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Yan Lo as second crew


Arkhala

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Unless you already have a hat full of other Ressurrectionists available, I would initially use Yan Lo in Ten Thunders.  Simply in terms of what the two crew boxes can do for each other, Kang is everyone's best friend if you're fighting zombies or robots, Rail Workers conveniently drop both scrap and corpse markers (handy for Toshiro's Command the Graves upgrade) and Chiaki can be a useful toolbox wherever she goes.  Metal Gamin and Rail Golems can only be hired in Ten Thunders via Mei Feng's infiltration rule and the same goes in reverse for Ashigaru and Yan Lo, so there's no further cross over.

 

I doubt that many people have put in enough games to give any definitive answer as to what is or is not good with Yan Lo.  A simple enough start is to buy the other three Ancestors (Izamu, Yin and Toshiro) as they are thematically linked to Yan Lo and certainly provide powerful options on the table.  Toshiro wants to have a crew full of minions for him to turbo-charge so he doesn't play fabulously well with the other three ancestors, but I've certainly had satisfactory games with all four.  Of note is how hard it is to kill off this lot.  You will not give up many points in Reckoning if your core is the four Ancestors.

 

Play-wise I like to keep Yan Lo central but behind my main lines for a couple of turns to snipe targets of opportunity with Spirit Barrage and generally hoover up Chi when things inevitably die around him.  I almost always ditch a low card on my first turn for +1 Chi and then spend it at the end of Yan Lo's activation to get Ash Ascendant as Impossible to Wound goes a long way toward keeping Yan Lo alive.  He can become quite the beater once he's fully powered up on Chi and upgrades but he is still not a match for a full on murder-machine like Lady Justice.  Being able to bring back an Ancestor is very powerful so I have yet to try a game without the Reliquary upgrade.  But the better play is not to have them die at all, so don't just throw them away needlessly.

 

In the spirit of 'showing my working' (as my teachers used to say, way back when I went to school), here are some games I played at a recent tournament where I used both Mei Feng and Yan Lo and mixtures of each others crew boxes: linky.

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Thanks for your advice ArgentBadger, ill keep it in mind.

 

I'm having great fun with Mei Feng and I'm picking up Yan Lo tomorrow. I might also get some other ten thunders goodies such as archers and yamazuko. I don't think my store stocks the ancestors at the moment but I'm sure I could order them in for the next week or so.

 

Im a heavy fluff player so I will pick them up to go with Yan when I can.

 

Its a shame I cant find any of the fiction to go with the thunders.

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If your buying Yan Lo then the other Ancestors to go with him.

 

Tosh loves minions, and always benifits from an escort of a couple of Ashigaru, if you wanted to expand on that Punk Zombies work brilliant with him, and if you take his upgrade can just summon Ashigaru as your Punks cut a path through your opponent. 

 

A Canine Remain never goes amiss if you want to run him as Resser. Fast and tricky to get rid of, plus the ability to dig up corpse markers is situational but also can be very useful.

 

Fluff wise youll want the Storm of Shadow book. Great fluff for all the Ten Thunders.

 

Hope this helps

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Yan Lo is awesome.He can basically bring back an ancestor at full health+ no summoning sickness.

 

Think about this

 

Izamu attacks, dies

 

Yan Lo goes, brings him back, heals to full. With +3 chi this can be very easy. All you need is an 8 with a soul stone, plus a high card for the heal.

 

Chiaki goes, removes Slow from Izamu

 

Izamu goes again.

 

It's crazy. Remember you can do this at ANY corpse marker near Yan Lo.

 

My only issue with Yan Lo's crew is Toshiro, mostly because he competes for high cards and if you're going all ancestors, you can afford maybe like 2 minions.

 

I think Yan Lo could be stronger as a Resser, because YIn + Unnerving Aura can be a pretty nasty combo. Also "Maddening Laughter" Can work because the CA can be increased by Chi.

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I just want to add that I love Toshiro, I do usually only run him with two ashigaru, but I put command the graves on him and so when one dies he brings it back and if yan is around he can heal him. Toshiro and the ashigaru really are great with the additional flips to combat and also protection, when they take there stance means that Toshiro usually doesn't get charged.  

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