Yan+Lo

include page="inc_1.5rules" **Yan Lo, Resurrectionist/Ten Thunders Master** toc

=Overview= //Mysterious Yan Lo is a man trapped between life and death, pursuing his curse across the Breach, his service to the Ten Thunders in Malifaux providing him more clues to ending end his centuries-old plight.//

His eternal damnation presents himself ruleswise in the form of extreme versatility through the length of the match. Whenever something that is not an ancestor and is controlled by either player (no, mindless zombies don't count for this) dies 8" from him, he gets a chi point that allows him to advance in one of his 3 paths. He must commit the chi point inmediately, but is not restricted to what tree he wants to place it in as long as he completes a lower level of said tree before going to the next. A total of 6 chi fills a whole tree (1 chi for levels 1 and 4 and 2 chi for levels 2 and 3). Each tree buffs Lo in different ways, Spirit increases mobility, Ash increases his resilience and adds control to his tools and Bone makes him an epic level beatstick.

His other main mechanic is his interactions with ancestors. This is represented by the Reliquaries rule on Yan Lo and the Relic rule on his ancestors. Whenever an ancestor dies 8" from him, any model with Reliquaries can receive the relic. The relic gives the holder a couple of special rules that the ancestor had and in Yan Lo's case also allows him to resurrect them or powers up some of his attacks depending on the amount of relics on him.

=Mobility=

__**With no Chi**__
Yan Lo natively starts with an average walk and charge and no real movement tricks for himself of any kind. He does have his 0 spell, Transcend the Physical which requires an average tome and gives all friendly undead 6" from him the spirit characteristic which helps with both mobility and resilience. It's a pulse, so they can then be go away from Yan lo and still be spirits for the turn.

__**With Chi**__
By adding chi into the equation, Lo reveals a few movement shenanigans in each of his trees.

The path of Spirit is the one that adds the most mobility to Yan Lo, increasing his move and charge by 1" on level 1, giving him flight on 2, giving him spirit at 3 and at 4 it gives him Revenge of the Yomi, a 2 action mass obey on all friendly spirits that also affects Yan Lo. Revenge of the Yomi can be stacked with Transcend the Physical so you aren't actually required to have any native spirits from the get go if you don't want. The path of Ash gives tools to reduce and control enemy movement. At level 3 he learns the Rigor Morits spell which causes paralize on the target which is the best way to stop a model from being a problem for a turn. At level 4 he learns Terracota Curse, this spell is a pulse that requires a highish tome and is resited by wp, all enemy models that fail the resist suffer 2 wounds each time they move in their activation, this spell can utterly castrate a reactive strike or constrict how far a model can go towards an objective.

The path of Bone only adds one mobility trick to Yan Lo, but it's still useful. At level 2 it gives him fragile bonds, this allows Yan Lo for 1 action to move up to his charge move towards a wounded enemy model and at the end of the move he makes a strike with his staff. This will allow him to quickly reposition during his activation to target different threats, though it does require said threats to have suffered some form of damage before that. All of the spirit movement boosts stack with this so the ability to traverse through the table with this ability increases the higher you are in spirit.

=Offense=

**With no Chi**
Initially, Yan Lo is pretty mediocre in melee. His saving grace is that his melee range with his staff is 2" and he has gunfighter on his ranged attack. His melee has an average cb with an average damage spread, as for his ranged attack, go to the ranged section for more details.

**With Chi**
When adding Chi into the equation, Yan Lo goes from pretty tame in melee, to one of the scariest beaters in the game. This all comes from the path of Bone, at level 1 it increases his damage spread +1/+1/+2 which makes his average damage skyrocket and gives him the same damage spread as Izamu, it also gives him the brutal trigger, though he does not have the native tome. Level 2 lets him move and attack with only 1 action as long as he targets wounded models. Level 3 makes him a Melee master, so 2 extra actions purely for melee strikes. Finally at level 4, he gets a devastating trigger called Hunpo Assault which can only be triggered once per turn, but when activated it lets Yan Lo make a staff stryke AND gunfighter ranged attack to every model that is 2 inches from him, so if he is surrounded by 3 models and gets the trigger, he gets 2 free attacks on each of them and makes Yan Lo the model most capable of dishing out attacks with the least amount of effort. Although the other paths do not increase his damage potential directly, they do increase his mobility and resilience allowing him to be able to be in the thick of things in better health.

