M2E+Yan+Lo


 * Yan Lo, Ten Thunders / Resser Master**

=Overview= What does Yan Lo offer that other Masters don't? At first glance his rather basic stat line leaves a little to be desired. He has no real defensive abilities (yet) and no tricks for avoiding damage like **Armor** or **Incorporeal** (yet). He does offer some fun opportunities to watch him power up and then become quite fearsome. He is a master that makes //Spirits// meaner and loves the **Adversary** Condition.

Yan Lo offers surprising mobility tricks, synergy with a diverse and powerful set of Ancestor models, and an unusual summoning mechanic: he can't summon new models, but can bring back dead Ancestor models back once each. He also has a rapid power-growth mechanic during the game: as the game goes on and models kill each other, Yan Lo's **Ca** score increases with the **Chi** condition, and he can spend that **Chi** to gain powerful Ascendant Upgrades that let him expand to new specializations during play.

=__Mobility__= Yan Lo is an old man, and his age shows in his stats. He has a mediocre **Wk** stat and a similar **Cg**. However, he also has a trick up his sleeve, **Lightning Dance**. With this action he can place himself into base contact with an enemy and then place the target into base contact with a friendly model. This lets you teleport in and bump an enemy model somewhere else nearby. This is great for when you activate Yan Lo early and Lightning Dance him to an enemy then teleport them into a pile of your minions or heavy hitters.

You can use this ability twice to pop Yan Lo among the enemy, rattle off a shot with **Spirit Barrage**, then target the same enemy you did before (who is safely in your lines) and then pop back behind the lines only to put that enemy somewhere else.

=__Chi__=
 * Chi** is Yan Lo's special trick he picked up over the years. On it's own, it increases his **Ca**, depending on how many **Chi** he has gathered. (Note: there is a cap on the **Ca** bonus (+3), but you can hold as much **Chi** as you like). As most of his actions are **Ca** actions, he is able to pull them off easier the more he has gathered. In addition to this, Yan Lo can spend **Chi** to fuel his actions. However, sometimes it's better to keep **Chi** in your pool to benefit from the increased **Ca**, especially early in the game. **Chi** gained from any source lasts until the end of the game unless it gets removed.

Harvesting Chi
There are several ways of increasing the **Chi** condition. The first and most obvious is **Harvest Chi**, which generates **Chi** when a friendly model gets killed by an enemy. This also works when an enemy is killed by one of your models. So you are getting **Chi** when you kill their models and when they kill your models. Tying into this, Yan Lo gains **Chi** with //Revitalize//, a trigger on **Spirit Barrage**, when he deals Severe damage or kills the target. This combined with **Harvest Chi** can allow you to gain two **Chi** from a single model. Even when things are not dying near him, he’s able to build up **Chi** with **Focus Ch**i. This allows him to trade a card for **Chi**. This is very useful early in the game, allowing you to trade a weaker resource for a more useful one.


 * **Harvest Chi:** When a friendly model is killed by an enemy model or an enemy model is killed by a friendly model.
 * **Focus Chi:** Discard a card
 * **Revitalize:** On Severe or Killing.

Utilizing Chi
In addition to having **Chi** increase your Ca actions, it can also be used for specific actions. The most important one, **Ascendance**, is Yan Lo's source of power. It allows him to lower his **Chi** value to attach an Ascendant upgrade. ignoring normal Upgrade restrictions. This is where Yan Lo gets his more powerful defensive and offensive tricks. In addition, he can use **Transcedance**. This allows you to use **Chi** to give friendly models **Armor +2** and the Spirit characteristic. While the Armor is great in order to protect critical models, it's the Spirit characteristic where this action shines. This can be used with the **Adversary** condition (handed out by Resurrectionist Spirits, most commonly Onryo) to gain Positive Flips on attacks. It can also be used with **Fury of Yomi** in order to gain a lot of additional actions.

