Culinary Excellence

The wikia is both surprisingly easy and surprisingly tedious.  Adding images is a giant hassle, though I did just discover the 'classic' editor... It's much easier for me to create entries using the classic editor, but I've already done so many entries in the default editor, swapping over would require redoing a lot of work.  It's probably going to be a very slow growth, as I have a job and all that normal real-life weirdness that keeps eating my time.  On a side note: my culinary skills are pretty damn amazing.

Tested out the new revised dual-shisai warband with additional fighting models.  It works really, really well.  Yatsumata behind an objective with Camouflage (2) is stupidly awesome - hilariously so in fact.  The Jade Witch is really good with a samurai to throw Ki at, and she's constantly brimming with Ki as long as you're harassing your opponent.  The more conservative vipers are really nice to have around too, as I no longer have the temptation of Dark Secrets in the warband.  Now they can just lurk on the edges of the board, looking menacing until the time is right.

There's quite a lot you can do with this particular combination of shisai.  A little bit of a sneaky combo to do with Satuski and the Jade Witch is to land Death Sentence on an enemy model, then Psychic Drain all the Ki away so the enemy model can't clear the Death Sentence off at the start of next turn - or they could after generating Ki but then they'll have no Ki to use during the turn.  It's an interesting form of Ki denial.  Or you can simply Death Sentence an animal since they can't store Ki and thus can't remove the Death Sentence.

Orochi Snake Cult (50 Rice)
Yatsumata
Kenzo Ito
The Jade Witch
Satsuki
Temple Asp
Shimogamo Viper
Shimogamo Viper
The Blessed (theme)

I'd like to have put some special cards in there, but the cost of putting them in versus the models I wanted to take to shore up the warband moved me more towards better models.  I'm a bit stumped at how I'd take on certain warbands, but there's nothing like a little trial-by-fire to figure out solutions in a hurry.

Ka-caw

The Tengu Decension are now available for pre-order.  It's the starter box and 5 additional profiles: Sanjakubo, Ryuhobo, Hill Tribe Warrior, Buzenbo, and the Zephyr Guard.  With the additional profiles from the special cards, it's still a very limited selection of profile to construct a warband, but it's a start.

Buzenbo isn't as an amazing all-rounder as he was in playtest, but that was to be expected - there were only a trio of profiles to take at the top end of the faction, and he was the best by quite a large margin at covering all the bases.  I expect the majority of the big, scary profiles of the faction to be kurama tengu like Buzenbo: larger bases, maybe Wing Buffet as a Ki-feat (yes please!), and generally being a badass.

I really want to see what the Tengu Decension themes are, all I can really remember from testing is that one only allowed tengu on 30mm bases.  No idea what the theme actually did, but Sojobo is on a 30mm base...  Weirdly I'm actually looking forward to finding out what more of the tribesmen do in the faction, given that there's only a measly 3 profiles for them at the moment.

Tomorrow I'm playing against Mark Watson and his Silvermoon Trade Syndicate, I'm going to try a Ito Clan Blessed warband with the shisai without Naoko and more heavy hitters - so both Yatsumata and Kenzo.  Poor Saburo gets downgraded into a simple Temple Asp.  I was also thinking of trying out Yuui and a new test profile along with Kenzo for more mid-range rice costed fighting power, but I think that's more of a Mizuki type of thing.  Also uses a test profile and I haven't painted Yuui yet.  I'd rather go for the fully painted warband.

Double Trouble, The Wiki Begins

The Jade Witch is amazing.  No really, especially when you bring her in the Blessed theme.  I was really surprised since whenever I used her in playtest, things did not work out all that well - the theme was also slightly better in playtest and I imposed my own restrictions on it (no samurai for instance) since I believed it was going to get nerfed into the ground.  Back to the Jade Witch however...  She reaps in Ki like no tomorrow if you can position right - and not get the other shisai killed - and threaten your opponent constantly.  The sheer amount of Ki I was getting was pretty unbelievable, there weren't many turns when she wasn't at maximum Ki.  I'm going to try her out in a few more games, and I'm curious at how the warband will handle bad match ups - like the Death and Decay theme from the Cult of Yurei.  Badly I suspect.

I'm also trying out new things with the Shimogamo Vipers, being much more conservative with them and trying to play for later game rather than trying to win by turn 4.  Rather than trying to declare melee actions all the time, I may as well do the odd disengage just to keep them alive and keep them harassing my opponent.  That and I don't need to use Dark Secrets on turn 1, that's just a luxury.  Unfortunately I'm a now person, not a later person, so like the scorpion crossing the river I'm having to fight against my nature to make it happen.

This week's Tengu Decension reveal is Ryuhobo, one of the Koroko (owl) tengu.  He's a very nifty support model, but quite defensive in how you use him.  If I were to list similar support models, I'd say he's like a mix of Shuichi/Old Zo?  He's nice to have in most warbands but I think he'll fall by the wayside for most people since he's not an aggressive or particularly proactive profile.  I quite like him with any of the big hitters of the faction, Ryohobo keeps them up and running.

Oh yes, I started to create the Jumo Ring wikia.  It's still a big work-in-progress but I hope to create something that other people will maintain on their own until I destroy it in a fit of pique!  MWAHAHAHAHAHA!  Or you know, it ends up running itself.  The plan is to keep adding the bare-bones of a few profiles each day until there's an entry for everything, and then start filling in the gaps with more solid tactics and techniques.

Riddle Me This, Riddle Me That

My special cards arrived in the post the other day.  I'm happy with how the Ito Clan themes came out, though I suspect I'm extremely unlikely to use the Lords of Izu theme - it's just not my thing really.  The Blessed theme on the other hand is pretty much every Ito Clan warband I ever make, so free bonuses for me!  Woohoo.  It's not quite as good for non-shisai as it was in playtest, but the benefits you can choose every turn are still pretty good to have.  Hugely disappointed with Shomyo to Orochi though.

The generic cards bring a particularly horrific one to the types of warband I like to play: Amaterasu's Riddle.  This card just plain out takes me out of the game for a turn.  I'm sure on the following turn I'll have the Ki to do some real nastiness, but still, I'm 90% sure there's I'd rather be able to use my Ki feats this turn than have lots of Ki next turn.  It's a card you just can't rule out if you're planning a tournament warband.  I think people won't use it for ages, then someone will figure it out (cough cough) and suddenly it'll become the new metagame.

The Cult of Yurei themes are also worth looking at.  One allows just about every model in the faction except kairai, the other one is almost exclusively for kairai.  The kairai one is actually hugely viable with Desecrated Grave and Haunted Well.  I think the Desecrated Grave is ruinous for a lot of early scenario push warbands, it allows you to place up to 2 kairai immediately in contact with a midline objective or for them to start within a zone.

Having said all that, it's going to be interesting to see how the game is going to shape up over the next couple of months as people get used to the new special cards and two new factions being released (granted the Shadow Wind ninjas will only be available to the Rise of the Kage backers).  I'm really feeling the Tengu Decension at the moment, I just need to sit on my hands for a month.