Control Ito

I pulled out my super-dirty control Ito Clan warband last night.  Jim conceded on turn 2 with his Savage Wave after I Controlled the two Oni in his warband.  It's been a *long* time since I've played "control Ito" with Mizuki.  I tuned the warband that I took to my second UK Masters and it seems to work rather well.  Here's the breakdown of what's in it, and what they do.

Control Ito
The Blessed (theme)
Mizuki Ito
Kenzo Ito
Kyou
Saburo
Child of Orochi
Child of Orochi
Shimogamo Viper

Dark Secrets (2)

We'll start with the theme bonuses.  Kyou starts with double Ki because he's a shisai.  It's not a big deal since he's pretty Ki efficient simply because of his unique effect, but extra Ki is extra Ki.  The "choose one" benefit of the Blessed is potentially extremely powerful.  Kenzo with Camouflage (2) can avoid a lot of stuff, or improving Kyou's melee weapon strength.  No one really cares or notices the last benefit of the theme, but it can sometimes matter if the board setup is horrific.

Why the two Children of Orochi?  They serve a lot of purposes in the warband.  Mizuki is incredibly greedy for Ki.  Having 5 Ki on turn 1 allows you to begin stocking up on Blessings of Orochi and throw out a cheeky Obey at the end of turn 1.  Controlling an enemy model at the end of turn 1 can literally win you the game, especially in zone scenarios.  For additional synergy with Mizuki, you give her Strong Mind (1) when you use Spiritual Conduit since the latest errata, so dicing off against that Master Monk is just that little bit easier.

They also work well with Kyou, as they can Self-Sacrifice for him if they are close enough.  If something particularly scary comes charging in to Kyou, you can safely go full attack dice and just let a Child of Orochi take the hit.  I wouldn't recommend going overboard with this, you still need models to do scenario actions.  That segues into their final purpose, they can do scenario actions and I don't feel guilty about it.  Orochi cries a little every time you do a scenario action with Kenzo.

Kenzo, Kyou, and Saburo are the melee powerhouses of the warband.  Their job is to get stuff killed.  Kenzo does the most aggressive work, while Kyou serves as the anchor of the warband - it's extremely difficult to drop his melee dice below 2.  Saburo is more of an opportunist but is scary because of his built-in Feint.

The Shimogamo Viper is there because sometimes you just need a Dark Secrets delivery service, or something to knock off an opponent's activation.  Sometimes you just need to kill Aiko.

Mizuki Ito is where the warband really starts to shine though.  She is the engine of the warband and should work towards making your opponent miserable.  On turn 1 you nearly always give her the first Blessing of Orochi so that she can activate Auto-Disengage in emergencies or gain Sixth Sense against opponents with lots of Camouflage.  You should be attempting to get Obey off every turn, and occasionally get more Blessings of Orochi onto your fighting models.  Paralyze should be saved for an enemy model that you want to keep fighting against one of your melee models since models in melee cannot simply remove Held, they have to make the dice roll every time.  Mizuki's real purpose is to make your opponent chew through their own activations so that you can offset the low number of melee models.

Between Obey and Dark Secrets, if you can get a turn where you throw down all 3 control markers you've set yourself up for the win.  3 Control markers is generally the tipping point where the game tends to break.  If you can sustain the Control markers each turn, then the game should quite easily be yours.

Culinary Excellence

The wikia is both surprisingly easy and surprisingly tedious.  Adding images is a giant hassle, though I did just discover the 'classic' editor... It's much easier for me to create entries using the classic editor, but I've already done so many entries in the default editor, swapping over would require redoing a lot of work.  It's probably going to be a very slow growth, as I have a job and all that normal real-life weirdness that keeps eating my time.  On a side note: my culinary skills are pretty damn amazing.

Tested out the new revised dual-shisai warband with additional fighting models.  It works really, really well.  Yatsumata behind an objective with Camouflage (2) is stupidly awesome - hilariously so in fact.  The Jade Witch is really good with a samurai to throw Ki at, and she's constantly brimming with Ki as long as you're harassing your opponent.  The more conservative vipers are really nice to have around too, as I no longer have the temptation of Dark Secrets in the warband.  Now they can just lurk on the edges of the board, looking menacing until the time is right.

