The Road to Adepticon is Paved 10T goodness

[rancor709]

Yeah thats what I'm finding, as you know odin, I love me some torakage

---------- Post added at 11:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:18 PM ----------

Can't wait to hear some more thoughts on Mei. I've used Misaki and Jakob a fair bit, just waiting on McCabe and Mei now, not such a fan of Yan yet.

More to come on her, as well as Yan, I'm trying to paint up the yan crew this crew this week.

I'm finding a really like Mei in the scenarios you were discussing on the show particularly KoTh. As it forces models to bunch up which let Mei do what she does best dance around hitting everything and then disappearing.

[ukrocky]

Ha. I was discussing how good Mei would be in King of the Hill on the way back from my latest tournament. I'm in two minds whether to pick up Yan Lo or not, don't think he'll suit my playstyle, whereas the other 4 do.

Can you take Willie with Mei as a TT?

[edonil]

Yep. Mei can bring Willie, Rail Golem and Metal Gamin.

[rancor709]

Yup Mei has a willie as a 1ot

---------- Post added at 12:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:33 AM ----------

If he (yan) doesn't fit your style don't grab him, its the reason I'm holding off on Misaki. She just not my style of master. So she is a likely the last box of the 10t I'll pick up if at all.

[Ratty]

Yep. Mei can bring Willie, Rail Golem and Metal Gamin.

and Fire Gamin.

[ukrocky]

I thought I'd check she can take willie before saying;

I used him this weekend and found him to be one of the most versatile minions I can remember using. He HAS to be used super defensively though, which is my playstyle. Don't put him in the open or in easy charge range of anyone, but I would highly, highly reccomend him for anyone with a conservative playstyle, simply awesome.

[sssk]

This blog is a really nice read. Though I'm not playing 10T yet, I've played Mei a lot recently as an Arcanist. Just thought I'd say that even as an arcanist, I've had a fair bit of success with her without casting railwalk, and without a rail golem (I know right? shock horror!). I can't say enough how good Seismic punch is. I know there's other crews with (probably) better movement shenanigans, but the fact that Seismic punch lets you move near enough your whole crew a few times (twice from Mei, once from Emberling) in the first turn (or 2) is just awesome. Also being able to cast it when Mei is on an evidence marker or something similar to push enemies away, and then 2 interact is great.

I tend to use Mei defensively. If you put her on defensive stance with iron skin on, the opponent will either ignore her (good thing) or try and take her out, and usually fail (good thing). I'm also finding that Mei doesn't have a single action that I'll never use. Iron skin and vent steam are both great damage prevention/reduction tricks. Rail walker and Seismic Punch are both great movement shenanigans (I strongly believe this game is largely won and lost on movement shenanigans). Scalding breath is a great crowd control spell. If I'm not Seismic punching stuff forward, this is pretty much always the spell my emberling will use (to great effect). Finally, superheat is essentially a free AP cast (as you can automatically try and cast it when you vent steam), so there's really no drawback to using it (though I wouldn't usually use an AP on it, unless I want to cause some pain with Kaeris).

I know it's controversial (especially as an arcanist) but I'm finding Kang to be a very powerful model in Mei's crew as well. If for no other reason than everyone knows how nasty he is, so you can use him as bait in all sorts of traps (if he survives then this is even more funny).

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to running the Mei and Misaki box sets together (with Willie thrown in of course) and this blog is all the more inspiration to do it.

My final note, as regards UKrocky's point, unless I have a metal gamin attached (or cast iron skin on him), I use Willie extremely agressively most of the time. He runs in as close as possible, poses a threat/distraction, lays out as many blast template as humanly possible (got my first joker on a dynamite marker last night, it won me the game!), and then goes up in a massive explosion. Favorite trick at the moment is to walk 5", lay out a dynamite marker 4" forward, run onto it (cheat in a tome to explode) and then place out 2 blast templates at the end of the walk. Really good model. Shame you can't toraswap him in...

Hmmm, after reading back over this, I fear that I "Mei" be obsessed...

[Odin1981]

Yeah thats what I'm finding, as you know odin, I love me some torakage

Damn ninja's .

[edonil]

Loved reading through this blog last night, keep up the good work! Especially liked your bits on Jakob, convinced me to go ahead and pick him up after all. Looking forward to more of your thoughts on Yan Lo.

[Da Git]

I also really liked your piece on Jakob, everywhere I've read, everyone says to use him so defensively so I liked your aggressive use of cheatin' bastard.

