Mighty Minion - Gaki

Mighty Minion - GakiIt's been a while since I've posted one of these and I really want to rant about the merits of the Gaki, or as I think of them, the piranhas of the spirit world.

Strengths

• Walk of 5 and charge of 7 is pretty fast for a Resser
• Nice cheap minion at 3ss
• Insatiable hunger gives them a free walk in the end closing phase against living crews
• slow to die gives you the opportunity to lash out or snack on a corpse when killed, its one of their most powerful benefits
• +1 dg when inflicting damage within 6 of Kirai
• Devour Anything spell allows you to sacrifice height 1 models, which together with unstoppable eaters ability, and two other Gaki, means you can target height two models. The target is sacrificed if it fails the duel, regardless of remaining wounds
• The Absorb spell is a great finisher, cast this on a defender with 3 wounds or less, sacrifice them and gain fast. Do it a second time and gain reactivate.
• 0 action Eat Your Fill allows all wounds to healed
• 1 action Snack allows a healing flip and is best used as a slow to die action.
• Balanced damage output at 2/2/4.

Weaknesses

• Low Willpower of 3
• Low Cast of 3
• Never run alone unless you really have to, their melee trigger becomes useless
• Avoid putting them up against a magical blast crew, they'll simply evaporate
• Don't let them get to far ahead otherwise they'll be out of Kirai's Seishin range and her damage buff
• Slow to die action is useless if they are outside melee without a corpse counter to chug on, or something to attack
• They are entirely selfish, one corpse equals one happy Gaki.

Play Style
Gaki are fast and best run in packs. They are voracious in combat but have no range combat abilities.
They can unlimited trigger off each other in combat until enough damage is done to kill, devour or absorb their prey. They can then stop and snack or pickup any corpse counters and keep going.
A Gaki with a corpse counter can cheat death itself by saving that snack for when it most needs it. When killed it simply pulls out the victims corpse, has a snack (using its slow to die action) and makes a healing flip. It's the ultimate energy bar for these little guys.
With their spirit ability they can simply pass through intervening terrain and their insatiable hunger ability means that a living crew is going to to find they move on them very quickly.
Synergies
The most obvious synergy is more Gaki. The bigger the pack, the more voracious they become in combat, particularly when up against 40 and 50mm based models where their 1 inch melee range and defender melee range trigger Feeding Frenzy.




They also synergise well with Datsu Ba who can buff their healing or movement, can summon more of them, and can leverage them to get into combat.
They also act as a meat shield and glue for the higher priced minions like Dead Rider, Shikome and Ikiryo. Simply run the Gaki on front, get stuck into combat and then send in the Dead Rider as a closer. Alternatively, run it the other way round, pounce your prey with the rider and then charge the Gaki in to mop up or take care of any unwanted attention. Should the dead rider die, you'll be generating two corpse counters for the pack to pick up and feed on.




An Onryo can give them immediate revenge and they can cover the Gaki assault with their ranged spell malevolence.

I also like the Ikiro's 0 action Call Spirits as another way to enhance their movement.
All up I'm a big fan of these guys, but they'll only work for you if you can get them through the field of fire and up close and personal.




Gaki get my Zombie kill of the week award for putting Teddy in his place in two separate games recently. In game one I simply cheated in the red joker on damage and the another severe for the eight wounds required to finish him off.

In the second game his hard to wound was saving him so with one action left I tried an absorb, now I missed out by 1 on the duel total but it would have been so powerful if I had managed it. My opponent promptly swapped Kade and Teddy around, with Teddy taking no further part in the game and Kade getting picked to pieces in the next turn.
It almost makes up for Mr Fantasy then going on to trounce me in the thunderstruck achievement tournament (see previous article)
I should also give them the Unlucky Monkey award for the game in which I launched three of the at Sonia Creed only to have them burnt to a crisp outside of Kirai's range to ressurect.
I should maybe take some of my own advice.....