**__Ranged__**
Yan Lo's ranged options are pretty potent and both are based on his ancestors. His Spirit Barrage ranged attack has a considerable range while also having gunfighter, has higher than average cb and on severe has a blast. It's damage is low on weak, high on severe and average at moderate, but it is increased by each relic that Yan Lo possesses at a given moment by +1 damage. This means that with 2 relics on him, his ranged attack gets a +2 damage buff, which makes the weak have a highish damage and the severe hit as hard as Seamus gun. Keep in mind this does not apply to his blast damage since special rules do not natively apply to blast markers. Because of how Spirit Barrage works, there will be times where it may not be in your interest to resurrect an ancestor, or at least not until you have made all your ranged attacks.
 * With no Chi**

It also has a trigger with rams called Soul Eater, which requires you to discard a relic to activate it. It's basically a headshot trigger (enemy must discard two cards or two soulstones if he is a soulstone user or die) that also gives a Chi if you kill. It is incredibly expensive to get working since it forces to discard a relic, killing any chance of resurrecting that model and making Yan Lo lose the rules associated to the relic, should only really be considered when it's a sure kill.

Yan Lo also has a ranged spell called Weight of Ages. Since Yan Lo is a casting exper and his only other 1 spell is a heal for ancestors, this will usually be your workhorse damage source, at least initially. The spell has an average range and targets wp, it is not considered a ranged attack so it can be cast against models in melee and it has an average damage spread. It gets a +1 damage for each ancestor that happens to be 3" from the targetup to a max of + 3, if you place your ancestors right, the damage can become quite devastating even at weak.

It also has a very useful trigger that requires a crow, Lost to Time. If you manage to kill the target, you get a Chi point, so when you kill a model with this spell and activate the trigger you effectively get 2 Chi for one kill. The trigger only works on enemy models, so no dog mutilation to get quick Chi.

**With Chi**
Yan Lo's ranged game is mostly based around his ancestor mechanic, so chi doesn't really come into it much, though with more mobility he is more capable of deciding what he wants to target, with more resilience he can be closer to the action and Rigor Mortis and Terracota Curse can help dictate enemy movement and avoid being engaged.

=Resilience=

__**With no Chi**__
Yan Lo's ressilience, even though he has the highest native defense in all of the resser masters, is horrible. He is packing an average defense, an acceptably high number of wounds, but still bellow Nicodem, Seamus and McMourning. He lacks any self preservation rules except for Shatter Reliquary (can only be used when he reaches 0 wd) which requires discarding a relic to do a healing flip and recover that many wounds, basically a slow to die action that uses relics instead of stones to keep him alive, but it is a very costly and limited resource and even though it may keep Yan Lo alive, it limits his options for bringing ancestors back, so it is best to avoid it happening altogether. His wp is a very solid 7 though, so he has a good base and it is accompanied by the Twisted Mind trigger (requires a crow) which causes 2 wounds to the opposing model if Yan Lo wins the duel. Still, it is preferable that Yan Lo keeps a distance so he can accumulate some Chi but not have to commit to the thick of things.

Though he does little for himself, he can help all the undead under his command become a lot hardier vs forces with no magical weapons thanks to Transcend the Physical which is already mentioned in the mobility section. Needless to say, a spirit Izamu is very hard to take down, but keep in mind that even though it increases your undead's ressilience, it also means that they won't drop corpse counters anymore if they are killed. Using this spell also stops him from being able to cast Rebuild Corpus, his other 0 spell.

Rebuild Corpus is a spell that lets Yan Lo summon into play an ancestor whose relic he possesses, this means that as long as he has the relic on him, it can come back. The spell requires a high crow and if cast successfully summons the dead ancestor by discarding his relic and having it come back with 2 wounds for each corpse counter sacrificed that is 6" from Yan Lo. If played right and if the enemy does not have graverobbers or tricks to remove corpse counters, it means that Izamu can immediately be summoned after he dies using the 3 corpses he drops to get him out again with 6 wounds, same with Toshiro and Yin coming back with 4 wounds. This also means that as long as Yan Lo is 8" away to collect the relic he is able to send his ancestors into dangerous situations only to have him bring them back in the same turn and have them try again.

His last spell and defensive help for his force is Repair Corpus, a 1 action spell that heals an ancestor for 2 wounds. It is an easy to cast spell that requires a low crow. It can be a good follow up to summoning an ancestor back to help top it's wounds or just to keep your ancestors in high health, though using it will mostly depend on if something is within range to cast Weight of Ages.

__**With Chi**__
Chi changes his personal resilience by quite a bit, mostly from path of Ash though path of Spirit helps too. Path of Ash at level 1 gives him regeneration 1 and at level 2 it increases his defence by 2, which takes it from average to high end. These two levels increase Yan Lo's resilience immensely but can still be further heightened by getting to Level 3 of Spirit which makes him a spirit, if the enemy is lacking magical weapons it can go from easy to take Yan Lo down to it becoming a daunting process.

=Soulstones= Yan Lo starts with a hefty cache of 5 Soulstones, so having 8 with him is an easy task. But he does have an option to use a rule called Inhale Soul which lets him change up to 3 soulstones to Chi right after determining his Soulstone cache. This means that after you finish making you list, you have to decide if you wish to exchange stones for chi while at the same time reducing your max stones.

