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.

Kyousou 3 - Out Pirating Some Pirates

Jim and I went down to Stockport over the weekend to play  in Kyousou 3, a Bushido tournament run by James Hasker.  Jim put together a rather unusual Cult warband the night before and I used the Jung Queen of the Waves theme warband I listed in an earlier post - though I was debating between a Shisai-triad Ito warband or my previous UK Masters Tengu Wind Watchers warband before settling on using my pirates.  That's a different faction for each tournament I've participated in.  Go me.

I was rather surprised at how well the warband did.  I was expecting to run into something that I simply wouldn't be able to cope with.  Fortunately for me, the warband just seemed to crush my opponents.

Mari Jung gaining Order (3/Kaizoku/6) and the change to Leadership are actually pretty massive changes.  She gives you incredible flexibility on how to operate your warband on any given turn.  In the one game where she died, there was a real noticeable deterioration in the performance of my warband.  It does pinpoint her as the weak link of the warband, so that's something to keep in mind for future reference.

Kyousou 3 itself was fairly small, there were a couple of drop-outs due to car trouble, but I got to play 3 games against people who were Not-Jim and were not using Cult.  Generally good conditions for me, and so far all the Bushido players I've met are really pleasant, even when losing.

My first game was against Jason Enos and his Temple.  It did not go well for him.  My warband only received a total of 4 damage, and that was because I was killing the two earth kami he was using.  When he did roll well, the Queen of the Waves reroll usually nerfed Jason's attacks into the ground.

My second game was against a Buto Herd run by George Lees.  He made some strategically suspect decisions with his ranged models on the Kamikaze turn, then I simply out-activated him until everything on his side of the board died.

The last game was a Jung vs Jung game against Chris Hales.  We were both running Queen of the Waves, which led to some interesting interactions between the different rerolls and place effects, but ultimately I think my choice of special cards countered a lot of his warband.  Chris had brought Temo, I brought a 1 rice Kamikaze.  In the end (after guessing the wrong model as Chris' VIM) a Kohanin stomped on Temo and that was that.

So a gold coin for me, and I am declared the most piraty of the pirate players (all two of us).  Huzzah.

Errata 2017 - the Rundown

There are a few mechanical fixes in the errata, you can ignore the majority of those since they're just clarifying how a particular mechanic works.  This blog post is aimed at covering the most interesting changes going on.

Ronin

The addition of a new type of sub-faction to the game is pretty big.  Ronin type profiles are profiles that have the ronin symbol and can be used across multiple factions.  The next set of releases (GenCon) are of small groups of ronin: the Blood Brothers and Sworn Sisters.  The story is that the Blood Brothers are on the run for some crime they committed on the mainland of the setting, and the Sworn Sisters are chasing them down.

Back to the mechanics of ronin though!  You can't take them in themes, so ronin profiles are usually ahead of the power curve for their rice cost.  That also means you can't take them in an Ordered for Battle warband, as that is still a theme.  So if you bring ronin, you're fully committed.

Yukio Koshimori and the Golden Sentinel profiles have been changed to ronin profiles.  Yukio has been condensed into the Silvermoon Trade Syndicate version, and the Golden Sentinel now has an additional wound track (you can take 2) and is ludicrously good for their rice value.  There's a new Golden Sentinel sculpt that will be available at some point after GenCon.

Bodyguard

Slight change to the Bodyguard trait.  It now triggers on action declaration, so Fear has some interaction with being able to trigger the Bodyguard now.  If the bodyguard (the model, not the trait) wants to use Bodyguard to save a model from an enemy Fear-causing model, then the bodyguard will have to pass a Fear test first.  This makes the unique effects of the Jade Mamba and Takashi Retainers actually do something.

Command

The model with Command can't target itself now.

Leadership

This trait now does a lot more on the whole.  Certain factions would construct entire warbands using 2+ Ki profiles so the old Leadership wasn't doing anything.  Now the +1 bonus (remember that it applies to the model with Leadership too) makes most Fear values less intimidating.  It raises the value of just about all the models with Leadership.

Held

Now applies to anything with a built-in move in addition to all the previous actions.

Notable Balance Changes

There are other changes, but they're almost not worth mentioning since they don't change what's brought to the table.

Ronin
The biggest change for me is that the Kappa is a ronin profile and brings all the baggage associated with it.  No longer can I abuse the yokai in themes.  Sad, sad times.

Claws of the Dragon theme (Prefecture)

You can now bring Shinobu the dog in the theme.  People can stop moaning about not being able to bring Atsuchi & Shinobu on the forums.  It's actually quite a big change since Shinobu can perform scenario actions and can also teleport around the board.

Elixir of Vigor

Now a Prefecture only enhancement card.

Rigtheous Warriors theme (Temple)

No free kami anymore.  Hurrah!  It was such a stupid theme benefit.  Instead Master Monks get cheaper.

Mo Ises (Cult)

Rice cost reduced to 6.  He doesn't feel heinously expensive for what he does not.

Alphas theme (Savage Wave)
Fear 6 changed to Terror and you have to choose a different Oni each turn.  This makes assaulting the scary Oni each turn a lot easier.  Fear 6 was one of those weird values that could often stop samurai and monks

Kaihei Alpha

The "Alpha tax" has been dropped and it gained Dodge (1), so expect to see a number of Kaihei warbands proliferating with Savage Wave players as the full Kaihei pack improves its value.  You could see a shift towards a much earlier aggression style of warband construction from the Savage Wave, but we'll have to see, it's definitely one of the least played factions at a competitive level.

Mari Jung

She's gained Order, and with the change to Leadership the pirate queen has received a buff.  Nothing that really helps herself out though, so we'll have to wait and see how much of an impact the addition of Order brings to her.  It means she'll be further back for most people instead of trying to lead the charge and sacrificing the odd kaizoku.

Queen of the Waves theme (Jung)
The inclusion of ronin kami allows me to continue using the Kami of Reflection, which is amazing against swarms and is the anti-Ki tech I like to bring.  I did ask for this change with the introduction of ronin, so hurrah!

Naigubu
He's gained an additional place effect, which can be used when a model (friendly or enemy) moves into BtB with the big shisai.  This significantly increases his ability to survive.  I'm still probably never going to use him though.

Shepherds of White Mesa theme (Tengu)
The second most popular theme in the game has had quite a few changes.  The free kami has been changed to friendly kami healing 1 Ki on turn 3.  This is pretty big for Kami of the Strong Western Wind or the Kami of Reflection.

The other big change is that the Slow unique effect needs to be applied to a different model each turn, and your opponent chooses.  It's a big of a waste against high model Cult warbands with a bajillion Small Rat Swarms, but low model count warbands could suffer.

The Winners & Losers

I feel that the Prefecture of Ryu came out the best in this errata, simply because everyone else lost the Elixir of Vigor.  They can also use a lot of ronin profiles with no real loss of options during warband construction, but that's more of a "who won Wave 36?" thing than the errata.

Other contenders for being in the black this errata are the Cult of Yurei and the Savage Wave, both of which saw heavy discounts for an underused model.  Mari Jung made off like the pirate queen she is this errata: Leadership got buffed, her theme still allows the inclusion of ronin kami, and she gained an additional trait.

The Temple of Ro-Kan and the Tengu Decension ate the nerf bats on the most common themes, but it's not surprising.  Both themes were stupidly overpowered with the free kami.