Amanozako, is a legend from an ancient Japanese text. She’s a demon goddess who has a frightful temper.
Unnecessary to know to play the model in malifaux, but very cool all the same. This post will hopefully me a small overview and musing of Ama No Zako. Most “Tactics” articles I’ve read recently have just been summaries of the model and its abilities, which I know, as I already have the rules. Tactics should be about how to synergise that model, or get the most out of it, so that’s what I’m going to try and do for book 4’s favorite demon beasty.
However, a quick summary, but you should go and get storm of shadows out and have it in front of you. 8 points, 9 when hired as a merc. Flight, terrifying, nimble. Can attack with a 3″ weapon, or with a 1″ that does more damage and heals the number of wounds inflicted. Has a trigger with the 3″ to pull defender into base contact, then make a strike with the 1″. Has two key abilities amongst other things. Both are expensive card wise. One is a 4″ aura, when a model is killed they make a WP>14 duel, if they fail, they make a slow to die action controlled by the demon’s controller. The second is a (0), creates a 3″ bubble, enemies ending in it take a wound, and ama no zako heals those wounds.
I think the first thing to consider is cost. At 9 points to most crews, you’ll be taking it over melee beatsticks, henchmen, or very powerful minions. Examples such as teddy for neverborn, peacekeeper for guild, the riders, mature nephilim, Jack daw, snowstorm, etc. What this post will basically boil down to, then, is what ama no zako can offer that those models can’t, and is that enough to warrant taking her over said high cost minions/henchmen.
The first thing to consider is survivability. The red skinned anger demon has a defence of 5, not bad, not great, 10 wounds, and hard to wound 1. H2W should hopefully stop enemies getting straight flips on him, so they can’t cheat damage, but I think most crews would be able to take her down if they concentrated on it. Fortunately, she can heal wounds, fairly easily and quickly with her 3/5/7 claws. However, she can obviously only do this in her activation, so if she’s activated early to get her abilities off, she becomes quite vulnerable.
This moves us nicely into her Melee capabilities. She doesnt have and melee action modifiers, which is a bummer, but she has a trigger that lets him get a “free” attack. It’s only on masks, and her claws arent paired, and the damage is not as good, so she probably wont be using it very often, as you’ll be using the teeth (The ones that heal) instead. However, I can think of two scenarios where you would use the claws, and if you get the trigger off, even better. One is if you move your nimble walk, and are not in 1″ melee for the teeth, so make a claws strike instead, because you need to attack twice for whatever reason (Armour, h2w, h2k etc), or you use nimble and a (1) to walk and are still not in 1″ for the teeth. I can’t help but think that whilst really good, her combat is only a perk, and not the main reason for bringing her, as other models do it better. If you’ve tried the weaver widow, you’ll know what I mean, as the big spider lady has two very good combat attacks, but that certainly isnt her main role in lists, nor does she get to use them very often.
So we’ve seen Ama No Zako can be kept alive if played carefully, and can do some impressive melee in addition to her disruption spells, but let’s talk about those now, the main difference between her, and the other minions mentionned earlier. Miasma of boils and flies, a (0), requires a 10 of rams, with no resists. Makes a 3″ aura from the model count as sever terrain, and enemies ending in that zone will take a wound, and ama will heal one. I think this offers fairly versatile board control, good for defending an objective, (such as claim jump, treasure hunt, or an interact), or say a model the enemy is targetting for some reason that you want to keep alive. Consider the following example:
Chompy is representing Ama No zako. The fire gamin is a model you wish to keep alive (Say, he’s stolen a relic or made an interact for sabotage.) Using Ama No Zako’s miasma, the pursuing neverborn (The mysterious effigy, wicked doll, and kade) Trying to hurt the gamin, will suffer a wound for coming near, which can be detrimental to small “grunts” like marrionettes, wicked dolls, and that kind of thing, and will also cost them double their movement to get to the gamin. In this example, a halved move and a melee range will cover it, but consider this:
Now the neverborn have enough AP to move next to the gamin, with two moves, but will not be able to strike, as they have no AP left. If they do this, they’ll take a wound, so it’s a tough call for the neverborn player.
An important thing to note about this ability is the wounds are taken at the end of the enemies activation. You can cast it, move up into a group of enemies, and then they will have to move out in their turn, or suffer a wound. Obviously moving at a reduced rate.
Ama’s second ability is (1) Last whisper, Cast on a 9 of masks, with no resist, Non-master models dying within 4″ perform a WP-14 duel, and if they fail, Ama’s controller makes a (1) action with them, and they cannot take a further slow to die action.
I think this could be brutal under the right circumstances. Imagine a hoard of marionnettes, when one dies, ama makes a melee strike at another, 2 damage is enough to kill one, so you have another strike, and the cycle continues. Might also be of added benefit against models with ranged weapons, assuming they’re not in combat, making a potshot at another model, or even a master. Finally, denying slow to die is also very good – No heal on an executioner, for example, or denying friekorps or necropunks slow to die also, meaning they can’t summon killjoy. This affects your own models too, and you can cheat down to ensure you fail the duel, giving you an extra action for free. One thing hit me as I was writing this, potential synergy between killjoy and ama no zako, however KJ is card intensive, and Last whisper requires a high mask and an additional card to be discarded.
Ama will work for any crew that can hire her, so pretty much everything other than dreamer, somer, henchmen, etc. She’s also a beast, so has synergy with marcus, but I think she’s much better suited for certain missions than others. With terrifying 13 too, she gains a bit when played against living crews, so if you know what you’re playing, you can make a decent decision. That, and I’m sure the model will be gorgeous, and you can put some demon symbols and stuff on the base, so it should be a lot of fun. Not for every game, not a staple of lists, but nice to try out and have.
Any thoughts, please let me know :p Comments and especially crits most welcome 🙂
As always, tweet me @Wandering_Gamer, or visit my blog on the mantic forums, I’m “ManticFanboyLAD” 
wanderingwargamer 
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