= __Offense__ = At first glance, Yan Lo doesn't seem to have many offensive powers, but this can quickly change when **Chi** builds up and he gains Ascendant upgrades. Yan Lo's main attack is **Spirit Barrage**, a low **Ca**, low damage attack. However, as a **Ca** attack it benefits from **Chi**, quickly increasing its accuracy. This attack has a single built-in trigger, //Revitalize//, which grants **Chi** when dealing Severe damage or killing the target. As such, it's best utilized when you can make a finishing attack or are certain you can deal Severe damage, like when benefiting from Focus

With Brutal Khakkhara

 * Brutal Khakkhara** is gained from the Upgrade with the same name and gives Yan Lo a powerful Ml attack. It doesn't gain any benefit from harvested **Chi**, but it has a very good damage track and even deals damage when taken as a Disengaging Strike! As such, Yan suddenly becomes a strong contender in melee against average to low Df models.

=__Resilence__= On his own, Yan Lo is pretty frail. He has an average Df**,** Wp, and Wd, but not great for a Master, and he lacks any special defensive abilities. He'll likely need some Defensive Upgrades when hiring (such as **Fortify the Spirit**, **Unnerving Aura,** or **Misdirection**), or by gaining the **Ash Ascendant** or **Spirit Ascendant** Upgrades during play.

Yan Lo can also improve the resilience of his crew with **Instill Youth**, which heals the target equal to the amount you exceed the TN of the spell, up to a maximum of 4. Since this benefits from **Chi**, you're likely to get 4 every time once you reach **Chi +3**. Don't forget to keep a high card in hand to cheat in case you desperately need the heal. As said earlier, he can also use **Chi** for **Transcendence**, granting Spirit and **Armor +2** to targets. Making them tougher and allowing them to gain many spirit-related buffs.

Ascended
When Yan gains one of his Ascendant upgrades, his resilience increases greatly. Ash Ascendant grants **Impossible to Wound** and Spirit Ascendant grants **Incorporeal**. Having either one of these upgrades greatly increases his Staying Power, and having both is even better. Try to grab one of these as soon as possible if you need defensive help. If you brought a Defensive Upgrade or keep him out of the fight, this is less of a priority.

=__ Upgrades __=

Yan Lo has two separate pools of Upgrade choices depending on whether he's hired as a Resurrectionist or a Ten Thunders Master. Additionally, he can use **Ascendance** to gain up to three very powerful Ascendant Upgrades during play.

Yan Lo's Upgrades
Yan Lo can use these Upgrades in either Faction.

Fortify the Spirit
This defensive Upgrade gives Yan Lo a trigger that adds his **Chi** level (up to +3) to Df and Wp duels. This increases Yan Lo's defenses, and it also ignores any weird Wp tricks the enemy might have. Note that it also can be taken when making a simple duel, such as **Terrifying**. Very useful if you intent to not spend much **Chi** on **Ascendance**. At 1ss cost it’s not a terrible choice, but if you are tight, it can be cut.

Reliquary
One of Yan Lo’s premier Upgrades, Reliquary lets you resurrect a fallen Ancestor. This Upgrade does require some good control hands or using SS to get the Tome you need. This will only let you summon an Ancestor you bought at the beginning of game, but it gives them a second chance to come back. If you **Rebuild Corpus** and then use **Instill Youth** on any of the Ancestors, they are almost back to full health right away. Izamu, the Daimyo, and Yin are all the best choices for this kind of thing. This gives you the option to throw them into the meat grinder and hopefully build up some of Yan Lo’s **Chi** before you let them bite the dust and just come right back. They are summoned anew, so any Upgrades bought are lost upon reviving them.

Brutal Khakkhara
Gives Yan his melee attack with the same name. This makes Yan Lo a strong contender in Melee, it also makes him rather a pain to get away from, as it deals damage on disengaging strikes. Note that unlike Spirit Barrage, Brutal Khakkhara does not benefit from his **Chi**. It does combine beautifully with **Hunpo Assault** from **Bone Ascendant** (below).