I'm also very keen to get Yan, so I can't wait for your write up on him!

[emissary]

I'm not an expert, but I've played with Yan Lo quite a bit since I received him from the early release. I've used him as both a Resser master and a 10T master. Thought I'd share some experiences and observations. I'll readily admit that some of this stuff is due to my playstyle, but just about all advice will be influenced by that.

First I think I'll just start off with some observations on the unique abilities he brings to the faction then followup on the unique models he brings to the faction (except the Onryo, haven't used it with him yet but see some potential there.)

Yan Lo

I've found Yan to be very adaptable in my games so far. Unlike other masters, your opponent doesn't quite know what to expect from him because you can change him during the course of the game through his chi paths. You can also adapt him to something unexpected or needed. He also starts a little behind the curve in terms of power at the beginning of the game, but can become one of the most, if not the most, powerful near the end of the game assuming the game has been more about fighting and less about avoidance and objective tagging. The amount of chi he starts with for me is really more about how many soulstones he'll start with. 5 is my minimum with him and I really prefer 6. Even when he has some of his paths fairly matured, he'll still need them, especially if you're going head to head with other masters.

As far as the chi paths go, I thought I would really focus in on the bone path because he really gets offensive there, but with Izamu being a lot better then expected (more on this later) I've found myself doing less with it and going into the other paths more. Starting out really depends on the mission. If the crews are going to head for each other I like to complete level 2 of the ash path for the +2 defense, then start into the spirit path for some extra speed. Now, there are good options. If you need more melee he can get downright nasty going up the bone path. Rigor Mortis is fantastic if your opponent is relying on one or two models to do all their heavy lifting or to limit how they can retaliate. Spirit is great for defense and moving assuming you aren't going up against a magic/magical weapon heavy crew. The biggest thing is that you need to be flexible with it while at the same time sticking to your plan. Lastly, I've noticed that if you work on his defense and movement early and let him be a little more of a ranged/support piece early, it has caught my opponent off guard if he suddenly gets a few points in bone later and suddenly become a melee terror. He's very similar to an avatar in that he can suddenly switch up what he's doing in the crew to work with your current situation if things start getting a little away from you.

As far as abilities and spells go, I'll start with ancestors first. I really think he runs well with only 1 or 2, but I try to bring at least 1 to all my games. You leave a fair bit on the table if you don't have any. The one thing about him in a 10T crew is that it's great that he can switch with the Toras, but it can put him out of position to grab the ancestor's card if he's taken down and Chiaki isn't there to back him up. On the other hand, you cannot let the ancestors dictate his placement if your situation demands it. For the ancestors, he's got a good healing spell for them (great for those low crows), got the standard resurrection spell for them and can get abilities from him when the situation demands it.

Two things that have really stood out for me are the resurrection spell and putting the relics on him. Unlike the other resser masters, what makes his resurrection spell unique is that you have to be careful of positioning when the ancestor is killed. But what makes it nasty is that it brings back a powerful character rather then a rank and file minion (though some of those are great like the Rogue Necromancy). Also, you only ever need 1 corpse counter to bring them back and can hurt your opponent if they need to corpse counters in that you can use all of them in the vicinity. If you don't have many corpse counters, you also can heal them back up with his heal spell, Chiaki, your porter and other abilities like Yamaziko or Izamu's self heal. There has been groaning when my opponent spends a lot of effort to take down Izamu only for him to come immediately back. The relics ability is great, but in my experience people usually only think of it as a card holder until you bring back the ancestor. However, combined with the soul porter you can use it proactively. The two main uses I've found for it is to get a double activation out of Izamu/Yin and to reposition them as it can cause a lot of movement to happen immediately. Secondly, some of the abilities Yan can pick up are great if the situation calls for it. For example, if I'm about to send Yan in against a model or master that has some important combat triggers, I have companion activated the porter and Yan, offed Izamu for his card and sent in Yan. Being able to cut off important triggers like All Done, Brutal, Onslaught or Critical Strike can be critical in some situations. I've also used it to kill Toshi, taken his card for the Daimyo ability and the push ability somewhere where he wasn't to support the crew for the time being.

However, it's not completely about ancestors, especially late. His melee weapon is decent, his ranged weapon is good and he's got two great spells that interact with the entire crew, and this is before anything from the chi paths are added. He has two additional great spells. The ability to give all undead friendly models spirit can be fantastic at times to blunt damage or move through terrain. It's also great to blunt damage from a ranged crew as you move across the board.

