Malifaux Review/Speculation: Yan-Lo, Part 2

Part two: Izamu, Toshiro, and Yin.

After Yan-Lo’s starter box, there are three models I would identify as part of his main crew, and 2 that I would suggest everyone pick up if they were looking to build a small but complete Yan-Lo crew. Izamu the Armor, Toshiro the Daimyo, and Yin the Pennangalan are his 3 big power ancestors. You’ll probably want to include one of them in his list, but it isn’t strictly necessary (say if you’re going for a ton of cheap models to die quickly and build up his chi). Good secondary inclusions include the Punk Zombies (a part of Toshiro’s abilities) and canine remains.

Izamu is THE model everyone’s been having a bit of a disagreement over since book 4 dropped (Probably made worse by the fact that out of the three, he’s the one that’s not dual faction, so ten thunder players only get his awesome goodness with Yan-Lo). My personal opinion is he’s pretty balanced by book 4 standards, but some other models interactions with him make him a little silly. Stats wise, he’s just a big bruiser with a couple of neat tricks up his sleeve. Slow speed, average defense, but high hit points and a nasty weapon. The dadao has above average damage, with melee expert, plus flips on the damage, and a bonkers range of 3”. In addition, a tome trigger will make it magical and severe damage strikes let Izamu do a healing flip. Movement-wise, shove aside lets him move through height 1 and 2 models, but he has no other tricks outside of other models. Resiliency is where he truly shines. His two relic abilities involve bonuses when you cheat the defense flip (tome trigger: draw a card and the ability to cancel triggers based on which suit you cheat in). The riposte trigger will let him strike back attackers who miss him (a ruling classifies this as not a strike, so you can’t make a healing flip on a severe damage riposte). Finally, Izamu doesn’t have any armor score, instead he has object 2, which will make him incredibly hard to kill.

So where is he for the version 2 updates? I imagine he’s actually going to stay largely the same. None of his abilities are ridiculously complex, nor does he have too many of them. His big change will almost certainly be dropping object two down to the more standardized armor 2. The biggest changes I suspect will happen to other models, stripping away or reducing the ability for them to make other models incorporeal at will or add in more armor. That will take away people’s biggest complaint that he’s nearly invulnerable.

Toshiro is less beat stick and more of a buff master and summoner. His stats are largely average with a little slow speed. His weapons are again pretty average, with a choice of a short range/medium damage katana and a lower damage war fan with slow on severe. In addition, his bigger point of attacking is the reposition trigger to help him move around for his abilities. His relic abilities are his two major support ones: a 4” bubble that gives non master friends a +flip on melee attacks and a 0 action to reposition models. He picks an enemy model and every friendly undead or spirit within 3” of him pushes their walk towards the enemy. This is huge for speeding your army across the board as he only needs LoS to the enemy, no minimum range. Toshiro is also a minor summoner, able to bring some Ashigaru or Punk Zombies to the board. When one of the mentioned models dies within 6” of Toshiro he gains 2 counters and he gains one counter whenever an undead model damages an enemy with a melee attack in the same range. He can cast a spell to summon up his friends at the cost of 4 of these counters. Sadly, he wants to be right in the middle of the action due to his multiple short range bubbles (3-6” for all of his abilities) but he’s surprisingly squishy, having only average boxes and hard to wound 2. The bloated trigger will suggest your opponent not attack him, but it will never actually stop a determined opponent.

For 2.0 I foresee minor changes at best. Maybe taking away one of his weapons, tweaking a number or two in his abilities, maybe adding in a little bit of survivability. The release of product information for Wyrd’s first couple boxes at Gencon reduces one of the worries I had for 2.0 though. It appears that unlike the ashigaru in Yan-Lo’s box, starters will have their non-unique models available as a separate box. This is huge for Toshiro, as it would be cost prohibitive to play him with a master such as Leviticus if you had to buy the Yan-Lo and Nicodem boxes (assuming Punk Zombies are still in his starter) just to fully utilize him.

Yin is the one I see changing the most in 2.0. Her main theme is one of control, being a terrifying model (with Anathema to get around immunities) and then attacking them with wicked when they run in fear. Terror, anathema and wicked are her relic abilities as well. With horror duels changing to paralyze instead of make them run away, her main gimmick flat out doesn’t work as intended. In addition, she has more (and more complex) rules and abilities than the other two, so she’s probably going to be trimmed down a bit. As is right now, in addition to the wicked gimmick, Float and the drift trigger help her move around the table to get into melee with people. Mass of viscera give all attacks against her a –flip, which will make her VERY hard to hit (no cheating and all that). Once in the thick of things, she gives -1 WP and has a 0 action aura that gives a cumulative -1 WP every time they fail a willpower check. She can also constrict people to do damage and give slow, plus gain rams against them, which auto does her trigger for +flip on damage, which can be used on wicked attacks.

Basically, she’s got a theme, and she does it very well. All of her abilities help her get into melee and terrify everyone, then make a bunch of strikes against them all. It will be interesting to see what they do to her in the revision with the big changes to terror. Cutting away all of the disengaging strike abilities would both slim down her card and deal with the changes, while still keeping her a terrifying monster.

Model-wise, these were the first Wyrd plastics I nodded my head at and had very little to nitpick. Piece division largely makes sense and very little is too small or thin. Izamu does have a few small arrows and Toshiro’s top knot is it’s own piece, but nothing outrageous. As a small nod to modelers, Izamu comes with the option to leave his mask off, showcasing that he’s just an empty suit of armor. Very few mold lines as well (except for the two running about and down Izamu’s arms that I somehow completely missed all the way through assembly. Sorry about that y’all).