There's quite a lot you can do with this particular combination of shisai.  A little bit of a sneaky combo to do with Satuski and the Jade Witch is to land Death Sentence on an enemy model, then Psychic Drain all the Ki away so the enemy model can't clear the Death Sentence off at the start of next turn - or they could after generating Ki but then they'll have no Ki to use during the turn.  It's an interesting form of Ki denial.  Or you can simply Death Sentence an animal since they can't store Ki and thus can't remove the Death Sentence.

Orochi Snake Cult (50 Rice)
Yatsumata
Kenzo Ito
The Jade Witch
Satsuki
Temple Asp
Shimogamo Viper
Shimogamo Viper
The Blessed (theme)

I'd like to have put some special cards in there, but the cost of putting them in versus the models I wanted to take to shore up the warband moved me more towards better models.  I'm a bit stumped at how I'd take on certain warbands, but there's nothing like a little trial-by-fire to figure out solutions in a hurry.

Ka-caw

The Tengu Decension are now available for pre-order.  It's the starter box and 5 additional profiles: Sanjakubo, Ryuhobo, Hill Tribe Warrior, Buzenbo, and the Zephyr Guard.  With the additional profiles from the special cards, it's still a very limited selection of profile to construct a warband, but it's a start.

Buzenbo isn't as an amazing all-rounder as he was in playtest, but that was to be expected - there were only a trio of profiles to take at the top end of the faction, and he was the best by quite a large margin at covering all the bases.  I expect the majority of the big, scary profiles of the faction to be kurama tengu like Buzenbo: larger bases, maybe Wing Buffet as a Ki-feat (yes please!), and generally being a badass.

I really want to see what the Tengu Decension themes are, all I can really remember from testing is that one only allowed tengu on 30mm bases.  No idea what the theme actually did, but Sojobo is on a 30mm base...  Weirdly I'm actually looking forward to finding out what more of the tribesmen do in the faction, given that there's only a measly 3 profiles for them at the moment.

Tomorrow I'm playing against Mark Watson and his Silvermoon Trade Syndicate, I'm going to try a Ito Clan Blessed warband with the shisai without Naoko and more heavy hitters - so both Yatsumata and Kenzo.  Poor Saburo gets downgraded into a simple Temple Asp.  I was also thinking of trying out Yuui and a new test profile along with Kenzo for more mid-range rice costed fighting power, but I think that's more of a Mizuki type of thing.  Also uses a test profile and I haven't painted Yuui yet.  I'd rather go for the fully painted warband.

Double Trouble, The Wiki Begins

The Jade Witch is amazing.  No really, especially when you bring her in the Blessed theme.  I was really surprised since whenever I used her in playtest, things did not work out all that well - the theme was also slightly better in playtest and I imposed my own restrictions on it (no samurai for instance) since I believed it was going to get nerfed into the ground.  Back to the Jade Witch however...  She reaps in Ki like no tomorrow if you can position right - and not get the other shisai killed - and threaten your opponent constantly.  The sheer amount of Ki I was getting was pretty unbelievable, there weren't many turns when she wasn't at maximum Ki.  I'm going to try her out in a few more games, and I'm curious at how the warband will handle bad match ups - like the Death and Decay theme from the Cult of Yurei.  Badly I suspect.

I'm also trying out new things with the Shimogamo Vipers, being much more conservative with them and trying to play for later game rather than trying to win by turn 4.  Rather than trying to declare melee actions all the time, I may as well do the odd disengage just to keep them alive and keep them harassing my opponent.  That and I don't need to use Dark Secrets on turn 1, that's just a luxury.  Unfortunately I'm a now person, not a later person, so like the scorpion crossing the river I'm having to fight against my nature to make it happen.

This week's Tengu Decension reveal is Ryuhobo, one of the Koroko (owl) tengu.  He's a very nifty support model, but quite defensive in how you use him.  If I were to list similar support models, I'd say he's like a mix of Shuichi/Old Zo?  He's nice to have in most warbands but I think he'll fall by the wayside for most people since he's not an aggressive or particularly proactive profile.  I quite like him with any of the big hitters of the faction, Ryohobo keeps them up and running.

