My writing on this blog has been sorely lax lately, though I will admit I've simply been waiting for the release of the Jung Pirates next month. Minato and Yuji have been added to the model and profile previews, so it's just the korusea and kohanin profiles and the entire Rise of the Kage range of Jung models will be there at the faction release.
I've been drawing up various warbands for the Jung Pirates - they have the luxurious position of having a better (or more varied) set of early releases than the Tengu Decension. I think it's at the low end of rice costs that warband variation really starts. The faction also has a slightly more balanced mid-high cost profiles - Minato is 11 rice, Mari is 10. I don't quite know what cross-faction profiles the Jung Pirates have access to either, but I expect the water kami in some form will be available (hopefully the Kami of the Suiden variation or something similar).
The main difference in Jung Pirate warbands is whether you want any of the weird stuff or you just want to punch people in the face with normal humans. Minato likes normal people, Mari likes weird things. You don't need to take either member of the Jung family, but they're the best you can get with the release profiles. I feel that the Jung Pirates function in a similar fashion to the Silvermoon Trade Syndicate: higher model count and using a number of special cards in ideal circumstances.
I'm of the opinion that high model count warbands are simply easier to play than smaller, more aggressive warbands that don't have access to a lot of tireless. All you have to do it wear down the enemy models while you roll full defence dice. Once they're all exhausted, then you can start swapping in attack dice. I can play this style, but I find it shockingly tedious when it's possible to do something more aggressive and flashier. You don't want to just win, you want to win with style!
Saturday, 16 July 2016
Saturday, 18 June 2016
Peg Legs & Hook Hands
I appear to be in some form of minor hellhole this week. We're working on a bathroom in a small coastal town outside Edinburgh, where the Internet is a thing of myth and legend. I'm sure this would be pleasant if the weather was nice, but it isn't so once we're done working there's not a lot to do but freeze slowly.
During one of the sporadic bursts of active wifi reception, I saw that the starter pack for the Jung Pirates has been unveiled. I'm really looking forward to getting my withered grasp on them, and hopefully the kohanin and korusea will be released at the same time as I would be much happier with the metal miniatures than the plastic ones I appropriated from Rise of the Kage.
Along with the Jung Pirates starter I saw the rankings for the Masters. I'm one of the people tied for 3rd but ended up 5th due to strength of schedule. I'm slightly mystified how the SoS was worked out, I've worked with it before and my results were different. Bit of a head-scratcher that one, but I'm happy enough to have made to the final table this year, and in all honesty I think Johan was seriously unlucky not to simply win the whole thing this year with his Silvermoon warband.
Bushido as a whole appears to be undergoing rapid expansion in the UK, though I don't have the sales data to prove this, but the social media side of it has certainly exploded. I expect the UK Masters next year to be packed, and in possible need to additional places. If it does get packed, I think I'll participate as a Retainer rather than a player. I did notice that my games lost a lot of time as people were constantly asking me rules queries, and a dedicated rules person would improve a larger tournament.
During one of the sporadic bursts of active wifi reception, I saw that the starter pack for the Jung Pirates has been unveiled. I'm really looking forward to getting my withered grasp on them, and hopefully the kohanin and korusea will be released at the same time as I would be much happier with the metal miniatures than the plastic ones I appropriated from Rise of the Kage.
Along with the Jung Pirates starter I saw the rankings for the Masters. I'm one of the people tied for 3rd but ended up 5th due to strength of schedule. I'm slightly mystified how the SoS was worked out, I've worked with it before and my results were different. Bit of a head-scratcher that one, but I'm happy enough to have made to the final table this year, and in all honesty I think Johan was seriously unlucky not to simply win the whole thing this year with his Silvermoon warband.
Bushido as a whole appears to be undergoing rapid expansion in the UK, though I don't have the sales data to prove this, but the social media side of it has certainly exploded. I expect the UK Masters next year to be packed, and in possible need to additional places. If it does get packed, I think I'll participate as a Retainer rather than a player. I did notice that my games lost a lot of time as people were constantly asking me rules queries, and a dedicated rules person would improve a larger tournament.
Monday, 6 June 2016
UK Masters Journal - Part Two: Games!
My miniatures arrived just before 9am, so I was in time for the Bushido tournament. There was some damage across a good number of miniatures in the top tray of the case - Sojobo seems to have born the brunt of it, with his staff bending and one of his wings needing a fix - but that's a small price to pay for having my miniatures there for the tournament.
Game One: Prefecture of Ryu - the Idols (1-0 victory)
Strangely enough I ended up playing against Robert (Dr Kaos) again, my first opponent last year. He'd changed up his warband a bit since last time: both Hiro and Genji made an appearance along with Matsu the Thunder and Bikou.
I managed to get the early scenario rush but I was quickly suffering attrition. Bikou simply deleted my Zephyr Guard, and my Kami of the Strong West Wind aren't models that last a long time in close combat. On the other hand I did manage to pull off a complete hogwash critical strike attack on Hiro to get my game back in the eleventh hour. Eventually dice was called, but I'm absolutely certain that Rob would have turned the game into a 1-1 draw if we'd managed to get to round 6.
