While Byakko’s total conviction that he is the Tiger reborn seems ridiculous to many it has been taken to heart by many young Tora who look up to him and are amazed by his combat prowess. Most Tora are inspired by his leadership and amazing level of skill and training, and none can gainsay his ability in the field.

Byakko is a heavy hitting close up attacker. Mostly he functions as a second chunin level offensive asset while the combination of Resilient and regeneration make it almost a big challenge to keep him out of the fight much less off the board.

Let’s take a look at his many keywords.

Close Combat Master: A ninja with Close Combat Master may reroll a single die during a non-ranged Attack.

Hero: Ninja with Hero cannot gain XP, cannot increase their attributes, and cannot get new Keywords during league play. Heroes are unique characters and can only be included in a team once.

Precision Strike: When a ninja with Precision Strike attacks, if they choose Fire as the combat result, only enemy ninja get Stunned.

Regeneration: When a ninja with Regeneration is in the Healing House, at the end of the round they make an affinity test. If the test is successful they are moved into the Training Ground. This test happens before the player decides which ninja to move into the Training Ground.

Resilient: When a ninja with Resilient is Injured or Stunned roll a die. If any of the ninja’s affinities are rolled then injured is downgraded to Stunned, or Stunned is downgraded to nothing happening to the Resilient ninja.

Tora’s Claws: A ninja with Tora’s Claws gets +1 AT when attacking a Stunned ninja.\

Most of Byakko’s keywords revolve around attacking. An especially nasty combo with Byakko is to use Precision Strike in an area where multiple enemy ninja have already activated. This allows Byakko to exploit Tora’s claws to the fullest in the next round of the game. This combo can also be used to build up Stuns on multiple enemies and Injure them all at once in the next turn on ninja that were already Stunned. By using vault to move over your own models or enemy models in a pinch Byakko can position himself perfectly to pull off these types of attacks. Efficient use of Byakko’s high Attack and Precision Strike can also net you a lot of action efficiency by Stunning lots of the opposing team at once.

You can’t ever really go wrong throwing Byakko into the part of the board that is most hotly contested and letting him fight it out for you.

Karura Prepares to Strike!

The Tanchyo eagle is circling overhead as we’re closing in on another free Hero! W need just a few more backers until the Tanchyo Hero Karura is unlocked!