Snakes and Dragons

Two models of the starter box down, three to go.  I have been side-tracked by Kenzo however, but I'm going to sideline him until the rest of the starter box is finished.  Kenzo is a really simple miniature to paint; he's just snake belly, scales, and some armour.  There's some skin but there's no delicate kimono folds or really ornate sword scabbards.  I reckon I could probably finish him in a full day of painting.  First though, finish the starter box, no distractions!

Here's a WIP photo I took on the iPhone in some terrible light, I have since finished Akimoto.  As you might be able to tell, Itsunagi is not my greatest work.  Very pleased with how Akimoto's skin turned out:

Had my first real game against Dave's Prefecture as planned; I did lose horribly on scenario.  I also discovered that Akimoto is totally garbage on the table (as expected) and Itsunagi is an unholy terror (as expected.)  The other models in the starter box performed pretty much as expected.  Temple Bushi are very solid models for their cost, I feel they get outshone slightly by the Ryu Yarimen, but I'm okay with that; my samurai are awesome and boost for less Ki - also, giant snakemen!  Sakura merely functions as a Ki battery for everyone else in the box, which is unfortunate, and her Ki feats seem pretty awful.  I get the feeling "Venomous Gaze" is there to finish off nearly-dead models, rather than deal out initial damage.  It's something I'll have to test over a couple more games.

If I could change some of the rules for the models that I used, I'd remove the restrictions on Akimoto's "Orochi's Visage" so it can be used in melee or as part of a Walk action.  This turns him into a weird reactive character into an okay proactive one.  At some point I'll give him another test run just to be sure, but that's my feedback on him at the moment.  Perhaps I should try running him as a more aggressive figure and utilize the Terror to burn through enemy activations?

Of the special attacks and defences, Side-step Defence works as I expected, it makes your models very difficult to take down quickly or they can complete their melee exchange, do a little damage, and then dance out of combat to prevent getting outnumbered.  I forgot normal Temple Bushi don't have it, but my lone Bushi managed to survive both Hiro and Jin poking him just by going all-out defensive.  Chiyo was not so lucky and got shot by Minuro's arquebus.  Sad times my friends, sad times.  I only got to use Combo Attack on Itsunagi and it did let me pile up some poison tokens on Hiro, but it was too late by that point, Dave had already gained more scenario points than I could score in the time remaining.

The combat system is a bit deceptive (in a good way!) as it is difficult to take down an opponent who is going all out on defence, so stacking debuffs is rather high priority.  This is where I feel the Shisai come in for the Ito Clan.  My planned 50 rice list basically involves me blinding as many models as I can with Naoko and then using Ayako to stun another or stack debuffs on a single model so that Kenzo or my Temple Bushi can kill them through sheer number of dice.  If you only roll a single die in defence, there's a good chance you're about to get gibbed.

Two-Swords, One Heaven

My enthusiasm for Bushido continues.  The Ito Clan starter box arrived and I've already finished Ito Itsunagi - probably the most powerful member of the Ito Clan.  He's not as good as I could have painted him though, as I tried to paint on his tattoos and it all went horribly wrong and had to redo a lot of his flesh.  He's still passable, but definitely just tabletop quality now.  Ah well, at some point when I'm drowning in time and money I may get another Itsunagi and try again.  For now though I'll settle for getting a fully painted force.

My first real game is scheduled for next week (the 28th) against Dave Hamilton's Prefecture of Ryu force.  The Prefecture are the 'standard' samurai force: samurai with ashigaru retainers.  No weird powers or unusual creatures for the most part.  The Prefecture seems to be the faction for rocking straight up to someone and beating them down.  Just about everyone in the faction has plenty of armour, which makes it very unlikely to kill anyone in a single exchange without access to Sharp or Armour Piercing.

The Ito Clan on the other are all about dancing around the combat, or evading a direct fight when possible.  Nearly everyone has access to Side Step Defence (basically, I get to walk away if I succeed at defending in melee), most of the samurai in the faction can do it with no penalty.  Unfortunately most of the models in the starter box are very fragile, it is very much a case of protecting Itsunagi while he kills everything.

I actually prefer the old starter box with Ito Kenzo and Naoko over Ito Itsunagi and Akimoto.  The snakeman Akimoto really doesn't seem all that useful to me, he can become very terrifying, but to do that he can't move and he can't be in combat.  Other than that though, he's terrible in combat, has no ranged attack... he's there to generate Blood of Orochi tokens (you can use those to give models in your army the Poison special ability, the lethality is determined by how many Blood of Orochi tokens you spend on an individual model).  Sure Itsunagi is a powerhouse, but Naoko is so much better than Akimoto, while Kenzo isn't miles off from Itsunagi.  Fortunately I have ordered Kenzo and Naoko, so I may have the option of either version of the starter box.  I'll just bring what's painted, so probably the newer 'normal' starter box.

On the hobby front, I seem to have developed a weird taste for building bamboo hedges out of toothpicks and copper wiring.  It's very easy, and I may end up with a disproportionate number of hedges to other terrain.  My board has been put on hold after Mark Bonatti asked how I made all the terrain seamless (he thought it was modular) at which point I slapped myself on the forehead and then decided to make modular terrain instead.  I do need to pick up a giant bag of clump foliage for my hedges though, these tiny GF9 tubs are not cost-efficient.

Update: I got fed up with Itsunagi's terrible skin and redid it (again) so now it's a much smoother blend.  It's much better but it's still just a good tabletop quality.  Pictures once the whole starter box is finished.

Way of the Samurai

It's finally happened, I've totally lost interest in Warmachine and Hordes.  My interest in the game fluctuated up and down for a bit over the past few months, but the introduction of colossals and gargantuans really killed the game for me.  So, after months and months of DotA 2, I tried out Bushido earlier in the week and found it to be great fun.  I've already ordered my starter pack of choice - the Ito Clan - and started making my own playing board.

The game area is a tiny 2ft x 2ft, so making my own board is pretty easy.  I also had a couple of sheets of  foam board lying around that just happened to be 2 feet wide - turned out to be quite handy.  Work is still in progress, I found that most of my paints have dried up since I haven't touched a miniature in months, and I'm still undecided on what sort of terrain I want the board to be.  I could make it grass, jungle, desert, dirt, or snow.  At the moment I'm thinking just plain old grass, but do I have enough flock?  Each board is supposed to have around 6 pieces of terrain, which, in total, should cover 25%-50% of the board; so quite dense.  Unfortunately I'm running very short on materials now, and I'm only at 4 (small) pieces of terrain.  I'm looking to have more vegetation and some places that allow models to abuse elevation, but I'm not sure how to build these with the materials I have on hand.

As for gameplay, the game is very small - most lists I see have 5 to 7 models.  There's quite a surprising amount of tactical depth to the game however, it feels quite Warmachine-esque in that regard.  Knowing when to activate which models, and which tactics to use are key.  My main gripes with the system are that there are certain clunky elements to it: the damage system uses a table; the poison and fire systems are just a confusing mess; certain actions don't really tell you what they allow you to do.  However, the finished rulebook will be available soon and perhaps many of my gripes will vanish in the final product (the current rules are a beta document by the way.)  The easiest way to get around the damage table problem is simply to have the damage table printed out and on hand so you don't have to go leafing through the rulebook every time you activate a model.  The rest of the system is solid though, I particularly like how the combat system works.

Overall, I'm quite excited about the game, and look forward to getting more games in.  There are quite a few players at G3 who have Bushido stuff, and it looks like the game is certainly on the popularity upswing.  Now where are the art assets for websites and blogs to use?