** Awakening **
An excellent limited upgrade that does a lot and should probably always be a consideration. It gives Yan Lo **Instinctual**, allowing him to use both **Instill Youth** and **Ascendance** during the same activation and continue to support his crew while he powers up. Alternatively, you can use one of the those actions and do an extra **Lightning Dance** as the upgrade lets that action be taken as a (0) Action. With this upgrade Yan Lo can do **Lightning Dance** four times! That's a lot of board control. Finally, the upgrade gives **Lightning Dance** the **Sparks of Wisdom** trigger. After succeeding with a Tome, if the target is still in base contact, they take 2 damage and gain **Slow**. Useful if you have the enemy right where you want them or they're nearly dead.

Follow Their Footsteps
This upgrade does two things. First, it gives Yan Lo **Chi** every time the opponent gains 1 or more VP. As a result, you may not want to totally block your opponent from scoring, to allow you to rack up some extra **Chi**. The second and more important part of the upgrade is **Follow the Path**, which lets Yan Lo change Ascendant Upgrades on the fly or cash them in for **Chi**. At the start of his activation, he can discard one Ascendant Upgrade and get **Chi** equal to its cost and then spend **Chi** to get a new Ascendant Upgrade. Alternatively, he can just keep the **Chi** to power up his Ca or use for **Transcendence**.

Ascendant Upgrades
Yan Lo acquires these Upgrades during place with the **Ascendance** action. These special Upgrades cannot be bought at the start of the game, can exceed the normal upgrade slot limit, and cost **Chi** to gain.

Ash Ascendant
Gives **Impossible to Wound,** his first defensive power, greatly increasing his survivability. Also gives **Terracotta Curse,** a rather strong way of controlling the field. This action forces enemies to make a **Wp** duel or suffer damage from Walking or Charging. This is just one further reason that you should activate Yan Lo early. Free damage against your opponents is always nice. This also allows you to keep your opponent bogged down so you can control the field and choose your targets. You can use **Lightning Dance** to teleport into a herd of enemies, drop **Terracotta Curse** to make it dangerous to move, then **Lightning Dance** out. This ability allows you to control the field if your opponent bunches up too much.

This Upgrade has priority if you are facing many casting enemies, you're in need of general defense, or are facing many mobile enemy models.

Spirit Ascendant
This Upgrade gives Yan Lo another defensive ability, **Incorporeal**. This combined with his other upgrades can make him really tough. **Incorporeal** also increases his mobility, as it allows him to ignore models and terrain when moving. His action, **Fury of Yomi**, is costly, but can make several Spirits take a (1) action. This can be used either in conjunction with models that are already Spirits, or ones you turned into Spirits using **Transcendence**.

This action is best taken when not facing many casting attacks to benefit from **Incorporeal**. It's also very beneficial if you need to move through a lot of terrain. **Fury of Yomi** greatly benefits Spirits, so if you start with several Spirits it's a very useful tool to improve them.

Bone Ascendant
Yan Lo's third Ascendant Upgrade is all offense, giving the costly but powerful **Hunpo Assault** action. Yan Lo uses **Hunpo Assault** to zip forward and hit every enemy within range, with an increase to attack and damage flips. Here is where Yan Lo becomes a combat monster. Clustered enemies had best watch out as Yan Lo goes to town on them. Pair this with the **Brutal Khakkara** upgrade, and you are dishing out some serious hate to a lot of targets.

As said, this is mostly taken after another Ascendant, as you'll need defensive improvements before you go Into the Fray. **Brutal Khakkara** is almost a must for this, as it greatly improves the damage output. It can also be considered without that attack, but it's far less effective that way.

Blood Ascendant
The newest Ascendant Upgrade, one even more expensive than **Bone Ascendant**, this one turns Yan Lo into a killing machine. Not only does he gain **Weird Glowing Mouth Light**, a Close attack with the same reach and damage as Brutal Khakkara, but it uses Ca and thus can benefit from Chi and possibly become an attack 8. Plus, when he kills something with it, all friendly Ancestors heal 1 wound. To top it all off, he gets **Casting Expert** giving him another AP to attack or **Lightning Danc**e with. Combined with the **Awakening** Upgrade, Yan Lo can take a staggering six actions during an activation: 3 general, 2 (0) Actions, and 1 Ca Action.

