Redvers and Son Get Into Bushido

This game was played a little while ago, but I’ve only now gotten around to tackling the project system in submitting it.

Once again, it was my son’s Temple of Rokan (TRK) force against my mighty Cult of Yurei (CoY).

We selected a new mission for this game with deployment along each faction’s back edge. This called for 6 objective markers (the chess pawn looking pieces painted a metallic blue)  to be placed on the board in a hexagonal shape. The two objective markers closest to each faction’s deployment are friendly to that faction (and consequently hostile to the other faction) and the two objectives deployed on the centre line are neutral. Each faction also received 3 prayer tokens.

Scenario points can be earned on each turn if a model in base contact with an objective marker uses an activation to pray. A prayer token is spent and the factions gain 1 scenario point for praying at a friendly objective, 2 at a neutral objective and 3 at hostile objective. At the end of Game Turn 4, each faction gains scenario points equal to the number of friendly objectives that are on the table. 

1 Victory Point is then earned at the end of Turn 4 for the faction with the most scenario points. The scenario points are then reset to zero (any used prayer tokens are not reissued but unused tokens can be spent in future rounds).

At the end of Turn 5, any prayer scenario points earned that turn are added to the number of friendly objectives that a faction has and the most scenario points gets 1 Victory Point. The scenario points reset to zero again.

At the end of Turn 6, the same happens and the game then finishes, with the faction with the most VPs the winner!

In addition to praying at an objective, a model in base contact can also choose to spend their activation and interact with the objective. This turns a hostile objective to neutral and a neutral objective friendly.

Simple eh? It’s more simple than I’ve described it…..

Onto the forces.

My son ran a slightly different list in this game than the previous two and it is below,

• Master Ekusa (who’s a monk riding a tortoise and can heal, remove activation tokens and stops attacks due to his zen like demeanour)
• Taiyo (a ronin from the starter set who has a low points cost and is able to resupply friendly models. He’s also a Villager, allowing my son to take the two pit trap cards below)
• Yim (a monk who’s strong and linked to iron)
• Saruka (another flame monk and can also cast a fireball like ranged attack)
• Kuma (an angry, bo staff wielding panda who can root opponents to the spot while slapping them around a lot)

In addition, my son had selected a couple of terrain pieces that allow extra Ki generation for his models (Ki allows the activation of special abilities and boosts regular stats and the TRK are big Ki users). He also selected some trap cards as well. He had a one off event card that allows him to give 4 Ki to any one of his models. Kuma also had an enhancement card of prayer beads allowing him to generate an additional Ki each turn.

I changed my list up and also opted for some additional cards,

• Mo Ises (an assassin that likes stabbing people in the back)
• Mokoti (dreadful in combat but can control enemy models)
• Umeka (another assassin armed with a pair of scissors – I guess she also likes hobby crafting)
• Risu (A pitch fork wielding nutter who can poison people from afar)
• Ibara (Can handle himself in combat and can throw some fire around at range)
• Tenbatsu (another ronin who’s a combat monster)
• 2 plague rats (very quick, dispensable and can also hand out poison)

In addition, I equipped Mo Ises with the Violence Fetish enhancement card which gives her a boost in melee combat. I’ve also taken the Crush the Oppressed event card, which when played, doubles the number of state tokens applied to all enemy models. I think this could be a game winner for me as state tokens include poison, fire and control. Played at the right time, my son is not going to be happy!

Terrain and Deployment.

You take turns placing terrain until one side stops at which point the other faction can place one more piece. I stopped after about 3 objects but my son just carried on sticking stuff down across the board. He kindly placed quite a lot of cover on my side of the board.

You deploy each model in turn with the edge of the base in contact with the back edge of your side. I deployed into three groups, on the left flank I have the two fast plague rats and Risu, in the middle Umeka, Mo Ises and the mighty Tenbatsu and on my right Mokoti and Ibara.

My son placed Ekusa, Kuma and Yim in the middle (making a solid central force!) and Taiyo and Saruka on his left. He had no right flank.

Turn 1.

All of the models move forward in a largely uneventful turn. Yim prays at a friendly objective earning TRK 1 Scenario point. Saruka also gets into range of one of the TRK terrain pieces to gain extra Ki. I’m able to advance my plague rats quite far up my left flank – I’m hoping to bring a threat from the rear onto some of his models. My son tried both of his trap cards on my rats but failed to have any effect as I rolled the required numbers to avoid them!