Game Two: Temple of Ro-Kan - the Envoy (3-0 victory)
I played against IrishJohn and his non-themed Temple of Ro-Kan. Unfortunately John's a Bushido newcomer so wasn't prepared for something like my warband. He made some good decisions with what he had, and I can see him developing into a really good player with more experience. I'd peg John as a player to watch out for next year.
Game Three: Silvermoon Trade Syndicate (Jade Rose Gumi) - Ryodo (2-0 victory)
My hardest game of the tournament by far. If I hadn't won this game through sheer grit I'm 100% certain Johan would have won the tournament. His warband was brutal to play against, it had so many special cards and nine models, so he could get a ludicrously activation advantage. I realised that I was going to have to burn through all the special cards as quickly as possibly, so just threw all my biggest threats at him as fast as I could so he would spend the cards. It *sort of* worked in that he spent them, but it was still horrific to have to deal with them regardless. It's really a case of choosing the biggest frog to eat first.
I managed to get into the middle zone very quickly with the Wind Watchers placement effect and threaten his zone constantly by throwing models at it. If Johan had been less keen to defend his zone and put pressure on mine, I'm fairly confident I'd have lost the game. As it was, the Dominate spam from Hokibo kept me in the running so that Hokibo wasn't turned into a pincushion by Wasupu and the Kyoaku-Han Crossbowman.
Game Four: Tengu Decension (White Mesa) - Keii (1-2 loss)
Apparently this was the final table to determine the tournament winner, so I was pretty happy regardless. I was matched up against James Hasker's White Mesa warband with a higher model count. After the game against Johan's Silvermoon, I was really mentally out of it. This wasn't a long game as I simply got out-attritioned early and didn't have the activations spare to get scenario actions done. My cunning plan to execute Sanjakubo very quickly didn't pan out as he survived a really stupid number of activations in melee against Hokibo, but oh well, these things happen. I did manage to pull off a sneaky last turn score to get the final victory point just to prevent a 3-0 stomp by James. With this loss, my tournament ranking takes a tanking (a weakness of the tournament point scoring system) so I'll be interested to see just how much a loss in the final round can effect someone's final placement in the standings.
Game One: Prefecture of Ryu - the Idols (1-0 victory)
Strangely enough I ended up playing against Robert (Dr Kaos) again, my first opponent last year. He'd changed up his warband a bit since last time: both Hiro and Genji made an appearance along with Matsu the Thunder and Bikou.
I managed to get the early scenario rush but I was quickly suffering attrition. Bikou simply deleted my Zephyr Guard, and my Kami of the Strong West Wind aren't models that last a long time in close combat. On the other hand I did manage to pull off a complete hogwash critical strike attack on Hiro to get my game back in the eleventh hour. Eventually dice was called, but I'm absolutely certain that Rob would have turned the game into a 1-1 draw if we'd managed to get to round 6.
Game Two: Temple of Ro-Kan - the Envoy (3-0 victory)
I played against IrishJohn and his non-themed Temple of Ro-Kan. Unfortunately John's a Bushido newcomer so wasn't prepared for something like my warband. He made some good decisions with what he had, and I can see him developing into a really good player with more experience. I'd peg John as a player to watch out for next year.
Game Three: Silvermoon Trade Syndicate (Jade Rose Gumi) - Ryodo (2-0 victory)
My hardest game of the tournament by far. If I hadn't won this game through sheer grit I'm 100% certain Johan would have won the tournament. His warband was brutal to play against, it had so many special cards and nine models, so he could get a ludicrously activation advantage. I realised that I was going to have to burn through all the special cards as quickly as possibly, so just threw all my biggest threats at him as fast as I could so he would spend the cards. It *sort of* worked in that he spent them, but it was still horrific to have to deal with them regardless. It's really a case of choosing the biggest frog to eat first.
I managed to get into the middle zone very quickly with the Wind Watchers placement effect and threaten his zone constantly by throwing models at it. If Johan had been less keen to defend his zone and put pressure on mine, I'm fairly confident I'd have lost the game. As it was, the Dominate spam from Hokibo kept me in the running so that Hokibo wasn't turned into a pincushion by Wasupu and the Kyoaku-Han Crossbowman.
Game Four: Tengu Decension (White Mesa) - Keii (1-2 loss)
Apparently this was the final table to determine the tournament winner, so I was pretty happy regardless. I was matched up against James Hasker's White Mesa warband with a higher model count. After the game against Johan's Silvermoon, I was really mentally out of it. This wasn't a long game as I simply got out-attritioned early and didn't have the activations spare to get scenario actions done. My cunning plan to execute Sanjakubo very quickly didn't pan out as he survived a really stupid number of activations in melee against Hokibo, but oh well, these things happen. I did manage to pull off a sneaky last turn score to get the final victory point just to prevent a 3-0 stomp by James. With this loss, my tournament ranking takes a tanking (a weakness of the tournament point scoring system) so I'll be interested to see just how much a loss in the final round can effect someone's final placement in the standings.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)