Welcome to the… jeez, it’s the seventh Faction Focus!  Today, we’ll be talking about the masters of deception, manipulation, and precisely metered violence: the crime syndicate known as the Ten Thunders.

Remember that you can also check out the accompanying video on Danger Planet, the premier source for Malifaux video content!

The Lore of the Thunders

The Thunders have grown to be a powerful force in Malifaux, but their origins are Earthside.  Long before the opening of the first Breach, the Katanaka family of Japan first began to build a reputations as thieves, cutthroats and bandits.  Their reach spread slowly, first through their home country and then into the lands of their neighbors.  Extortion, gambling, prostitution, drug trafficking, and assassination: the Katanaka crime syndicate flourished in the underbelly of society, all under the rigid control of their oyabun.  Little is known of their activities during the time of the first Breach, but when the path to Malifaux reopened and the Guild colonized the other world, the Katanakas were there.

People from all over the world flocked to Malifaux, but the Guild was based in Europe and had its own clear prejudices.  People from China, Japan and Vietnam– the Three Kingdoms– settled just like their European and American counterparts, forming a Little Kingdom in the heart of Malifaux City.  And bedded down among them like a viper in the grass was the Katanaka clan.

Perhaps they would have never become more than that, except for a chance discovery: a second breach in the mountains north of Malifaux City, much smaller than the first, but unknown to almost anyone.  The Earthside end opened in Katanaka territory.  Their oyabun, Baojun Katanaka, knew at once what we had.  The Katanakas took control of the breach and established a hidden base on the other side.  They smuggled soulstones and tech out of Malifaux, and guns and drugs in– along with desperate people who couldn’t get a ticket through the main Breach.  These unfortunates would have to work off their debt to the Katanakas on the far side.  Most importantly of all, Baojun dispatched his daughter Misaki into Malifaux to scout ahead.  She operated as a mercenary for a while, watching and waiting, then reported back: the time was ripe.  Plague was spreading through Malifaux (Hamelin was making his first play for ascension) and people were desperate.  It was time for the Ten Thunders to be born.

The Katanakas took advantage of their portal to smuggle in warriors and weapons, quickly amassing a force at least equal to any of the other gangs or syndicates operating in Malifaux.  But they were not simple thugs.  They used their vast wealth and influence to infiltrate the other factions; Mei Feng, for instance, joined the Arcanists and led construction of the rail lines, while Yan Lo joined the ranks of the Resurrectionists.  Lucas McCabe found employment with the Guild, never revealing that he was moonlighting for the Thunders, while the Brewmaster was sent to manipulate the Bayou’s gremlins.

The Thunders found themselves rapidly growing in power, and here Baojun made a fateful mistake.  A rebellion erupted on Earth, pushing the Guild out of the Three Kingdoms, and Baojun Katanaka decided it was time to take command of Malifaux for good.  His daughter opposed his rash action, knowing that as strong as the Thunders were, they were not ready to meet the Guild in open battle.  Baojun would not be dissuaded, and so Misaki challenged him for leadership.  The duel was quick: Misaki decapitated her father with a single strike of her bisento and seized control of the Thunders.

Since then, she has continued the slow, patient, careful strategy of before, shepherding her strength, acting only when necessary and only with the precise amount of force required.  The Thunders are the unquestioned masters of Malifaux’s underworld.  They rally forces both mundane and magical, and benefit from an unmatched network of spies and assassins.  They still trade in vice of every kind, but Misaki has learned that information and leverage are currency every bit as valuable as, well, currency.  You can win a war with bullets, blades, or brains, and the Ten Thunders have plenty of all three.  In their ruthlessness, though, they have made pacts with dark powers, powers every bit as sinister as the Grave Spirit or the slumbering Tyrants.

Why Should I Play Ten Thunders?

The Ten Thunders made their debut near the end of First Edition. Uniquely, at first they had no single-faction masters– every Thunders master was an infiltrator of some sort, split with another faction.  This gave them unparalleled access to a variety of models and playstyles.  Since then, pure Thunders masters have appeared, and several masters have retrenched their loyalty (either leaving the Thunders or pledging to them fully), but the faction still reflects a wide cross-section of Malifaux themes.

