Well I may not post often these
days but when I do, I end up writing lot. :P This article came to around 4500
words so yeah – prepare for a wall of text interspersed with pics of my proxy
models. ;)
Rippling Fates is out and I thought I’d give a run-down of the new
models and upgrades for my current Faction of choice – the Ten Thunders! Thus
far I’ve had a few games with most of the models, so my thoughts below reflect
what I are my initial impressions with them, based on early experience.
Be warned that this is written on the assumption that you have the
Rippling Fates book in front of you. Most of the time I’ve not gone out of my
way to describe specific stats or what each action/ability does (mainly because
this blog post is long enough!). Nonetheless if you don’t have their rules on
hand, you should still get an idea from reading this as to how these models play. Anyway, enough talk, on with the models!
As awesome as she looks, my
proxy-Asami will become my new Chiaki just as soon as I’ve painted the official
model.
Asami
As the new 10-Thunders Master, Asami probably warrants an article on
her own. And once I get a few more games with her, I’m sure I’ll write one. :)
But since we’re talking about the rest of the Ten Thunders faction in Wave 4 I
think Asami deserves at least a brief look…
Asami is a summoning Master, and arguably the first of her kind in the
Faction (Yan Lo doesn’t really count, since his summoning is entirely about
bringing back hired Ancestors!). That said, thanks to the Flicker condition her
summons are always temporary. In the few games I’ve played with her she’s
capable of bringing out one, occasionally two models per turn depending on how
many corpse or scrap markers are around to power up that Flicker condition. But bringing out models
with Flicker +1 and no way to boost it (ie. they’ll die at the end of turn)
just hasn’t been worth it in my experience. In practice, this means that in the absence of corpse/scrap markers I’ve usually only summoned
Yokai or Jorogumo. The former starts on Flicker +2 at minimum and has ways to
boost their own Flicker, while the latter are worth going to the effort of boosting their Flicker with Asami's totem, Amanjaku. Tengu, Obsidian Oni and Akaname might have their place as
occasional summons (especially if you’ve got a few corpse/scrap markers handy),
but I think in practice they’re the exception to the norm. As far as I’m
concerned it’ll be Jorogumo or Yokai as Asami’s standard summons.
That said, I’ve heard talk about people wanting to embrace the limited
lifespan of Asami’s summons and treating them like fire & forget missiles.
I’m not convinced this is a worthwhile approach, but I guess time will tell
whether it’ll be viable.
Either way Asami’s not going to be spamming summons like Nicodem or
Ramos. So I’m not convinced she’ll be the go-to Master that everyone’s hoping
for in Strategies like Interference or Reconnoiter. Fortunately, the lack of
summoning spam is made up for by the quality of minions she can bring
out (specifically, they’re summoned on full wounds!) and the support she
provides. Wrath of the Oni gives
friendly Oni (1) Charge actions (handy when those summoned models are Slow) and
Oni’s Strength (Focus +2 on an Oni
or Minion) can be thrown around to boost the damage of a friendly model or two.
Asami herself is a little brittle (Df 7 only goes so far), but she’s got the
potential to seriously hurt or outright kill models with her melee attack.
She also has some great mobility, with various abilities and upgrades
enabling her to teleport/push herself, or push other models around.
Asami’s biggest fundamental weakness is arguably her card dependence.
Most of her actions have a moderate TN, her Df 7 is only good if you’re
flipping well, and of course, she’s a card-hungry summoner. Having access to
both Rush of Magic and her Nefarious Pact upgrade should help improve her
control hand somewhat. Nonetheless, carefully managing Asami’s control hand is
still going to be a significant factor in using her well.
He’s pretty obviously a Soul
Porter, but at least for an Asami crew there’s no mistaking what he should be.
;)
Amanjaku
There’s not a lot you can say about Amanjaku without also talking
about how Asami plays. Basically though, he seems to be there almost entirely
for increasing Flicker on summoned models - something that requires a 9 of any suit to cast. He’s got a melee attack and a
suit-specific anti-shooting Aura but really, that’s not what you take him for.