For some reason, I've found the ability I've been focusing on with him early to midgame is Weight of the Ages. It's got a decent range, but most importantly, it isn't a ranged attack. Hence you can target it into combat and it ignores cover. It does good damage (which can get great with nearby ancestors.) However, the best thing about it is the crows trigger which gives you an additional chi when you kill something with it. What I've found myself doing is trying to really harm, but not quite kill the target with other things, then having Yan move in and WotA + trigger the target and collect my two chi. He can really take off in this way early. For example, in my last game against the dreamer, he unburied some of his nightmares for a strike on me. I companion linked Yan, porter and Izamu and started. Izamu was moved into position with the porter, then attacked the Lelu that had unburied. He wounded it severely and, rather then finishing it off, attacked the alp he was also engaged with (Izamu's 50mm base + 3" reach is crazy) and wounded it severely. Then Yan moved up, blasted the Lelu with the spell and trigger, then repeated with the alp. You do need the crows to make it work, but with soulstones, it can work fairly well even if you have low crows in your hand. Out of that exchange, I killed 2 models and Yan got 4 chi in one activation. In a 10T crew, you can get those early wounds one enemies so Yan can finish them off with archers or shuriken. Mistaken Identity can also get Yan into a great position so that he can do his thing and get out of there, or shoot several times.

Okay, as for strategies and usage, I've found Yan to be best at kill strategies and strategies where you you can group up more (like the supply wagon one). He won't work as well as some other masters if you are trying to chase down your opponent all over the board. He wants to be near his crew and the enemies so he can grab the relic cards and vacuum up the chi as it is generated. Also, I've found to be a little more defensive with him early and more offensive with him late is a good plan. I've had him charged by a fully healed Lady Justice and still killed her in melee after the attack, but that only happened because I had spirit on him, the +2 defense and had the first level of the bone path.

As far as the crew goes, as said before I always bring at least 1 ancestor and 2 if one of them is Chiaki. Due to their cost, I rarely bring 3. I've been thinking about trying out the traps with him because they're cheap for a lot of Chi, but you won't get that if they're sacrificed. Just about all of the rest of the 10T models have been good in some form or another for him so far. Toras are always great, especially if your ancestors include Yin or Toshi. I usually go for crews that want to win an attrition war. The reason is because of how the chi works. If you're in a battle of attrition and Yan is in the thick of it he's getting (alot) better. I also will want at least 1-2 models that can get wounds on the enemy reliably before Yan goes in or the Weight 2 chi kill. Late in the game, he can rival/pass Misaki for sheer melee power if you've hit level 2-3 in spirit, level 2 in ash and level 3 in bone, but that only happens if you have gotten ~11-13 chi. He isn't unkillable by any means (he doesn't have much other then his Def rating unless spirit will help) to protect him but if you're hulking him up according to your opponent's crew and the current game situation he can be quite a monster.

---------- Post added at 12:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:20 AM ----------

Okay, onto the unique models and other observations.

Soul Porter

Frankly, I feel that the soul porter is an auto-include unless your only ancestor is Chiaki. Otherwise, attach it to the ancestor and proceed to have fun. The porter is a fantastic support piece for the ancestor. It can heal the ancestor or use Weight of the Ages (no trigger though) once a turn. The important thing about it is the Empower Ancestor ability. It's actually very reasonable to cast and the effect is just great. Being able to push the ancestor out of combat if needed, reposition it outside of it's activation (for Tohi or Yin) or to move it into combat so the ancestor doesn't waste APs on moving or to try to keep that enemy model rooted where it is can't be stressed enough. It also really speeds up normally slow models. For example Izamu's 4/6 WK/CHG is pretty slow. But letting him move 8" before he moves with his 3" reach is pretty crazy. Lastly, being able to kill (not sacrifice) the ancestor so it drops the corpse counters, lets Yan get the card for the reliquaries ability or to resummon can throw a major kink in your opponent's plan.

