Day Out

A good day of Bushido at Common Ground Games yesterday.  Got to play against Mark Watson's Silvermoon 'Buto-herd' and show John Sinclair's Temple the ropes.  Did a bit more test profile testing, but don't really have more to add than my feedback so far.  I used the test profile(s) in the game against Mark, and didn't in the game against John, and I felt remarkably less active in the second game.  Really looking forward to Wave 20.

Behold Master Akari while we're here:

The first game was quite intimidating.  Fighting a trio of buto is just scary with the sheer amount of health they bring to the board.  It's really a case of staring at them and thinking "how the hell am I going to kill all that stuff?"  The answer is: start with Old Zo.  Then kill everything that isn't a buto.  Finally, work on killing some buto.  The Death-Chicken didn't put up much of a fight, after seeing it maul the Wraith, I was a bit surprised it just keel over and die when I attacked it.  Clearly Kenzo was made of sterner stuff.

The game against John Sinclair was a real eye opener for me, as Shisa and the Grey Pilgrim combined with Ekusa's Aura of Serenity is a giant pain to deal with.  None of my models can attack or use special defences, John had no such problems with his soulless models.  It's certainly a way to get some easy outnumbering going as none of my models can dance around with side step defence anymore.  It is rather subject to bad match ups against certain Cult lists though.  I didn't use any test profiles against John as he's just not as experienced at the game as most of the Glasgow players (we're notoriously hardcore about our game(s) of choice).  Unfortunately for John I opted for an early scenario rush style of list, and we were playing Ryodo.  So I just rushed into the middle zone, pretty much ignored my own zone apart from a couple of token defenders, and then threw as many of my mobile models into his zone as possible.  Then it was just a case of maintaining a scenario point lead until the Temple models eventually collapsed from poison.

Round One: FIGHT!

There were some entertaining games had by the other people there, Martin's Savage Wave against Dave's Prefecture was hilarious, with Martin having a very secure 3-0 win magically turning into a 1-1 draw.  Dave's ashigaru list is interesting to see, it has no samurai at all.  I couldn't tell you how Jim's games went, most of mine lasted longer.

John Sinclair had a much cooler way of making tokens than what I've been using - the condition tokens I had made are just really big, I'd rather have something a little more compact.  John used white 16mm tiddly-winks and custom printed circular sticky labels, and they look much better.  So I'm going to order some tiddly-winks and see how printing my own sticky labels works out.  I'm probably going to keep my tired/exhausted base rims however, you can see one on the Wraith in the picture above.

Roots of Woot

Alas, my opponent cancelled on me yesterday so I didn't get to try out Saburo.  Quite excited by Satsuki coming out for the Ito Clan next wave, the nerf to Hypnotic Gaze really hurts Ayako so a replacement is valuable right now.  Ayako's good, she's just not 10 rice good.  Another shisai at Sakura's rice cost would be very handy to have in the list and free up some much needed rice.

I'm trying to make Ito Clan lists that don't use Naoko.  She's an amazing profile to have in any list, and incredibly threatening, but being able to choose my activation order is a major boon and not telegraphing the first part of my turn to my opponent is rather handy.  To make up for her loss though, I'm trying to bring in additional tricks with my special cards - I think a cheap and dirty 1 rice Dark Secrets might be in order.

Going back to Temple of Ro-Kan however, Joey-Boy's control list does look very tempting to try out.  I don't have Seiji at the moment, and the list is lacking the 'triple core' of good fighters that most Temple lists revolve around.  There are a few changes I'd make but the basic core of Seiji, Ekusa, Suchiro, would remain the same.  Being able to churn out 5 Held markers every turn with Seiji is pretty damn impressive.  It's a little vulnerable as it uses a very predictable activation order (Ekusa, then Seiji) which a canny opponent can exploit, and Seiji can be neutralised simply by getting him in melee a couple of times.

I was thinking about what sort of model I'd like to create for Bushido (ahahaha), I was thinking maybe a shisai that summons snake spirits (up to 3 snake spirits, costing 1 ki each?) that then have to walk over to enemy models and put Held markers on them.  She'd look something like this:

Random Name
Shisai
7 rice (maybe 8)
MS 2, RS 0, Move 4, Ki 2/8
Blood of Orochi (1), Command (Spirit Snake/2), Immunity Poison, Channel (6)
-1 Melee Strength
Feats:
"Orochi's Children" - 1 Ki, melee exclusion, active
Place an exhausted snake kami within 2" of this model.

