Thursday 6 June 2019

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.

Tuesday 4 June 2019

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.