Redvers and Son Get Into Bushido

Game 4

Time for another game. My son wanted to play a bigger game and suggested 150 points. While Bushido will stretch to that limit, it will take some time to complete. I’m also not sure I have enough Cult of Yurei models to get to 150 points, so I talked him down to 120. This should allow another couple of models per warband and/or a few more enhancement cards to be added. My son also suggested that the game should be first to destroy 50 points of enemy models, to which I agreed.

For my warband, I went with the following,

• 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)
• Yama Uba
• Risu (A pitch fork wielding nutter who can poison people from afar) who I’ve also given an enhancement card Violence Fetish to provide a bigger punch in combat
• Ibara (Can handle himself in combat and can throw some fire around at range)
• Tenbatsu (another ronin who’s a combat monster)

Drain Spirit Event. This allows me to steal a couple of ki tokens from an enemy model

Feed on Fear. Every time an enemy fails a Fear test, this card gains a Ki token. When it gets to 4 ki, I lose the card and can distribute the ki across my models

Crush the oppressed. When I play this card, all of the state markers on the enemy get doubled

Cursed Honden. This is a terrain piece. At the start of each turn, any enemy model within 4” loses a Ki token

My son opted for the following,

• 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)
• The Grey Pilgrim (a lightening wielding ronin)
• Kuma (an angry, bo staff wielding panda who can root opponents to the spot while slapping them around a lot)
• 2 Kami of the evening flame (a flame spirit that provides a boost to nearby monks with the flame speciality)
• Riku (a water monk with a massively powerful tsunami Ki feat and also quite handy in combat)

My son also took a lot of enhancement cards including his favourite trap cards and a couple of cards that allow him to generate extra Ki. The Temple of Rokan really excel when they have Ki, their Ki feats and abilities are very powerful. He also took two terrain pieces, the Gorinto which allows 1 model within 6” to generate an extra ki token. And a Roadside Idol that allows a model in base to base contact to generate Ki for an activation. 

Turn 1.

My son clearly didn’t like the fact that I had bought some terrain that drains Ki from his models and went full tilt to destroy it. In hind sight, I probably deployed it too far forward as he was able to run the Grey Pilgrim forward into base contact with it and then spend an activation to destroy it. So much for my Cursed Honden, with the only small crumb of comfort being that it cost the Grey Pilgrim an activation to deal with it, so at least they weren’t going to be using their ranged weapon on my warband this turn. Otherwise turn 1 was the usual moving forward and getting in to position. Kuma was able to spend his Virtue token to generate an extra Ki ready for his next round shenanigans

Turn 2.

My son launched his fire kami attack this round. He’s clearly been doing his research and had read these cards in detail. I hadn’t. His first fire kami entered base contact with Tenbatsu and then promptly exploded. This applies a level 2 fire marker to Tenbatsu and all models within 2”. Unfortunately, I had grouped Yama Uba and Risu close to Tenbatsu as support and they also picked up a level 2 fire marker.

As retribution, Risu launched her special Ki ability of Mortal Corruption on Kuma and succeeded in giving the big panda 3 level 1 poison markers. My son then launched his second fire kami attack exploding it on Mo Ises and Umeka, who both pick up a level 3 fire marker. With most of my warband now on fire, my son moved the Grey Pilgrim forward and uses her special abilities Raijin Rage and Electrify which boosts her call lightening attack to ‘leap’ to another model within 3” of the first target and gives all attacks stun. The Grey Pilgrim then calls lightening against Tenbatsu which hits but fails to do any damage, but Tenbatsu does pick up a stunned marker to add to his fire marker. And then Raijins Rage allows my son to make a second attack against Risu which hits and does 2 damage as well as adding a stunned marker. (Stunned markers effectively require an activation to remove them or you act at reduced capacity when you do activate).