Oh yes, I started to create the Jumo Ring wikia.  It's still a big work-in-progress but I hope to create something that other people will maintain on their own until I destroy it in a fit of pique!  MWAHAHAHAHAHA!  Or you know, it ends up running itself.  The plan is to keep adding the bare-bones of a few profiles each day until there's an entry for everything, and then start filling in the gaps with more solid tactics and techniques.

Slow Day

Woohoo, news from GCT!

It's not very good news, but it does let us know production of models will continue.

Also, with the delay, Gordon (the G in GCT I believe) has put up the Shimogama Vipers profile in the Ito Clan forums.  BEHOLD!

They're so sexy in my warbands.  No support model is safe.  MWAHAHAHA.  I could go on and on about how the vipers function in my lists, but it tends to be something like: pick a support, swoop in, kill them with poison.

Unfortunately I've not been playing any wargames recently, being in a board gaming mood and trying to design a D&D campaign that has a coherent story *and* setting, but Adam Davies has started to play Bushido, picking up the Silvermoon Trade Syndicate and Savage Wave - he tends to go into the deep end, so I'm pretty sure he's got everything for both factions at the moment.  It'll be good to have a Silvermoon player who's a bit more ruthless and focused so we can see all the broken that comes out.

A number of threads are opening up on the forums discussing different warbands within a faction.  The Temple lists I find quite interesting, and the Ito Clan forums have always had a number of different warband discussions goings, this time it seems to be focused on warbands with only 6 models (I just don't get it).  What I do like about the game is the sheer number of different warbands there seem to be out there.  There are usually some staple figures in every faction (Tra-peng for example) but the rest of the models seem to shift around quite drastically.

Special Card Competition Voting - Ito Clan

Voting has started on the finalists of the Special Card Competition for the next set of special cards.  Go to the Bushido website to vote!

Right now the Ito Clan ones are up for voting, surprisingly one of my cards is in there.  Go me!  I can see Fearsome Visage being used with Kenzo/Kaihime (and other upcoming hebi/hebimiman models that lack Fear) as it can prevent low-Ki models stealing your activations and gives them quasi-Fearless.  Muramasa Blade is really cool, but I just can't see it being used... ever...  Or maybe with Masunagi.  Orochi Familiar is a very good generic all-rounder for most lists.  I can see the majority of people voting for Muramasa Blade because it seems the coolest, rather than the card Ito Clan players will actually use.

Update: You fools! Stop voting for the Blade!  Why on earth do Ito Clan samurai need it unless you play against Armoured Kairai and Tadao every game?  A makes Kenzo/Kaihime/Ayako/any future hebi without Fear better.  C makes lists with low Blood of Orochi have more poison options.  B makes some badass samurai marginally more badass against a really specific criteria of opponent.  Think about which cards you will actually use when building a list.  I'd put Fear (4) on Kenzo every bloody time, and I'd take Orochi Familiar with just about all my Satoshi lists.  I'm never taking the Muramasa Blade simply because I have more useful things to spend rice on when building lists - like Dark Secrets (2).

Wakka Wakka Wakka

I'm in the process of moving flats right now, so there might be a dead period as I transfer my worldly possessions to my new flat.  At last I have a place of my very own, with no flatmates to steal my precious, precious bandwidth.  Ahhhh, the luxury!

Tried out a very different sort of list than the ones I usually play, this time centred around having 2 scary fighters and all the better ashigaru I could cram into a list:

Yatsumata
Ito Kenzo
Saburo
Takeji
Hitoshi
Temple Bushi x2

I would have liked Chiyo in the list for some added mobility and being able to aggressively attack the enemy support models behind the front line, but I just didn't have the points to spare.

The more I play Yatsumata, the more I like the giant twin-headed snake.  She just rocks up to somewhere worth defending and sits there all game fending off anyone foolish enough to come near - if they don't come deal with her, she just heads further down the board.  The list worked out rather well against Martin's Savage Wave, but he didn't know Yatsumata had light footed and left Waka too far forward on turn one.  Yatsumata just rocketed up the board and ended up pinning down both Zuba and Waka for the entire game while everyone else mopped up bakemono.  I do like winning but I prefer to win because I outplayed my opponent, not because they didn't know my awesome model could walk through those bushes and instantly get into melee.  Hitoshi went on a bit of a rampage, he was responsible for the majority of my kills funnily enough.  Usually he just sits around being useless and failing fear tests.

