The Final Countdown! (Last Blossom Closing Arguments)

They say tragedy comes in threes. They also say that the best time to write a blog post is when you’re sleep deprived and functioning on little more than caffeine and reserves of willpower you never knew you possessed. Lastly they say something about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing and but not half as dangerous as a lot of ignorance.

Seeing as ignorance is my specialty let’s start there

Hi Internet. I’m Lance. You may know me from such additions to this grand endeavour such as Misaki is so great (found here: https://beardfaux.blogspot.com/2024/06/misaki-is-so-great.html) and a case for Misaki (found here: https://beardfaux.blogspot.com/2024/06/a-case-for-misaki-no-other-one.html) which all sounds a bit like I’m a one-trick pony with very little interesting to say about anyone other than Misaki. Well, I’m here today to prove that assumption wrong.

Today, we’re going to discuss Misaki’s crew (and inevitably how both Misaki’s interact with them, so maybe I am a one trick pony, but shut up my thing is different). The thing I think most of you can take away from this though, is that it is my intention that this third blog entry about Best Girl Ninja Queen will be that this should be my final input on the subject of Last Blossom.

The last two articles have touched on a lot of the reasons I love Misaki but from the outside looking in, Malifaux as a game system may as well be “Rube Goldberg, the Miniature Game” and as such looking at any one aspect of the game in a vacuum doesn’t really accurately do justice to how something plays or feels. So I’m going to clumsily attempt to sum up the rest of the keyword to maybe give some of the meandering ramblings I’ve expelled from my brain over the last two articles the tiniest glimmer of context.

Now because reading full  keyword breakdowns probably doesn’t sound particularly engaging I’m going to try break this up as elegantly as possible. I won’t necessarily be touching on every rule on every model’s card, just the things I feel are relevant about each model along with how/why I’ve used them in the past along with how their functionality may differ dependent on whether or not you declare Misaki or Fractured.

However before we get into that, we’re going to briefly mention three very special friends of mine, Assassin, Charge through and extended reach. Yes, Last Blossom has not one but three signature rules that can be found peppered throughout the keyword in various combinations on the front of Last Blossom’s cards.

Seeing as it’s already been discussed in my previous articles I may as well re-summarize the wonders of Charge through. Simply put, charge through allows a charging model to add a positive to the damage flip from any successful attack generated by the charge action. Why is this important? Well it means you don’t have to waste AP concentrating to get a straight damage flip, but it also means if you have invested in concentrates (or other means of generating focus) you can start cheating damage flips against masters or henchmen who will be (mostly) unable to stone you to a negative flip which is certainly not irrelevant.

One of my friends (Azahul who has a great article that can be found here: https://beardfaux.blogspot.com/2024/06/on-theme-mechanics-and-why-story-matters.html) once said of the “assassin” special rule that it just encourages players to play the way they should be playing and he wasn’t wrong. A model with Assassin gains fast after killing an enemy model that has not yet activated. As Azahul rightly pointed out, in a game with alternating activations, killing unactivated models is already a rewarding maneuver, but models with assassin that engage in the activity are not only rewarded with activation control and the tears of their opponent, but they’re also rewarded with an extra action. For FREE!

Incidentally, outside of the value assassin offers it also makes Last Blossom models with it more resistant to tar-pit tactics as killing a tar-pit model that hasn’t activated just generates an extra AP anyway.

Finally, we have the bastard red-headed step-child of Last Blossom: Extended Reach. It isn’t really a keyword special rule as it’s found smattered throughout Ten thunders and a few other factions (even the filthy Guild players get it now. Blech), but Last Blossom has the most instances of it within the one keyword so I’m claiming it as ours. Long story short, Extended reach means no attacks at the end of charge pushes. It’s not a bad defensive rule but it isn’t game defining and it’s easy enough for most opponents to play around. Somewhat ironically the keyword that most hates playing against extended reach is Last Blossom, seeing as when denied the charge, they don’t get the advantage of Charge Through and without access to Charge Through the damage output of the crew is middling at best.

So with that covered I guess we can start talking about the individual models and just like every list starts with a totem, so we’ll start by discussing our resident kitsune, Shang (not to be confused with Zheng who is a big stone cat)

Shang is a squishy squishy insignificant totem with the channeled healing ability (important tech for unburying your models in certain matchups), an ok shockwave and an extremely mediocre melee attack (which is fine; if he’s fighting something’s gone wrong or you’re making a big brain play). Being made of fire, Shang has the flameborn rule which sometimes comes up. He does come with the Assassin rule which after four years of playing I don’t think I’ve ever had come up with him (see above re: mediocre attacks). Best part of Shang is that he’s speed 6 which allows him to get his insignificant burning ass into significant positions. He also comes with Arcane reservoir which is a huge boon to a keyword that is so card hungry but that also makes him a fairly high target priority for savvy opponents; especially considering he is so god damn easy to kill.

