M2E+Ten+Thunders+Brother


 * Ten Thunders Brother, Ten Thunders Minion**

=__Overview__=

The Ten Thunder Brother is a mid cost all rounder minion at 5SS model with an emphasis on defense thanks to being very hard to shift with the toc
 * Defensive** condition. They are also useful in scheme play thanks to their **Protect the Holdings** Ability, which stops friendly scheme markers from being removed 5" from him. But their greatest asset is their **Dance of the Heavens** **(0)** action which lets them adapt to different roles each turn depending on what they flip or you cheat in.

It's **TN** is a measly 6, so unless you flip a black joker, you are always guaranteed an effect. The effects of **Dance of the Heavens** are:


 * **Crab Style** (Tome): Gives the 10 Thunder Brother **Armor +1** for the rest of the turn. Useful for when you need to maximize his staying power.
 * **Monkey Style** (Crow): Gives the 10 Thunder Brother a **Melee Range** of 4" for the rest of the turn. Useful for when you have to control a wide area of the table or to simply just extend your threat range.
 * **Mongoose Style** (Ram): Allows the 10 Thunder Brother to draw a card and discard a card or to heal 2 **Wds**. Useful for hand rotation and gives a good use to low rams that you may have in your hand.
 * **Eagle Style** (Mask): Allows the 10 Thunder Brother to be placed 3" from his current location. Useful for getting out of combat and increasing their mobility for whatever may be necessary.

=__Mobility__= It has an average **Wk** of 5 and a pretty low end **Cg** of 5, meaning that charging will not help it cover any more distance. This is a bit misleading since 2 of the Dance of the Heavens effects increase his threat in different ways. With **Eagle Style** his threat is outright increased an effective 4" thanks to it being a place effect and being able to just have a smidgen of his base 3" from his initial position. It also means you can avoid having to climb or simply go through walls. This gives them a huge boost in speed and an easy way to get out of combat .


 * Monkey Style** on the other hand gives a 4" **Melee Range** that makes their maximum charge threat go from 7" to 9" or be able to move 10" and engage everything 4" from him, creating a 9" diameter circle where interacting and charging is not allowed for a turn.

=__Offense__=

It's offense is pretty tame with a **Ml** 5 weapon with 2" range and a pretty weak damage spread of 1/3/5. They do compensate for this to a degree with 2 very good triggers in 2 different suits. They have **Crushing Strike** on Rams to get a + flip to damage, making the low weak damage not be so much of an issue. Also, **Trip** on Masks which causes slow after damaging. **Trip** also causes the damaged model to be //placed// into base contact with the Brother. A high Ram or attacking with **Focus** can really help their mediocre damage spread, but the **Trip** trigger can be invaluable in many schemes, strategies, and general situations.

=__Resilience__=

This is their strongest suit, they start of with a high **Df** stat of 6, an average **Wp** of 5 and 6 **Wds**, then you have to add their **Bend as the Willow** trigger which gives them **Defensive +1** until the start of his next activation. Multiple uses of the trigger will stack increasing his **Defensive** condition and the only requirement for the trigger is "after resolving", so if you get a tome when flipping for defense or can use one from your hand without it meaning the Brother will take a heavy hit, it's worth considering. Another huge factor in their defensive nature is that once they gain the **Defensive** condition they get +1 **Df**, planting them in the incredibly good territory of **Df** 7, making them now very hard to hit between the stat and the + flip on defense. To increase their odds even more, 2 effects of **Dance of the Heavens** help keeping them alive, with **Crab Style** giving them **Armor +1** and making them harder to damage and **Mongoose Style** allowing them the chance to heal 2 **Wds**, letting them recover from previous attacks.

=__Tactics and Tips__=

First thing you want to have clear with them is if you want to try and kill a given model or just keep it busy. If your intent is to keep something busy, try to engage it and just go into **Defensive**. If possible, also use **Dance of the Heavens** to go into **Crab Style** for the added armor. They won't hold anything **Df** 6 or higher that really wants to get out, but hopefully they'll blow a high card to do it. Do be careful with your own cards though since going into **Defensive** demands 1 card and **Crab Style** can demand another if you don't flip the right suit.

