Masha Shingai in a Team Match

Highways and Dieways
Glyphs: Kelda (Healer), Wannok (Wound)
2v2, 300 Points Each

Note: Masha was updated before this playtesting game. The only change is to his Aura of Terror, which is now Curse of the Oni: Team 1:
Astro: Masha Shingai, Tomoe Gozen, Izumi Samurai, Theracus (300)
@Leo Ultra : Manauvi, Varkaanan Greyspears, Deadeye Dan, Isamu, Otonashi (300)

Team 2:
@Angi : Airborne Elite, 10th Regiment x2, Siiv (300)
Liz: Raelin, Zettian Guards, Marro Warriors, Beakface Sneaks x3, Otonashi (300)

Which Units Survived?
Astro: 2 Izumi Samurai, Tomoe Gozen (2 wounds), Masha Shingai (1 wound), Theracus (no wounds)
~187 Points
Leo: Deadeye Dan (no wounds), Otonashi, Isamu
~80 Points

Game Summary:
Leo led with his Greyspears and Manauvi, quickly denying Angi's 10th the Glyph of Wannok so that she couldn't use it to eat away at our forces. Liz meanwhile reinforced the point near their starting zone bridge, slowly moving Sneaks forward and engaging Leo's wolves. Essentially the entire first three wounds, I was spending 1 OM per round on Masha, Tomoe, and the Izumi to slowly advance them whilst maintaining a tight-knit formation to maximize their efficiency.

Leo engaged Raelin at a key moment with Manauvi, but then proceeded to whiff some key rolls for defense and lose him in a single turn to 10th. The spirit was placed on Theracus (we had a humorous kiting strategy to combine him with Deadeye Dan for the endgame), and then the Greyspears sustained heavy casualties shortly afterwards. He successfully managed to thin out the 10th Regiment, though, and by then I had finally advanced my Samurai pod enough to catch up to the action.

Counterstrike was used to great effect at this point, as I was able to bring Tomoe Gozen up to 5 defense and kill a Zettian (who had attacked from height and used Zettian Targeting, but whiffed) along with taking out a Sneak or two. Some great defense rolls for me definitely helped us out in thinning out the other team.

Angi tried shooting at Tomoe Gozen (who had engaged some Sneaks and was now taking full advantage of the Life Debt and extra defense die), dealing 2 wounds but then dying to Burning Spite. I was then able to swing around an Izumi and claim Wannok, giving her the wound to kill the final 10th Regiment and eliminate her from the game before the Airborne Elite could drop. At that point, it was mostly clean-up as Deadeye Dan took out the final Zettian Guard and I hunted down the Marro Warriors.

Usefulness of Abilities:
Burning Spite activated 2/2 times (8, 14), killing one 10th Regiment each time. The first one cost 2 wounds to an adjacent Tomoe Gozen; the second cost 1 wound to Masha Shingai.

Curse of the Oni subtracted the following dice from figures:
-2 from Leo's Varkaanans (detriment). The first attack whiffed, the second only rolled 1 skull.
-2 from my Izumi Samurai (detriment). One attack rolled a skull (blocked), the other whiffed.
-3 dice from Liz's Beakface Sneaks. One was killed by Counterstrike, the other two just whiffed.

Masha made 3 normal attacks, each time rolling 3/5 skulls. He killed two Beakface Sneaks and dealt the final wound to Raelin. When combined with the two Burning Spite kills, he killed a total of ~84 points.

Masha performed very well this game, albeit a large portion of that can be attributed to us leading with Leo's army while I slowly rolled mine forward until we had neutralized Angi's army, leaving Liz locked into her starting zone without many escape options. If we hadn't rushed out the Varkaanans, then my army would've had much more difficulties mobilizing while taking advantage of both Tomoe Gozen and Masha's auras. Surprisingly, this also seemed to work particularly well as a small combo, since there weren't nearly as many disparate Samurai squads to juggle around.

I think that changing Aura of Terror to only be in play when there is at least one revealed Order Marker on Masha is actually a bit of a buff as well. It certainly makes him a very dynamic figure, since you now need to consider when exactly you want to take that turn and activate the aura (do you wait until OM2 to get in a good turn with the Izumi or another squad, for example?), but it also gives a lot more freedom in how to avoid its effects.

Perhaps it was just because we were in a team game, but I felt like it was significantly easier to avoid Masha being a detriment to the entire army than it was before. If this feeling persists, then I may raise the roll required for Burning Spite to compensate and avoid getting too close to an A- power level.

Additional Comments:
Liz felt like he had a great impact on the game, but she wasn't sure if he was too powerful or not. He definitely felt a little oppressive at times (especially at one point when I locked down the last Marro Warrior in the moat with an Izumi on either side and Tomoe Gozen on height, with it just within range of his aura), but she was hesitant to say that it was because of him being too strong rather than her and Angi having less experience with the game. She enjoyed the match, though, and said that she wants to see him played in a variety of different formats to more accurately assess his balance.

In my eyes, this is definitely the absolute best that he's ever performed. I'm uncertain as to how much of this is just due to me getting a better understanding of him and how much is due to the team format where we were able to lead with Leo's army while I got into position, so it'll be interesting to see if he fares similarly well in larger 1v1 games. The map also heavily favored us, as I was able to jump between pools of height and force opponents to engage my Izumi instead of Masha.