Sundering Sunderland

Jim and I went down to the Battle Bunker in Sunderland to play in a Bushido tournament over the weekend.  It's about a 3 hour drive from Glasgow, but we're both thirsty for opponents who are Not-the-Other-Person of our duo.  The tournament used an usual sideboard format - basically everyone had access to the Ordered for Battle bonus in addition to whatever theme they picked.  This didn't change anything for Jim or myself as far as I'm aware.

The warband I used was just the ronin Ordered for Battle version of my Conclave of Captains warband:

Jung Minato
Jung Hibiki
Kohanin
Itsiro Crab Swarm

Eldest Brother
+ Vial of Raijin's Breath
Hiroto, Drunken Master

Kami of the Morning Dew

Kamikaze (1 rice)
Rice Bail Barricade

Sideboard:
Kami of Reflection
Kami of Sapping Silt
Squall

Jim used Adam Cross' quad ninja warband.  The tournament was 3 rounds and a lot of fun.  The scenarios in round order were: the Idols, Seikyu, and Botoku.

All my games followed the same formula: play cautious on turn 1 as I have a big activation disadvantage.  Once Hiroto and Eldest Brother arrive via Flank I can really ramp up the aggression.  Use the Kami of Morning Dew and the Itsiro Crab Swarm to deal with anything really scary, and my kancho should be able to run around and pick their choice of targets.

No one exploited my lack of turn one activations, but the players at the tournament weren't experienced and this is a facet of the game that takes a little while to learn - I only really learned how to do it once I swapped over to Prefecture.

On the way home Jim and I discussed the way we play the game and who we play against, and I usually only get to play a warband I create about once, maybe twice, outside of a tournament.  This is because they turn out to be trauma inducing to play against - not something I want to subject beginners to while inducing them to Bushido.  To help alleviate this I've been thinking of getting a Bakemono Horde, it's a style of warband everyone can enjoy playing with/against: plenty of things die, and no one immediately feels overwhelmed playing against it (that may change through the course of the game as more and more bakemono start to appear though).

Above the Clouds

I have begun to experiment heavily with the ronin options of Bushido.  Last night I tried out an Imperial March warband using the Sworn Sisters, Koshimori, and a Golden Sentinel.  To round things out I also brought along a playtest profile, and submitted my feedback for him: he needs a fairly hefty nerf and he's still amazing.

The Sworn Sisters were very interesting to use.  They bring such a wide array of options whether you're attacking or defending.  Yanjing may look the most threatening, but that's a lie.  Yizhi is the real danger.  Just when you thought you were fighting one of the Sworn Sisters, Yizhi is there giving out melee assist and activating Co-ordinated Attack.

I got a lot of enjoyment using the Sworn Sisters, but I don't know if Imperial March is the warband I should be catering to.  I'll stick with it for now, as it inspires me to get more painting done.  For alternative options, both the Jung and Prefecture bring something to the table.  I don't feel I'm really losing anything by using them in my Hare clan style warband, and I can field an entirely ronin Jung warband.

It's time to explore that skill ceiling.

Conclave Conclusions

Eldest Brother

Having now done a whole bunch of games with my Conclave of Captains warband, I'm happy with how it performs.  The theme itself may need a more concrete benefit, as I've been finding the bonuses feel invisible.  On the other hand, the warband is really, really solid.

I've tried a wide variety of special cards in the warband, and a 3 rice Kamikaze has given me the best results so far.  It did occur to me not too long ago that I can try out Hiroto with a Hand Cannon.  He would get Assassin off from it...  Or I can help alleviate Eldest Brother's chief problem by giving him a Vial of Raijin's Rage.  If I drop out of Conclave and into Ordered for Battle (since Conclave probably won't be out before the next tournament), I think I'll give Eldest Brother the Vial, and drop the Kamikaze down.

The warband has a really interesting graph of how powerful it is throughout a game.  It is incredibly weak on turn 1, has a large spike on turn 2 as Hiroto and Eldest Brother arrive, and then the power flattens out for the rest of the game.  If I win the Tactical Test on turn 2, my opponent is usually in some serious trouble.  If I don't, then I'm presenting threat saturation so they won't be able to deal with everything.  You could kill Hibiki, but then Hiroto will murder someone in return.

Now I just need to finish painting Hiroto and I'll have my next fully painted warband.