Resurrectionist General Upgrades
Yan Lo can take these Upgrades if he's hired as a Resurrectionist Master. .

Unnerving Aura
Inflicts damage on models that begin and end their activation within the aura. Using Yan Lo's resilience combined with several of his teleporting tricks might make this a good idea. Teleporting in to a group of enemies and locking them down with **Terracotta Curse**. Remember to make most Disengaging strikes with **Spirit Barrage** when possible, as it's Ca will most of the time be higher than **Brutal** **Khakkhara**. Best used on a melee focused Yan Lo, but can be good in other builds.

Decaying Aura
Negates Soulstone usage on the target and healing in the aura. Useful if you want to make Yan Lo a heavy beater capable of taking down Henchmen and Masters. A good choice if you're planning to use a **Bone Ascendant** / **Hunpo Assault** build.

Transfusion
Gives the titular action to move all **Poison** from a single model to the target model. Not that useful as Yan Lo doesn't have many **Poison** tricks. Also, you want to use his (0) actions for other tricks, such as **Instill Youth** or **Ascendance**.

Maniacal Laugh
Gives the **Mwahahaha** action, raising nearby corpses as Mindless Zombies. This can be useful with Toshiro's **Eternal Servitude** or other dead rising actions. Certainly a decent option, but remember that it uses one of his (0) actions, so only take it with a certain plan.

Corpse Bloat

 * Corpse Bloat ** gives two new actions. The first, ** Unforgiven Stench ** allows you to blow up a corpse to deal damage, while the second, ** You Don't Need a Spleen....Right? ** allows the user to suffer damage in order to drop a Corpse Marker. Mostly better used on a Henchmen than Yan Lo. It has it's merits if you want to blow up corpses for some good damage, but don't expect it to generate many Corpses itself, as it competes with other (0) actions.

Asylum Stone
Allows you to use a Soulstone in order to increase your Df and Wp for the duel. You can also discard it to make target enemy within LoS make a Horror duel. **Fortify the Spirit** is a far better option to this, as you can trigger the increase on any tome without spending Soulstones. The horror discard trick might work sometimes, but it's not a good upgrade overall.

Spare Parts
Gives additional Summoning actions to summon Guild Autopsies and Rogue Necromancies from Corpse Counters. These Ca actions don't benefit from **Chi**, sadly. Even with this, they offer two great summon options. Mostly you will use it to summon Autopsies. Sometimes it can be used to summon a Rogue Necromancy, but that won't happen that often. If you don't take other models that require Corpses, it can be a good substitute for them.

Servant of 5 Dragons
Increases Yan Lo's Wp and allows him to discard the upgrade to discard all Scheme Markers within range. Certainly a useful upgrade, as the static Wp improvement is good and the Scheme discard could come in handy in some situations. A good choice if you have another slot and Soulstones to spare.

Broken Promises
You can discard this upgrade to gain additional defenses for a turn. It can be used to gain a turn of additional defense when you jump into a battle with **Hunpo Assault**. This can make his defense almost impenetrable when you take **Ash** and **Spirit Ascendant** into account.

Recalled Training
A cheap upgrade, but very powerful. Discard to give a positive twist on all actions for the Activation, which is much more efficient than using a Soulstone for a single positive twist. A very powerful tool when paired with **Hunpo Assault**, making Yan Lo a brutal melee master for a single Turn. Even without that, it can be used to improve any flips he makes for a turn. Remember that it can only be used once, so use it when you need to make it count.

Dragon Stone
Like **Asylum Stone**, it a llows you to use a Soulstone in order to increase your Df and Wp for the duel. You can also discard it to gain **Focused +1**. Like **Asylum Stone**, it is outclassed by other upgrades, such as **Fortify the Spirit**. Not a great option.

