Well it seems that
after getting my blog up to date with Catchup week I’ve now dug myself into yet
another hole with another 4 Masters played and in need of an article! Rather
than dedicate another week to posting about these Masters (thus cutting into my
painting time) I might just try and get through them in the time I have and see
how I go. Anyway, first off the block is Kirai!
The Master
Kirai was a very nasty Master back in 1st edition
Malifaux. As one of the releases in the aptly named “Rising Powers” expansion
to Malifaux, she was considered well and truly above the power level of her
fellow Resurrectionist Masters. Perhaps not as horribly broken as the original
Hamelin or Dreamer crews but in my experience, still very tough to deal within.
It’s mostly for that reason that I’ve steered clear of using Kirai. After all,
Masters near the top of the power curve never really interested me as much as
ones I could feel more challenged by.
To add to that, I’ve never liked Kirai’s background. As far
as I can see, some shmuck kills her boyfriend and she then mopes around Malifaux
for two books, crying about how unfair it all is and unwillingly being egged on
by some malevolent spirit to seek vengeance against those who wronged her
(which seems to be everybody). Now in the real world I’d completely understand
and sympathise with Kirai and the serious emotional baggage she carries around.
But this is the fantasy world of Malifaux, where monsters are very real and
people regularly die in increasingly gruesome and disturbing ways. In that
world, Kirai getting all mopey about some boyfriend getting shot just makes her
look like a whiney crybaby. By comparison, I bring your attention to Zephyr –
the desperate merc in the Twisting Fates story “A Great Adventure”. Her son is brutally murdered by who knows
what kind of horror and her husband hanged for the crime, but does she collapse
in a heap cry like a baby? Hell no. She picks up a pistol then proceeds to hire
her services out to any who’ll pay to acquire the funds necessary to bring her family back from the freaking dead.
Unlike Kirai, she’s a god damn bad ass.
Fortunately the new art for Kirai gives me some hope that
she’ll soon grow a backbone and aspire to be as awesome as Zephyr. Still, when
it came to playing her for the Rainbow Challenge I was pretty ambivalent about
her.
The Paint Job
In a sense, Kirai’s is a very demoralising crew to paint.
Kirai, Ikiryo and 5 Seishin total 7 models – as many minis as most other crews
and that’s before you’ve spent a soulstone on her crew proper! But even after
maybe half a dozen models to fill out her crew, you still need Gaki, Shikome
and whatever other spirit minions you might need for her summons. In my case,
it came to 16 models, although it could have easily exceeded 20 if I didn’t
already have painted models for some of her summons (eg. Night Terrors,
Shikome, Hanged, Drowned). I guess I should have expected this kind of model
count for a summoning Master. However having mostly steered away from Ressers
as a Faction, this was my first time actually painting a crew for one!
Anyway, despite my gripe about the model count, I’ll admit I
did enjoy painting Kirai’s crew. The Yellow/Purple colour scheme originated
from my Jakob Lynch
crew, and I dare say it turned out even better with Kirai. As usual I didn’t
manage to get the bases fully done before playing, but with the flowers it’s at
least not bare! My only regret with this crew is that I didn’t manage to come
up with a unique theme of some kind. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but after
the likes of Adventure Time McCabe,
Cake Time Mei Feng or
Tea Time McMourning,
it does feel like a bit of a let down.
6 models plus Master, 0SS. God damn it...
The Game
45SS, Corner Deployment
Strategy: Squatters Rights
Schemes:
- Line in the Sand
- Breakthrough
- Assassinate
- Vendetta
- Power Ritual
- Line in the Sand
- Breakthrough
- Assassinate
- Vendetta
- Power Ritual
Kirai's crew for the day. I'm still trying to figure out a good base colour for Izamu. :P
The List
Kirai
- Absorb Spirit 1
- Swirling Aether 2
- Unforgiven 2
Datsue Ba
- Spirit Whispers 1
Izamu the Armor 1
- Spirit Becon
Lost Love
Onryo
2x Necropunks
- Absorb Spirit 1
- Swirling Aether 2
- Unforgiven 2
Datsue Ba
- Spirit Whispers 1
Izamu the Armor 1
- Spirit Becon
Lost Love
Onryo
2x Necropunks
This felt like an uncomfortably small crew when I was putting
it together, although I guess I shouldn’t be surprised with both Datsue Ba and
Izamu effectively filling up half my crew allowance. The theory with the crew
was to start with a solid core of Kirai, Datsue Ba and Izamu, then use all
three to summon an arse-load of Seishin and by extension, some bigger spirits to
bolster the crew’s hitting (and Interacting) power. The Necropunks were there,
of course, for some mobility and scheme-planting adventures.