The strategy of very aggressively pursuing enemy zones and objectives is really working out for me, I do feel this is how the Ito Clan are meant to be played.

Jim's first outing with the Savage Wave was interesting to see, and Mark Watson seems to have gotten a real hold on how the Silvermoon play out.  It was really fascinating to see a Cave Bat with stupidity (5) and when it passed the Ki test, Mark would hammer it with a Bought Loyalty or force a re-roll.  The poor Cave Bat did almost nothing the entire game.  Yusha spent the game being a Silvermoon model, but Tenbatsu (now called "the Big Man") just stomped up the board and mowed down anyone who came remotely close to him. The warband we came up with for Jim uses a very different style of list to the type that Martin does, it's really neat to see the different styles of play within the same faction.

Taisho Tenbatsu
Yusha
Cave Bat
Zung-Fu
+Bones of Power
Tra-Peng
2 random Bakemono of choice

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.

Wave 19 Available

Wave 19 is now available for pre-order, and all the cards are available for viewing.  Pretty sure Cult got the most out of the wave with Tenbatsu and the Penanggalan.  For the Ito, Satsuki is finally released to the general public (after being in playtesting *forever*).  She's slightly better than her playtest version - she doesn't just remove a poison token and cause damage, she causes the remaining ones to 'stack up' as if it were the end phase - so you often get a double dose of poison.  Certainly the potential to make poison bombing someone a lot more powerful.  My main problem is that I have so few targets to hit with a poison bomb in most games, but this may have more to do with my usual opponent playing Cult and almost everything being soulless.

Playing my Ito much more aggressively seems to be working out, I've started deploying and moving my models so that I'm nearly always gunning for the enemy zone/objectives very early on - why go for a mid or close objective when I get quite easily get all the way across the board?  It forces my opponents to deploy in a defensive manner and I can usually just wander around the rest of the board at my leisure.  I wonder if this is how Temple is meant to be played too, I'll have to get my Temple models back out and spruced up for some testing.

Jim has taken the plunge for the Savage Wave (saving me the trouble) so it will be interesting to see how that works out.  It's a bit of a non-traditional list of purchases though, it's more of a Yusha style warband rather than a bunch of fighting oni like Bobata and Zuba.  I really want to see what normal kaihei hounds do, it feels a like you're missing out on something when you take Yusha simply because he can't bring along his pack of kaihei yet.

All my terrain for my next board has arrived, I'm planning something a little more urban this time, with plenty of bamboo too.  The gorintos from Master Crafted are working out really nicely, I'm probably going to order a couple more batches to make some 'walls'.  The bamboo from ebay is rather flimsy, but I think that's the not quite the right word to describe it.  They don't look bad, they aren't going to break, but they're very bendy and flexible, I was expecting something a little tougher at holding it's shape.  However, given how often my terrain gets nudged and bumped, I think the plastic bamboo will hold up really well over time.  I just need to figure out how much I'm going to use and in what sort of formations.

I've got quite a lot of terrain just lying around that hasn't been painted/built/based, so I'm spending this week doing all that sort of thing.  So far I have a good gorinto formation, and I just finished an old 50mm base that I'd planned to stick a warjack from Warmachine on ages ago.  I instead turned it into a 50mm objective for Botoku, or just a generic 50mm piece of scenery.  I've also got a bajillion barrels, sacks of grain, giant water barrels, so there's a lot to keep me occupied this week.  Once I'm finished I'll be a happy chappy however, as a good board really sells the game.

Savage Beatings

Well all that experimenting hasn't been for nothing, though you honestly couldn't tell with tonight's game as Martin left Zuba hugely exposed at the end of turn 1, and compounded his error immediately at the start of turn 2, which meant my first three activations were "kill Zuba" and Kenzo did just that (two success level 6 attacks will do that).  It was a short, short game.

