Thursday 12 July 2018

Passing Time

It turns out pass token Prefecture against Death & Decay Cult is very boring.  Having Critical Strike does tend to win out over Kairai though.  As it is, I really like the Prefecture, and I think I'll get more of it at some point.  I'll get this Hare warband painted up and hopefully try it out against a wider variety of foes, though probably go a bit lighter on the pass tokens.  I do feel like I have an answer for everything as Prefecture at the moment.

I tried out the unusual tactic for the Jung of Flanking with Ryota and Sho in my Queen of the Waves warband.  It didn't work out too well, so I think I'll put that particular tactic on hold for now.  The Kaizoku with Scout worked out nicely, it feels like you can definitely push up towards objectives more aggressively than normal with them starting just that little bit further forward.  I'm still getting used to how the new iteration of Jung Mari works, so I expect my game results to improve quickly if I continue to test her out.

We did discover that Corner Deployment has some issues with Scout, so I think it's going to change quite drastically in the near-future.  That way Scout and some other effects don't simply break the game by accident.

I did a test against the Ito Clan, and holy dice gods they’re terrifying to play against.  They’re across the board almost instantly.  I do like the updated Ayako, but I suspect she’s going to lose some abilities so that she fits on a single card.  She’s good enough to take as a solo shisai.  My Jung really didn’t feel like I had a good answer for Yatsumata appearing across the table from me, but I think everyone’s going to feel like they have this problem.  When you see one of the top end fighting models across from you, it’s going  to feel intimidating.

Prefecture probably has the best universal answer to these problems: a lucky SL0 Critical Strike solves most problems.  I do find it funny that a SL0 Critical Strike is scarier than a SL4 damage roll.

Saturday 7 July 2018

Blink Dog

My Prefecture of Ryu testing as begun.  And what an amazing debut game they had!  After a couple of test games I'm bewildered as to why people aren't destroying all their opponents with Atsushi and Shinobu.  That dog is ludicrously dangerous and mobile.  You can threaten the enemy board edge on turn one with it.  Why are Prefecture players not doing this?!  It's actually taken me a couple of games to figure out how to play against it, and even then I feel like I'm surrendering positioning to counter a 3 rice model.

I'm quite enjoying the Prefecture playstyle.  There's something to be said for being able to ignore most of the trap techniques to kill models in the game.  You made my model Impetuous?  No worries, I'll activate them after I use these 10 pass tokens.  I do see weaknesses in the faction, but that's to be expected, no faction has answers for everything.  The first thing I'm wary of is the lack of native Sixth Sense in the faction, and the next is that lack of Jump Up/Steady.  These are not problems I've previously had across my factions, it will take some getting used to.

I've tried out a new iteration of my Queen of the Waves warband with Jung Mari, and I'm happy with how it feels, though I'd like an unnamed 9 rice (new rice) profile so that I can get more models that use her captain buff.  The change to the Jung themes and the Kancho’s has effectively removed a benefit from each theme and put it on the appropriate Kancho instead.  It’s just occurred to me that the update to Flank to make it guaranteed reliable means that my Queen of the Waves warband is just that little bit more cunning and brings in an extra trick.  That gives my warband 5 models that either deploy further forward or use Flank...  hmmm...

Today’s testing will involve the Prefecture, and I shall report on Jim’s response to both warbands.