Screball Kirai List

[shekbo]

Hey y'all. When it comes to this game, I'm a huge fan of unorthodox army lists. Throwing something at your opponent that they won't expect and haven't seen before will almost always give you more of an advantage than playing a crew your opponent has seen before with perhaps better synergy between the models.

Which brings me to this Kirai list. She's an interesting new master, and she's got a bunch of fun options for hiring, given that she can hire any spirit from any faction.

She does have a restriction of living models have rare 1, but it still leaves her some leeway in that regard.

It would seem like a living model would have absolutely no synergy with a kirai crew, though. And it would, if not for one thing: The Lost Love's "Pass beyond" spell. The wonderful little lover boy can, for the low, low price of a highish crow, cut a model's health in half and turn them spirit.

"But Shekbo, why waste a crow on that? He cuts their health in half!"

Sure, but now they're a spirit. Kirai, the Lost Love, and Datsue ba can all heal spirits, Kirai for a 0 action! Even the lowly Seishin can sacrifice themselves to heal a spirit in a pinch.

Having had much initial success incorporating casper the friendly convict gunslinger into my army, I decided to branch out. Who else could be interesting?

It was at this point that I noticed Nix, hamelin's dog. He seemed like a ton of fun for Kirai, but... He could only be hired into crews that contained Hamelin. Such a shame.

But wait!

Hamelin, the ratcatcher is technically hamelin, and he's also a mercenary that Kirai can hire! That means if she hires him, he can take Nix along for the ride, and the poor little stolen also happens to be a spirit. Why not? He might come in handy too.

So, after all that, I came up with this 35ss list.

Kirai

Hamelin the Ratcatcher

The Stolen

Nix the Bull Terrier

Datsue-Ba

SeishinX2

Lost Love

The time this list will give you the best results is for strategies where your models will have to do lots of interacting and setting up of stuff, because Nix makes any seishins significant, and while you do stuff with your combat-type models, the seishins can handle the menial labor. All in all, they've got ridiculously good mobility, with Kirai's pass beyond, and the fact that they can warp to her at any time. This means they can get to where they need to be, fast, and get out practically instantly. Line in the sand with this list would be just awesome, and plant evidence possibly even better.

As for actual combat tactics, Nix and the stolen make a great team. He can keep him close with Herd Dog, and he can be used as a Wp-debuffing bomb with Abandon if need be. If your opponent kills him, they have to deal with Nix, and if they don't, they run the risk of a really nasty Abandon happening to one of their key models. If you can strike the perfect balance between him and kirai, keeping him exactly 7 or 8 inches away, you even get a Seishin and a rat when he's killed, that's worth more than he is!

Ghosty hamelin's job is mostly to set up Nix. He can damage living models with Black plague if Nix wants to do some quick moving around with scent of pain, and he can try to dance models into Nix's melee range, or into 8" of Kirai. This might take a bit more positioning. even more key will be his Obey spell, which can be cast to charge Nix or your Ikiryo (who should be summoned at the first availabilty. I figure if Kirai can Don't Blink her in at max range, then Hamelin Obeys a charge out of her, then she attacks, she could be ridiculously brutal as a kamikaze unit.)

And other than that, go about it as if it were a normal Kirai crew, but with extra emphasis on summoning. Datsue will have to work overtime trying to summon with Weigh Sins, and Once you get a few more seishin, Kirai might want to get a few Onryo on the table.

Feel free to post any unorthodox lists you might have, I'm interested to see what people have come up with. Any faction, really. My friend has a Lady Justice hanged list that's ironic and effective, that I hate when he uses.

[dakrulz55]

3 black plagues tough to deal with if nobody on your side cares about it (aside from kirai pre totem love) wich can be tough as its 3 wd a turn non- resistable. also hamlins dog is a punch in the face esp with all the sackin stuff goin on. also making ikiryo min dmg 4 can be deadly.

[bigstupidfighter]

Along the lines of screwy lists, I think an exaggerated Papa Bomb with Zoraida would be fun.

Zoraida

Papa Loco

Pere Ravage

Nurse

Bad Juju

Don't have the book to look up SS costs, it'd be a little high bcause of the out-of-faction hiring tax, but this would be hella fun. Blow the enemy to hell with Papa and Pere and then have Bad Juju spawn right in the face of your opponent's battered army, with Zoraida providing backup via Conduit.

Model count could be a problem for schemes, but if you don't mind proxying you could always have Z summon Wicked Dolls, they're not Insignifigant around her.

[Wodschow]

Taking all the credit for yourself, huh?

Hamelin and especially Nix adds alot to Kirai's crew, but it is also a pricy option and will have a great impact on how she plays.

I think including The Stolen is a somewhat risky affair, -2Wp is really nice when used on enemy models, but it'll be a sad day when it backfires on the pitiful Kirai.

Making Hamelin a spirit gives him alot more movement, but as he have a fairly large range I wouldn't consider it critical (which is lucky because the card requirement for the spell is rather high).

If I were to play Kirai this would be the kind of list I'd be fielding.

[shekbo]

It's not really about movement. It's about being able to do things like Swirling spirits, Into the Spirit world, Soothe Spirit, Datsue's guide spirits, Ikiryo's call spirits, etc etc etc. It's just for synergy purposes.

I apologize, I thought that I'd figured this list myself, to whom is credit due?

I'm also considering right now that Datsue-ba might be the key to the perfect resurrectionist brawl list. Consider this: If a non spirit model is 8" of Kirai and Nicodem is on the board, and it is killed, then according to the rule of equivalency, it produces a corpse AND a Seishin. What happens if five canines are standing around datsue, within 8" of Kirai, and Datsue just happens to use her "attack everyone" attack?

