More Specials for Voting

Savage Wave Special Cards

I completely missed a post about the Savage Wave special cards, but I expect Unearthly Rage (C) to win.  Of the other two cards, the Bakemono Horde upgrade was nearly useless in practice - it's really hard not to have LoS to nearly everything in Bushido, especially if your opponent has a model with Soulless or Sixth Sense to see through Darkness; Waka's upgrade wasn't enough of an upgrade to make anyone particularly keen to use him.

Cult of Yurei Special Cards

The Cult of Yurei cards are up for voting now.  The two terrain elements need a little refinement: Haunted Well is too cheap in a faction where the majority of models cause Fear.  Desecrated Grave needs a more defined deployment area - basically I'd make it deploy the same way as Forward Deployment (within 4" of friendly player's deployment zone) so that the kairai don't start the game in base to base with an objective.  The Guardian is... well it seems fine to me if I'm honest.

Having had Yatsumata lasered off the table by Ikiryo as the first action of turn 2, I think Ikiryo needs a serious nerf; I've also had games where she killed an ashigaru every turn.  Currently she's a no risk, high reward model as she stands miles away churning out 5 damage a turn.  There are three available options I can see: reduce her Ki by 1 and give her Force of Will - this will give her roughly the same success levels when making opposed Ki tests, but the severity of her nukes will be lower; reduce the range of "Look Into the Void" to 4" so she turns into a high risk, high reward model; place a maximum damage value which is less than 6 on "Look Into the Void".

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).