to be able to lure and/or mess with him with Youko

And it pretty much went downhill from there 😉

Post-game situation and thoughts:

• He kept his distance and pinged away with his guns. The one monolith in the middle was stolen of its cover ability ("blow apart" or what the name is from Mad Dog) and with that he killed my Kabuki and one Bunraku in on Mad Dog action. 
• My remaining crew to the right did never really come close enough to charge, as we had to hug the buildings and monoliths for los blocking and cover
• Him having arcane reservoir and being able to draw cards from various effects simply killed Youko dead. She had one activation where she could put out some distracted, but that was basically it. He almost all of the time had a bigger or as big as hand as me, so Riddles in the Dark did not to a thing. The distracted chain therefore also kille my options with the Kunoichi and with We own you.
• Also the bubble effects from Youko are 6" around her and there was never anyone there... so this aspect of her was also gone
• Scheming also did not work really as he simply removed or used my scheme markers

So between Youko not really giving distracted, her not being able to kill his hand and drawing or messing with his activations, not being able to scheme reliably AND being shot to death each round (normally Mad Dog alone killed one model easy) I simply had no idea on how to go about this thing... not a single one.

 

So is this simply an unwinnable matchup for me? Whould it have been better if we would chose our masters and crews tournament style and I would have chosen Youko 2 or another crew setup? Were the schemes wrong? Should I never play Youko into Outcasts with this Strat/Scheme pool? HELP! 😞

Cheers

[Jinn]

Yeah, Youko 1 is pretty bad IMO and this is part of the reason why. Ranged just destroys her and most of her crew. Youko 2 is a little better off, and I think some people have found success playing her mostly out of keyword to avoid the bad models.

If you do bring these models/Youko 1 against a ranged crew you're going to want to hire the Shadow Effigy/Emissary for its concealment aura, or something to that effect. Still gonna be rough. I've never one a game with Youko 1 (well, never won a game since Hinamatsu got nerfed in the original playtest).

[regleant]

So while I don't believe that any match is unwinnable, you are definitely in a bad spot in that match-up. Youko1 is also playing in hard-mode.

6 hours ago, Sebastian Hudert said:

My list:

Youko 1, Chiyo, Kabuki, Bill Algren, 2x Bunraku, Kunoichi, Hinamatsu (Schemes chosen: Spread them Out, Claim Jump (Bill))

Encounter:

Break the line with Flank Deployment with scheme pool: Vendetta, Catch and Release, Spread them Out, Breakthrough and Claim Jump.

The strategy markers were distributed kinda to the flanks with two to the far left and two to the far right side.

 

Your list is a solid in most cases, imho, but fighting Parker has issues. I would not use Kabuki in the list because he doesn't like being up against Ranged. His best features will never come into play. Kunoichi helps with Tools for the Job, but I have been struggling to find better uses. To replace those, you could go with more ranged options like Samurai (high armor to take ranged hits, and a solid gun himself) or Fuhatsu. You could look at more board control with the Geisha (I really love these models for cheap lures, and their Sharp Wit makes them frustrating to deal with, also they have Distraction for your fun abilities). Or you can look at mobility with the Dawn Serpent. This is a personal favorite of mine as Flight and Agile gets him exactly where he needs to be, and he can heal himself as a bonus action, and Hard to Kill ensures he can do this.

Of course, I don't know how much blocking terrain you had or what the board state looked like. It sounds like you didn't have much terrain at all if you were focused on hugging the Strategy markers. No forests to hide behind? Buildings? Fences? Concealing terrain?

Schemes: I agree with Claim Jump, though Hinamatsu may have been a better choice. Armor 2 can go a longer way than Bill's one-time heal for survivability. Though Hinamatsu has better odds of getting to the enemy and higher potential damage output if you flip masks. The other options are tough. Breakthrough may have been a better choice as it's much easier to score that first point, and just don't expect to get the second. You can use your excess pass tokens to line it up. Getting Spread Them Out is usually a favorite of mine, but maybe not in this particular matchup and deployment. I would almost say to choose Catch and Release with a Bunruku. You just have to be very careful in lining it up, because you never know when your opponent is going to gak your models at a whim. There's a huge risk in any scheme where you are relying on a specific model to live.

6 hours ago, Sebastian Hudert said:

• He kept his distance and pinged away with his guns. The one monolith in the middle was stolen of its cover ability ("blow apart" or what the name is from Mad Dog) and with that he killed my Kabuki and one Bunraku in on Mad Dog action. 
• My remaining crew to the right did never really come close enough to charge, as we had to hug the buildings and monoliths for los blocking and cover

Everybody in your crew has Lure. Don't be afraid to use it. Also see my above advice on how to combat the distance.