I’m still undecided as to whether Amanjaku will be a consistent
auto-include for Asami. At the moment I think he is, but it’s possible he’ll
end up being more like Asami’s “Training Wheels” – good when you’re starting
her, but ultimately unnecessary.
Lazy? Yes. Functional?
Certainly. ;)
Ohaguro
Bettari
As the Ten Thunder’s newest Henchmum, Ohaguro Bettari (henceforth
known as Betty) brings some great options to the Ten Thunders. First and
foremost, she’s quick! Being able to place herself next to summoned models and
charge through ANY terrain and model, LoS or not, gives her gives her some
great manoeuvrability. Asami or a Pathfinder can use newly summoned models to
set up some unexpected charge angles, or even just get Betty out of trouble if
she’s about to get pounded. There’s also her Ploughed Over trigger on her attack, which lets her push her
current target aside and charge another model, much like the Mature Nephilim.
In terms of damage output, Betty’s melee attack only gets impressive
on a severe damage flip. That’s not great for a melee-oriented Henchmum …until you
realise she can give herself an automatic flay trigger with The Flaying Song. Asami’s cheap focus
with Oni’s Strength will also help
with that, but what this all ultimately means is that if you really want to lay
out the damage, you’ll need to put some resources into her. She does, however,
have her Bird and Snake ability, an
aura (AURA!) that prevents all enemy Wp or Df triggers. This is a game-changer
for the Ten Thunders, and it makes Betty and her crew a serious threat against
any model who relies on those triggers for survival (Arcanist Masters
especially!).
Unfortunately resilience is not Betty’s strong suit. She’s a SS user
with got a decent Df and Wp, and Eat
your Fill from her Taste for Flesh
upgrade can help out. But without anything else to mitigate damage she really
needs to rely on her manoeuvrability to stay alive.
I’ve heard talk that Ohaguro Bettari might be best used as a
flanking-type model. She’d probably do fine in such a role but personally, I
feel that she’s more of a team player. She needs the help of her crew and
control hand to keep her evasive and boost her damage. But in exchange she
offers A LOT to the rest of her crew in terms of enhancing their lethality.
Basically, I feel like she’ll be at her best when she’s got a few friendly
models to work alongside.
More lazy proxy work but believe
it or not, I did find myself needing more than three! I really should make a Puppet-Resser
crew with all these guys. :)
Yokai
“The light that burns twice as
bright burns half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy.” –
Tyrell, Bladerunner
Yokai are a minion that I’m very excited about! I suspect a lot of
people are going to be turned off by Flicker and the limited life span it
allows. But much like the Replicants in Blade Runner, they’re able to punch
well above their weight over the short time that they’re alive.
Thanks to Ephermal Wariors granting
a 3” place (=4” of movement) every time Flicker or Poison counts down, the
Yokai are FAST. They move a minimum of 14” each turn, and potentially 18” if
they use Corrupting Essence to
Interact and burn another point of Flicker. Hell, stick Poison on them from
someone like an Akaname and you’ll get yet another 3” place per turn, bringing
their maximum movement to an incredible 22”.
In melee they’re a little fragile for their cost, but between Frenzied Charge (for positives to their
charge attacks) and no less than 5 different triggers for a variety of useful
effects they’ve got the potential to hit very hard for a 5SS model. Any of the
triggers that increase their damage output also tend to cost Flicker, but
they’ve also got triggers to drop a corpse (great for summoners!) or increase their
own Flicker for a bit of extra longevity.
While I’ve had great success using them as scheme runners or generally
just cheap expendable beaters, I think Yokai will really find their place with
schemes that require you to interact with other models, like Cursed Object or
Distract. Thanks to Corrupting Essence
they’ll have no trouble tagging an enemy model with a (0) and then teleporting
away (to potentially then remove any such condition on themselves). Plus you
can time their Flicker condition to ensure that if/when the Yokai is tagged,
they’ll lose Flicker and be sacrificed at the end of turn, before the opponent
scores any VP for them!