"Biting Serpents" - 2 Ki, melee exclusion, pulse(6), simple action
Place a poison (1) token on all Held enemy models in the pulse.


Snake Spirit (3 wound tracks on card)
MS 1, RS 0, Move 4, Ki 0/1
No melee weapon.
Defensive, Kami, Insignificant, Intangible, Small, Soulless, Steady
Unique Effects
When this model is the Active model and in base to base with an enemy model, this model's Controller may remove this model and place a Held token an enemy model in base to base.

Now I just need some GCT staff to have a look at that and decide she's awesome too.

Good Waves

It's been yet another goodly while since I last did an update to the blog.  Unfortunately work, rock climbing, and hunting for my first property takes up an inordinate amount of my time.  I'm trying to make some time to play Bushido however, so I can get back into the swing of things.

On the plus side, I have the latest Ito Clan releases, and got some more Temple goodies.  I'm quite excited by Saburo for the Ito Clan, I think he's going to bring a new element into my Ito Clan lists that wasn't there before.  The faction seems to be getting more built-in Feint recently with Yatsumata and Saburo, which is really good for when I get to hit models that are only rolling a couple of defence dice.  I'm still not sold on Yatsumata over Kenzo at the moment, mainly because Kenzo with enough Ki is more flexible than Yatsumata - the Side-Step Defence combined with First Strike makes him very powerful, and he can use Do-Kote when I believe I need the Feint.

I just tried out Temple again for my first game back, and it's really weird having to worry about activation orders because someone could attack first.  With the Ito Clan I just fire up Asp/Cobra Strike and sort out that rubbish as needed.  I lost 1-0 on scenario (Reikan?) because Kenko got bogged down by hordes of ashigaru whilst Hagane sneaked past (and avoided 2 Pungi Pit Traps and 2 Tsunami's from Riku).  The end of the game was pretty epic as Riku killed Hagane with a Falcon Punch(!) and set her on fire using Aiko's Blessing token, then Kenko (my VIM) died horribly to Madoka and box cars.  If Kenko had actually defended himself against the gimpy 2 MS ashigaru, I'd have won 2-1, but I rolled stupendously well against Hagane, so I can't fault Dave at all.

The main thing I like about Temple are the kami, they're incredibly flexible support figures - especially the air kami.  The single air kami prevented Minuro from firing at all after his first shot by constantly turning him around until the earth kami arrived and killed the stupid arquebuser.  The earth kami is really damn good if someone doesn't deal with it before it can regenerate each turn.  I'm also a fan of how many models with slam attack the Temple seem to have going.  If the scenario had pretty much been any other type of scenario, I think Dave would have really struggled to get any scenario points as I was constantly pushing models with Riku's Tsunami and slamming models around.  I'm really interested to see how Seiji works out as a slightly more reliable Riku.

Next week I'm playing Ricky and his Savage Wave, I'm currently undecided as to whether I should play Temple or Ito against him.  I think I'll just pick closer to the day though, while I like Temple in theory, I'm finding the Ito is definitely more my thing with the sneaking and the stabbing and the poisoning.

FALCON PUNCH!

So I left my board on top of my jeep as I drove away from G3 last night.  I'm a genius.  Luckily I recovered the board and it's surprisingly undamaged (probably because I was only driving at about 15 mph when it fell off the roof).  It just needs some repairs around the edges that I was going to do anyway as it got chipped against a door frame about a fortnight ago.  I just need to do more repairs.  I was pleasantly surprised at just how durable the board was.

Besides my board though, I got to play against Colin and his Temple; me with my dual-shisai debuff spamming list, against LEJ's Masters list since Colin is a gimp and netdecks!  The scenario was the Envoy, Colin chose Sakura and I chose his Rice Farmer as the VIMs, but we called it towards the end of turn 3 as he lost both kami and Suchiro in a single turn balanced against my single dead Temple Bushi.  I did get to spread a massive amount of blinds, stuns, and poisons all over his key models so Colin was hesitant to bring his fighting models forwards at the risk of them getting Falcon Punched by Kenzo.  I still think the quick 1 Ki "Psychic Venom" spam is worth every penny, and the two shisai did a LOT of heavy lifting in this game (not to knock back Naoko's contribution either, she was a star).