With Misaki the first he adds extra means of unburying her. She can either pretend he’s a shadow marker and if she does so, he takes 2 damage and heals her for 2 or he uses his channeled healing on her, pitches a card and she unburies base to base with him. Channeled healing is usually my preferred means of unburying Misaki. It allows me to keep my generated shadow markers on the table for more important things and doesn’t affect Misaki’s speed at all.

Misaki Fractured modifies him slightly. Rather than one model pretending he’s a shadow marker and doing damage to him if he’s treated as such, everyone pretends he’s a shadow marker and any affect that would remove a shadow marker does no such thing. Because he’s a fast boy this really opens up some whacky movement shenanigans from any of your keyword who get to unbury next to a shadow marker or teleport to one.

Now that we’ve discussed the totem it’s important to remember that the objectively correct way to format a list is Master, Totem, Henchmen, Enforcers, Minions (I’m looking at you Pete @ RQW), and so that’s how we’ll structure the rest of this article with some extra space at the end dedicated to discussing some of my common out of keyword/versatile tech picks. If a model summons other models they’ll be discussed with that model.

Interestingly at time of writing I believe Last Blossom is tied with swampfiend for the most henchmen in-keyword and has more keyword models than Oni (the thunders summoning keyword)

Banying. Banying Banying Banying. This blog is being written in June 2024 and there isn’t a hint of a nerf or errata anywhere on the horizon. The box just came out 2 (ish?) months ago, and thunders players everywhere are playing in the god damned sprinklers with this motherfucker.

First of all Banying doesn’t come with any of the three front of card rules I foolishly and incorrectly stated above are represented at least once on each Last Blossom model (I’m not going to edit it though. I’m already showing my whole ass to the internet as it is). He’s 5’s across the board but he’s a monk so has Chi which is a whole assed mechanic that would take it’s own article to fully go through. Let’s just summarize it with when he wants to be he’s any stat +2 which is a pretty big swing. He comes with a 6” teleport bonus action to a shadow marker that only requires a 6 of any suit, and a teleport defensive trigger that makes him surprisingly mobile (and in my opinion makes the poor torukage obsolete- see later in article). He can generate extra shadow markers and can also turn dropped shadow/friendly scheme markers into sunless selves (will cover them momentarily). On top of all of that he’s got some wicked good triggers on his attack actions from shadow pin to unworthy of her attention and his henchman status coupled with chi and his defensive trigger ensures your opponent can’t do anything to stop him from doing whatever the hell he wants to do which is usually score points.

-          Sunless Selves are Banying’s mindless and insignificant pet summons and at first glance they’re a whole lot of nothing. They can’t even activate the turn they’re summoned. However friendly models can count them as being shadow markers (important) and Banying can do his melee attack through them. Unworthy of her attention is one of the strongest triggers in Malifaux, but it has always been held in check by being on relatively mediocre models and having the requirement of a shadow marker being within 3” of an enemy. It was hard to pull off. This whole package makes it easy to get off meaning with high enough tomes in hand, Banying can easily draw 2 cards and generate 2 pass tokens during his activation whilst also putting some damage on opponents models. Finally the piece de resistance is that these absolute munted pieces of shit are Shadow Connor McLeod’s of the Shadow Clan McLeod and they cannot die. They have no health and only die after activating or being removed as a shadow marker (which the opponent cannot do).

Except. you know. Made of Shadow

With normal Misaki, Banying does what Banying does, but the sunless selves if they aren’t removed by end of turn unfortunately hand out pass tokens to the opponent at the cost of a very meaningless activation next round, but they also artificially increase the amount of unactivated models in Misaki’s crew for the purposes of abandon honour deck manipulation. Worth noting though that the turn a Sunless self is summoned, it counts as having activated which means it will affect Misaki’s movement score if she unburies from a shadow marker/Shang instead of through channelled healing.

With Misaki Fractured Banying gets even more functional as thanks to Shang counting as a shadow marker it’s very easy to get maximum distance out of his ninja vanish ability, and makes him way harder to pin down.

Anyway now that I’ve gotten that little rant out of the way it’s time to look at the more classic members of the Last Blossom Crew.

Minako Rei is a fast summoning henchman with a defensive mechanic that punishes opponents who try to hit her and miss. The end result is inevitably no-one tries to hit her unless they have the card in hand to successfully do so (or they’ve managed to deny her triggers). Minako comes with both Assassin and charge through but her damage track is only worthwhile on severe or if she’s gotten her defensive trigger off.