For schemes I chose Line in the Sand and Power Ritual. I
can’t say I was surprised when Chris chose the same schemes, especially with a
pair of Trappers selected to hold each corner!
The Result
A combination of Ikiryo (summoned from Malevolence) and
Izamu (with help from Kirai’s Swirling Spirits and Datsue Ba’s Guide Spirits
for the movement) took out most of the core of Von Schill’s crew, including
Lazarus and the Freikorps Librarian. The Necropunks both attempted to threaten
the Trapper on one flank but were taken out by Von Schill himself. The other
Trapper was killed off by two Shikome summoned by Kirai. By the end of the
game, Von Schill had helped secure one flank but was tied up by Ikiryo (swapped
into position for a charge by Swirling Spirits). The rest of his crew had
crumbled under the weight of Izamu and the summoned Shikome, making it a very comfortable
win for Kirai.
Post-game Thoughts
Well after the game, both Chris and I were very impressed
with what Kirai could do! Her effect on the game (ie. summoning and swapping
models around) stood in stark contrast to Von Schill, who despite helping to
secure a flank never seemed to achieve that much. I’ll admit this has also
gotten me to thinking about what Von Schill’s strengths really are, but that’s
for another blog.
Playing a summoning Master like Kirai was an interesting
experience. Sure, I’ve played Masters capable of summoning before but aside
from perhaps So’mer, this was the first time I’ve used a Master for whom
summoning was a major part of her playstyle. Throughout the game, Kirai’s
antics allowed me to summon two Shikome, Ikiryo and an ass-load of Seishin. I
didn’t actually get a single crow in my hand from turn 2 onwards so summoning
any more without a Soulstone to burn proved difficult. Still, it was more than
I needed to deal with Von Schill’s crew. The Shikome made themselves useful
taking out a Freikorps Trapper on the flank opposite Von Schill, and Ikiryo
successfully held up and killed Lazarus with some assistance from Izamu.
The one aspect I didn’t like about Kirai’s summoning is how
resource intensive it seems to be. Summoning even a mid-level minion requires a
high crow (or a high card and a soulstone), so it tends to suck up the best
cards in your hand, denying you the chance to use them for other important
duels that turn. I don’t doubt that the summoned models are worth the
investment, and in fact it helped me win this game by a good margin. But nevertheless
it did feel like it was restricting what the rest of my crew could do, which I
wasn’t entirely comfortable with.
The other half of Kirai’s playstyle was the mobility-based
tricks and in particular, her Swirling
Spirits action. I’ll admit I got a lot of use out of Swirling Spirits. Between
that and Datsue Ba’s (0) Guide Spirits
action I was able to position Izamu far enough up to assist Ikiryo against
Lazarus (wiping out a Librarian and Friekorpsman along the way), get the
Shikome closer to their Friekorps Trapper target and reposition Ikiryo (who
otherwise has a Wk of 2!) to charge Von Schill in the closing turns of the
game. It basically allowed for some very impressive mobility for what would have
otherwise been a slow crew.
Kirai’s activation in almost
every turn generally consisted of (0) Call Forth to summon a Seishin, Then any
combination of (1) Walk (to get into position), (1) Swirling Spirits (to swap
other models around) and/or (1) Blood and Wind (to summon something IF I had
the cards/soulstone). Near the end of the game she spammed Sunder Spirit for
some damage vs Von Schill (and to stick Adversary on him), but otherwise she
only rarely got any use out of the Actions granted by her upgrades. Honestly,
the Stat card actions are where it’s all at with Kirai.
So it might not come as a
surprise that Kirai’s most useful upgrade proved to be the one that just adds
triggers - Unforgiven. It allowed her to summon Shikome without slow (getting
them into the fray much quicker) and added some extra damage to her Sundering
action vs Von Schill. I imagine I’d have trouble justifying her other limited
upgrade, Bloody Shears, over Unforgiven. I love the theme of it and Accomplice
itself has some great potential for getting the jump on opposing crews, but
otherwise Unforgiven’s triggers seem to add quite a lot to what Kirai already
does best.