There's a weird stressing point I can see in Temple when I'm playing against them, and it's usually when a lot of different models are taking damage - quite often through the sheer amount of poison I'm throwing out.  I don't tend to stack them all on one target, but spread them across as much of the enemy warband as possible.  Aiko spends all her time trying to shore up the damage, so her Prayer tokens aren't being used to manoeuvre around or do more damage, they're only being used to heal damaged models.  Essentially I start to seize the initiative simply because there's too many debuffs on the table and most Temple lists starts to collapse as the internal synergy starts to get disrupted.

Very happy to have a game where my shisai can see enemy models on turn 1, though it didn't really come into play in this game since it was a corner deployment scenario, so the distance between warbands seems much bigger.  Distinct rise in their performance compared to previous games anyway.  Both shisai were doing things with their activations rather than just generating Ki and moving it around.  No game pencilled in next week just yet, but I'll see what I can do and who else wants to play against the crazy amount of debuff.

Oh yes, Suchiro rather ironically suffered the Way of the Exploding Fist from Kenzo and my massive SL2 damage roll (4 damage, 1x Poison 2 token) to instagib the monk at the end of the turn.  So satisfying.  So far 2-1 with the dual-shisai.

Trap-filled Temples

So I had my first game with my Temple, and got to try out the finalised special cards.  I'm quite impressed with Temple over all, I'm on the fence on whether I prefer them or my Ito.  I do feel it's much easier to build a list with the Temple than it is with the Ito, and I really like having models that I can just infiltrate the enemy battle line with (fire and air kami).  Overall the special cards available to the Temple are pretty good, I saw the Pungi Pit Trap and realised I pretty much want two in every list.  Most of the other cards revolve around gaining extra Ki, or moving existing Ki around.

While Suchiro probably isn't the beatstick I was hoping to use in the Temple, he is still my favourite figure and profile to use.  So he's pretty much in every list simply because I like him.  I'm still not sure on Riku with Arashi's Fan, or Kenko.  Kenko provides a very solid profile with little else.  Also, he doesn't really care about being outnumbered, so I can anchor my battle line with him and Suchiro.  Riku on the other hand brings a wall of water that can cause your opponent no end of trouble if you use it right.  It's certainly something to consider when considering how to play scenario: can I secure the victory with a quick Tsunami or should I just be killing things?

I'm going get back into the habit of painting my models soon, and I hope to have all my major Temple of Ro-kan models painted up pretty fast.  So far I've only done Suchiro and a single Rice Farmer.  I'll try to get the rest of the starter box done asap, and then churn out as many of the smaller models as I can.  My fire and water Kami should be easy enough to get done, all I really have to do is wash them continuously.  I'm really looking forward to doing Riku and Hotaru though, both of them are really nice sculpts.

Special K

Wow, it's been *ages* since I had time to do an update to the blog.

The Christmas holidays came and went, there was no Bushido I'm afraid as I was away in Houston, Texas, going crazy from having nothing to do besides babysit my sister's kids.  They're fun to be around, but I really could have used a good computer game or two (or three) to play in my own time.

Gaming has started back up in Glasgow however, so I can expect more regular Bushido games once again - I'm thinking of working on building up my Temple of Ro-kan miniatures so that I can start using it as a cohesive faction rather than my starter set and some odd miniatures.  I'm quite excited about the upcoming releases for Temple, Tsutsumi provides a good ranged attack (no damage, but useful effect), and the profile being tested after him fits very neatly into the sort of list I'd like to run.  In fact I just put in an order for Riku, Kitsune, Koji & friends, and one of the kami blisters.  Now I just need to find time to do some painting...

I was looking at the list Toby (Master T) posted he was bringing to SmogCon and I began to think that a lot of people will start to utilize about 10% of their points towards special cards once they're out.  Originally I thought they were only going to be point fillers, but with enough cunning and trickery, some really powerful combinations can be crafted: I looked at Suchiro with a gorinto, prayer beads, and Greater Destiny, all just to make him as immune to Ki-based attack as possible.  That's focusing a lot of cards into one figure however, so that's not a likely (or smart) combination of cards.  But let's say... Dark Secrets, something that bestows Weak Mind on a target, and a self-sacrifice trigger?  Why yes, I would be willing to try that out, thank you very much.