Izamu

For me, Izamu has been a really big surprise since I picked him up and started using him. At the moment, I think he's the most powerful minion available to the faction, but like the rail golem his main problem is that he's 1 master only and can't make use of Mistaken Identity. He was good on paper, but has been great on the table. He can be extremely hard to take down due to Object 2, Spirit, Spiritual Fortitude (great ability. The same things that applied in the Yan Lo post apply here), and the amount of healing available to him and his crew. He's also extremely hitty with a 3" reach, 6CB, 3/4/6 damage range and his reposte trigger. Being immune to influence can always cause a lot of problems. In fact, there's even a thread on him in the Neverborn forums. Lastly, the fact that he can be resurrected easily and can come back with a lot of wounds is crazy. With Object 2 he takes a lot of work to bring down and can be debilitating for your opponent if he's immediately brought back so that work meant nothing. Again, in that game against Lady Justice, my opponent used Nino and Lady Justice to finally bring him down. However, I had saved a ram in my hand so that with the final strike, LJ couldn't prevent him from dropping corpse counters and I brought him back after that.

As far as him being different then a resser crew, there isn't too much really. I have found that he can take a lot of attention off Kang or Ototo because they can be faced with the conundrum of which beater to try to bring down and Yan smiling from behind them. The Oiran has proved useful for the effects of the tranquil dance on him and, like the Belles, luring in someone for him to kill. Toras can also cover his advance well with smoke bombs so that you don't spend much time healing him and he can arrive to the battle or objective in great shape.

Chiaki

Chiaki is the true gem in Yan's arsenal IMO. Now, if she is brought every game against every opponent it's been my experience that at least half the games she won't do much. I've even had games where she never even lost harmless because she didn't do anything other then move. However, she can be game changing against specific crews as well. It really comes down to 3 abilities for me (I can't remember all their names), the chi anchor, the big pulse and Cleanse Spirits.

Cleanse Spirits is probably the most important. It can really shut down what some crews are trying to do. She can clear off perma-brilliance from your models against Jacob Lynch as long as the models isn't within 6" of a Beckoner. It clears off insignificant and blight counters when playing against Hamelin. Same thing with burning counters against arcanists. If you get paralyzed from Nicodem or Bete Noire that's gone too. Debuffs from any source like pacify or the Lilitu's abilities can be taken care of. Lastly, it will clear off slow from a summoned model. She's invaluable against any crew that is working on something like this against your crew.

The ability for her to grab chi and ancestor cards for Yan if he's away has been very important. She allows the crew to split up a little more and lets Yan make use of the Tokos much better without fear of losing out when he's outside the heart of the turtle. Being able to give the crew that type of flexibility is great.

Lastly, the pulse that causes non-living enemies to make the Def test or get slow can really hurt crews with a lot of non-living models like Undead, Spirits, Constructs or Nightmares. You can get her into position with the soul porter so she can do it twice if necessary. Also, it has a great range and you don't have to worry about casting it. It's been one of those things where you can either slow down a lot of their army to limit options or make them blow out a lot of cards in their hand or deck. Either result is really good for you. If they flip a good card so they don't get slow, that's one less good card they can't get in a duel later. If they get a bad card and don't cheat, the model gets 1 less AP coming up and if they lose then cheat, that's 1 card out of their hand and potentially a good card. Being able to pulse twice can cause a lot of duels and some should fail.

Lastly, she's only 5 stones, so is very cheaply costed for something that can swing a battle pretty quickly (as long as you bring her against crews that she'll be useful against). Her little 3" heal radius is also nice when you're bunched up.

Other 10T/Toshi/Yin/Ashigaru models

Torakages: It's a pity they can't reposition Izamu or Chiaki. However, being able to Mistaken Identity Yan Lo can be great, especially late. They do help to fix some of Yan's problem in that his crew can be a little slower. Otherwise, they're pretty much the same as they are in other crews.

Ashigaru: Ashigaru have been really good for me. They can really take a beating unless my opponent gets lucky with a good flip (but that's for every model). They do have a 5" move, a good def and cb and a great 0 action plus trigger. Their cost is also very good at only 4 stones for what you get. With an ancestor nearby they have a very respectable 6 cb and when combined with their 0 action they can protect and hold a piece of terrain reliably. I will sometimes put them around a corner so that they can't be seen but will be able to Wall against the opponent if they come around. The best I've ever had with one was taking down a fully healed Coppulus over 3 turns without help (though there was some good luck involved). What's also nice is that all three 4 cost minions (Oiran, Ashigaru, and Wastrels) have good niches to fill within the crew against your opponent. Be it a solid minion for the turtle (Ashigaru), support (Oiran), or movement and ranged (Wastrels).