Squid Beagles

Minato and Yuji work really well against ninjas.  You can just give Minato Sixth Sense from Yuji and then throw anchors at offending ninjas.  It's pretty decent against Death & Decay too, but a bit weak against trickier Ki-based warbands.  I'm 50/50 on whether I want to use a Kami of Reflection or a Kami of the Morning Dew.  I think the Kami of the Morning Dew is the better option against what most people bring to the table.  The Grapple Attack (0) and Held spam it does is incredibly disabling to most enemy models.

The first set of cycle cards are going to hit the printers soon, and the Conclave of Captains is an interesting theme I'm going to try out.  It's very Risen Sun.

Conclave of Captains
Jung Hibiki
Jung Minato
Kohanin
Itsiro Crab Swarm

Kami of the Morning Dew
Shiho Hiroto
Eldest Brother

Kamikaze (3 rice)
Rice Bail Barricade

Minato offers Hiroto nothing, but Hibiki gives the Black Eagle native Sidestep Defence (0).  Minato and Eldest Brother are the big hitters with Hibiki swinging around to lend Minato a hand if things get tough.

Hiroto's big draw is how he uses Flank, bringing along Eldest Brother when he does so.  Flank with Booted is incredibly dangerous to enemy support models, so if I win the Tactical Test, things could get very interesting, very quickly on turn 2.  If I go with Ordered for Battle, then I have the option of swapping around specials a bit to try an optimise how I use Hiroto.

So far my testing of this warband has a couple of issues: it has an incredibly weak turn 1, and it relies heavily on winning the Tactical Test on turn 2.  I tend to lose scenario positioning badly on turn 1, but the arrival of Hiroto and Eldest Brother from the sidelines throws my opponent into disarray at the start of turn 2.

The weak turn 1 is why I decided to bring the Kami of the Morning Dew and the Itsiro Crab Swarm, as they can usually take a turn 1 attack from the opponent.  Hibiki brings Parley so he's usually good to go on turn 1.  Minato and the Kohanin are quite vulnerable however, so I need to take measures to keep them safe.  I've been thinking of bringing Squall to counteract ranged attacks, but that would be defensive.  A 3 rice Kamikaze is as aggressive as I can reliable get with this warband.  I’ll play about with other specials to see if anything fits better though.

Anchor Aweigh

Thinking about the future of Bushido, on a metagame perspective, not a design one, I think we’re going to see a change in the way people play.  Offensive Ki feats will probably start to eke back in, especially with the Ito Clan starter box.  Kinu offers a quick solution to large, 1 Ki model swarm warbands.  The main barrier to this at the moment is Death & Decay, and that is countered by good terrain placement.

People are starting to appreciate sideboards more and more.  I really like them and while the power of theme bonuses are incredibly alluring, the flexibility of sideboards allows you to compensate for any weaknesses in the warband much better than a theme bonus.  I guess it's more of a preference on whether you want to counter your opponent or simply enact your own playstyle.

I did a small demo game for Maria at G3, and I'd forgotten how much fun Minato is.  He's just... fun to use.  He's a simple profile, there's no bells or whistles going on there, but holy-moly he's great fun to thrown on the table.  I didn't use any of the advanced tactics I would normally - applying Held or Immobilised to Maria's models at this point would be counter-productive: I want her to learn how to play the game, not drown her with complexities.

Looking at Yuji and Minato, they have the tools needed to fight against ninjas, especially with Docks of Ryu.  Yuji can give me much needed Sixth Sense every turn, and Minato can simply throw his anchor at things I don't want to melee.  Hmmm...  I think I have the beginnings of my next warband here.  Using my super-awesome spreadsheet:

Docks of Ryu

• During the Starting Phase choose 1 model to gain Tireless until the End Phase.
• If your Opponent has more Victory Points than you, you may distribute an additional 2 Ki Tokens amongst Friendly Jung models in the Ki Generation Step.

Minato

+ Taunt

Yuji

Miyakomo Asami

Taru

Korusea

Korusea

Kami of Morning Dew

Blow the Man Down (x2)

Kamikaze (2 rice)

Squall

How would the warband function?

Putting Tireless on Yuji is actually quite important a lot of the time if you want to get to use Order, but I think using Battle Stations is more about dictating a turn's tempo than actually getting the extra activations.  I think Asami is also a good candidate for the Tireless, provided I have the means to get her out of melee.  Of course, Minato is amazing with Tireless.

Taru is one of the most stable profiles in the Jung Pirates roster, with access to Grapple Attack (0), Bravery, and built-in Ranged Defence.  The double Korusea are there to ensure I can get the most out of Minato.  They can keep enemy models still through the use of Dirty Fighting, then I can swing in with a massive punch from Minato if all goes well.