They are, like the Arcanists, split between human and monster, though with an Eastern rather than Western aesthetic.  Moreover, they draw heavily from real-world myth and legend. You’ll find samurai, ninjas, and shaolin monks among the Thunders, but you’ll also find penanggalan, tanuki, wanyudo, komainu, katashiro, kamaitachi, tengu, jorogumo…

Ten Thunders crews tend to be extremely mobile and hard-hitting.  They can’t take a punch (typical of a bunch of ninjas) but they strike hard and fast, and they have plenty of ways to trip opponents up and leave them helpless, befuddled, and lost.  Their symbol is the head of the dragon– the feared brand of the Katanaka syndicate.

Play Ten Thunders if:

• You like the Neverborn playstyle, but you’re not ready to give up on guns just yet.  The Thunders move fast and break things, but sometimes they do so from a safe distance.
• You love wuxia films.  Next to Westerns and classic monster mash horror, kung-fu movies are one of the three cinematic pillars of Malifaux.
• You want to test your painting skills.  Ten Thunders models tend towards the elaborate, with lots of flapping cloth and tiny, fiddly details.  They look gorgeous when done well, though!

Masters

Misaki Katanaka

Misaki spent years in her father’s shadow. Baojun Katanaka was a arrogant, tyrannical, and cruel man, and he treated his daughter like a weapon from the day she was old enough to hold a wooden training sword.  He’s paid for his sins, though, and now Misaki is in charge.  And she learned a lot more from the old man than she’d like to admit. (Don’t tell her that to her face, though, unless you’d like a quick trip to the bottom of the river).

Sure, Misaki is much more respectful of her agents than Baojun was.  She’s given Mei Feng much more freedom, and she’s less prone to fits of temper than the old man.  Still, she’s by no means a nice person; under her command, the Thunders still traffic in vice and violence of all kinds, and their enemies tend to show up with mysteriously cut throats.  A decent percentage of those are Misaki’s handiwork.  She chafes at the burdens of leadership and longs for the days when she could get out into the world and solve problems with the tip of her blade.  Whenever she hears of a threat that needs a scalpel, she grabs her bisento and gathers her Last-Blossom retinue around her.  Stealthy Torakage sneak from shadow to shadow, while the unsubtle Ototo simply smashes the Thunders’ enemies with his massive tetsubo.  Misaki has one more ace in the hole: her fiery familiar, Shang, an imaginary friend conjured into existence by Malifaux’s wild magic.

Misaki embodies the ninja stereotype to a T.  She can drop Shadow Markers and vanish into them, popping out at unexpected angles to cut your enemy’s throat.  Her crew are likewise fast and deadly and her keyword rewards aggressive play– charging in and cutting down enemies before they get a chance to activate is one way to control the board.  Misaki’s title form embraces her role as the spider at the heart of the Ten Thunders’ web, using her Shadow Markers to draw in enemies and then taking control of them.

Play Misaki if:

• You want to dominate your opponents with Real Ultimate Power
• You prefer to lurk in the shadows before making your move
• You GOTTA GO FAST

Jakob Lynch

Jakob Lynch is possibly the luckiest man in Malifaux.  And probably the unluckiest, too.  A lifelong gambler, he had already made and lost a series of fortunes by the time he crossed the Breach.  Entering Malifaux was the start of the biggest winning streak of his life, capped off when he bet it all on one last hand and walked away the owner of his very own casino/brothel/general den of vice: the Honeypot.

Of course, that was his last stroke of luck for a while.  Taking money out of a casino was easy for Lynch; bringing it in was harder.  One night he found himself by the side of the river, drowning in debt and contemplating deleting the “in debt” part.  He was “saved” by an offer of financial aid from a wizened old man, who offered him very generous terms and only belatedly revealed that he worked for the Ten Thunders and would be collecting his money on pain on, well, pain.  The loan kept Lynch afloat, but it couldn’t turn his fortunes around, and soon enough he was once again flat broke and facing the prospect of paying with his life.

That was when Mr. Graves and Mr. Tannen found him and made him an offer.  Let them use the Honeypot’s basement, and they’d pay his debt to the Thunders.  All he had to do was keep the Honeypot open.  He accepted, having little to lose, and found his fortunes turning around– he couldn’t keep the punters away with a stick, and they seemed to like his booze and, uh, “companionship” as much as the tables.  One day, curiosity got the better of him and he descended into the basement… just in time to see a ghastly, ephemeral horror manifest out of the darkness and suck the life out of a customer while Graves and Tannen watched approvingly.

