Hannes Riener - Jun 27, 2009 11:30 am (#29489 Total: 29491) Second Kawanakajima 1561 game. We were in the middle of turn 4 what means: business as usual. And that means: I reached a very desperate attitude. Complain about situation, dice roll, weather... Got meanwhile my turn-4-hairstyle as I literally tear my hair the worse it goes what makes at least my opponent laugh. And I did have all rights to whine! An example? In K1561 you roll 2 pair of dice and rolling high is the way to go. And I? I roll: 1-1-1-1. 2-2! There was this one lousy battle, there at the river-crossing, where I even attacked with favorable ratio... and my unit was totally eliminated. And till then there was anways not much to do for me. In the first turn I had the chance to drop 2 clan chits into the cup - both were drawn at the very beginning and so they were of no use (a special rule: "surprise" for turn 1). Also in the 2nd turn the chits were drawn in the most useless way possible - mostly. And now in turn 4, there were 5 clan chits of my army, 3 from the opponent and the 5 compulsory activation chits (once all 5 are drawn, the turn is over) in the cup. The 3 blue clans have been activated and 4 of the 5 compulsory chits were drawn so far - guess what? Right! The 5th one: my combat activation chit, was drawn next. Just a minute before I had another frustrating experience: my fellow was taking the venturous risk to start a mindless attack with his A-clan (for those who don't know the game. The A-clan of each army holds the army leader). I already had this dirty grin on my face when the clan counter of his army leader faced 3 units and... and forced one of them to retreat! Without any losses. And now I had to attack back, but to improve this, one of my units was in poorer condition too. I rolled - 12/9 what became 11/13. 11/13 - his leader was gone. KIA. Wiped out! The battle won! Conclusion: 2.5 h after the first DR I won. Till then I had nothing real to decide. Half of the guys are in defense mode and the chance to activate one of them is not big as the army leader is paralyzed (i.e. available command points are near zero) at the beginning of the battle. The other half has to approach the engagement. And after those 2.5 hours I had that one lucky and important DR. This sounds disappointed, right? And actually it is a little. I guess you will hardly be able to talk me into a 2-player historical scenario of K1561 again. On the other hand I was not really bored during that 2+ hours... actually it was exciting to observe how my opponent develops the battle (imho a way too passive in turn 1 wasting his +2 surprise drm) - but that is what you mainly are good for, half the game, when playing the other side: the interested audience. And if we would have continued the game with my leader now being able to start reacting... the losses on my side have been so devastating already that I doubt that I could have came into the position to turn the table. BUT I absolutely love the game system and I can already 'see' all it's beauty in future battles where the general dynamic is not so predesignated; both armies start with a bunch of interesting decisions to make. Maybe we will get a good insight into it's beauty already next time when we will play the hypothetical scenario. At least the setup promises that much more choices can be taken.