…Now this guy I’m proud of. Much
like my Queeg and Wandering Monk poxies, he might even stick around after the
official models are out.
Terracotta
Warrior
The Terracotta Warrior is almost perfectly suited to helping out
Lucius, but since he’s not a Ten Thunders Master I’m going to ignore him. :)
Fortunately, he’s also pretty great in his home faction.
There's basically three things that the Terracotta Warrior has to
offer the Ten Thunders – protection for key minions and enforcers, the ability
to swap upgrades around at will and a surprisingly meaty melee attack.
Mold of the Other is like
handing out ablative armour to your Enforcers and Minions. Being able to
effectively ignore a single hit (for the cost of a card from your hand, if you
want to keep the Terracotta Warrior alive) can be incredibly useful. That’s
especially true when you consider how powerful some of our minions/enforcers
are and ESPECIALLY considering you decide whether to ignore the hit after
seeing the damage flip! It’s a one use only condition, but the Terracotta
Warrior can keep applying it to a new model each turn, even if the original
target hasn’t yet spent his Ancient Protection!
There’s some great potential applications for the Terracotta Warrior’s
ability to swap friendly upgrades around with Ancient Treasures. At its simplest it lets you customise your
crew’s upgrades on the fly. Facing Pandora or Titania? Swap some of those Recalled Training upgrades for Servant of the Five Dragons. Smoke Grenades no longer needed? Exchange
it for Recalled Training or Equality. It won’t
work with our many 0-cost upgrades (sorry Samurai!), but there’s more than
enough 1+ cost upgrades to find some value.
In terms of specific Masters, Brewmaster will get a lot of value out
of Ancient Treasures simply because
it lets him take Running Tab to hire Wesley and his other Gremlin Tri Chi, then
swap it out for something that’s actually going to be useful in-game, like Misdirection. Jacob Lynch’s Ace in the Hole might not work with the
Terracotta Warrior’s discarding (they go to the bottom of your deck, not the
discard pile). However it does give Lynch the chance to swap his Limited
upgrades around to switch the Hungering Darkness between killing (Endless Hunger) and rebirth (The Rising Sun). McCabe could also use
this to swap his own treasure upgrades around as needed and Shenlong could do
the same with his Limited "River" upgrades. Of note here is Sensei Yu, who with Promising Disciple can actually pick up
whatever upgrade Shenlong swaps out with Ancient Treasures. That’s effectively
a free upgrade for him every turn you swap something!
Finally, it’s worth taking note of the Terracotta Warrior’s Clay Fist. On the face
of it it’s a pretty average attack with 1/3/5 damage, but the Ram trigger
brings that up to a much more serious 3/5/7. The Terracotta warrior takes 2
damage in the process, but he need only spend a card from his control hand to
prevent that. It's unlikely to win you games, but it's the kind of thing nobody will really expect from what's supposed to be more of a support model!
I have a Bushido model that matches the art much better (he’s at least
got the right hat). However I quite like my own take on Sun Quiang…
Sun
Quiang
Sun Quiang is the Ten Thunder’s new all-round support model. He’s got
some very easy healing, can place and remove scheme markers at will, removes
corpse or scrap just as easily and has a great, if subtle array of debuffs to
mess with the enemy crew and score/deny VPs. Despite initially being
underwhelmed by his stats, after just one game with this guy I’ve started to
see A LOT of potential. Hence why this guy gets an even bigger wall of text
than the rest of the models I discuss here. ;)
The first thing you’ll notice about Sun is his healing. Between Absolute Sincerity and the Duality Trigger on his melee attack (with
a 6” non-melee range, you’ll note), he’s quite capable of healing up multiple
friendly models, which is all the more effective if you’ve taken a crew with
lots of hard to kill or armour. The former also heals enemy models within the
aura, but smart positioning and activation can minimise the benefit. In any
case if they’re close enough to heal they’re also close enough to take a
potential Wp duel for Slow from Thirteen
Measures, so it’s not so bad.