Another important application is to go into **Monkey Style** if you want to limit the mobility of the enemy crew or their interaction areas. As mentioned before, they can create a 9" circle of no charging nor interacting which can be a huge problem depending on what they wanted to do. If you have two brothers you can cover half the table with this and it makes something like Squatter's rights become outright hellish to achieve. Do remember that the moment next turn starts, you are back to your 2" **Melee range** so a few things that were kept honest last turn would be free now.

Don't forget that **Eagle Style** lets you change Ht or go through walls with ease, letting you be able to cover a lot of ground in unexpected ways, this also lets him easily get out of combat and be a surprisingly good objective grabber, since he can place a scheme marker for Protect Territory turn 1.

If you have low rams in hand and have no real use for them and really don't have anything more important to do with **Dance of the Heavens**, just use the Ram to trigger **Mongoose Style** and cycle your hand, it can be a lifesaver.

Try to always start your turn by doing **Dance of the Heavens** just to know what the Brother will be capable of for this turn. Outside of corner cases of needing to do the **Eagle Style** in a precise position or to heal up after going through hazardous terrain, there really is no need to not start by doing it.

Whenever they are in the offense, I have to insist that you **Focus** before attacking, their damage spread is pretty bad because of the low weak damage, so you need to maximize the odds of getting a straight flip on damage. Anything that can give **Focus** or **Defensive** without having to use the Brother's **AP** is always well received by him.

If the Brother is attacked and you have a tome in hand that you don't mind losing and it either doesn't change the net effect of the attack or changes it in a minor way, always consider cheating it in to get the **Bend as the Willow** trigger. This will always give him a huge bump to survivability for all follow up attacks.

The Brother and Tengu make a good tag team. They can spend a couple turns dropping markers, and then Brother can protect them while the Tengu either flies off to remove opposing markers or gives the Brother **Regeneration** to aid his survivability.

=__Master-Specific Tips__=

Jakob Lynch gets along very well with the Ten Thunder Brothers. Do you have a specific style you like? Then get the ace of that suit in hand, and have it every turn! With **Ace in the Hole**, the Ten Thunders Brother can use the **Dance of the Heavens,** see what they get, and if you don't like it, cheat in an ace. That ace then goes back to your hand. A Mask will allow for an extra 3" place every turn due to **Eagle Style**, making these guys great objective runners. A Ram will help cycle cards even faster using **Mongoose Style**. When you discard the ace to **Mongoose Style**, the style changes into a "Draw a card" trigger.

Lucas McCabe also enjoys giving gifts out to the Ten Thunder Brothers. Giving one of the Brothers the **Glowing Saber**, then getting **Monkey Style** from the **Dance of the Heavens**, means that the Ten Thunder Brother has a mean attack that reaches all the way out to 4". The **Badge of Speed** can also give them **Nimble**, which combined with **Eagle Style** can get a Brother moving 18" in one activation.

Shenlong's aura allowing Defensive Stance and Focus as 0 actions are wasted on Ten Thunders Brothers most of the time, as **Dance of the Heavens** is so good. However, they still mesh very well with Shenlong from a strategic standpoint, since he (along with his thematic crew) drops so many scheme markers. The **Protect Our Holdings** ability can make it incredibly easy to accomplish any marker based schemes.

=__Playing Against Ten Thunder Brothers__=

When facing Ten Thunder Brothers on the other side of the table, if he isn't in **Defensive**, try and get a quality hit in instead of multiple small ones so as to reduce his changes to get the **Bend as the Willow** trigger, if he is in **Defensive**, really consider if you really need him dead or not since he may require a lot more resources then readily available to take him down. If you don't need to remove him in the current turn and your other models have something better to do, ignore him for a bit till his **Defensive** drops and he becomes more easy to take down. Also, anything with **Hard to Wound** will give it fits since he will have a very hard time getting any damage above 1 per attack, though do be weary of the **Slow** trigger and him just using **Eagle Stance** to retreat.

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