Kirai vs Outcasts

[Nutcase168]

So, we have a tournament coming in a couple weeks and I usually play Levi, not an issue. But There are some masters I haven't faced yet, Kirai being one of them. Can anyone offer tips or strategies for dealing with her spirit crew? Its not like we have access to the best magic weapons as outcasts unless you play Victoria.

[Ratty]

You need to stop her summoning as fast as possible, some AOE might help, she can stop them but it costs her and she has to do it in advance, so if you can get an early activation in you can get rid of her Seishin shield which is also her summoning pool. Try to avoid panicking about the large number of spirits and how fast they move. remember you can walk or charge through them and they do not block LOS.

[Nutcase168]

Hmm, Leveticus doesn't really have access to any producing models beyond the ice golem and crooked men. Nor does he have a lot of spell casting models.

[Gremlin Swarm]

Actually, I believe spirits would still get to make the movement-stopping attack when a model moves out of their melee range, which makes moving/charging through them a problem. (I think there's a thread about this somewhere, but I don't remember where right now.)

[Ratty]

That is true, you do need to make a disengage. But a lot of the time you can attack the model behind a spirit without leaving it's melee zone. I was using this tactic a lot tonight in reverse Charging through a target model till I was just under 1 inch away and then attacking the weak model behind to get a extra Gaki, Seishin and healing flip.

A------>S-A-T

Attacker A charges T he runs through S but never leaves his melee zone so doesn't need to make a disengage.

A------>S-A

You can do something similar but attacking S. Next turn your behind his spirit wall and all you need to do is kill S with other models, push A out of melee or cheat the disengage.

Edited October 14, 2010 by Ratty

[tenabrae]

Use the spells that sac models rather than kill them and she gets nothing. Double-tap unnatural/entropic will sac seishin, ikiryo, gaki, onryo, shikome and kirai herself.

You don't get a model, but neither does she, and in most cases you won't be able to summon vs. spirits anyway (spirit, no tokens).

Heck, throw out desolation a couple times if you can swing it right and you could almost waste her whole seishin bundle and let Alyce do the coup de grace.

Kirai's crew also has relatively low Df so parking a bunch of SPAs and letting your aura kill em could be a valid plan since she' probably burnt most of her hand during the turn on summons and healing.

Edited October 14, 2010 by tenabrae

[DeleteAccount]

You need to stop her summoning as fast as possible, some AOE might help, she can stop them but it costs her and she has to do it in advance, so if you can get an early activation in you can get rid of her Seishin shield which is also her summoning pool.

Keep in mind she can activate the shield at the start of the activation of any model. She loses a summon spirit, but as long as she has a clear idea of who can AOE and where, she can react with ease to it.

[Ratty]

Keep in mind she can activate the shield at the start of the activation of any model. She loses a summon spirit, but as long as she has a clear idea of who can AOE and where, she can react with ease to it.

Eep I hadn't noticed that.. ouch.

[Cenotaph]

Remember though that it's just for that models activation so if you can get a bunch of area attacks hitting her she will have to burn a lot of Seishin to stop them.

Also remember she has Pitiful which makes her hard to target but targeting area attacks on linked Seishin gets around this.

Bottom line is shut her down quick. Make here burn cards to stop her cheating her spells like the summons, Chill of Death and In the Spirit World. If she can get going Kirai can almost double the number of Spirits on the board in a couple of turns.

A good tactic is to keep your last AP to allow weak or injured models to fall back. This reduces the chance of Kirai gaining a new Seishin when your figures get killed.

[GTFriday13]

As someone who plays Kirai, here are a few things to look out for or think about:

Taking a model that forces your opponent to burn through control cards is a good idea. Jack Daw, Hans or anyone else who forces the loss of control cards (or death of your opponent's models) helps since she is rather trigger dependent on her spells.

Kill Ikiyro and make sure your oppent sees the rule that says killing it means Kirai has to discard 2 control cards, and that she only heals when it is sacrificed.

Kirai only summons Seishin when the model who dies is within 8 inches of her iirc. Engage models outside of this range and she never gets fuel to keep her army up and running. Anything to push models around, or even just sitting back and waiting for your opponent to come to you.

Remember that Onryu and Kirai both have immediate revenge, meaning that hitting them with a ranged attack (including a spell with the "gun" icon) will hit the attacker for 1 or 2 damage, respectively.

Taelor and Johann both have magical weapons, and can kill most of Kirai's spirits in 1-2 hits, even on medium damage.

[karn987]

You need to stop her summoning as fast as possible, some AOE might help, she can stop them but it costs her and she has to do it in advance, so if you can get an early activation in you can get rid of her Seishin shield which is also her summoning pool. Try to avoid panicking about the large number of spirits and how fast they move. remember you can walk or charge through them and they do not block LOS.

You can not move through spirits. They can move through you, but not the other way around Ratty. Unless there was some big change to this, it only goes one way.

EDIT: Im wrong heh, you can move through them. Got mixed up, please forgive me =)

Edited October 22, 2010 by karn987

[Peterdita]

I play Karai and just battled the Vics, with Taylor and Misaki. The magic weapons sucked real bad for me. Others have pretty much nailed it here, so just don't try to kill anything near her, or touch her till you clear out her seishin. And don't expect her to stay still, she can jump around a lot! up to 18" to another spirit!

[Ratty]

You can not move through spirits. They can move through you, but not the other way around Ratty. Unless there was some big change to this, it only goes one way.

I wish...

Q: Can non-Spirit models move through Spirits?

A: Yes (p.21) .

[karn987]

I wish...

Ehhh not sure why I was backwards on that.... something got me confused over it, so oh well.

Yup you can move through spirits, sorry! I got mixed up =)

Edited October 22, 2010 by karn987

[Ratty]

probably worth asking. I found it rather wierd that it was not in the rules or errata, but was in the FAQ. I would love to be able to screen.

[karn987]

Eh I personally agree that you should be able to move through spirits if they can move through you. It makes sense from a fluff stand point and a balance stand point.

But we will see, New Errata is due soonish so let that clean the air of it first. *nods*

[thekolo]

How do you protect your hollowed wraith against Kirai? I was smacker her crew around wonderfully last night using Levi and then all the sudden she summoned her Ikiro 12" fowards right next to my Waif. Then the Ikiro moved once, and used her melee expert action and then it was good night Levi. Now granted this didn't leave him in the greatest of positions but Kirai has ALOT of stupid movement tricks that let her be whereever she wants. So any advice?

[Ratty]

Keep Kirai with low number of Seishin (so she has to keep them for protection and can't summon) and try to keep her bellow 6 wounds so she can't summon Ikiryo at 12".

[HopelessHeretic]

I am still just learning levi but i would highly recommend making a second waif turn one out of a dog instead of waiting until next turn to use levi's corpse. Kirai will almost always out activate you and if you killed levi she can reach your waif turn one with a shikome. Kirai can have a model move up into the spirit world with it then summon a shikome 12" away shikome's don't get slow due to relentless nimble then walk and strike your waif. The threat range is huge. I lost levi turn one against Kirai this way.

-Heretic

[Ratty]

That's a little harder to do, you have to move two seishin up to within 6" of her Into the Spirit Worlds target to summon a Shikome, so you can spot it coming if your careful.

However there is nothing to stop her into the Spirit World and the Ikiryo you in the face if she has the wounds. Or even using a Onyro.