Might Minion - Graveyard Spirit

Next up in the mighty minion series is the humble graveyard spirit totem. At a cost of a single soulstone, you'd be forgiven for thinking this little guy was just to be used as chaff, but the reality is he's one of the strongest supporting totems in the Resser arsenal and he's able to support any master.




Strengths
- Cheapest Resser totem
- Not master aligned, so can be taken by any master
- 3 wound spirit
- Grants Armour 2 to linked model
- Whilst linked can't be directly targeted by ranged weapons or magic
- Respectable 5 wounds on a severe damage for his Chill Touch melee weapon
- Companion with Master
- 6" charge
- Reasonable WP 5
- Undead grants Seamus a control card and heals 2 wounds when killed (Necrotic Ministrations trigger on Seamus)
- Spirit grants Kirai a Seishin if killed within 8" of her ability Spirit Anchor or can be sacrificed using Absorb Spirit spell to gain two control cards, heal two wounds and gain fast.

Weaknesses
- Low CB of 2, will mean you have to bolster with a high card to hit, probably cheating, you want charge if you can.
- Defence is 3
- He's a bullet magnet, your opponent will want him dead.

Play Style
A lot of people including me, have fallen into the belief that the Graveyard Spirit needs to be in base contact with the linked mini in order to grant the armour 2 benefit. This tends to affect how people play this totem, just shuffling it around, keeping the benefit until it inevitably dies.

A more careful inspection of his rules highlights that he grants armour 2 to the linked model and he doesn't have to be in contact to afford the benefit, he simply has to be in contact at the start of the closing phase.

Therefore there are some situations where companioning the spirit with a master and activating the totem first can be advantageous. Providing your intended target doesn't have any retaliatory attacks, the graveyard spirit could charge a weaker minion or soften up the target for a masters charge. The charge will grant the positive flips the spirit needs to hopefully get a severe damage off, then the master activates and walks or does his thing, and it'll push the spirit out of the combat and back into contact with the master. The trick is remembering to do it, because if they're not in contact at the end of the activation, the link is broken.

Synergies
- Any Resser master for a bit of protection
- Most 6+SS minions and in particular Madame Sybelle for an über minion

Mighty Minion - The Crooked Man

This is the first in a series of articles that focuses on the relative strengths of some of the Resser minions, the Mighty Minion is my take on the minions that are always going to be on my sideboard at a tournament, because they offer a deeper level of play than their stat card might initially leads you to believe.

So first on my list of Mighty Minions comes the humble Crooked Man, a miner in life and a veritable one man army in the afterlife.


Strengths
- Respectable blast damage with the "cave in" spell.
- "Shafted" spell can kill outright
- Ranged and close combat options to paralyse an opponent
- Higher than average will power
- Crooked and Evasive abilities are great ranged weapon defences
- Slow to die action

Weaknesses
- Movement is a humble 4" per turn, but can be assisted by the Belle lure
- Casting is only 4, meaning you may need to use a few high control cards to succeed in casting attempts

Synergies
- Rotten Belles for lure can move either the crooked man around for extra movement or your opponent around so the crooked man can get the hit in with cave in or shafted
- Punk Samurai can intercept any charge or just wade in if your crooked man gets swamped in combat and has a very respectable melee damage output
- Carrion Effigy can add blast damage or heal local crooked men if it has a corpse counter
- Bette Noir for some pop up melee damage. Focus your crooked men on a single target close to others in a closely packed opponent, get a few blasts off to kill your target and damage anything close, and then bring Bette in for some paired backstabbing action.

Faction Match Ups
- Rasputina - Against the Cult of December, there's some obvious benefit to having minions that can shrug off blast damage and he can dish it back.
- Hamelin/Collodi - Can't have enough blasts when there are so many rats/dolls to kill.
- Lilith & Zoraida - the crooked man's higher than average will power has saved me on a couple of occasions.