Kamikaze can either get models out of combat or allow them to get past a lot of obstacles.  Blow the Man Down is probably my main means of setting up a target or nullifying enemy positioning.  Finally Squall is there to protect my models against any warband that comes in with good ranged attacks.

There's just enough ranged attacks in there to give me options against the likes of oni, and more than enough Held and Immobilise to deal with the more tricky foes.  I discovered a soft counter to Master Akari was to hit him with Immobilise.

I'll test out the warband and see how things go.  It could be amazing, it could be terrible.  I do know though, that I will have a lot of Powerful Attack to go around.

UK Masters 2019 Postscript

The UK Games Expo has concluded and thus the Bushido UK Masters tournament with it.  I managed to claw my way to the final table (there were actually 2 of them I think) but lost to Adam Cross' tiny KKZ warband.  On the other hand, Adam's victory means he is this year's Grand Master.  Also surprisingly, the first place spot was tied with 3 people having the same number of tournament points.  Jason had to work out who placed where using Strength of Schedule - the great dark art of the tournament organiser.

Having lost at the final table, I will probably end up somewhere around fifth place when the standings are finally revealed.  This seems to be the traditional way the Bushido tournament system works.

In this tournament we tested out players placing terrain following the terrain rules, and after the initial grumbling on the first round, things seemed to go really well.  I'll be interested to hear more developed feedback from the playerbase though.

I played the Hare clan again, but I think I've reached the limits of what that warband can do.  I actually think I would have had more fun using the Jung Pirates, but they're much riskier as they have some horrific match ups.  It has inspired me to get the faction fully painted though, so I'll finish up the Ashinaga-Tenaga and Hibiki over the next couple of days and then glower at the remaining unpainted miniatures.  Once the new Jung starter set is out, my warbands should be fully fleshed out, regardless of which kancho I use.

To expand my Prefecture options I picked up Matsu, Katsumoto, Oka, and... the Takashi Samurai (now Daiko) while at the Expo.  I just realised I should have picked up Bachiko, but I’m in no hurry to play Prefecture for a while.

Looking at my games I realise that the Prefecture vs KKZ match up is really cagey.  There are some traps I fell into through simple ignorance - Katsumi having Powerful Attack (0) and Kouhei no longer having the Ammo trait are the prime examples.  If I wanted to move the match more in my favour I’d certainly have to think about models with activation dictation like Katsumoto to simply burn through Tireless models.  I’m not sure if I brought Katsumoto to the table that anyone would play me again though.  My Wind Watchers tengu warband was bad enough.

It's Too Bright

EXCITING TIMES!  RISEN SUN IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER.

All the capitals, but honestly, if you're reading this blog, you already know Risen Sun is available.  The Pre-Order will end on the 1st of July, so it won't all be available before the UK Games Expo.  There are a number of things I'm proud of with the work I put into Risen Sun, but two stand out in particular: the redesign of Satou Kioshi, and my suggestion for the cover (though someone else has obviously done all the hard work).

"I actually like the plain white with the logo.  Could go with traditional Japanese bookbinding pattern along the spine."

LOOK AT THAT.  LOOK AT IT!  I mean, the binding is on the wrong side, but it's still a gorgeous-looking book.  My OCD also noted that a corner of the title label has folded over.

The downside to Risen Sun (Risun?) is that I cannot afford all the new goods to update my collection.  I've ordered rulebooks, ronin cards, and Eldest Brother for myself and Jim; and two factions for each of us.  I don't have any of the models in the Prefecture starter box, so I ordered that too.  My Ito Clan updates and Jim's Savage Wave are going to have to wait a while.

Not Just a Lucky Number

I travelled to Rotterdam to play in the Benelux Bushido Masters and thoroughly enjoyed the trip.  I did spend an inordinate amount of time walking around with Hannah - so much so that I was walking with a limp a day after my arrival in Amsterdam.  I blame my new walking boots for that, the right one doesn't seem to grip my ankle very well.  Guess it's back to trainers only for now.

I came second, again using the Satou clan style Prefecture.  I was beaten out by a Death & Decay warband, which was also my only loss - and even then I'm pretty sure I could have won with a minor shift in tactics.  I also got to play against a whole range of new things and discover things I simply didn't know about, such as: why does Dudiko have Pierce (3) natively on her bow?  This is something I discussed this with Jason afterwards and we had an "oh yeah, we could have done this instead" moment about it, but it's too late to fix now.