I think Absorb Spirit and
Swirling Aether are take it or leave it upgrades for Kirai. I’ll admit did use
one of the actions on each card at least once during the game, but for the most
part it just gives her another tool she can use when the occasion suits. When
it comes down to it and as I said above, most of the time her Stat card actions
are what tend to be the most useful.
The Seishin were actually pretty cool little spirits for
Kirai. With the crew and upgardes I took I was able to summon quite a few
throughout the game. I initially expected them to prove useful for summoning
bigger spirits, swapping other models around and protecting Kirai. However they
were also great as expendible peons - chewing up activations, sacrificing
themselves to heal other models and generally just getting in the way to
prevent enemy attacks or Interact actions. So while they might primarily be
Kirai’s models, I can definitely see myself taking the models (Datsue Ba) and
upgrades (Spirit Whispers/Spirit Beacon) to summon them in other
Resurrectionist crews.
For the rest of the crew, well I’ve no complaints! Izamu was a no-frills killing machine,
which was great. The Spirit Beacon upgrade was a natural fit for him, and
allowed him to summon more than a few Seishin during the game.
I’ve already touched on Datsue
Ba, but she was certainly another solid inclusion. Not just for her ability
to summon Seishin, but also Guide Spirits for more mobility when it was needed
(like for getting Izamua up the board). Her offensive actions were also nice,
although for the most part I was using Weigh Sins to hopefully get the Adversary
condition on other models. The main negative was her low wound count. In this
game Von Schill’s crew never had a chance to take on Datsue Ba, but I imagine
she’d go down fast against any model who can get around her Incorporeal.
I think the Lost Love
is almost essential, purely so that you’ve got another model with Malevolence
to help get Ikiryo out. The heal is a great bonus though, especially in a crew
that can mitigate damage with Incorporeal.
When building a Kirai crew, I felt like I was trying to strike
a balance between two competing synergies. The first is with Malevolence, which
encourages you to take living and undead models to summon Ikiryo off of. Then
there’s the many, many ways in which Kirai can support her Spirits which are
frankly, too useful to ignore. Of course there’s no low/mid costed models with
both undead and spirit to fill her crew out with, so if you try to stick with
just undead spirits then your options are pretty limited. That said, in
practice I didn’t find this to be an issue. So long as the nastier models are
Undead Spirits (which they were in my case), at some point your opponent is
going to want to attack them. So while your opponent might try to delay it,
Ikiryo’s arrival is still inevitable. Even better, I found it was a pretty
effective way of discouraging models like Chris’s Trappers from attacking my
undead. After all, Ikriyo is definitely well equipped to take out long-ranged
shooters!
So overall, Kirai was a nice Master to throw onto the table.
Her mobility tricks really appeal to me and there is a definite resiliance
playstyle about her, with Ikiryo making it hard for shooters to put a dent into
your big (undead) hitters, plenty of healing/damage reduction options, plentiful
Seishin for activation control and of course, her summoning to win the
attrition war. In terms of negatives, I’ve
already talked about my feelings on summoning – this isn’t really Kirai’s
fault, but more my discomfort with the resource drain summoning seems to be. This is probably an opinion that
will evolve as I play through more summoning Masters this year.
Her focus on undead and spirits seem to restrict her options
for a viable crew though – it’s difficult to justify taking a non-spirit model in
her crew, and her Ikriyo summoning really encourages you to preference undead
spirits (eg. Izamu, Hanged, Datsue Ba etc) for your high value models. I guess
when you’re building a summoning crew with such a high starting model count (as
above – 7 models before you’ve even spent a SS!), having a limit to what she’d
actually want to take is a relief. But like I found with Dreamer, if you’re on
your way to buying just about everything anyway, it does feel a bit restrictive!
Until next time,
Adrian
Wow I fell in love with Rezzers because of Kirai. Her fluff was what got me to commit to them as a faction. Also I really dislike her new art I think she doesn't show her character and it looks like they changed her a lot.
ReplyDeleteWell she's definitely got her fans, but her background just didn't work for me, personally. If nothing else I'm curious to see what Book 2 has on her - whether her character has evolved any and whether Wyrd changed her art after the feedback (it wouldn't be the first time).
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