Malifaux Factions:
The Ten Thunders
To Defeat Your Enemy, Become Your Enemy

Malifaux. We've got Wild West cowboys, ghosts and zombies, steampunk engineers and their creations, otherworldly demons, and hillbilly gremlins. What more could we possibly need?

How about ninjas to infiltrate and aid all of those other groups, all while pursuing their own goals?

As well as being a fun concept, this provides several advantages to a Thunders player. For one thing, starting in Ten Thunders makes it very easy to branch out into any other faction - just get the master that's infiltrated your faction of choice, and you're halfway there. For another, it means that when you call "Thunders" at the beginning of the game, your opponent has no idea what you're about to do. Should he prepare for The Brewmaster's mind games, or Mei Feng's brute force? Yan Lo's durability, or Misaki's speed? The Thunders are unpredictable. Appropriate for a faction of ninjas and spies.

That's not to say that the Ten Thunders have no unifying themes. Their raw power tends to fall a bit short of other factions, and they're not quite as good at the other factions' specialties. For instance, Yan Lo will never match Nicodem or Kirai in a summoning war, and Lucas McCabe doesn't have the sheer strength of a true Guild master. Instead, they thrive on tricks and advanced mechanics. I will admit that I don't have in-depth knowledge of the whole faction, but here are a few of my favorites.

Mei Feng: This is the Ten Thunders master that resonates with me. She's dual-faction with the Arcanists, and as such, her Rail Crew boasts the durability and power that you'd expect from that group. Her Rail Workers have an amazing 0-act ability called Implacable Assault, which allows you to discard a card in order to gain a positive flip on your attack and damage flips for the remainder of that model's activation. In addition, her henchman Kang is so good that it's almost worth buying the box just for him: He's a melee powerhouse with Hard to Wound, Hard to Kill, a 0-act healing ability, and an upgrade that allows him to counterattack on defense flips.

Mei Feng herself is a terror in close quarters, and her Railwalker ability allows her to quickly close the distance to an unwitting opponent. Once she's within range, her attacks hit hard and combo into one another, Mortal Kombat-style, enabling you to strike far more times than her 3 AP would suggest. If that weren't enough, she is immune to Slow and Paralyze effects (which includes the paralysis from horror duels!) and her Vent Steam ability provides cover from ranged attacks. In short: High speed, high damage, high durability. This girl is an absolute bulldozer.

Jakob Lynch: Dana's already written an excellent in-depth article about our favorite drug-dealing demon don. As a quick overview, Lynch is a dual-faction Neverborn master whose main trick is Brilliance - a condition which does nothing by itself, but provides his crew with many bonuses in combat. His other interesting bit of flavor is his relationship with Hungering Darkness,who is both his Henchman and his Totem. Lynch himself, while no slouch in combat, just doesn't stack up to most other masters. Hungering Darkness makes up for it, though. A 0-cost model with a powerful melee attack, a slightly weaker version of Obey, and a whole lot more durability than meets the eye, Hungering Darkness is (as its own ability name suggests) the real power of this crew.

Lynch also brings a variety of powerful minions to the table. His Illuminated are strong, tough and a rarity among Neverborn in that they boast a ranged attack. Beckoners, not included in Lynch's box set but often considered a necessity to hire alongside him, provide still more range as well as supporting his Brilliance tricks and granting access to Lure. The Depleted are good damage sinks who explode when they die, inflicting Brilliance on those around them. Finally, Mr. Graves and Mr. Tannen are Enforcers who can grant his crew a strong backbone or powerful control and support effects, respectively.

What really makes Lynch noteworthy, though, is Ace in the Hole, an easily overlooked ability which allows you to return a discarded ace to your hand upon using it. While that may not sound all that great, it works obscenely well with abilities that require discards, such as the Rail Workers' Implacable Assault, or Thunder Archers' Rapid Fire. Discard ace, return ace to hand, lather, rinse, repeat.

Lucas McCabe: While I don't have this Master myself, I can see why Wyatt is a huge fan of him: take the firepower and cheap minions of the Guild, then give it versatility and mobility. There's also the small matter of the character himself, who is pretty much an Indiana Jones for hire that rides a freaking horse into battle. These aren't ninjas, but simply all-around conniving jerks who know how to plunder the treasures of Malifaux, giving some back to the Guild while saving the best for the Ten Thunders.

Unlike Mei Feng and Misaki, McCabe himself isn't so much a damage dealer as a troubleshooter. His immediate benefit is again, the horse, giving him a whopping walk/charge of 7/9 inches, and while his damage output seems only decent, it's the damn netgun which makes him fantastic. Giving out area-effect slow and even paralyze effects can stop a crew in it's tracks very quickly, robbing them of their ability to complete objectives, or just slowing them down enough so his crew can wade in with guns and gang weapons. He might seem like he doesn't have a lot of health, but when he dies, he comes back as a dismounted McCabe, meaning even as a utility Master, he has a whopping amount of health.

The funniest thing about the crew are probably the Wastrels; the lazy noblemen that have lost everything, and taken to the streets to be complete jerks to everyone. They seem terrible on paper, until you realize that the "Relic Hunters" title for the crew box actually is how they work. McCabe can toss them magic armor and swords, suddenly doubling their damage output, or giving armor to the whole crew. Playing against McCabe's crew, its hilarious and mind-boggling watching them walk up brazenly to a model twice their potential, sucker punch them with a magic blade, then casually toss it to the next guy.

Misaki: Mistress of the Ten Thunders, infiltrator of the Outcasts, and the consummate ninja and spy. There is good reason for Misaki to be the face of the Thunders. Her Torakage minions are solid all-around models with excellent stats and some fun abilities. They can strike out alone and become powerful melee combatants, or blend in to a crowd and make themselves quite difficult to hit. Her henchman Ototo is basically everything that I want out of life, wielding a club with a massive 3" range and high damage that only gets higher when he becomes wounded. Her totem Sheng would be extremely forgettable, except that he boasts a ranged ability which can heal Misaki.

Misaki is a strong melee fighter with two powerful melee abilities: Bisento deals a lot of damage and has a trigger which forces your opponent to either sacrifice two cards, two soulstones, or the model that was hit. Thunder doesn't dish out quite as much damage to a single target, but has the potential for a blast. She also has an ability called Desperate Measures, which grants her a positive twist on defensive flips and an extra crow on attack flips (which is needed for her Bisento trigger) when you have no soulstones left. She really thrives on giving herself positive twists to everything, a theme that can be truly realized by heavily abusing the Recalled Training upgrade.

I'll admit that I've always had a love-hate relationship with Misaki: I love her and she hates me. Her powerful attacks, all-around strong Henchman and Minions, and absurdly fun movement tricks seemed to make her an obvious choice for my fast, aggressive play-style. I particularly adore her Smoke and Shadows upgrade, which allows any models with the Last Blossom characteristic to bury themselves, then reappear within 6" of any friendly model at the end of the turn.

In spite of all that, I have never actually won a game with her.