It turned out his new “friends” had a boss of their own: an ancient entity called the Hungering Darkness. The Darkness exuded an aura of addictive power known as Brilliance, which could be concentrated through human intermediaries or tainted whiskey.  Those subject to its effects felt a euphoric high, but soon found themselves craving more and more.  Brilliance saturation warped their bodies and minds, until eventually they were ready to be consumed by the Darkness.  That seemed to be Lynch’s fate, too, until the creature realized that, somehow, its new host was immune to its Brilliance.  The two of them sealed a pact, right then and there: souls for the Darkness, in exchange for business for the Honeypot.  Now Lynch wields his patron’s supernatural power at the behest of his Thunders paymasters, but like any good gambler he’s always looking out for numero uno.

The Honeypot crew centers on the Darkness and its Brilliance.  You can deal out Brilliance to allies and enemies alike, healing your friends and damaging your foes – and as long as models are Brilliant, all sorts of wonderful secondary effects kick in.  There are a lot of card tricks in this crew, too, as befits a casino.  Lynch’s title form prefers to hoard the Brilliance on friendly models, allowing them to use it to empower their attacks.  And in either form, the Hungering Darkness is a powerful, threatening totem.

Play Jakob Lynch if:

• Kenny Rogers is your spirit animal
• You’re good at card tricks and like to show off
• You like to debuff enemies, but you reach a point where you just wanna finish ’em off yourself

Shenlong

The Tyrants wrought terrible damage during they heyday, and after the Grave Spirit shattered them and brought them low, the people of Malifaux were quick to bind and restrain their essences.  Most of the Tyrant spirits fell to cunningly laid traps and patiently built prisons, but a few escaped.  One, the Dragon, sought to flee farther than the rest.  In desperation it sundered its essence and flung half of it into the aether, where it fetched up on the shores of a strange new world: ours.

This diminished demi-Dragon found that it could bind itself to a host.  It possessed a shaman and for a long time she was its vessel, but even with the Dragon’s power unnaturally extending her lifespan she eventually died.  To the Dragon’s horror, it realized that it could not escape her corpse.  It lay there in a Tibetan river for centuries until by chance a new host stumbled along and freed it.  Once again mobile, the Dragon vowed never to be imprisoned that way again.  Rather than opportunistically seek out a new host, it would cultivate one.  So began the Temple of Four Rivers.  Twisting the tenets of Buddhism to its own ends, the Dragon founded four orders of Monks, each training in a different manner to perfect their bodies and hone their minds.  The Dragon chose its hosts from among these, picking only the best and brightest down the years.

Shenlong was one of the greatest students ever to pass through the High River temple.  In time, he discovered the Dragon’s former host, and sensing his strength the Tyrant spirit passed into him.  The Dragon has granted him great power, and kept him young– Shenlong is over eighty years old– but this power comes at a price.  Initially honored, Shenlong realizes that the Dragon’s goals are destructive and inimical to the Temples he values so highly.  But how can he free himself from such a powerful spirit… and what will happen to him if he does?

Shenlong’s crew amasses Chi Tokens, which they can use to increase their stats (and for a few other effects, depending on the model).  Shenlong himself benefits from four Fighting Style stances, each of which grants him new abilities.  His title form takes on the role of instructor, allowing his students to attach the Fighting Styles instead.  Shenlong’s River Monks are adept students, with a grab bag of tricks and some potent defensive tech if you have Soulstones to spare.

Play Shenlong if:

• You’re all-in on the wuxia theming, but more Hero than Crouching Tiger
• You want your master to be throwing hands
• You don’t like fair fights – Chi gives you a stat advantage in most situations

Mei Feng

Mei Feng came to Malifaux under the auspice of the Ten Thunders, sent to infiltrate the M&SU. There, she runs the Foundry, the division of the Union that builds the railroads. Malifaux’s wilds are vast and dangerous, and the only safe way to travel long distance is by train– but in addition to the ordinary dangers of dynamite, rockfalls, and malfunctioning machinery, rail workers in Malifaux have to deal with predation by voracious creatures, banditry, and Neverborn attacks. Not to mention tyrannical Guild bosses! Mei has finally decided where her allegiance lies: the Ten Thunders, who have pledged to help her liberate Zhongguo from the boot of the Guild.