Ototo/Kang: Toshi can help them hit better and Izamu can present another high-priority target to take pressure off them. If you have Izamu and one of them, you can keep Izamu near Yan or the action and then send out Ototo/Kang against another target or to hit them from another angle. I also really like sending them in against one target and then using rigor mortis on what would retailiate, especially if that's a big threat too.

10T brothers: These guys really depend on what you have in the crew. The best thing with them in my experience is their companion ability. However, if you bring the soul porter and ancestors they can all companion well in a turtle to begin with. I've found these guys to be better in the crew if your only ancestor is Chiaki or Toshi and you want to be able to companion with the Tora or another big hitter like Ototo/Kang.

Edited January 16, 2013 by emissary

[DeleteAccount]

The make stuff into spirits spell only works on undead, so no spirit Kang or ototo. ALso, the rail workers are 5 stones. As for the rest, a very good block of wisdom.

Edited January 16, 2013 by Razhem

[emissary]

Forgot 2 things:

Mr Tannen: I've been thinking about trying out Mr Tannen with this crew. He's just as fast as Izamu and if the soul porter darts him off, you can use the Tora on Tannen to keep him up. Just cutting down the cards in my opponent's hands sounds great. Plus, there are other card drains available like Chiaki's pulse and Yan Lo's combat trigger.

Schemes: Few things on some schemes. I think that Yan Lo may be the best master in the faction for Infiltrate malifaux in that he has 2 ancestor minions that are dual faction and can be resummoned. Hence, if they target them down, you can respond by bringing them back. He isn't any different from the other masters for Saving Face IMO. Lastly, I haven't had much luck with his master specific scheme. Either I'm spreading out the chi a little too much and never get to level 4 in any one of them or I just don't have a time where 2 ancestors are dead, especially if the soul porter is killed (which my opponents are trying to do earlier in the game).

The make stuff into spirits spell only works on undead, so no spirit Kang or ototo. ALso, the rail workers are 5 stones. As for the rest, a very good block of wisdom.

Good to know, been doing that wrong. Wrote this up at work and so was going off memory.

Edited January 16, 2013 by emissary

[rancor709]

Yan lo forth coming haven't gotten enough games in with him yet to give you the impressions on him indepth.

After the first few games, He is rapidly becoming a favorite of mine as both a resser and a 10t. As stated adaptiblity is the key strength of Yan lo. Like many of us, he doesn't always knows what he wants to be in a given game and thus he can react better than most masters can. I tend to start either with the 1-1-1 in the paths for maximum flexibilty or and this is my preferred going regen 1 and +2df off the bat. I like to make sure yan is as protected as possible early.

My standard 35 is Izamu, Toshiro, Chiaki and 2 ashigura soulporter It is very similar to a ball of death as yan with his companion shenigans can do great things. There are other builds that work very well in different scenarios and against different opponents but this is my preferred build atm. It allows me to utilize yan as a the great early game ranged support that he is as I build up chi to turn him into the late game multiple ap close range killer he is late.

[rancor709]

More Fun with Mei Feng in my last few games I've come to more conclusions.

Got my Mail from Wyrd and in it my Johan which is a great looking model and I love that he comes with a custom base, that I'll be using on another model and , my Rail Golem, affectionately Nicknamed Thomas.

Some Points on THomas,

Okay the Rail Golem, I've faced this bugger far more than I've had a chance to field him. He is an exceptional model and very much worth his 9ss cost however. He is far from Immortal and I've not played a game yet either where I'm controlling him or my opponent is where he has lasted the game. I think its because he's a piece that screams aggression and has tremendous destructive potential that he becomes a high priority target to get off the field. He is not immune to influence, so user beware if your facing an obey master or a wp however crew although he does gain some manor of protection with smoldering heart it will cost you a wd. He's biggest strength is the multitude of things he can do with his burning counters in terms of buying actions and reducing the costs of things like charging. And enhancing action afterwords. Vent steam is great but unreliable on this model. Pair cb5 is effy but his damage profile is good. Again very solid hitter that can do some tanking against crews without armor piercing potential. I do find if you take him, he's a strong Kill Protege target, and often with his 3damage burning counter death explosion he tends to melt whoever is trying to smack him to death in melee. I"m a fan of the model and he works very well. If you play Mei as 10t or any arcanist masters he would be a firm pick up for me. I'm looking foward to trying him out in a marcus crew as well.

johan-I've talked a bit on my thought process with him before and having some more games with him a mei feng crew I can firmly say I like him in the crew. But you have to select him based primary on the strategy that is being played. Claim jump, KOTH and treasure hunt would be consideration for him in my crew. In treasure hunt his 3" of justice are used to prevent people getting into melee with my treasure carrier. I dont' want him moving around a lot and I want strategies that force central play. Against melee heavy crews also a possibly in a beatdown scenario but it is highly terrain and opponent reliant choice. I've enjoyed using him and beings he gets super happy being by Kang and or a Rail workers its a fine cheap add to the crew in these strategies.