 

6 hours ago, Sebastian Hudert said:

• Him having arcane reservoir and being able to draw cards from various effects simply killed Youko dead. She had one activation where she could put out some distracted, but that was basically it. He almost all of the time had a bigger or as big as hand as me, so Riddles in the Dark did not to a thing. The distracted chain therefore also kille my options with the Kunoichi and with We own you.

Yep, I found the same problems with her new design where the game impact depends on the opponent's cards in hand compared to yours. Note that it's okay if your opponent has more for the abilities to work! In my last game with Youko1, we always ended up having the same number of cards, so Riddles in the Dark did nothing.  As awesome as Distracted is, I've only been able to stack it in 1/3 games. The fact that Focused now counters Distracted 1:1 makes it even weaker.

7 hours ago, Sebastian Hudert said:

• Also the bubble effects from Youko are 6" around her and there was never anyone there... so this aspect of her was also gone

If your opponent stayed away, this is more of a good thing.  

 

7 hours ago, Sebastian Hudert said:

• Scheming also did not work really as he simply removed or used my scheme markers

You need to use your plethora of Pass Tokens to ensure that you activate uninterrupted, last. Score your schemes at the end of the turn, where your opponent can't remove them. Don't try to pass them over multiple rounds. Better yet, don't use Scheme Markers if you don't have to.

 

Hope this rambling helps!

[muraki]

Sounds like a tough game for sure.  I'm not as negative on Youko1 as some others are, but I also will admit she's not my first grab in thunders as she does have some weak match ups.  I'll agree with regelant on nearly every point.  She (specially kabukis) are going to struggle v guns, you can help that a bit with some general upgrades for stealth, but a big factor will also be terrain, I play with a lot of concealing (concealing only not concealing severe) and getting some of that with some of it being dense will give you some spots to hide away on without getting punched.

Thunders also has some of the greatest versatile models, to the point that in crews like Youko where I'm not super in love with the full crew, I can see myself hiring a few versatiles to buff up my crew.  Some things that have helped me recently with youko:

• I know its not out yet, but I really like the shojo, it works great with the WP duels and can get you a few pass tokens in Youko1 when you need em.  Boring conversation + a 2 inch melee + some healing is also really nice to shut down some units / they're pretty good schemers.
• Bills 'debt of gratitude' trigger is amazing, sure if your opponent is dropping markers like candy its less good, but since he was doing both spread / breakthrough stoning / saving a crow for 2 debts of gratitude would of stopped a point or more a round (doing it a round after he gains fast can be especially brutal).

I also dont know if you guys are newer players or not, if your opponent has other crews, throwing something a bit more melee focused / less high damage aggression into youko for a bit could help you get your sea legs with her a bit more.  If not, then I'd lean into the previously mentioned terrain / general upgrades for stealth / versatiles / etc method to blunt the 'im just going to shoot you off the board from range' vibe or fight back with your own gatling gunners / etc.

[regleant]

15 minutes ago, muraki said:

I also dont know if you guys are newer players or not, if your opponent has other crews, throwing something a bit more melee focused / less high damage aggression into youko for a bit could help you get your sea legs with her a bit more.  

I just had this image of the other crew being von Schill 🤣

[muraki]

17 minutes ago, regleant said:

33 minutes ago, muraki said:

I also dont know if you guys are newer players or not, if your opponent has other crews, throwing something a bit more melee focused / less high damage aggression into youko for a bit could help you get your sea legs with her a bit more.  

I just had this image of the other crew being von Schill 🤣

Hah yeah, asking for 'lower damage' in outcasts is kind of a funny question as all of them can bring some pain, zipp would be intersting.  I was more thinking of something like a in key nellie / lucius1 / anya2 / toni2 / lynch / etc, something where futzing around + dropping schemes is more effort than 'oh and here's also a few points of damage.

I also wouldnt feel too too bad, because looking at his list, he has what? 3 veratile models (emissary / prospect / stalker) to your 0.  With some of the ideas people have given I could see you being able to build a similar list in thunders (say desper to match the movement tricks of the midnight, shadow emissary to match a hodgepodge, etc).  Not saying my answer is 'pay to win' but there's definitely going to be some differences between a person who can pull from the entire faction v one thats focused on a specific keyword's offerings.

[Da Git]

This might be blasphemy, but you could almost drop Hina (gasp!) into Parker, since he's always going to be bringing Mad Dog, who ignores armour. The Dawn Serpent would probably serve you much better between Flight, Mv7 HtK and bonus heal. Otherwise run her down a flank.

I really like Fufu as he supplies a great gun and now you don't even care if you hit or not with the card draw.

Either him or the Lone Swordsman would be a better take than the Kabuki.

Not a big fan of the Kunoichi myself (shame, as they're lovely models!) maybe the Effissary, Shojo or a Geisha would serve you better?