Its probably worth describing the defensive trigger in further detail because it’s very relevant. If an opponent attacks her and misses, they have an upgrade placed on them. This upgrade means three things. Firstly, any damage done to Minako by enemy models is also done to the enemy model with the upgrade on them. Secondly an enemy model with the upgrade that dies turns into a friendly Wanyudo summon. Thirdly Minako’s melee attack has a built in trigger to make all damage to a target irreducible as long as they have the upgrade attached. All things considered, it’s a very bad idea for an opponent to attack Minako unless they have the cards to guarantee a hit.

The other way Minako Summons is she can remove a scrap or a corpse marker, and using 10/12 tomes (dependant on what kind of marker she’s removing to summon a Katashiro. In a world before Banying was discarding cards, there was an interesting piece of Skornergy around Minako Rei and her bonus action as Equality of Fate is only relevant if you have less cards than your opponent and because Shang increases hand size to 7 it meant that in order for Minako to get a bonus action you had to spend cards hot and fast. Banying has changed that so it’s quite likely she’ll get her bonus action.

-          Katashiro are the combat schemers Minako summons. They’re technically Oni models which means they have the flicker mechanic (another complicated mechanic but the TL;DR is they can get a token for positive flips but too many tokens and they exploderate) with a free 5” teleport bonus action, a means of stripping conditions with a value and an okay attack. The 5” teleport is big reason to summon these guys. The turn after they’re summoned they make for amazing scheme runners and they can hold their own against other scheme runners but crumple (like paper HA!) against even the most modest beaters

-          Wanyudo are a neat bonus thing that sometimes happens if your opponent is really silly or you are really good. They’re a very fast combat schemer with a lot of fire synergy.

Minako doesn’t shine with Misaki but she operates entirely as one would expect. With Misaki Fractured however you can take advantage of Misaki’s obey on an enemy model to force an opponent to attack (and fail to hit) Minako guaranteeing Minako’s upgrade goes into play and that Minako gets free irreducible damage against that model. The few times I’ve managed to force a wanyudo summon into play; this is the way in which it was done.

Fast? Who cares? Summoning models? Cliché. Punching and being punched in return? NICE

ototo punching ototo

It’s Ototo! This. Man. Is. A. Liability!

Def and WP 4 armour 1 and the biggest god damn thwackin stick you ever did see! Look, he’s a henchman with armour 1 so he can take a hit. He’s got charge through and assassin. He’s the only min 3 damage dealer in the keyword. With crit strike on his stick he can go up to a min 5. He’s truly terrifying at under half health thanks to grit frantic and native hard to kill and bonus action juggernaut gives him the opportunity to yo-yo his health around that middle level. There isn’t much else to say about him as he’s one of those deliciously straight forward models, but due to low stats I recommend keeping him at home anytime you’re likely to encounter control effects.

Yamaziko is our last and least henchman. She comes with extended reach and charge through. She’s speed 4 but thanks to nimble she has three different bonus actions to chose from. Either nimble walk, finesse or great teacher. Generally if I’m taking Yamaziko it’s for one of 2 things; the great teacher aura or Master tactician. Master tactician is a hell of a drug if an opponent has overextended their master turn 1 before schemes can be declared. However great teacher really turns minions up as positive flips to all duels (all duels, not just opposed) is very impactful in some matchups.

Yamaziko allows vanilla Misaki to run a surprisingly efficient gunline and the best part is positive flips are more likely to generate severes in the discard pile to shuffle back into the deck with abandon honour.

As near as I can tell she doesn’t add anything special with Misaki, Fractured however it’s worth noting that like Banying, Yamaziko has the unworthy of her attention trigger on her melee attack and it’s even baked in natively. However Yamaziko’s attack stat is only 5 so she has trouble landing it sometimes.

Well well well it looks like we’ve (finally) run out of henchmen to discuss. Phew. Now in the enforcer roster we have the wide selection of Jin Baccara and… Jin Baccara (and technically Shang but we’ve covered him). That might sound disappointing but let’s face it we’d rather have one really really really great enforcer to hire than several mediocre ones.

But what does Jin do?

Jin wins games. 

There's a reason Jin rhymes with Win

He generates a pass token whenever buried or in concealment and he can start the game buried. He can unbury by placing base to base with an enemy minion and yeeting it back to it’s deployment. He’s got 2 bonus actions (ambush and dispose of evidence) one of which lets him deny opponent scoring to draw a card, the other of which costs a card to move him into a potentially scoring position. His melee attack ignores armour and has a ram built in for crit strike (like hidden blades everywhere) and his ranged attack generates a shadow marker to open new threat vectors for the rest of your crew. He’s just pure value. He comes with Assassin too.