And then with Nicodem, we have mindless zombies. Need more seishin? Whack one. they're like portable seishin piniatas.

[Wodschow]

You force me to sound like a total dick now, but really no hard feelings, was merely amused by how you phrased the opening of this thread.. In case you'd forgotten you made another thread in which you asked for what options Kirai had outside the obvious choices.

Also.. Swirling Spirits is all about movement no? And healing him is also good, but again not critical in the beginning of the game, which is a good thing due to the high card requirement.

It's not like including when people include the Dead Rider with Kirai and are hoping for a high enough crow before the Rider has run far away from Francis' measly 2" range on his spell (I know Kirai can switch him and he can warp back before the enemy gets a chance to strike out on Francis, but it consumes alot of AP doing so).

I'm really just approving of the suggested synergy between Kirai and Hamelin the Ratcatcher.

[shekbo]

Derp! Sorry about that. The beginning of the thread was mostly to explain to people why this isn't breaking the rules, as both times I've tried it out I had to go through 15 minutes of digging through rulebooks to show my opponent that yes, this was legal, and all that. It was meant to be more of an explanation of that than anything else, but it kind of comes across as me patting myself on my back, when in reality you did figure this out initially. To be honest I didn't even realize that the list I posted in the other thread was exactly the same. I took it, switched the models around about five different times, threw in Pandora's insanities, night terrors, took them out, played with trying a gaki swarm, took it out, and I guess I ended up with the exact same thing. Don't reinvent the wheel, I guess.

Fail. Well, it is a decent list. This thread was mostly on how to use it right, which I'm still figuring out myself. I apologize, Wodschow. I tried this list out twice, won once and had a close loss the second time (darn neverborn and their kidnapping shenanigans!). This list works really really well with a few things:

1) living opponents. Hamelin's black plague is just killer. and the stolen is a wp bomb.

2) the "frame for murder" scheme on one of your now significant seishin.

As far as I can tell, those are the two major advantages of this list over a traditional kirai list. That said, I've never had an issue getting hamelin to become a spirit. One decent crow is usually not all that hard to find, and the first one you get throw it out there and you're done, francis uses "I will never leave you" and hides behind Kirai, occasionally healing her until he gets burned up to keep her alive. The major issue is number of models. You're gonna be sorely outnumbered with all those guys, and actually it's better to be vastly outnumbered by say, a swarm of gremlins or tots or something than outnumbered by other things, because that just makes black plague all the more effective, and means more seishin for Kirai. I had success fighting a Perdita crew with lots of witchlings and cheaper ortegas, but I lost out to Lilith because she was just able to swap Kirai with a tater tot and chop her in half away from her seishin bubble. I'm gonna have to find a better way to deal with lilith.

[Wodschow]

You shouldn't apologize x_x !! Wasn't what I was after at all.. You clearly put alot more thought into this than I did anyway and really anyone could've seen it - I don't wan't to take any sort of trophy.. :/

While you mention it, I think an Insidious Madness can add tremendously to a Kirai crew. All the stronger spirits can target Wp. Also while it may only work once against each opponent it's also interesting to note that the debuff they give is an aura, so you can activate it one place near a model that isn't all too important and the opponent mightn't care much about it, use Swirling Spirits and suddenly the aura is in another place. They just seem to offer alot of utility. Hmm..

Back on topic of the thread (although not of the subforum as this isn't really ressurectionist related, but given your reference on Lady Justice the thread doesn't seem oriented that way anyway):

I'm really enjoying the thought of Rasputina and Kaeris tag-teaming, fire and ice makes for a good match I think xD.

The core for 35SS would be something along those lines:

Rasputina .. (4)

- Essence .. 2SS

Anasalea ... 8SS

Silent One . 6SS

2x Gamin ... 8SS

Boosting Kaeris with +3Rg and +1Dg on 2~6 attacks every turn that dishes out burning counters on top seems intriguing, oh and anything that get burnt is up for the accelerant aswell with a on the damage from the linked Essence.

Rounding out the crew would be depending on what I'd expect to face, what strategy have been drawn and how the table is set up. - Is what I'd like to say, it'll probably be what I feel like at the moment xD

One thing though: I'd like to keep the SS pool fairly large since I have two soulstone users in there.

Probably not the most imaginative list, but I feel there's alot of synergies to be found within the core alone.

[Rathnard]

3 black plagues tough to deal with if nobody on your side cares about it (aside from kirai pre totem love) wich can be tough as its 3 wd a turn non- resistable.

The only problem is the Black Plagues high casting cost. IIRC you need a 12 to get it off?

[shekbo]

You're right, rathnard. A 12 for that, but absolutely no resist, and it's an 18" aura effect. If you're playing a mostly living army, that's gonna be 3, 4 wounds every time, even from a ways away. But even so, that's mostly a thing for hamelin to do if hamelin has nothing else to do. Mostly, Hamelin is Kirai's bodyguard, hitting any model getting within 12" of her with Obey, Irresistable dance or Piper's lure until they get farther away (obviously which one you cast is situational, but I see obey as most useful. Charge them directly away at one of their friendly models.) He might also obey Nix or Datsue if they're in a prime melee position, or lure a model into one of the aforementioned two. Hamelin's gonna have a lot on his plate, he's kind of the "party coordinator" of the crew. And I don't see a problem with him hanging back with francis, because he's gonna be the one that francis will need to heal after passing him beyond, you might as well just have francis back there giving hamelin a soothe spirit every turn, hoping for a ram or cheating to one. After he's healed you can go to kirai, but she's not always a spirit.