Christopher Moeller - 07:57am Sep 25, 2001 PST (#1 of 12)
"Strong coffee, and plenty, awakens me. It gives me a warmth, an unusual
force, a pain that is not without pleasure." - Napoleon

Our group has fallen in love with this game. I'm not a huge eurogamer,
being more of a traditional wargamer, but this one really bridges the
gap for me. It's got the usual Euro nicities: mounted map, lovely
pieces, laminated playing cards. It's also extremely evocative of the
period and situation like my favorite wargames (it actually feels quite
a bit like Wilderness War, and POG to me). Quick rundown: you're playing
for honor points (first guy to 25 ends the game, with the highest total
at the end of that turn the winner). We've played with 3 and 4 players,
and the 4-player game's the best, although the 3 player went just fine
too. Everyone sets up randomly, meaning your power base will change from
game to game, starting with 8 samurai (armies), 5 Koku (money, used to
build and move armies), and 5 cards. The cards are used during battles,
as events or as "instants" which you can play at any time. The youngest
player begins as Emperor, and once somebody gets ahead on the honor
track, he becomes Shogun. The Emperor chooses player order during the
game and helps to put brakes on the front-runner. The Shogun gets one
free move per turn, but loses an honor when he loses battles. Jockeying
for the Emperor position is part of the game. you want to be behind the
pack, but JUST behind so you don't get left in the dust. Gives you a
sense of that whole "power behind the throne" thing the warlords of the
period had going.

During your turn you move groups of Samurai to attack neighboring
territories. The idea is to control entire provinces, which give you
honor points at the end of the turn. Going first makes this really
tough, since everyone else gets a chance to snip off an area and deny
you the province. Often the Shogun (who's always going first), will
attempt to win battles instead, since you also get 1 honor point every
time you win a battle. Castles are expensive, and each player only gets
3 of them. movement into a castle area is free, so you can do some road
building with them, as well as fortifying key areas.

Battles are resolved with the cards (no dice in the game), and are more
exciting than I thought they'd be. The attacker lays down 2 cards plus a
third special card if he has one and wants to use it. Then the defender
lays down 2 or 3 cards. Each side reveals their cards, adds their
samurai in the area to the sum of the cards values, the defender adds
one in mountains, and doubles his lowest card if he has a castle.
Highest total wins. If any of the cards have a katana symbol, that many
samurai are killed. Otherwise, all the losing player's samurai are
distributed freely amoung his areas (a nice touch... you have to decide
how much you want to kill the other guys samurai, and how much you just
want him out of the area).

The event cards can be huge. They tend to vacate enemy areas (revolts of
several flavors), deny the enemy sea travel (Tsunamis), and bestow Koku
or Honor (patron of Noh Theatre).

The game ususally takes an hour or two, but it's open ended. We've had a
few games where guys sprinted ahead, others were things were very reined
in. Never the same game twice. Terrific. Highly recommended.