Sunday 13 January 2019

League of Assassins part 2- henchmen in depth

Hello again all, for the second post of 2019 I'm following up my original post with something that was requested by a few people- a more in depth look at the League of Assassins henchmen! To keep my first post more concise I purposely left out quite a few henchmen, but in this post I will be discussing everything, organised by which set it comes in. I'll note here that every henchman in faction (ie League only, not from Bane) has Martial Artist, which is excellent when it comes to countering hordes, and at mostly defence 4 you can hope to need more of an investment to kill even the henchmen.
Bane's henchmen will be appearing later, in a dedicated Bane overview, and Damian has already been discussed, so they will not be in this article, nor will Goliath.

Lady Shiva set- League Agents 1-3
These 3 were the ones I was asked the most about in terms of being left out of my last post. 
Pros
The price. As the cheapest in-theme options for League, that's already of value, and they each bring some interesting tricks to the table. 
League Agent 1 has Sustained Defence on a Defensive weapon, which is really quite great in terms of sitting on objectives to either score or contest. 
League Agent 2 has Undercover which is ok, but there are better options of deploying up the table in League (Ki, Shadow, just buying someone else Hidden, Undercover equipment with Talia). 
League Agent 3 has the quite good combination of Fast and a Katana, making her by far the best offensive Agent, but she still has the double dip of issues from the Agents and League as a whole (low defence/endurance/willpower)
Cons
They're not awful, and they're certainly great cheap henchmen, but I have a couple of reasons why I dislike them. Defence 3 means they're the easiest models to hit in the crew, and without Stealth are far easier to just shoot off the board. This is only added to by their endurance of 4, which means a couple of well placed shots will take them out of the game, and its pretty safe to say this will be for good.
All in all, League Agent 1 and 3 have their places, with definite uses in both cases, but I think it is a far better investment to just hire other ninjas

Neeson Ra's set- Lotus, Yang and Ying
These 3 are ok, but they are of varying use. After the Shiva box, I would skip this one next, although the ninjas are still valuable henchmen, and I still see myself sneaking at least one of these 3 into all of my lists.
Pros
Yang is the best of the 3, because he brings consistency to the crew in damage. Combo on the katana, combined with Kill Them and Inspire, lets him put out 7 dice in attack, which is huge amounts of damage to anything.
Ying replaces combo with Hardened and Climbing Shoes as compared to Yang. Climbing Shoes is ok, when its useful its worth it, but that won't be often. Hardened, however, is always useful, as it means they are taking less lethal damage and have more potential to shake off big hits. 
Lotus has some great traits, and in terms of going against shooting he is the best option defensively because of Dodge and Reflexes. In terms of damage, he isn't doing anything special when compared to the other katanas, but he does have Rapid Fire shurikens, which lets him put a little extra stun damage on before the crew makes combat. This is ok, but I wouldn't value it over the other ranged attacks in the crew (smoke grenades and the bows).
Cons
Lotus is very expensive, and doesn't bring too much to play for that cost compared to stuff that's almost 20 rep cheaper. Sure, he can dodge guns, but with Stealth on everything else how much value is it? 
Apart from willpower on Ying and Yang? Not much. These 2 have very good traits, but in terms of usefulness Yang shoots himself out front with Combo. He is one of my favourite League henchmen period for his output, almost like a little Damian. 

2-man booster- Shadow and Seeker
I really like this 2 man set, and my love of Seeker has been well documented on the first post. Shadow, however, is in a strange spot when I look at League, as he is good in many ways, but lacking in some others compared to his fellow ninjas.
Shadow Pros
Smoke Grenade and Undercover are 2 things that are great on him, and will likely be the reasons someone takes Shadow. Sneak Attack is ok, but at willpower 4 it doesn't let him do it very often (as compared to Ichi, it has the extra caveat of him having to begin his activation further away, which means less counters to attack).
Shadow Cons
Shadow is only defence 3 (and the only ninja with this) and his Bo weapon is notoriously disliked. The staff that is much hated on Tim Drake is not that bad in Shadow's case, being a cheaper henchmen as opposed to an expensive Free Agent/Sidekick, but it still doesn't gel with the crew. He's the only one that doesn't do blood damage, and it reflects quite badly on him.
All in all, he plays like a worse Ichi without the katana, but this box is still definitely value for anyone playing Eternal League, as Seeker is one of their best henchmen period.

Rebirth Ra's- Goro, Ichi and Ki
These guys are the gold standard for League. As with all resin releases, they're great models that patch up weaknesses in the crew, and can do a lot to tune up the crew as a whole. I've already gone through Goro and Ki in detail in my first League post, but Ichi has a few tricks that I didn't mention. I went through the weapons he has, but Ichi has 2 big things that make him far more valuable than other comparable models in the crew- Feint and willpower 5. Those 2 combined mean he is not facing the big 2 issues in League, and when buffed he is even scarier. Being able to straight up negate blocks lets him murder things that are contesting or scoring, even if something is just blocking a zone he can cut through them with ease. Having 1 extra counter is often not relevant in Ichi's situation, but that is only because he is usually using Feint as a buff to himself, which is still better off than the other willpower 4 in the crew.

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