Propagation

Excellent news for the Scottish Bushido players: full-fledged conversion to the game has begun on a serious level.  Unfortunately I'm booked up for a LOT of demo games in the coming weeks, I don't think I'll have any time to play my own games at G3 (the gaming club) until after Christmas.  After that however, I will be able to bask in the warm glow of having an excellent choice of opponents and factions to play against (yet still no Silvermoon...).  All I need to do now is help link up the player base internally so the system becomes self-propagating rather than requiring constant stimulation from myself.

Takeji finally got painted, though his banner is currently just green, I haven't decided if I want to try to put some sort of design on the banner or not.  I was thinking I might even just put 'ichi' on it, and once I get a Jade Mamba Guard or two, they can be 'ni' and 'san'.  That's one, two, and three.  I'll have to wait to see the Jade Mamba Guard model in person before I decide if I want a second one.  I'm just hoping she'll be able to bodyguard, as that opens up a lot of possibilities in making Ito Clan warbands.

The Temple models in my collection are slowly accumulating paint, continuing my plan to make them fabulous.  Since I think the Rice Farmers are incredibly useful the two of them are first up on the painting table, and the rest of the starter set will follow.

Having run so many demos now I've been able to experience playing most of the starter boxes now, which does help bring insight into how individual factions work - still no Silvermoon however, I may have to drop Temple and pick up Silvermoon.  My favourite model to play is Zuba.  I just can't help but chortle to myself every time I see him smite something - regardless of which side of the smiting I'm on - and get a bajillion damage, almost regardless of success level.

Upon the Temple Steps

Temple of Ro-kan: Suchiro

Hmm, been a lot longer than I thought since my last update.  The Bushido community is starting to grow now, and we have a lot of interest from members of the gaming club whenever I bring in my swamp board (still WIP I'm afraid, also a bit of a failure in game board design - slopes are bad!).  I'm doing demo games over the next few weeks to rope more people into the game.  There's also a Bushido Scotland Facebook group for anyone interested in joining.

On the painting front, I picked up Suchiro to start off my Temple force - The plan is to collect a model or two a month for Temple until I have the full selection and paint them up slowly so I can really bring out the best of the models.  As you can see, my Suchiro came out pretty well, there are some errors you can see in the photo (particularly the 'bleed' from the wash I applied to his belt) but those have been fixed.  I also can't figure out how to get his eyes to look like they're open without painting his actual eyes in - though it looks like he's focusing Ki with his closed eyes, so I'm happy to leave it.  The rock was a bit OTT and might be something I'll sort out at a later date.

The Ito Clan models are almost all done, I finished Ayako since I prefer playing the more active shisai style lists over the raw brute force the samurai and ashigaru lists bring.  I decided that the Ito Clan are fun, but a little lacking in the tricks that allow you to pull off those amazing wins at the last second.  That may change with the next couple of releases (one hopes) but I really enjoyed painting Suchiro, I'd like to do more models like him rather than Masunagi and his bajillion quilted squares, so the Temple of Ro-kan may be my painting project for the foreseeable future.

My Body is No Temple

Played against Dave tonight and his bakemono horde on the Envoy scenario - which ended in a draw, though that was my own fault really - and Dave is definitely out practice, so I can't really count it as a 'win', even if he did end the game with only one model left (Wu-zang).  I opted to use the shisai/debuff list since Dave chose the 'more painted models' option rather than the 'new hotness'.  My other list is more based around purely killing things.  I was thinking I could swap out Naoko from my debuff list and replace her with Kaihime, but that will have to wait until the archer is painted.

Now that I'm fully stocked with all the currently available Ito Clan, I'm starting to look around at the other factions available.  Strangely, the Silvermoon Trade Syndicate is very enticing, even with their tiny range of models at the moment.  If the STS continue with the starter box themes I can see them becoming true scenario monsters.  The applications of Tsubaki alone gives me the heebie-jeebies.  For a faction with more models available, the Temple of Ro-Kan look interesting, but I'd like more models like Suchiro with his half-robe rather than guys in jogging bottoms like Riku and Kenko.  Maybe it's time to sharpen up my sculpting skills.