M2E+Soul+porter

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 * Soul Porter, Ten Thunders / Ressurrectionists Totem (Yan Lo)**

=__Overview__=

The Soul Porter is Yan Lo's dedicated totem. It mostly helps **Ancestors** move around the table and is another source to obtain the **Chi** condition, which gives +1 to Ca for each point up to +3.

=__Mobility__=

The Soul Porter is very quick with a high Wk of 6, an average Cg of 6. Most important of all, he has **Incorporeal**, meaning he ignores models and terrain while moving or pushing. This means he can really go wherever he wants, though his **Peon** characteristic and **Insignificant** ability does stop him from being any good as an objective grabber.

Empower Ancestor
This is the most powerful action on the Soul Porter's card and the biggest reason to hire one. This action is a (1)AP tactical action that targets an **Ancestor** within 8" and lets it push up to it's Wk in any direction. This action can't be used more than once on the same model in the same activation, but it gives an immense amount of mobility to all **Ancestors**, helping them move up the field, getting out of tight spots or helping them transit terrain. Do be mindful when using your whole activation to move **Ancestors** since the Soul Porter may end up left behind and needing to catch up to the rest of your crew.

=__Offense__=

Bladed Spear
This is the Soul Porter's only attack action. It is surprisingly precise at a Ca of 6, targets Wp, has a huge Melee Range of 3" and has a tame damage spread of 1/2/3. The attack by itself, though surprisingly accurate for a totem, is still pretty meager damage wise, but the whole reason of using this action is the //Siphon Chi// trigger. //Siphon Chi// lets the Soul Porter give **Chi +1** to any friendly model 6" from it after damaging an enemy. It is very important to emphasize that it works on any friendly model and not just **Ancestors**. This is the only way currently to give the **Chi** condition to models outside of the Ancestor characteristic. As you might expect it can be pretty huge and cause some amusing interactions like giving **Chi** to Sensei Yu and letting him use **Ascendance** thanks to copying Yan Lo's (0)Action to attach one of the **Ascendant** upgrades.

Enlighten Ancestor
This is the Soul Porter's only (0)Action. It lets you sacrifice the Soul Porter to give **Chi +1** to a friendly **Ancestor** up to 8" from him. Though not strictly offense, it does help to power up your **Ancestors**. You do have to have a pretty good reason to sacrifice the Soul Porter thanks to the tools he brings to a Yan Lo crew, though in situations where you want to deny the enemy getting the kill (**Reckoning**) or just to maximize **Chi** gain at a given time it can be very worth it.

=__Resilience__=

The Soul Porter can be surprisingly hardy for it's cost, though any focused attention will kill it quickly. He has a Df and Wp of 5 which is a nice start, a very low Wd of 3, but makes up for it with **Incorporeal**. **Incorporeal** means that all Ml and Sh actions cause half damage (rounding up) to the Soul Porter, meaning that 2 damage becomes 1 and 3 damage becomes 2 and so on. As long as it's not a Ca action or indirect damage (**Burning**), he should be able to take a punch or two before going down.

On the Altar of Eternity
The **On the Altar of Eternity** ability generates a 10" aura that stops enemies from removing conditions from your models if you don't want to. This pretty much just equates to a way to protect the **Chi** condition on your models and stop enemy condition removers from stripping it away. If you are facing an enemy that has strong condition removal (Lady Justice, Chiaki, Witchling Stalkers), you should probably be more conservative with the Soul Porter since keeping the **Chi** condition on the table may be very important for your game plan.

=__Tips and Tricks__=

First off, before hiring the Soul Porter, you do have to keep in mind that to get the most out of the Soul Porter, you need to have models with the **Ancestor** ability around, which are Yan Lo himself, Chiaki the Niece, Yin the Penangalan, Toshiro the Daimyo and Izamu the Armor. Having at the very least 2-3 models with the **Ancestor** characteristic is recommended if you really want to get good use out of the Soul Porter.