Malifaux continues to amaze and intrigue me and its always interesting when your playing out new configurations and finding the little tricks and treats within them. Mei has very much been an unexpected delight at times. I liked her very much when I first saw her and the more I play her although its been radically different than I first imagined her playing its been very fun.

Mei-is survivable but not enough to safely take her and bodyguard at the same time. For you to get the most out of her you are exposing her a lot of the time, and often to multiple retaliations potentially. Ideally when you commit her you'll be able to substantially weaken the retaliations against her but we can only control what is in our hands and our committal so much. Against Mei I think I'll be seeing a lot of assassinate schemes being announced which I can't argue against too much. behind her df7 is only 10 wds and she has to be close to be worth whiled.. Her triggers are gold and her damage out put off them can be fantastic. The biggest issue is if you hit her she goes down hard, just like misaki and every other high df master. Remember to vent steam early and often to help out the crew on its way up the board.

Mr. Tannen-used him in a few recent games and am finding him exceptionally good at keeping pieces alive through his base aura. I think in a contain power scenario he is a potential good take to help bodyguard your master and to haver around when you go on the assassination run.

[rancor709]

Yan Lo

Few times in my gaming life has a master fit my personal playstyle and likes so much as this master does. He is truly a jack of all trades with true ability to morph to fit the role I need him to play in a mission. His mechanics are just so brutually simple yet complex it is pure genius. I really enjoy playing him and I look forward to getting him on the table more as I explore deeper potential playstyles and lists with him. Yan is incredible solid and has some excellent little tricks as the game progresses more on those in future posts.

Initial thoughts

Yan lo and his crew excell in scenarios where killing is a priority. As the death feeds him making him stronger and his crew is built to eat things particularly Izamu. Izamu it is hard to look at the resser boards and not hear this guy mentioned alot, wither with Yan lo or with the rest of the resser masters Izamu is a model that is a clear winner. In Izamu you have a true death dealer and with Yan lo you have a virtually immortal Death Dealer that can tank. Object 2 is a tremendous trait and one that sets Izamu up as a hard piece for your opponent to kill. Ototto was clearly designed with Izamu in mind as Ototto is a natural counter with his ability to ignore object.

Chiaki, the Niece- This is truly what a support model should be both in terms of costs and effectiveness. Chiaki is great at many things but her base abilities are well thoughtout annd her utility is excellent in a 5pt package its hard not to take chiaki anytime your setting Yan lo down, or a lot of other ressers for that matter.

Ashigura- Nice piece for 4ss interesting rules and if they die, Yan lo just gets stronger combine with there ability to keep your weaker pieces or areas clean with wall of steel not a bad little piece.

Okay how does Yan fair as a 10t, well that is what I'm going to be looking at, for my playstyle I love him with 3 ancestors and filling out the remainder with ashigura and taking 2 stones for chi in my builds. Its been effective and fun. I want to test him with different approaches across the Gaining grounds scenarios for 2013. With Yan, Jacob and Mei I feel I have all the bases covered for gaining grounds 2013, I plan on picking up McCabe box set prior to adepticon, although I'm not sure if McCabe will hit the field, but his wastrels will be seen in my other 10t crews as a 4pt minion is sorely needed for my builds.

A trap may also become a common site in my builds simply for the activation it provides the crew, remember anytime you can out activate your opponent you have a slight advantage that can be pressed.

[emissary]

2 quick things:

For Chiaki, I've really learned that she isn't an auto-include like Izamu and the Soul Porter. She's really good against crews that will put effects or tokens on your crew as part of their strategy like Jacob Lynch, Kaeris, Nicodem and so on. She's also good if you need to spread out a little rather then balling up or if their crew is heavily non-living. However, if those two concerns aren't in play it's been my experience that she isn't worth bringing. I've had games against Misaki, Lady Justice, Perdita and so on where she hasn't really done much of anything.