Turn 2.

My rats continue their gallop around the back and are into the TRK back field – handy! Kuma gets into base contact with a neutral objective and spends TRK’s second prayer token to gain another 2 scenario points, bringing TRK’s total to 3.

Taiyo (who’s not known for his martial skills) charges Ibara. Ibara can strike first but fails to do any damage however Taiyo suddenly finds his inner samurai and batters Ibara for 4 wounds. 

Saruka activates next and in support of Taiyo moves forwards and uses her Ki to cast Dance of Dragons and kills Ibara. Some nice combo work there from my son!

However, I strike back as Mo Ises uses her Obey Ki feat and is able to take control of Taiyo, which makes him part of my force for one activation. 

Yim prays again to gain another scenario point however Risu interacts with a neutral objective to turn it friendly to CoY.

Turn 3

I bring Tenbatsu into the fray and activate his Oni Rage. This makes him very aggressive at the expense of a degree of control. I charge him into Yim and cause 5 wounds to Yim with Yim unable to hit back.

The mighty Kuma, seeing his friend Yim in trouble, charges Tenbatsu and casts War Cry. Tenbatsu is outnumbered by Yim and Kuma and loses dice to roll in defence. This proves to be fatal as Kuma roundly slaps Tenbatsu into next week and kills him in one shot. This is not a good turn of events for CoY!

Mokoti, seeing how useful Kuma could be if he were on the side of CoY uses his Obey Ki feat and is able to convert Kuma to CoY, albeit for just one activation. Not wanting to miss out on the controlling Ki feats, Mo Ises uses Obey and is able to control Saruka. 

It’s at this point I play my Crush the oppressed event card and get to add one additional control marker to Kuma, Taiyo and Saruka meaning that I now get to activate them twice each in the service of CoY!. My son was really not very happy at this point.

I use the controlled Taiyo, who is out on his own a little, to move into base contact with Saruka. Taiyo is somehow able to kill Saruka, so CoY gets its first kill.

My rats, still lurking in the background, leap forward to attack the already wounded Yim. I don’t care if they die, so I allocate all my dice into the attack pool hoping to overwhelm Yim’s defence pool – I do and I manage to remove Yim’s final wound and kill him. 

Suddenly things are looking up for the CoY.

Turn 4

Kuma, still controlled by the CoY, attacks Master Ekusa. Ekusa is great in defence and Kuma struggles to get through but is able to cause a single wound. I run Taiyo back up the flank to move him away from my forces to use up his last control marker. 

End of turn 4 is where we look at the scenario points. My son has accumulated 4 scenario points from praying and has two friendly objective markers. I have three friendly objective markers so, with a score of 6 to 3, the TRK takes a Victory Point. The scenario points are reset to zero.

Turn 5

I kick off with Mo Ises who immediately targets Kuma and gets control of him. The TRK use up their wait token to see what I will do so I take the opportunity to attack Taiyo with one of my plague rats who hits, doing no damage but Taiyo picks up a poison marker. Taiyo kills the rat in return though.

I make Kuma attack Ekusa but this results in no damage as Ekusa’s defence cancels out Kuma’s attack. I use Mokoti to convert another objective to friendly and Risu moves up to block Kuma and Ekusa should they decide to make a dart for the objectives in the next round.

Once all of the models have been activated, the End Phase starts. It’s here that fire, poison and other tokens are managed. Taiyo takes a wound from the poison token he picked up from the plague rat and dies. The plague rat has his revenge from beyond the grave!

At the end of the round, my son is regretting burning all of his prayer tokens early on as with 4 friendly objectives to 2, the CoY have more scenario points and wins a victory point. 

Turn 6

All to play for as the scenario points are reset to zero.

Mokoti gets straight to work in controlling Kuma, who has spent more time fighting for CoY than he has for TRK this game. However, Ekusa uses his special Ki ability to remove all of Kuma’s tokens, lifting the control. Ekusa then attacks Risu but fails to cause any wounds.

I launch a plague rat at the rear of Ekusa, more out of hope than anything else but given that Ekusa has already taken some damage, the biting rat is too much for him and Ekusa goes down.

At this point, with just Kuma left, my son realises that he cannot get enough scenario points to pick up the last victory point this round and concedes the game 2-1, a win for the Cult!