The biggest thing to keep in mind with the Soul Porter is the use of **Empower Ancestor**. It having a nice range of 8", and more importantly, not requiring a flip of any kind, means it's one of the most reliably pushes in the game, so use it and abuse it. Be it to move Izamu or Yin faster up the board or to get Yan Lo or Toshiro out of trouble, always try to keep the ability as an option and forcing your opponent to play based on the idea that at any given time, the Soul Porter can activate and move a couple of **Ancestors**.

Chi
This is the other big reason to take the Soul Porter. The **Siphon Chi** trigger is the main mechanism the Soul Porter has to obtain **Chi** and spreading it around. It is risky because of how frail the Soul Porter is, but if he manages to give out 2-3 **Chi** points while stabbing people, chances are it was worth it and his 6" Cg with his 3" Melee Range does give him a very good threat range. Also, to help keep him alive and to gum up the enemy crew, abuse that 3" Melee Range, engaging all the models you can while they aren't engaging you and forcing them to Wk to attack the Soul Porter. Just moving twice and engaging everything in an area can be golden thanks to how much of an annoyance it makes him.

Before going into how other models benefit from **Chi**, never forget the **Enlighten Ancestor** action, it may sacrifice the Soul Porter, but that additional point of **Chi** can give you great momentum, be it letting Yan Lo ascend and get the upgrade he needs or letting another **Ancestor** having an easier time to cast one of their spells, specially based on what you have in your hand.

Now lets see the main models that can benefit from Chi.

Yan Lo can use the extra **Chi** to either ascend a path, use his **Transcendece** ability to give out some **Armor** or both. Yan Lo already has a few ways to get **Chi** of his own, but the Soul Porter can greatly reduce the setup time he may require for gathering **Chi**, speeding up his overall play.

Chiaki is capable of getting her own **Chi**, though she would never say no to some help getting more. Her biggest advantage is that she can also pass **Chi** around with the **Innocence** ability, so you can have her benefit one activation, and the next one pass it to another model or just simply daisy chain it to pass it immediately to the **Ancestor** you want. Chiaki does have a very good reason to keep the **Chi** on herself though, specially if she has the **Pull of the Grave** upgrade, every point she gets in her **Ca** will be put to good use spamming **Slow** as much as possible while also making all her other support spells easier to get off.

Toshiro loves getting **Chi** because both of his 0 actions are mid cast Ca actions. If using his upgrade, his summon can become a lot easier with the additional Ca, allowing him to be able to summon Ashigaru or Komainu with a 6 of Crows when he has **Chi +3** on him.

Yin has 2 Ca actions that greatly benefit from the additional Ca since they are both offensive actions. **Gnawing Fear** specially becomes a lot more scary since she can go up to an insane Ca of 9, letting her pretty much guarantee the de-buff on the target and letting Yin cause pure mayhem on it between her damaging Ca action and her **Horror**.

Izamu gets the least of the **Ancestors** out of the **Chi**, but he still appreciates it mostly because it makes **Reform** go from a mid cast to a trivial one. Being able to only need a 4 to heal with each of his generic AP can be a huge boon for Izamu if what you want him is to hold an area.

=__Playing Against **the Soul Porter**__=

It is a very efficient totem that gives a ton of potential mobility to Yan Lo crews with **Ancestors**. He isn't precisely high priority to take down, but if you get a bead on it, it could be warranted to go for it just to stop Ancestors from being pushed away or against your models. Outside of that, he is competent enough with his Bladed Spear to finish off a model, so be a bit on the lookout for that and try to avoid it just farming your low Wp models for a couple of turns to feed Chi into his casters.

If you have condition removal, it may be worth it to commit to removing him since depending on how Yan Lo 's crew is configured, Chi can be a very big deal for him and stripping it off can severely cripple his momentum. As with any **Incorporeal** model, Ca and indirect damage will kill him quick and proper, so keep that in mind when you target him to make it cost the minimum amount of AP possible to kill it.

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