Speaking of which, while most people will primarily see Sun Quiang as
a healer, his control and debuff-type tricks are arguably much more valuable.
In addition to Thirteen Measures, Sun Quiang has two melee triggers that will
either grant them Adversary (making him very scary with Spirits like Izamu or a
few Komainu to back him up), or place them 6” away. The latter might actually
be the strongest trigger available to Sun Quiang – a 6” place has the potential
to basically remove an enemy model from the action for a turn, placing them out
of melee and/or out of sight while you deal with the rest of the crew. Or
alternatively you can isolate an enemy model from the rest of the crew, removing
potential synergies (screw you Lenny!) and/or making sure you can kill them
dead. Then, of course, there’s the potential to deny VPs with the placement.
You can throw a model away from Guard the Stash, for instance. Basically it’s a
very effective (if suit dependent) placement effect, and placement effects are
arguably one of the most powerful things you can do in Malifaux!
Then there’s also the “Peon aura” that Sun Quiang can give himself with
Recitation of the Essential Formulae.
This has no resist, and with the right schemes on the table it’s got some huge
potential for scoring/denying VPs. For instance making an enemy model a peon
prevents them from tagging your models with Exhaust their Forces or Catch and
release, and as peons they’ll count as kills for Hunting Party, even if they’re
also an Enforcer, Henchman or Master. That last part has me especially excited –
there’s nothing quite like ruining your opponents attempts to deny that scheme
by just irresistibly making the model you’re killing peons anyway! There’s also
the potential to combine this with Sue’s The
Man Comes Around trigger (ie. discard or die if you're a Totem or Peon) to auto-kill those
peons. There might be more model-specific synergies, but I’m not yet aware of
them.
For an old man trained in medicine, Sun Quiang's remarkably hard to hit...
The final aspect to Sun Quiang are his scheme marker tricks. The Cleanse
trigger on his melee attack lets you remove corpse, scheme and scrap markers
within 2” of the target and his (0) Study action can exchange a nearby corpse, scrap
or scheme marker for a scheme marker of your own. When you consider he’s also
got Don’t mind me to let him interact while engaged it shouldn’t be too hard to
keep enemy scheme markers away from his vicinity while also placing markers of
his own.
While not super-resilient, Sun’s Df 7 at least acts as a great deterrent
for your opponent. Even if they’ve identified how disruptive he is, they’ll often
prefer to target someone in your crew who’s easier to hit. Sun Quiang’s low mobility
is offset somewhat by his “King of Medicine”. So long as he’s got cards to
discard he should be able to push up to wherever models are getting damaged,
which is pretty much where he wants to be anyway.
Sun Quiang’s main weakness is his card reliance. All of his actions
have a moderate TN, you’ll want specific suits for the triggers on his melee
attack and even King of Medicine will demand your low cards. I suspect there’s
a good chance that you won’t be able to do everything you want with him, every
turn, unless you flip well or dedicate a good chunk of your hand to powering
his activation.
Overall though, Sun Quiang seems to like the kind of crew that tends
to bunch together in the middle. He can't realistically flit around
every turn and remain effective, but for the likes of Yan Lo in a strategy like
Turf War (and preferably with Hunting Party and Search the Ruins in the scheme
pool!), he should definitely be a force to be reckoned with.
He's a Work in Progress and he doesn’t match the art, but you get the idea…
Yasunori
So the Yasunori is *sort of* our version of the other Faction’s
“Rider” models. Well, in so far as he’s a 12SS dude on a horse-thing with some
solid resilience and excellent damage output. I’ll admit he’s the only Wave 4
10-T model I haven’t yet tried, but he definitely looks promising.
