M2E+Shadow+Effigy


 * Shadow Effigy, Ten Thunders Minion**

=__Overview__=

The Shadow Effigy is another one of the mysterious dolls Zoraida made to hang out with the factions, in this case, the Ten Thunders. The Shadow Effigy has the same stats and abilities as all the other Effigies, though his skit is mostly centered on schemes and helping your master live a bit longer.toc

=__Mobility__=

The shadow Effigy has standard mobility with a **Wk** of 5 and a **Cg** of 6 and that's pretty much all it can do for himself on the movement front.

He does have **Accomplice** which lets you keep momentum by chaining an activation after the Shadow Effigy activates. This is specially useful since the Effigy tends to like to activate early to spread out its conditions and the ability to not need to "lose" a setup activation makes him be able to always contribute.

His other mobility based ability is **Remember the Mission**. This is a hard to cast 1 **AP** action that needs a 10+, only has a range of 4" and can only target minions. It gives out the **Remember the Mission** condition, which means that at the end of the activation of the model with the condition, it may place a scheme marker in base contact with itself and lose the condition. This gives great momentum to scheme marker placement since you can tag a couple of minions with this action and have them move twice and drop the marker. Also, since it's not an **Interact** action, the scheme marker can be dropped while engaged or closer than 4" from another friendly scheme marker. Since it is a tactical action, the Effigy can also use it on himself which may come in handy once in a while.

=__Offense__=

The Shadow Effigy's offense is peculiar. It has it's **Precision Blade** that has a **Melee Range** of 1" and lives up to it's name with a **Ml** of 7, but only ever causes 1 damage. It's a great way to finish off models in their deathbed but that's about it.

=__Resilience__=

The Shadow Effigy is pretty hardy for a 4 SS model with a high **Df** of 6, an average **Wp** of 5 and only 4 **Wd**. The low wound count is more than made up for with the **Armor +1** ability which reduces all damage by 1 (minimum 1 damage) and **Hard to Kill** which means he can't be killed in one hit as long as he has more than 1 **Wd**.

If something pays attention to him he will fall, but he does demand a decent amount of resources to be removed.

He also has his 0 action to help your master be harder to take down. This action is **Blend Into Shadows** which has a range of 8" and gives the crew leader the **Into Shadow** condition. This means that he can remove the condition after an enemy model declares an action against him and give out a - flip to his attack flip. This can really give an extra lease in life to your leader, since it can stop the enemy you use it on from being able to cheat. Do keep in mind though anything that as a + to his attack duels won't really care though and any soulstone user can use a stone to compensate, so it's not sure fire protection, but it's nice to have.

=__Tactics and Tips__=

The Shadow Effigy mostly justifies a spot in a crew thanks to **Remember the Mission**. The flexibility it opens up with dropping scheme markers lets you have a much easier time completing any scheme dropping based mission. The ability to go over the **Interact** 4" distance rule really opens your options, like for example allowing you to do Line in the Sand in a much smaller area, as well as Protect Territory and not having to be worried about being engaged means that Plant Explosives and Spring the Trap become almost trivial to achieve if used at the right time. Thanks to **Accomplice**, you shouldn't have a problem capitalizing on the condition immediately if you need it. It still requires a high card to activate the condition though, so only really use it when you need it.

The other selling point is the extra survivability for your master from **Blend Into the Shadows**. It's highly recommended that you activate the Shadow Effigy early to protect your leader and if needed, just use **Accomplice** to activate any other relevant model.

Outside of that, the Shadow Effigy has enough mobility and durability to just move around placing scheme markers and enough **Df** to be able to disengage. Sine he also happens to be one of the very few constructs in the Ten Thunders arsenal, Mei Feng appreciates it to do her **Railwalk** and Toshiro is fine with having him around since once dead, he can use his **Command the Graves** upgrade to summon a Komainu from the scrap.

=__Playing Against Shadow Effigy__=

First thing you have to account for when the Shadow Effigy is on the table is how mane scheme marker based schemes are in the pool and how trivial **Remember the Mission** can make them. Depending on the answer it will demand more or less attention. Outside of that, **Blend Into the Shadows** can be a problem if you intend on attacking the enemy leader, though any form of getting a + to the attack duel should compensate for it.

If you decide to go kill it, it will die, but may take 3-5 AP to do it between it's **Armor**, **Df** 6, and **Hard to Kill**, so be conscious of whether the cost to silence his scheme play is worth not using your **AP** to do your own missions. It will quickly fold if you use something that can ignore **Hard to Kill** or Armor and if you ignore both, becomes trivial to remove.

Finally, without minions, he can't do **Remember the Mission** and it's still a short ranged ability, so keeping other minions a certain distance away from the Shadow Effigy will cut it's effectiveness.

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 * __Ownership__ **