Broken Thunder (pt2)

This is part two of my Yan Lo review. Please have a read of part one if you haven't already.

So what is the best case Yan Lo

Well I have assumed you’ve taken his three specific upgrades (although Wings of Wind or Misdirection or Recalled Training can all be swapped in with some use). At full power you get Yan Lo with Chi +3, with Ash, Spirit and Bone Ascendant attached. This gives you a casting 8 master with a Df/wp (Tome Trigger) to get his Df/Wp from 5 to 8. He will be impossible to Wound, Incorporeal. He will be able to summon back dead ancestors and able to lunch a Hung Po Assault with Brutal Kharakhara (and make a Melee attack against each model in range with a positive attack and damage flip). You will be able to heal, hand out armour +2 and position assaults with Lightening Dance. You can drop Terracotta Curse to cause enemies damage when they walk/charge.

Wow Bad Luck and Blood, that sounds great. I can’t believe you are moaning. He’s awesome and you suck. Hear the internet scream with rage.

Broken Thunder

I thought it might be time to do a detailed review of Yan Lo now that I’ve been playing him for a good 6 months. I picked him up because I loved the model and fluff. I’ve run him in a ton of causal games and also at a couple of tournaments. I feel I’ve got enough of a handle on him to give him a review.

Now this is my own view, other opinions will vary! As a start point, I’ll put my cards on the table and say I am not a very good player. I have won a few games, even at tournaments with Yan Lo but I will never crack the top half of a tournament. I usually push my opponents quite hard to win, but it rarely troubles their scores. Having said that, I think I’ve picked up enough and played enough to evaluate Yan Lo. As with nearly every model made by Wyrd, Yan Lo is perfectly usable. With a few very rare exceptions (like Oiran) there aren’t really any completely non-viable models in the game. However, just because a model can be used and even win, it doesn’t make it good. 

Also, I’m not going to settle for “but you could add this model and then he is fine because of the great synergy” If a model has synergy great, but it shouldn’t have to be used to simply make a Master more viable. If it is specifically designed that way, that's different (e.g. Nicodem and Mortimer). I do know that Masters don’t exist in a vacuum but other models are only considered where the Masters skill is making them better, not where they have to make up for the short comings of the Master. I’ll bend that rule slightly for the Viktorias as they are a package as is Dreamer. I think you get where I’m coming from. 

In part 1 I’ll give a run down of the various things he can do. In part 2 I’ll lay out the various roles I think Masters can fulfil. Finally I’ll look at Yan Lo against those roles and see how he fits and his overall effectiveness. 

“The Thunder Builds”

My Darksphere Tournament write up.

Ok first a massive well done to Pete and Darksphere for putting on a truly excellent tournament. What a great turn out – 18 players I think. 

The tables were pretty good and the crews pretty varied.

I turned up with an air of excitement and an almost painted 10 Thunder Crew. As usual I stuck to mostly the same crew no matter what the strategy, scheme or opponent. This worked better for me than I expected.

Calling down the Thunder

So my first year of Malifaux has finished. Hard to believe I’ve only been playing since Spring 2014. It has actually become quite a key part of my life.

I’ve enjoyed playing the Viktorias as my first crew, and sort of enjoyed Nicodem as my second crew. I’ve decided I want a nice melee crew that has some range and flexibility with the extra character from strange movement/casting effects. The Viks are tough, and hit hard and I’ll round them out with some Freikorp over the next year, but I’ve decided to switch to Ten Thunders as I love the theme and the mechanics of the crews seem to be a nice mix of complex and straightforward melee so they have a bit more depth and variety than the Viktoria’s.

Now Ten Thunders have some gorgeous models and I felt spoilt for choice. I will be picking up Shen Long when he arrives, but for now I’ve gone with Yan Lo.

I chose him because he can play as ressurrectionist and uses some resser models even when he is a Ten Thunder master, so I can get some mileage out of my resser collection. He has a great interaction with Toshiro and Izamu as well as finding punk zombies useful.