Compared to a Rider he’s generally more mobile (with Flight) but his
resilience doesn’t scale with the turn number – arguably a good thing since you
at least won’t be so reluctant to poke his head out in the early turns! With
his Wind/Water/Earth/Fire Triggers you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting
4 attacks off on the charg - great considering the 3/4/5 damage output. His obey-style,
(0)Kodoku action only adds to that –
so long as you’ve got a decent minion handy (friendly or enemy) then you’re
able to pull off a potential 5th attack in his activation. The
Ram-specific Wrath of the Heavens
Trigger it grants on that attack is crazy-good too. So long as your
opponent has scored a few VP (and it’s likely they would have after turn 2) it can
really ramp up the damage.
Yasunori has some card draw/manipulation in the form of Scales of the Heaven and Great Sage, and defensively Stubborn can limit his chances of being
neutralised by a Wp-based debuff-style attack. But otherwise that’s all there
is to Yasunori. He’s basically a very high damage beater. You’ll want a good
minion to pair with him and some healing to counteract all the attacks that are
likely to come his way, but otherwise he’s not a particularly complicated
model!
Let’s face it – Pig Demon isn’t a huge stretch from Poo Demon. ;)
Akaname
Woo! Poo Demons! As you might expect, Akaname is very much Brewmaster’s
minion. His attacks allow him to throw Poison around at will, he can siphon
Poison off friendly (ie. drunk) models with Filth Eater and then he can use that poison to place scheme, corpse
or scrap markers with The Oni’s Gift.
That last part makes him a worthwhile replacement to the Tengu, so long as he’s
got poison to siphon off to keep placing those scheme markers! There’s also
some potential with a Brewmaster/Toshiro crew, using the Akaname to drop
scheme/corpse markers (he’ll need a Mask for the relevant trigger though) and
summoning Komainu/Ashigaru as needed with Tosh.
Outside of Brewmaster, the Akaname’s going to be a major thorn in the
side of Resser Masters and especially
McMourning’s crew. It’s a trivial matter for him to strip poison off other
models and use it to dump a scheme marker, so long as you can make sure he
starts within 6” of the victim (not hard with all the pushes Ten Thunders have!).
Compared with the Tengu, the Akaname has some better resilience and
damage output. But combat potential isn't really why you take most 4SS models! So outside Brewmaster I don’t think he’s really going to be
worth taking over other 4SS models with more specific roles, unless you can consistently feed him poison
(or at least ruin McMourning’s day!). Fortunately there’s a few ways to do that
– an Akaname should pair pretty well with the Fermented River Monk, and an easy
way of dumping corpses or scrap everywhere can give you easy pushes and poison
from Lick their Corpses (Mei Feng’s
Emberling, Mechapig and Emissary come to mind). Beyond that, Akaname really
does seem to be a minion who’s custom-made for Brewmaster.
The Seishin are magnetised,
making this a pretty functional proxy!
Goryo
Recipe for the Goryo: Take an
Illuminated, swap the Brilliance synergy with Adversary synergy and Armor with Incorporeal.
Drop the healing in exchange for the
ability to summon Seishin, add Fast whenever a nearby friendly dies and then
swap the Scintilating Cloud attack
with a ranged (0) attack that can add Adversary
to the target. Ensure it ignores armour with melee attacks, Incubate and apply
evenly to one (1) Yan Lo.
That’s pretty much it. The Goryo is a functional clone of the already
amazing Illuminated, but repurposed for Yan Lo. Like the Illuminated, he’s
great in combat with the same Ml and Dg stats, but the raw damage potential
offered by Brilliance repurposed to simply ignoring armour on all his attacks.
Even without the consistent healing he remains quite tough thanks to
Incorporeal
In short, the Goryo is the model you take with Yan Lo when you need a
nice, chunky, minion-level killing machine. This is something I’m especially
happy about since it gives Yan Lo the chance to take a more minion-heavy crew.
That should help a lot when schemes like Public Demonstration are in play. They’ll
also synergise really well with the other new Retainer, Sun Quiang, since it’s
quite trivial for him to heal up some of the damage they lose from summoning the odd
Seishin.