I'm starting to adopt a 'tri-core line up' in my lists, it feels like a very MOBA thing to do actually.  I bring Kenzo, Naoko, and Saburo, then design my list around that.  If I can't bring Saburo, I bring along Chiyo now because I'm finding her ability to use leap undeniably useful.  I do like Yatsumata, but find her limited against targets with decent amounts of armour or toughness; whereas with Kenzo you just activate powerful attack.  "But what about Masunagi/Takeji?" you may ask.  I like moving around the board as much as possible, being stuck in a straight fight means I'm not working on scenarios, and having models that are faster than my opponent is a big deal.  So is having steady now that I think about it.  That means if the model isn't a hebi or has boostable movement, I'm probably not interested in it.  That and I didn't get into the Ito Clan for the 'normal' people, I got into it for the crazy snake cult!

Speaking about Zuba and the Savage Wave, I'm vaguely concerned about how people play the oni.  When Ricki first started playing he was amazingly aggressive with his oni, they were smushing things left and right - I haven't played Ricki but I'd like to think he continues to play this way.  Martin plays his oni like they're the most fragile eggshells ever created that need to be cherished and unharmed (this last game notwithstanding).  Personally I think that oni should be played as near suicidal models, you need to have a success level 8 hit to have a chance to one-shot an oni.  So yes, you just did a heap of damage to that oni that didn't roll defence dice, but you're just flat out dead if the oni hits back.  Oh, and it ate your soul to heal up a bit.  My opinion is that if the oni survives a game on 1 health but killed at least one model, it's doing it's job.  They should be able to sustain quite a lot of combat.  Also why don't I see more of Bobata?!  Holy crap he's baller levels of awesome.  Except for his moobs.

That's not to say you should be stupid with your oni, in that last game Martin was aggressive with Zuba, he just made some terrible, terrible choices as to where he was going to leave Zuba standing, and when to activate Zuba... ok, let's just say Martin had an off day.  I think Tenbatsu suits Martin's playstyle much better than Zuba - I don't think I've ever seen Martin use Zuba's slam, and Martin tends to try for a straight up fight.  I think Tenbatsu will be easier to navigate through his screening bakemono and being a samurai, he's a pretty damn good fighter.  It's very tempting to get some Savage Wave to see if I can get some different results.

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.

One Corner at a Time

Well, this post has been sitting in the draft box for a while...  There may be several edits throughout the post as I wrote the original draft at least a week ago.

Wave 17 has been revealed in all its glory, and it's a rather impressive wave.  At first glance I felt the Ito Clan came out the weakest, which isn't saying much as everyone got something pretty awesome.  The big winners were Temple and Savage Wave I feel, with Temple gaining chain lightning and mass condition removal, and Savage Wave getting a "support" oni - Yusha may have support Ki feats I wouldn't be afraid to get him involved in a fight, he's still a full-blooded oni.

Yatsumata had some minor changes from playtest - she became a 40mm base... and that's about it.  My only playtest experience with her was against Savage Wave and all she did was eat bakemono all game, it was a bit uninspiring.  Edit: in reality she just arrived with a 50mm base, and we recently confirmed she is supposed to be on a 50mm base.  So she's very fast and likes getting shot...  I feel Yatsumata occupies a similar role to Kenzo as a hit and run specialist, she is very much like Kenzo with half his Ki feats or specials active all the time.  At the moment I still prefer Kenzo after a couple of games with Yatsumata, but those were against Cult, so I'll have to try her out against a few other factions to really get a feel for her.

Recently, I tried out a rather disgusting combo to gain a turn 1 scenario advantage and was so impressed with it that I think I'm going to save it as a pocket strategy for a tournament of some sort (sorry guys).  My opponent (Jim) was less impressed (much to my glee) but it probably marks a turning point in my battle against Cult's mass of forward deploying models.  I might play a couple more games with the list to see how it works out against other factions, but if it works out as planned, then I think I'll shelf it for a while; it may be successful, but it isn't that much fun to play against.  Though, if someone else on the Ito Clan forums comes up with the list on the Lists thread, I'll reveal my list and the tactics behind it.

Now I just need to sit down and think of some posts to write that aren't Ito-centric...