There were three Prefecture players, out of 8 players.  All the warbands were quite different, though the other two Prefecture players both brought Katsumoto, which tells me his stock is quite impressive.  I didn't see him getting used to his full potential, he was more of an Order battery.  On the other hand, using Dominate against something like Death & Decay is usually quite pointless.

I would like to play around with the Jung Pirates before the UK Masters in a couple of weeks, having now brought the same Prefecture warband to tournaments twice now; but Jim isn't wanting to play Bushido until the cards come out, so I don't have anyone to practice against.  I'm getting more sold on having a sideboard over theme bonuses, but that's also something I'm going to have to explore a bit more.

Another thing I'm discovering is that seven models is absolutely fine for a warband size.  I'm used to having eight with the Jung, but the results with seven models on my Prefecture warband says seven models still gets results.  I'm going to try to get a few more Jung Pirates models painted up, but I'm going to keep the Prefecture stuff on hand for the UK Games Expo.

Daimyo of the South - "I'm going to spend 6 Pass Tokens"

I spend the Mother's Day weekend visiting my parents, and actual Mother's Day playing Bushido at the Daimyo of the South tournament.  The two locations proved to be conveniently close.  I brought my Prefecture of Ryu, and honestly expected to get a rather middling placement with it.  There are several incredibly obvious weaknesses in my Hare clan themed warband, but no one brought the right tools to exploit them.

My final standing was... Well I won the tournament.  Weirdly that makes the current Daimyo of the South (me) one of the people who lives the furthest north.  All of my games were quite hard work, more of an exercise in applying a sledgehammer than a scalpel in terms of combat.  Generally the superior fighting skills of my warband would win out, but I had to go full Sun Tze after a bit of greed against James Goddard’s Death & Decay went badly for me.  I actually managed to pull of a tactical feint.

Here are the key features of the Prefecture that I discovered:

• You will nearly always win the Tactical Roll.
• Pass Tokens do more than you think they do.
• Learn to place terrain to maximum advantage.
• Critical Strike may not be reliable, but it is terrifying.

Reliably winning the Tactical Roll every turn gives you a huge advantage over the opponent.  It was really strange to play against Harukichi and have to worry that my opponent might win a Tactical Roll.  I was able to dictate where a lot of the game was being played and get off Active Ki feats before my opponent could.

I'm finding the Prefecture is very good at fighting, but you do need to have a game plan before the game starts.  It's very much a case of looking at the scenario, the opponent's warband, and then working around that.  You literally need a Battle Plan.  Being able to decide terrain placement was stupendously useful - I mostly just jammed up my opponent's side of the board with terrain and relied on Kioshi, Tactician, and a massive Scout value to make sure I started the game on good terms.

Vanguard proved to be a mission-critical choice of Special Card.  Being able to get those ashigaru up the table allowed me to adopt my usual stance on winning games of Bushido: build up as much of a scenario point lead as quickly as possible, to the point where it is impossible for my opponent to score enough scenario points to equalise in a single turn.  Two of my four games reached this stage.  I may have lost the ability to hold the board, but my opponent simply couldn't score fast enough to catch up.

Pass Tokens.  There's something of an art to using Pass Tokens.  I had a number of turns where I didn't use them, but they allow for the precise application of force (for the lack of a better word).  There were times where the opposing warbands weren't quite in melee range of each other, but I held the scenario advantage, so simply waiting for my opponent to come forward without burning activations was greatly beneficial to me.

So what's next?  I'm going to play about with a few different Prefecture warbands.  Katusmoto and Matsu both present options I haven't explored in the faction yet.

Daimyo of the South 2019

I have made plans to play in Daimyo of the South at the end of the month.  I’m planning to bring my Prefecture of Ryu down in order to test things out and see how the warband functions against a wider range of opponents.  My main issue is getting all my models painted in time.

Towards that end, I am frantically painting in my spare time.  While my warband only has Kenta and a pair of Yarimen to paint up, I've just realised that my warband can use a sideboard so I should probably get some Goshi done too.  The Yarimen are horrific miniatures by modern standards, but I’m getting them done since I can guarantee they’re going to be in 95% of all my Prefecture warbands.  They should hopefully get resculpts in the not-too-distant future, and I'd like to replace them with some more modern sculpts.

The Risen Sun profiles are now effectively locked.  Overall, I feel we've done an excellent job of refining and tuning the profiles to bring them to a state where they should all be useful.  I'm sure there is a dud or two in there (Fai-ginn, I'm looking at you), but we've tried to make everyone have a purpose and be in consideration for a spot in each warband.