Mei Feng takes care of her railworkers, and they take care of her. Her ability to shape metal is nothing short of supernatural, and she personally crafted the prostheses used by many railworkers. She takes an active role in defending them, too, using the power of solidarity and kung fu to kick enemies through brick walls. She still serves the Thunders, but is increasingly feeling the pull of her divided loyalties. The Arcanists and Thunders both see the Foundry as a tool: a weapon to wield against their enemies, whether directly or in the form of sabotage and work slowdowns. Caught in the middle are the rail workers, who put their bodies on the line to lay track and build bridges and tunnels. Mei Feng came to blows with Misaki Katanaka, head of the Ten Thunders, and relented only when Misaki promised to treat the Foundry as people rather than a means to an end.

On the table, Mei Feng’s crew is hyper-mobile, laying down Scrap Markers that they can use as “tracks” to quickly cross the table. Mei Feng herself is an uber-beatstick who can declare multiple triggers and stay in constant motion, dishing out beatings while dancing across the board. Rail Workers are resilient and tireless, and enemies who get too close may find themselves bashed to pieces by a giant Metal Golem wielding a piece of track as a club.  Mei Feng’s title version is slower and solider, handing out Shielded and dropping dangerous Scrap everywhere – sometimes even welding it into new Metal Gamin.

Play Mei Feng if:

• You came to Malifaux from fighting games and miss jamming those buttons
• You don’t mind carrying a tackle box full of tokens and markers with you
• You want to field the coolest looking alt-sculpt crew Wyrd has.

That last one requires some explanation. Every year Wyrd puts out a Nightmare Edition of some kind, a collection of thematic alternate sculpts for a keyword. Mei Feng’s Nightmare Edition came out in 2020, and uh, it looks like this:

Mei herself has the roller blades, her loyal assistant Kang has a giant crowbar, and the other rail workers look like the results of a crossover between Borderlands and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Also, her totem is a fish.

Asami Tanaka

Poor Asami.  She never wanted to be anything more than a miko, like her mother before her.  She was a shy child, kept away from others for fear that they might find out about the lights she saw and the voices she heard.  Her mother had died giving birth to her, but she swore that she would have a child one day, and she would never leave its side.  She passed her time maintaining the family shrine and dreaming of the child she’d have one day… while dark eyes watched her from Beyond.

Her dreams came crashing down one day, when brigands raided the shrine to steal the mystical gem kept there.  They murdered her father and stabbed her, leaving her for dead.  The belly wound was dreadful enough, but when she realized that her dreams of a child were now gone forever, even if she survived, something broke in Asami.

That was when Amanjaku made his move.  The oni had been watching Asami for ages, patiently preparing her to be his vessel.  He had to rush now, with his pawn on the brink of death, but it was worth it.  He reached out to the dying Asami and offered a bargain.  She could live.  She could avenge her father.  And she could have the children she’d always dreamed of.  All she needed to do was let him in.

Of course she agreed, and Amanjaku manifested on Earth for the first time.  In truth, he’s a dreadful little imp, but the power he offers is real.  Asami is a living portal to Beyond, the  realm of the Oni, and the massive, fang-fringed maw in the back of her head constantly spewing out demonic spawn.  Her “children” cannot exist for long in our reality, which is a blessing.  Asami regrets her hasty bargain, but she has a stubborn, defiant streak.  Amanjaku tried to make her a monster.  Maybe he succeeded.  But she’s not his monster… any more than the Thunders’.

Asami is a summoner, spawning all manner of horrid Oni from her head-maw.  Around her, reality warps and bubbles, ripping open Rift Markers.  Summoned Oni don’t last long in our reality, but while they’re here, they can pull power from the Rifts to inflict horrific injuries – or just reach out and touch someone through them.  Asami’s Oni run the gamut from sneaky schemers to powerful beatsticks, and she can place them wherever she needs them – plus, if enemies get too close, she can just bite them to death with her “bonus mouth” or strangle them with prehensile hair.  Her title form is much more defensive, using Rifts to keep her Oni alive and healthy, but she can still call forth ephemeral allies from Beyond.