The Weight of Paper

Well my first Bushido tournament turned out a total bust.  Somewhat gutting, and I'm quite annoyed at the player base for it, but I can't force people to play.  That's a day and a half wasted, and fuel to get to Stirling and back.  Not to mention asking Steve at Common Ground Games to open early so we'd be able to start at 11am promptly.  I don't mind wasting my time, but wasting someone else's time really galls me.

So... the next tournament is on the 17th of May, at Highlander Games in Dundee.  I'm not sure what the numbers in Dundee are, but I would expect about 8-10 players total, which isn't bad for a game that's just starting to get its feet up here.  If there's more I'll be pleasantly surprised.  I do need to sort out my quick reference sheets, as I discovered a typo, but I think everything else I sorted out for today can be reused for the Dundee tournament.  I'm trying to sort out some extra goodies for the top 3 places with the extra time too.

Wave 16 is now available for pre-order, and I've ordered Yatsumata for the Ito Clan, and another Itsunagi.  I'm really unhappy with how my Itsunagi turned out, and now that I've done more painting in the last six months than I did before my first Itsunagi, I think I can do a lot better.  I just noticed Yatsumata is listed as a 40mm base model... so it's smaller than it was in playtest (I think).  I wonder what else has changed...  I'm certainly going to push it up the painting schedule and try it out in place of Kenzo.

I'm going to push to get more painting done this week, I'm falling further and further behind with the Ito Clan models, so it's time to churn out 2-3 at a minimum to prevent unpainted models creeping into my lists.  First up will be Hitoshi since he's in just about all my lists (as I can't have a 3rd Temple Bushi and I don't want to use Akimoto), followed by Satoshi since the poor samurai has been languishing away not even close to painted for so long.  After that we'll see where my fancy takes me, but I hope to get the faction fully painted by the end of the month if all goes well.

Wednesday/Friday/Saturday: Hitoshi + Satoshi
Monday/Wednesday/Friday: Kaihime + Yatsumata
Saturday/Sunday: Yatsumata (if not finished) + Jade Mamba Guard
Monday Wednesday/Friday: Masunagi + Yukio

Orders of Magnitude

Satoshi was pulled out of the miniatures case at last (he was getting a good layer of dust) and I got to test him out with an Elixir of Vigor.  So far it works out pretty well, getting extra attacks out of models like Takeji (CLEAVE!) and the other ashigaru does mean you simply out-activate a lot of opponents.  It does however determine your activation order quite severely: to get the most effect out of Battle Stations/Order, 3 ashigaru must have activated, then Sakura must activate before Satoshi to give him some extra Ki, and finally Satoshi activates to give the order.  Of course you can move some things around, but that's the basic formula.  If something screws with Satoshi (such as a Ki feat like "Instill Wrath" or "Hypnotic Gaze") then it all falls apart.

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Martial Superiority

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Ito Masunagi
+ Vial of Raijin's Breath
Satoshi
+ Elixir of Vigor
Sakura
Takeji
Jade Mamba Guard
Temple Bushi
Hitoshi

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I did find that I'm not such a great fan of the Jade Mamba Guard simply because Masunagi out-paces her once he uses the Vial of Raijin's Breath - that and I really like Asp Strike and the tactical flexibility that Temple Bushi have.  I'd probably drop her in favour of another Temple Bushi (or even Chiyo) and take Orochi's Shadow for some extra Blood of Orochi when I think I need it.  On turn 1, Sakura needs to give Satoshi 2 Ki or else he can't use the Elixir of Vigor AND use his Order trait to get the ashigaru extra activations.  I'd like to get a little more Blood of Orochi into the list, but that would involve using an unreleased profile (I expect he'll be in wave 18).  Of course I could swap out Masunagi for Kenzo, but I already use Kenzo in my favourite list, I'd like to use the other models in the faction every now and then.

So it's an interesting list, and one that works very well for turn 1 scenario pushes, but it has two very identifiable weak points - Satoshi to disrupt the Order, or Sakura to disrupt the flow of Ki to Satoshi.  If you can keep those 2 safe, then it's a pretty good list.

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.