I have been running the crew as 10T more recently and it's a little tougher then with the other 10T masters to get him out of his crew unless you use less Ashigaru and Ancestors. I really like the Toras and Archers with him, but I've found I'd almost rather use Yin instead of Izamu for the Tora swap at times.

[rancor709]

Yin is my thought for him in a more 10t focused build. As it opens up more swaps and just pure bad match up potential but I'd still take Izamu over Kang in that build as he synergizes better with Yan than Kang does as a support beater. I'm not convinced its optimal to run Yan with less than 2 ancestors. But I have to test it more, the Yin model needs to be out like meow.

[emissary]

Agreed. I haven't had as much success with Toshiro in my 10T builds as he needs those Ashigaru to fully get a lot of use, and by that point there isn't usually much left for the 10T stuff (especially if you're running Yin or Izamu as well). Personally, I haven't had that big of a problem only running Yan with Izamu. He usually dominates Yan's and the Soul Porter's ancestor abilities anyway.

Edit: Also, my LGS's order sheet has Yin and Toshiro coming out in February.

Edited January 25, 2013 by emissary

[pgbsamurai]

One very effective combo i've seen used with a Yan Lo crew allows you to get two full activations with Izamu every turn. You need Yan Lo, Chiaki, Soul Porter and Izamu to pull it off. Izamu activates and beats on something, then Soul Porter activates and kills Izamu. Yan Lo activates, summons a new Izamu that comes in with slow. Chiaki then activates and uses her ability to remove effects to take slow off of Izamu. Then Izamu gets another full activation to beat on things again.

[emissary]

One very effective combo i've seen used with a Yan Lo crew allows you to get two full activations with Izamu every turn. You need Yan Lo, Chiaki, Soul Porter and Izamu to pull it off. Izamu activates and beats on something, then Soul Porter activates and kills Izamu. Yan Lo activates, summons a new Izamu that comes in with slow. Chiaki then activates and uses her ability to remove effects to take slow off of Izamu. Then Izamu gets another full activation to beat on things again.

Yup, it's a good combo. It's also good for resetting Izamu's wounds before your opponent can drop him and deny those corpse counters to you before you can res him. The only problem I've had with that trick is that I usually link the Soul Porter to Izamu, so when I do that combo, the poor Soul Porter is left out in the wind.

I'm really excited to try out Lucas McCabe when he is released this week. He looks fantastic on speed scenarios that don't rely on killing. Between his natural speed, the speed of his crew and the speed buffs he can hand out, he looks like he can get the jump on people quickly. Plus he and his crew can hand out a lot of slow and paralyze to slow them down.

[Fetid Strumpet]

I was the one using the trick on Pgbsamurai, and I usually Link the Soul Porter to Yan Lo or Chiaki. As cool as it is to shoot Izamu all over the board every turn I usually find that a double move on first turn is usually enough to get him into the fray fast enough, and I don't want to risk the Porter's early death as it allows Izamu to work far away from Yan Lo.

Additionally if the Porter is always near Yan Lo it allows more use of a companion chain cycling Izamu.

[dgraz]

I'm really excited to try out Lucas McCabe when he is released this week. He looks fantastic on speed scenarios that don't rely on killing. Between his natural speed, the speed of his crew and the speed buffs he can hand out, he looks like he can get the jump on people quickly. Plus he and his crew can hand out a lot of slow and paralyze to slow them down.

Don't bother with him if you think you may face Yan Lo......Chiaki totally destroys McCabe's game.

[emissary]

Don't bother with him if you think you may face Yan Lo......Chiaki totally destroys McCabe's game.

Yup, didn't mean for McCabe against Yan Lo, more for McCabe in the speed/objective missions in general. Chiaki clearing off the slow, paralyze and debuffs is exactly one of those good matchups for her.

I usually attach the porter to Izamu not to move him early, rather for the ability to heal him later and move him extra if he has to move away from Yan's radius for some reason. Also, IIRC, Repair Corpus and Empower Ancestor's range is 6" while the reliquaries ability is 8" so it gives him a little more room to operate away from Yan Lo.

[Fetid Strumpet]

First game I ever played with Yan Lo was against a McCabe crew. Both our first foray out with the new crews.

McCabe was dead on the first activation of the second turn, and my personal love affair with Izamu began.

(Granted there were many factors that went in to that, and I doubt I would get away with it ever again against that particular player.)