Puppet Strings

I've been getting a lot of games against Jim and his new Cult army, and it's certainly an interesting experience.  I try to vary my lists each time we play so that Jim gets a new play experience and can see a variety of tactics.  For me, it's very different from playing against the Savage Wave - there are a lot of models I just can't target with Ki feats as they're either kami or soulless.  I also have a very hard time dealing with Kato's marionette when Jim uses it, mostly because it's durable and tends to be placed behind the battle line.  Part of me wants to make lists with Itsunagi to deal with things like that, but his rice cost and what it forces me to sacrifice in my list makes me very wary.

Nezumi seems to be a really irritating model for me to play against, as I constantly get him down to 1 health, and then he just refuses to die - Ki feats suddenly miss, attacks whiff, it all goes horribly wrong.  The Gaki seems to be a very solid  model for the Cult too, with good stats at a low rice cost.  I really dislike Kato, but that's more of a product of not being able to get to him most of the time, and every time the marionette does a Ki check, I roll a 1 and lose a model for 7 activations.

On my end I'm liking using Takeji as he is almost guaranteed to put damage on an enemy model provided he's the model attacking.  Naoko continues to be something of the linchpin of my particular play style, I just can't get enough of blind, and I really like being able to activate "Slither", allowing her to threaten the further away objectives or just get up the board.  I'm trying to get a similar use out of Chiyo and her leap trait, but it's not working out so far.

In my next couple of lists, I think I'm going to attempt bringing both Akimoto and Naoko to see how doubling up the impetuous works out.  I'm hoping it gives me a little more flexibility in how I start my turn, ideally with either of the two models at an objective - my great failing at the moment, I often leave Naoko away from an objective so she doesn't get to either take it or contest it at the start of the turn.  Maybe it will sell Akimoto a little better to me, as at the moment I think he's a terrible, terrible choice for any list known to man or beast.