Kuma spends his virtue token which unlocks Master Ekusa’s ability to lift all tokens from a model and so Kuma loses all of his poison markers. Kuma also gains 2 Ki as well. Kuma then charges Tenbatsu and in the ensuing melee is able to inflict 2 damage on Tenbatsu. It’s clear over the games that we have played that my son has a particular dislike of Tenbatsu….

Mokoti, so far lurking around behind cover, attempts to control Kuma and succeeds in the Ki test. Kuma now picks up a control marker and, for his next activation at least, is part of my warband. I try to activate Umeka but my son plays one of his pit trap cards. Umeka is unable to pass the test to avoid it and my son rolls very well on his damage roll, killing Umeka outright. First blood (again) to my son.

Finally, I activate Mo Ises who is able to control Taiyo and give him a control marker. I then play my crush the oppressed card and double all of the markers that I have handed out this turn, meaning both Taiyo and Kuma pick up an extra control marker.

At the end of the turn, the fire markers are removed meaning that Tenbatsu, Yama Uba, Risu and Mo Ises all take 2 damage each.

Turn 3

I immediately activate Kuma and spend both control markers to have him charge the grey pilgrim but unfortunately he’s not as effective when fighting for me and does no damage. The Grey Pilgrim calls lightening again on Tenbatsu doing 2 damage and, thanks to Raijins Rage, this leaps to Risu who is hit and killed. My son has already scored 21 points (Risu at 11 and Umeka at 10).

Riku triggers his Ki feat Tsunami which pushes all models within 3” of Riku back until they hit either terrain or the edge of the board. This pushes Ibara back and way out of the fight.

Tenbatsu is now able to do his thing and attacks Master Ekusa. I pour a lot of Ki into getting extra dice and also use the Combo Attack special ability, which if my attack is successful, I get to make additional damage rolls. I’m able to break through Ekusa’s defence and deal 3 damage to the tortoise riding monk. Ekusa deals 1 damage back in return.

I activate Yama Uba and have her enter melee against a now exhausted Kuma (I spent both of his activation tokens charging the Grey Pilgrim). Yama Uba activated her Ki feat ‘morph’ which allows her to copy one of Kuma’s abilities until the end of the game. In this case she take Brutal which gives her a +1 to melee attacks. She then attacks Kuma and uses her Critical Strike attack. Yama Uba is rolling a lot of dice in this attack and succeeds in successfully hitting Kuma. With Critical Strike, a roll of a double on the damage roll automatically kills the target, regardless of how many wounds they have. And yes, a double 4 on the damage roll had me laughing and my son deeply upset with me. Kuma is dead and, at 22 points, I take the lead!

Turn 4

My son really needs (and wants) to kill Tenbatsu. He’s badly damaged and, at 27 points, he’ll be 2 points short of winning the game. With this in mind, he attacks with Riku but Tenbatsu is able to hold him off doing no damage, partly because I put a lot of dice into defence to protect Tenbatsu. Yama Uba then attacks Riku, who being on contact with two enemy models, will lose melee dice. Yama Uba is able to inflict 1 damage.

My son attacks Tenbatsu with Taiyo, creating a scrum of models in the middle. Taiyo is somehow (he’s not very good in combat) able to hand out another 1 damage to Tenbatsu. Yama Uba uses her second activation to attack Riku again. As Riku is now exhausted and outnumbered, he loses 2 melee dice giving Yama Uba (who still has Brutal) and significant advantage. It pays off as Yama Uba hits and deals out 6 damage to Riku, killing the water monk. That gives me another 17 points taking me to 39.

With Tenbatsu nearly dead, Ekusa attacks him and successfully hits. It’s enough to cause the 1 wound required to kill him and my son moves to within 2 points of victory.

My son then makes a mistake as he attacks Yama Uba, who while she has damage is a much more formidable combat opponent than other models on the table. Yama Uba also has Reach, which means that she will attack first in combat, which, coupled with Brutal, gives me a significant edge. We roll our dice and I get a significant success in the attack and the damage roll is the 2 damage required to kill Ekusa. This gives me enough points to win a very close and well fought game.