Play Asami Tanaka if:

• You love Japanese myths and legends.  Tangu? Kamaitachi? Jorogumo? The gang’s all here.
• You like speed, but hate getting bogged down in terrain.  The enemy is just one reality warp away.
• You want to summon lots and lots of gribblies, but don’t mind if they’re not here for long.

Youko Hamasaki

The Little Kingdom has plenty of teahouses.  Some of them even serve tea. Some are squalid little establishments meant for little more than extracting scrip from soulstone prospectors and mercenaries. Others are sprawling, beautiful palaces, full of the soft sounds of zither music and the hushed murmur of stimulating conversation.  The Qi and Gong falls into the latter category, thanks largely to the efforts of its beautiful and brilliant proprietress, Youko Hamasaki.

Youko is witty and urbane and sophisticated, beautiful, musical, good at mah-jongg… the perfect companion.  The Qi and Gong’s patrons feel safe there, safe enough to let down their guard and maybe even brag a little.  After all, who will hear them?  A bunch of giggling geishas?  But Youko hears all, and she’s taught her girls well.  More information passes through the Qi and Gong than most Earthside intelligence agencies.  And Youko isn’t just a scribe– she processes, cross references, collates, draws connections and inferences, and filters everything she learns.  No wonder the Thunders think so highly of her– she’s a rarity, a non-Katanaka trusted with this much power.  And what does Youko think of her position?  You could ask her, but I wouldn’t count on a straight answer…

Youko’s crew is, unsurprisingly, heavier on scheming and misdirection than on combat.  They gain Leverage over time, amassing secrets as they entrance their foes.  Once they have enough blackmail material, they can use it to force even the strongest-willed foe to do their bidding.  Youko is also excellent at suppressing enemies, reducing their hand size or even forcing them to play with their hand revealed.  Her damage isn’t great, but that’s what the bouncer Bill Algren is for.  Youko’s title form takes a more active role, darting in to eviscerate foes with ninjato while letting her Kunoichi take the fall for her.  And that horrible puppet Hinamatsu is still around here somewhere, chopping things up…

Play Youko Hamasaki if:

• You like ninjas, but want to be a bit more elegant than Misaki
• You play Stax in Legacy, you absolute psycho
• You are a peaceful soul who prefers bribery to violence

Linh Ly

Malifaux is full of oddities that defy explanation.  One such oddity is the Library of All Things, a massive extra-dimensional space containing, as far as anyone can tell, every book that ever was, will be, or could be written.  Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass, after all, and when you get enough mass in one place, time and space tend to do funny things.  The Library is, if not sentient, at least thoughtful, and it chooses who to allow within its stacks.

Linh Ly is the Library’s latest guardian.  The Thunders have, by dint of enormous effort, managed to isolate a portion of the Library – that which contains tales of the Three Kingdoms – and jealously guard its secrets.  Linh Ly is the latest keeper of the so-called Red Library, and commands Bookkeepers and Calligraphers alike.  But she has forged a closer connection to the Library of All Things than past keepers, and as a result has unlocked the power of its Stories – legendary figures of myth and legend, brought off the page and into life by the power of the Library itself.

Linh Ly’s crew is better at scheming than fighting, and they can gain insights from the Library’s stacks to avoid attacks or make their own more accurate.  Her crew also contains several models with the unique type Story subtype.  These Stories are powerful fighters with unique abilities – Sun Wukong is fast as hell and always crops up when and where you least expect him, while Thanh Giong is a sturdy defender who can really lay down some hurt, and Raijin’s lightning and gale-force winds can toss enemies about.  Linh Ly’s title form focuses heavily on her Stories, but she’s a deadly beater herself and surprisingly hard to remove.

Play Linh Ly if:

• You like Pratchett, but wish that the Librarian was a lot better looking
• You care more about scoring points than getting kills, but don’t mind a bit of blood on your sword
• You love scoring diacritical hits

We’ve seen one Nightmare edition so far this article – don’t get greedy!

That does it for the Thunders! Join us next time for the very last Faction Focus, after which I will die and go immediately to hell without stopping.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.