He doesn’t add a great deal to normal Misaki beyond activation control, scoring potential and opening up new threat vectors (as if that wasn’t enough), but Misaki Fractured can bury her own models which means Jin can keep yeeting opponent minions back to their deployment zone every time he activates.

Alright gang this one is getting long and it’s about to get longer. It’s Minion time! Let’s try get through these super fast without my usual level of wit and charm.

Wokou Raiders. These guys have charge through and gain fast when they activate next to a scheme marker. They’re combat schemers with nothing exceptional about them and at 8 stones I’ve struggled to find room for unexceptional in my list building (I’m aiming to change that but right now I don’t have much to say). Combat finesse and bullet proof are fine defensive abilities but they’re very vulnerable to just getting dead regardless.

Katanaka Crime Bosses. Remember when I said Ototo was the only min 3 in the crew? I lied. These guys have a big ol min 3 stick that comes with extended reach and charge through. They’re slow (spd 4) with a big ol base. Thankfully they have a bonus action teleport which changes the speed maths a little, especially considering they’re on a 40mm base. If I am taking these guys they are being enhanced by an upgrade. I’m either taking stealth on them so they can’t be shot and can’t be charged thanks to extended reach, or I’m taking masked agent so they can teleport other models around with their successful 6” charge threat *and* getting co-ordinated attack trigger off which is not insignificant in a crew that has Ototo. These guys have unworthy of her attention on their melee attack which is once again extremely nice if it goes off. All things said though in the game of Malifaux as it currently is I don’t find much use for them simply because extended reach aside they’re pretty easy to remove.

Katanaka snipers. I despise binary statements about the game. I feel like it reduces what is a complicated and nuanced beautiful game down to a gross simplification. However I’ll break my own rule just this once: These guys are bad. There are 2 redeeming features on their card, the first of which is the unworthy of her attention trigger on their sniper rifle and the second is that they have “from the shadows” deployment and it is the second reason only why I think they should ever be in contention. They’re stat 5 across the board, even on their gun. They have no defensive rules but they’ve got Assassin if they ever hit and kill a model which is of course never. From the Shadows means they can go out and control a marker on a far flank from turn 1, but the problem is even the most mediocre combat schemer on a flank will kill one quite trivially.

Thunder Archers. There goes my heroes, watch them as they thunder! Why are they good? They’re monks. Bitches gots chi. A stat 8 gun that ignores friendly fire, cover and concealment is not nothing. They have a bonus action to give their gun blast with a trigger to get them free concentrate. These guys have assassin and they are the models that I have triggered assassin on the most more so than any other model in the keyword. Disrespect at your peril. They’re relatively easily countered by engaging them because they don’t have an engagement and can’t shoot whilst engaged, but both Misaki’s have ways of disengaging them.

Torakage. Once upon a time these guys were our go-to fast schemer model thanks in no small part to their bonus action “ninja Vanish”. Now that Banying also has Ninja vanish with a higher stat *and* the option to spend chi whilst also being a henchman who is exceedingly difficult to kill, I fear that Torakage are no longer relevant. They have stealth, Assasin and Charge through but average stats and damage means they’re not winning any flanks reliably.

Right so somehow Palapatine survived and this article is longer than my other two Misaki articles combined. So much for Brevity.

And we’re not done!

We’ve got to talk honourable mentions:

First the kunoichi. Kunoichi (from Qi and Gong) add much needed focus generation to the crew, whilst also tossing shurikens at your own models to get more cards in discard for abandon honour. She may as well be a Last Blossom Model.

Secondly, Sensei Yu (from monk). Sigh. Sensei Yu adds nothing special to Last Blossom. But he adds a hell of a lot to Banying, or Banying adds a hell of a lot to him, one or the other. Anyway this is dull and boring gameplay but Yu makes Banying fast with a bonus action and then punches a sunless self twice to draw cards. YAWN. (seriously cannot wait for this horseshit to no longer feel like mandatory gameplay)

Thirdly, the Shadow Effigy; this guy is a specific choice for Misaki, Fractured. He provides a concealment aura to proc some of Misaki’s effects, he has an action that generates another action on a last blossom model to generate a shadow marker to fuel more of Misaki’s effects and turn 3 you can turn him into an emissary with the upgrade when Misaki 2’s beaters are starting to run out of steam.

 

Anyway believe it or not I have tried my gosh darned best to keep this relatively interesting, informative and (lol) brief.

However I can say with medium certainty that this is probably all of my thoughts on Last Blossom and the various ways in which you can build a crew.

As always thanks for reading, and maybe one day I’ll care about another crew enough to add more nonsense to this blog but until then Lance, out.