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.

My Body is No Temple

Played against Dave tonight and his bakemono horde on the Envoy scenario - which ended in a draw, though that was my own fault really - and Dave is definitely out practice, so I can't really count it as a 'win', even if he did end the game with only one model left (Wu-zang).  I opted to use the shisai/debuff list since Dave chose the 'more painted models' option rather than the 'new hotness'.  My other list is more based around purely killing things.  I was thinking I could swap out Naoko from my debuff list and replace her with Kaihime, but that will have to wait until the archer is painted.

Now that I'm fully stocked with all the currently available Ito Clan, I'm starting to look around at the other factions available.  Strangely, the Silvermoon Trade Syndicate is very enticing, even with their tiny range of models at the moment.  If the STS continue with the starter box themes I can see them becoming true scenario monsters.  The applications of Tsubaki alone gives me the heebie-jeebies.  For a faction with more models available, the Temple of Ro-Kan look interesting, but I'd like more models like Suchiro with his half-robe rather than guys in jogging bottoms like Riku and Kenko.  Maybe it's time to sharpen up my sculpting skills.

New Snakes

Well, my latest Bushido order arrived incredulously fast straight from GCT.  I am now the proud owner of Kaihime (extra 'i' appeared from somewhere it seems) and Takeji.  Both are great models and I'm very happy with their rules.  Both are pretty solid choices that are self-sufficient, though of course Takeji benefits from having Satoshi in the list, but it's not vital.  Kaihime appears to have a typo on her card, stating she has Marital Prowess (1).  So... yep.

I tried both of them out in a quick game against Martin's Savage Wave (just one more game this coming week against Martin and then I have a wider range of opponents booked in for rotation) and found Kaihime isn't amazing, though she's nowhere near bad and I think she may really shine in lists with plenty of Blood of Orochi to go around as it's pretty easy to get damage through with ranged attacks and her ranged brackets are quite big - with 4 Blood on her, she should quite easily kill a 6 health model through the poison damage on the following turn.  Takeji just chops things, and he's good at it thanks to Cleave.  Combined with Satoshi, Takeji and the other bushi become very dangerous, especially if they're in close proximity.  Unfortunately the game was a match where I rolled phenomenal dice and Martin rolled abysmally - though I do feel that I engineer situations that highlight this sort of thing - so I didn't get to see the two of them at their finest as the game was over pretty quickly.

On the painting front I'm finding that the Dark Flesh from Vallejo behaves very strangely when I try to mix it with a highlight colour, leaving my model's skin looking like they're suffering gangrene.  I think I've solved it by mixing a tiny amount of red in, and it's certainly worked for Sakura anyway.  She's now finished, so I'm at 8 out of 12 models painted for the Ito Clan.  The remaining 4 are: Satoshi, Takeji, Ayako, and Kaihime.  Right now Satoshi is on the painting table and then Ayako will be next.  I'm just happy to have both starter box options painted now.

Jim is also picking up Bushido, and I've ordered him a good deal of Cult of Yurei models.  I think he's only really missing extra kairai and Mo Ises once his order arrives.  I was hoping the order would have arrived on Friday or Saturday but no news so far.  The models I ordered should provide Jim with a number of different playstyles, from fast and fragile to slow and never, ever dying.  Of course, he can mix and match as he chooses once he's played the game a bit and knows what he's after.  Now I just need to influence a few more of the old Warmachine players into picking up a gateway drug starter box each.