Wave 19 Concept Art

Various - Kurouma Tenbatsu

Prefecture of Ryu - Akio Takashi

Temple of Ro-Kan - Ashinaga Tenaga

Cult of Yurei - Penangglan

Ito Clan - Satsuki

Silvermoon Trade Syndicate - Hanami, Queen of Flowers

Wave 18 Concept Art

Various - Golden Sentinel

Temple of Ro-Kan - Seiji

Cult of Yurei - Tadao

Savage Wave - Kaihei Alpha

Ito Clan - Saburo

Silvermoon Trade Syndicate - Oda & Tautolu

Wave 17 Concept Art

Prefecture of Ryu - Isamu, Goshi Gunso

Temple of Ro-Kan - Hisao

Cult of Yurei - Waku, the Soul Collector

Savage Wave - Yusha

Ito Clan - Yatsumata

Silvermoon Trade Syndicate - Saki, Rose of Jima

Wave 16 Concept Art

Various - Yukio Koshimori

Temple of Ro-Kan - Tsutsumi

Cult of Yurei - Kusatta Kairai

Savage Wave - Tribal Brute

Ito Clan - Hitoshi

Silvermoon Trade Syndicate - Kyoaku-Han

Silvermoon Trade Syndicate - Old Zo

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.