He’s nowhere close to matching
the art, but he’s doing a good enough job while I build a more suitable
replacement.;)
Woku
Raider
As an Outcast-Last Blossom minion, the Wokou Raider is a new option
for Misaki. I’ve never been a fan of taking Last Blossom models for the purpose
of using the Smoke and Shadows Upgrade (it’s never been worth it for me). But I
think it will make for a great addition to Miaski crews.
Stone for stone, the Wokou Raider is a pretty solid melee fighter. The
positive on attack makes them pretty card efficient and they’ve got a good
damage spread with the chance for Critical
Strike. But they’re at their best when paired with another friendly melee
model, where their Coordinated Raid
trigger can give a nearby friendly model a free attack on the target.
Defensively, Combat Finesse
(which prevents the opponent cheating melee attacks vs Df) can be a major
deterrent to taking them out in favour of other models and together with
Bulletproof, helps their average Df go a long way.
But I think what sets them apart from their main competition in a
Misaki crew (ie. Lone Swordsman), is their scheme marker-related tricks. So
long as they have a lowish tome on hand, their (0) New Horizon action lets them throw nearby scheme markers, friendly
or enemy, a massive 6” anywhere they want. It’s an easy way to put a friendly
scheme marker where you want, without the hassle of exposing your crew too
badly by physically moving models up there. For instance it’s the kind of thing
that makes schemes like Detonate the Charges almost trivial. I’ve also used one
to throw a scheme marker up the board for Leave your Mark, without my Wokou
Raider leaving the centreline.
Overall, I feel like the Wokou Raider is sort of a combination melee
fighter/scheme runner for Misaki. Coordinated
Raid discourages you from running up a flank on their own, but New Horizons should prove excellent at
moving existing scheme markers into position for scoring VPs.
Just your typical, Death Contract-loving Misaki crew. ;)
Death
Contract
While I’m not quite convinced this will have value in most 10-T crews,
as a “Discard or Die” effect this is practically an auto-include for Misaki. Our
Assassination-happy Ninja Master loves anything that makes your opponent
discard their cards, so Death Contract offers an easy way to encourage that.
Outside of Misaki, there’s probably some value in pairing Death
Contract with Misdirection, for what I hope are obvious reasons!
Brewmaster's a strong believer in equality...or at least sharing his moonshine around until everyone's off their face...
Equality
I’ve found Equality to be a great little upgrade. All three effects
(draw a card, heal 2 dg or drop a scheme marker) have their uses but most
importantly in my mind, it gives the Ten Thunders an upgrade that they’re not
going to discard at the first opportunity.
We all know Recalled Training
is amazing. But on a model without any other upgrades, once you use it they
lose any possible synergies with upgrade-dependent actions like the Obsidian
Oni’s heal or Shadow Emissary’s push & Fast. I used to take Smoke Grenades on one of my models when
I wanted an upgrade that would stick around for the game, but now Equality has
mostly taken its place.
For the same reasons, Equality is also another upgrade we can use
instead of Recalled Training for the scheme Show of Force – something I’ve
otherwise had trouble achieving compared to some of the other factions!
I don't have a Fuhatsu to show off, so here's some archers instead. :)
A
Memory of Honor
Fuhatsu is the only model I don’t yet have for the Ten Thunders, and
I’m not quite convinced this upgrade will change that. It’s nice to see that
he’s no longer useless once engaged, but it really only addresses one half of
what was wrong with him. His other issue is his inability to be pushed or moved
by other models, and in a Faction that’s packed to the brim with push effects,
that’s unforgivable. I still feel like an Earth Samurai or even Envy is the
better choice over Fuhatsu. With the upgrade I might finally buy him and try
him in a crew, but I don’t hold out hope for the poor guy.
This is my only Low River monk and honestly, he's the only one I'll ever need. ;)
The
Peaceful Waters
I didn’t think the Low River Monk needed an upgrade. Being able to
remove conditions for 4SS was enough for me, but the community decided
otherwise. So here we are. Fortunately, The Peaceful Waters is a great upgrade.
It basically adds Healing and placing scheme markers to the Low River Monk’s
in-game roles, so there’s now even more reason to take one.
Until next time,
Adrian