Misdirection
Grants a Trigger to Yan Lo's Df. When an Attack succeeds, you can pass of the Attack to another target within 2" unless the target discards two cards. A very powerful upgrade that increases Yan Lo's defense. As with **Broken Promises**, this can be stacked with his Ascendant upgrades to gain many layers of defense. You can also pass off attacks towards enemies, making it a powerful tool when slipping deep into enemy territory. Note that you can't pass off Attacks to the Attacker.

= __Tactics and Tips__ = The key to Yan Lo is his flexibility. He can support your crew or go offensive and smash the enemy. He can also adapt these strategies on the fly when necessary, but be careful not to weaken yourself by trying to do too much at once. Yet, such flexibility is a powerful tool, not to be underestimated. As such, you should remain open to the needs of the game as it develops. As Yan Lo is weaker without his Ascendant upgrades, you must build and manage **Chi** to get the most out of him. It should be focused on to get Ca and Ascendant upgrades as soon as possible.

As such, managing **Chi** is something that you need to learn when playing Yan Lo. Sometimes it's smarter to hold on to your **Chi** so **Instill Youth** heals more or it's easier to cast one of his spells. Sometimes boosting his resilience, movement or melee power is more valuable. It depends on the situation and what his crew needs from him.

__ **Leading a Crew** __ Yan Lo can fill a lot of holes in a crew but it depends on what you want him to do. To this end, investing in upgrades with plans is a great option. For example, if you want to hit people, getting **Brutal Khakkhara** is a good idea, and then Ascending into **Bone Ascendant** to utilize **Hunpo Assault**. Otherwise, he can be used to support models, most likely Spirits, with **Fury of Yomi**, **Instill Youth**, and **Transcendence**. Bringing a crew that supports a certain playstyle is fine, but having some models to offer more general support is also a good idea.

Retainers
Yan Lo can hire up to 4 out of faction Retainer models, due to Infiltration (Retainer). These are:
 * Komainu
 * Ashigaru
 * Onryo
 * Goryo
 * Sun Quiang

(Note that this means he can run his crew box as Ten Thunders.)

Starting a Crew
Yan Lo's current crew box comes with the following models.
 * Yan Lo
 * Chiaki, The Niece
 * 3 Ashigaru
 * Soul Porter

This gives Yan Lo a pretty decent starting crew, without pushing him into a certain faction, as he can still take all models within with both factions. For further purchases it is recommended to get one or more of the remaining Ancestor models. After that, it's smart to take the Retainer models. All these models can be taken in either faction, allowing for greater flexibility.

Totems
Soul Porter As with many totems this one has a weaker stat line, however, it also comes with **Incorporeal** to help cope with that. Though **Insignificant**, this is a model you will want to use to build up your other models. It can make Conditions stay on friendly models in large Aura. It can also push Ancestors around when they are too lazy to walk and sacrifice himself to provide **Chi**. He also has a decent melee attack that can build **Chi** on friendly models.

Kamaitachi Ten Thunder only totem. It isn't significant, but is a Minion, which can come in handy in certain situations. It deals respectable damage and can push Minions or Yan Lo around. But the main usage of him is his ability to draw a card when a model attaches an upgrade or heal a model when it discards an upgrade.

Graveyard Spirit A useful totem that increases the survivability of models. Can stack high armor coupled with **Transcendence**. A useful choice if you don't have many ancestors or want a very tough Yan Lo.

Peons
Seishin These little spirits are an great source of early game chi for Yan Lo as even minimum damage from spirit barrage will kill one. They can be summoned with Datsue Ba with the Spirit Whispers upgrade, by the Goryo's tactical action, or the Spirit Beacon upgrade.

=__Trivia__= "By Yan Lo's Beard!" is a common expression of frustration. It is named after Yan Lo's beard, a very difficult part to assemble.

This Tactica is based on the work of forums user Fenrisian Unless otherwise stated, all names and images on this site are property of Wyrd Miniatures, LLC. ([|Link])
 * __Ownership__ **