Sunday 5 July 2015

Riddle Me This, Riddle Me That

My special cards arrived in the post the other day.  I'm happy with how the Ito Clan themes came out, though I suspect I'm extremely unlikely to use the Lords of Izu theme - it's just not my thing really.  The Blessed theme on the other hand is pretty much every Ito Clan warband I ever make, so free bonuses for me!  Woohoo.  It's not quite as good for non-shisai as it was in playtest, but the benefits you can choose every turn are still pretty good to have.  Hugely disappointed with Shomyo to Orochi though.

The generic cards bring a particularly horrific one to the types of warband I like to play: Amaterasu's Riddle.  This card just plain out takes me out of the game for a turn.  I'm sure on the following turn I'll have the Ki to do some real nastiness, but still, I'm 90% sure there's I'd rather be able to use my Ki feats this turn than have lots of Ki next turn.  It's a card you just can't rule out if you're planning a tournament warband.  I think people won't use it for ages, then someone will figure it out (cough cough) and suddenly it'll become the new metagame.

The Cult of Yurei themes are also worth looking at.  One allows just about every model in the faction except kairai, the other one is almost exclusively for kairai.  The kairai one is actually hugely viable with Desecrated Grave and Haunted Well.  I think the Desecrated Grave is ruinous for a lot of early scenario push warbands, it allows you to place up to 2 kairai immediately in contact with a midline objective or for them to start within a zone.

Having said all that, it's going to be interesting to see how the game is going to shape up over the next couple of months as people get used to the new special cards and two new factions being released (granted the Shadow Wind ninjas will only be available to the Rise of the Kage backers).  I'm really feeling the Tengu Decension at the moment, I just need to sit on my hands for a month.

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