Six Gates, No Pylon

Well Greeny has admitted defeat in the shisai argument, perhaps leaving me as the last man standing as dual shisai proponent.  In all honesty, I do feel they are overcosted, they're both about 1 rice too expensive.  Ayako is probably 1.5 rice too expensive, you can compare her to the Cult's Taka at 8 rice, who can summon Wrath and has a really powerful offensive Ki feat debuff.  Even overcosted however, I do get a lot of use out of them, and I really baulk at the idea other people don't get similar results.  Oh, the things I could get with 2 more rice in the list...

I had two games using my newly revamped shisai/debuff list over the weekend against Jim's Cult of Yurei, and I don't feel I got as much use out of the shisai as I could have done, as we played Ninki (which I won on turn 6, and in which only 1 model died (Taka)) and Botoku (in which I got humped simply because Cult can flood the zone so much faster than I can).

In Ninki, Sakura sat at an objective and prayed for half the game, then rotated the objective back to Friendly, Ayako had to do all the legwork by herself.  On turn 6 I used Naoko to "Slither" forward and then killed Taka, preventing Jim turning an objective back, and so I ended up scoring the final available VP.  Until then though, no models died.  Everyone's defence dice were crazy, and quite frankly, trying to hit either Nezumi is an exercise in frustration.

In Botoku something similar happened, and I pretty much lost on scenario as soon as the game started, but I think I could have been a lot more aggressive with my shisai if I'd planned how to move my models a little better: I managed to block off a good chunk of my own movement avenues by having Kenzo and Naoko too close together so all my small based models couldn't get past them and my shisai couldn't see anything that didn't have Camouflage.  I'm getting really tired of seeing Breath of Yurei in every game too.

So, less than optimal results in my last two games, but the Cult of Yurei are probably the faction I have the hardest time with at the moment - between Breath of Yurei, Camouflage, and Souless, my poor shisai are just Ki batteries for a while, yet I get better results than I do using fighting lists.  Now to pencil in more games against other factions, right after the seemingly endless demo games I'm running.

Artosis Pylon

"When ahead, get further ahead." - Artosis

My blog recently had a rather unusual spike in traffic, which I would normally attribute to an advertising bot, but looking at it people actually come visit from the Bushido forums.  So... hi!  I hope there's actually something useful in here that you guys find worth reading.

The Ito Clan forums seem to be having the revelation that early scenario play is important and some people are trying to gravitate away from straight up face-punching lists.  Face-punching lists have always been the least interesting lists for me to play but I do wonder at how other people have been playing scenarios.  Over here most games tend to be low-scoring (1-0 or 2-0 at most) as everyone tries to hotly contest the scenarios straight away.  When we first started, some people would consider letting their opponent score and try to conserve their efforts for later scoring, but we quickly found many of the scenarios have a snowball effect: once you're in the lead, you just build on that lead, and there's very little your opponent can do about it.  Ryodo is probably the main culprit of this as the scenario points do not reset at any time, but certain 'Idols' variants suffer the same problem.  So people quickly learned to rush into the zones Warmachine/Hordes style, and contest them like there's no tomorrow, anything less and you end up playing from behind.

Here's some simple math for reaching middle objectives: a small base model needs to move 10" and a little bit, medium base models need to move just under 10", and large base models only need to move a tiny fraction over 9.25".  If you have to run to get these distances, figure out if your opponent will arrive at the centre line able to fight or not, as if you had to run and are now exhausted, you're already down 2 dice and getting into a fight will probably not be a good idea.  This most often comes up against forward deploying factions such as Temple or Cult.  If you think you can survive quite adequately, just get your models up there.  There are other methods to help avoid losing the early game but going into every possible option would take more time and text than I'm willing to put in just now, instead I'll talk about the Ito Clan for now as that is my main faction.

As an Ito Clan player who loves his shisai, I usually try figure out what the lynchpin of my opponent's list is for early scoring and hit them with Ayako's "Hypnotic Gaze".  It's won me games simply because the key model would be out of position on turn 2.  Of course, it does fail, but the reward for success shouldn't be underestimated.  However, crafty opponents bring things like Darkness and Yurei's Breath which means I can't target anything on turn 1, in which case I bring all the Temple Bushi I can squeeze into a list - I take them simply because they have movement boosts and I find them to be more flexible than models like the Jade Mamba Guard.  By giving them some Ki (3 Ki to one Bushi, 1 to the other) I can quite comfortably boost my movement high enough to penetrate quite deeply into enemy territory.  Once again, be aware of having run and being exhausted at the same time while still being in the opponent's threat ranges.  There's no point contesting your opponent if they're just going to flat out kill your over-extended models.

