Astroking112

It's time for some more fun with the Seishin Samurai! I know not whether the sculpt's availability still holds, but the unit is fun and with the end of the semester here at last, it felt like a great time to go ahead and run another playtest.

RUINED CITY by Leaf_It
No glyphs. 500 points.

Astro: Spartacus, Crixus, Capuan Gladiators x3
Shiftrex: Kaemon Awa, Tagawa Samurai Archers x2, Tagawa Samurai, Seishin Samurai x6, Isamu

SURVIVING UNITS:
Kaemon Awa (unwounded), 3x TSA, 1x Tagawa Samurai, 5x Seishin Samurai (2 spawned)
~325 Points Left

GAME SUMMARY:
I led with Crixus and the Capuans while Shiftrex started mobilizing the archers. I tried to stop him from grabbing the dispersed height around the map, but failed to grab a strong foothold due to some early defensive whiffs for the Capuans. Crixus was the only unit to achieve an early kill, but he disengaged from the resulting Seishin because...

With the recent resurfacing of the Skeletal Samurai sculpt, my passion for the Samurai has seen a resurgence. Now that availability is better, it's even possible to do a single-spawning version of them as had been suggested ~15 months ago, making them a feasible design once more.

HIGH WAYS OR THE HIGHWAY by 1Mmirg
395 Points
Glyphs: Dagmar and Wannok
Astro: Seishin Samurai x6, Tagawa Samurai Archers x3, Raelin
Captain Stupendous: Horned Skull Brutes x3, Major Q10, Marcu Esenwein

SURVIVING UNITS:
Raelin (4 wounds), 3x TSA, 2x Seishin (one was unplaced)
~120 Points Left

GAME SUMMARY:
Capt. S and I both beelined for Wannok, mostly ignoring the left side of the map (he had Marcu, but my best Wannok sponge was Raelin, so I didn't want to leave it uncontested and only had 10 figures on the board to start with, which made spreading out infeasible). I led with TSA of course, and he moved out with...

Well, in my infinite temptations for cool miniatures, I realized that the sculpt used for Mokumokuren actually had the availability for an SoV submission... And given the very positive responses that the design has gotten, Captain Stupendous and I decided that it's worth adding it to the testing pool to try and get it ready for Yokai Wave 2.

Ideally, Mokumokuren will add a lot to Yokai armies as their first non-Unique option, opening up army-building options a lot. Given that they're also offensively oriented, this has the potential to really diversify the faction, and a living object of some sort almost feels like a thematic necessity here given the actual Yokai legends. So we wanted to test out a revised draft from the one initially posted to my thread, which swaps the revealed OM gimmick to be more in line with other Yokai and adds a range limit to the "Lesser Shapeshift" for thematic reasons. Both of these changes should be minimal for Yokai builds, but...

The Kirin-led Yokai just lost to Sacred Band, so obviously the next step is to test them against a probably A-tier army of Heavy Gruts, Nerak, Grimnak, and Marro Warriors. Surprisingly, they did better than against the Sacred Band.

DEADLOCK by Dignan
500 Points
Heavy Snow and Normal Ice
Glyphs: Ulaniva and Wannok
Captain Stupendous: Abe no Seimei, Kincho, Masha Shingai, Kirin, Nure Onna
Astro: Heavy Gruts x4, Nerak the Glacian Swog Rider, Grimnak, Marro Warriors

SURVIVING UNITS:
3x Heavy Gruts, 4x Marro Warriors, Grimnak (unwounded), Nerak (unwounded)
~270 Points Left

VERSION OF THE KIRIN USED:
...

So, the Kirin's beefed up and ready to absolutely terrify those bread and butter common squads. What better way to truly test its mettle than to throw it against the horrifying horrors of the Sacred Band?

Feast your eyes, anonymous viewer, but be warned that this post is not for the faint of heart. That is, unless you wanted to see the Yokai lose to a fairly middle-tier army. In that case, you've got nothing to worry about.

VALLEDONN FORTRESS by antmarchingroves
500 Points
Normal Snow and Normal Ice
Glyphs: Valda and Wannok
Astro: Abe no Seimei, Kincho, Masha Shingai, Kirin, Nure Onna
Hero89: Sacred Band x4, Marcus Decimus Gallus, Parmenio, Gen. Simon Fraser, Johnny "Shotgun" Sullivan

VERSION OF THE KIRIN USED:
...