Starting the game with Chi is a very tempting proposition and will mostly be dependant on what you expect to find on the other side or the role you wish Yan Lo to have during the match. If you need him to be mobile from the outset it may be a good idea to start at level 2 Spirit and already have flight or if you feel he may be threatened from the outset, giving him Ash level 2 to get regen 1 and defense 7. I'd suggest to avoid starting with Bone though since Chi in the frontlines is plentiful. Of course, if you would rather keep a higher number of stones or only want to start at level 1 of a given path it is also an option, just keep in mind that each Soulstone turned to Chi is from your final Soulstone cache.

=Tricks and Tips= It is very, very important to remember that Yan Lo has companion Ancestor. This means he can companion chain with all his ancestors making a huge mess of things. This has a myriad of uses, ranging from alpha strikes, piling pressure, controlled retreats and so on. A few examples of this is to put all your ancestors in place to maximize the damage of Weight of Ages, to have Yan Lo and Toshiro summon in tandem and then have Chiaki remove the slow on all the summoned pieces or to have Izamu and Yin go and attack something while then sending in Toshiro and the Soul Porter to help them retreat trough Teki u Juden and Empower Ancestor. As with all companion chains, hey can be incredibly powerful, but you also have to make sure that it won't leave you overcommitted.

Yan Lo is highly dependant on his ancestors, that you can summon them does not mean they should be thrown without any care though it does give you some leeway on how you use them. Losing an ancestor a turn only to summon it back is not much of a problem, but if you lose 2 or 3 you can have a lot of problems keeping up. Always try to remain at least be 8" from the action, this will let you get chi from all over the table and allow you to get relics from dead ancestors while exerting Yan Lo's ranged pressure with a degree of safety, specially if you are using Ashigaru with their wall of steel action. Always keep a tab to the potential range to Yan Lo to damage dealing specialists, until he starts going through the path of Ash he is very vulnerable to damage dealing specialists, be it Perdita, Lady Justice, the Viktorias Sonnia Criid and so on.

When you start levelling up his paths, try to have a clear idea of what you want at a given moment out of Yan Lo and don't feel the need to go directly for the level 4 of a path before going to another. The path of Bone is fantastic, but with the resilience that the path of Ash or the mobility the path of Spirit bring to the table you'll be a lot more capable of dishing it out and remaining in play to keep doing it, with just 5 Chi, Yan Lo can have level 1 Spirit, level 2 Ash and level 1 Bone to be able to be a respectable beatstick with a good wk/cg and a high defence. Experiment with the path system and see what can get you the most benefit at a given situation.

Be very careful of clumping up, because of the ranges Yan Lo needs to get relics and Chi, you may find yourself unable to spread enough and may be either susceptible to Blast, pulses or auras or that you have to spread your crew thin to do your objectives. This can be mitigated to a degree with the help of Chiaki (can also carry relics and give them to Yan Lo) and the Soul Porter (helps ancestors move through the table with Empower Ancestor and saves relics from being discarded if another Reliquary bearer dies). Always try to maximize the damage potential of Spirit Barrage and Weight of Ages, be it by putting some ancestors in place before starting to cast Weight of Ages or by not summoning ancestors back until you have finished doing Spirit Barrage attacks. Ideally you can have a couple of Relics on Yan Lo, Spirit Barrage twice, then summon one back with his 0 action near your target and proceed to Weight of Ages that objective. Though Spirit Barrage can be a very potent attack, try to avoid stacking too many relics, you can only hope to bring back an ancestor per turn and Yan Lo can be overwhelmed unless he is high on all his paths.

If by some chance you are facing a Hamelin crew, dare him to kill his rats with his ratcatchers when they are near Yan Lo, that should feed your paths at a frenetic rate and don't forget that Chiaki can remove insignificant with her cleansing.

=Strategies and Schemes for Yan Lo= (General overview, then maybe specifics on what strategies/schemes are good and bad)

=Yan Lo in Brawls= (Overall, then mention specific Masters to pair with)

=Building a Crew= Depending on if you are using Yan Lo as a Ten Thunder's master or as a Resurrectionist master, this opens up a plethora of different options to him. Before this becomes a factor, you have to decide how much you wish to commit to using ancestors. All 4 ancestors have their uses, but they are all high cost pieces except for Chiaki and it heavily restricts the other models that you can add to your crew. I initially suggest to take 2-3 ancestors since 4 leaves you with only 4 stones for the rest of your crew in a 35 point match, while only having 1 ancestor means that your ancestor based offensive attacks have a very limited max potential and if by some reason you don't manage to get the relic of that ancestor, it is lost and Rebuild corpus cannot be used. Taking no ancestors does not seem to be an option.

=Starting Yan Lo= Yan Lo's box comes with (Could also start with a quick overview on the Master's general difficulty level. Especially important for the likes of Levi)
 * Yan Lo
 * Soul Porter
 * Chiaki
 * 3 x Ashigaru

=Playing Against [Master]= (How best to deal with the Master and it's crew, things to watch out for, etc.)

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