A real dynamic duo of the Ito Clan is Kenzo and Naoko.  Both come on medium bases, and have a base move speed of 5, meaning they can walk twice and quite comfortably reach objectives on the centre line.  Kenzo is one of the best all-rounder models in the game, and Naoko, while Impetuous (sadface), brings copious amounts of Blind and a high level of Fear.  Between the two of them, they should be able to either reach an objective first, or get enemy models into their zone of control so that no scenario actions can be taken.  Both are fairly intimidating to enter melee with, one having First Strike and good melee skill, the other one having Fear 5 - even better is that they both have Side Step Defence so can contest more of the scenario zones/objectives.  When Yatsumata arrives, it presents an additional early option with its high move speed, large base, and fearsome combat abilities.

If you want to go down the more face-punching style list with lots of ashigaru and try to get the early scenario lead, then Sakura combined with Satoshi provide some very powerful options.  MattT on the Ito Clan forums tried this type of list, and I've tried it several times, I found that it has a great turn 1, and then starts to fall apart quickly after that.  His results indicate a similiar result though he was playing Reikan (a VIM scenario).  It's worth noting that all my testing was prior to the Special Cards, so I'm willing to give it another ago to see how it works out with those - Satoshi pretty much requires an Elixir of Vigor so that he can use his Order on turn 1 and then still be relevant on turn 2 rather than still on your board edge, miles away from the ashigaru he wants to help out.

This post is already quite lengthy, so I'll end it here for now and bring up more general scenario techniques in the next post (and hopefully a battle report if there's time).

More Like Beige Secrets

I'm really quite enjoying my Temple of Ro-kan at the moment, and I've ordered a few more models to help fill in the gaps in my lists.  I really want to try out double Fire Kami so I can just obliterate models like Taka from miles away (dice willing).  However, we'll have to see how that works out, there are still some other things I'm wanting to try out first - such as Riku, Suchiro, and Kenko all in one list.  I saw LEJ's Masters winning list and it's very well rounded, it certainly made me think a lot harder about scenarios and how to get the early scenario points in.

To that end I looked at my Ito Clan force where I sacrificed a model (dropping down to 6 models at 50 rice) to get some special cards.  However, the Special Cards aren't quite the pay out I hoped to get with the Ito Clan: let's use Dark Secrets as an example, it has the power to win games in the right circumstances but it can be simply nullified through a bad dice roll.  When it works, it effectively gives a 4 activation swing - my opponent loses 2, I gain 2.  However, if I had to ditch a model to get it, I've lost 8 activations total in a 6 turn game - my model activates twice a turn for 6 turns, and that's assuming the Dark Secrets card worked and wasn't resisted.  Unless the game is over by turn 2 then I was better off with the extra model.  So it's back to making 7 model lists and seeing if I have any points left over.

I very much enjoy my shisai/debuff list, it is by far the list I like the most.  I've tried out a large variation of Ito Clan lists now, and that is the one that just sticks with me.  I'm tempted to drop Chiyo down to a normal Temple Bushi and take Orochi's Shadow (1 rice version) so I can try to drop a massive poison bomb on a key enemy model early in the game in an effort to kill them without any additional effort on my part, or just drop her down to a Temple Bushi and upgrade Kazuhiko to Hitoshi so I have a good number of MS 3 models.  Hmmm, that may be the next list I try out, on turn 1 I can have just about everyone at move 5 with a tiny bit of channeling, and throw out some minor poisons while I'm at it.  I should really get Hitoshi painted up so that this variation of my shisai/debuff list will be fully painted too.

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Shisai/Debuff List v1.2b:

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Ito Ayako
Ito Kenzo
Naoko
Sakura
Hitoshi
Temple Bushi
Temple Bushi

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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.