Post by Plum on Oct 10, 2017 14:12:20 GMT 1
Is anyone playing the new FF remake of the L5R card game? Now with shiny new LCG model (a la Game of Thrones, Netrunner)!
Phew, I think that's enough background info for those that wanted it. I've picked up a couple of core sets and my boyfriend picked up one, so between the two of us we should be able to put together some very competitive decks. A lot of my friends at my game club are old L5R fans, so it's likely that we'll have a circle of maybe ten players, which should be enough to keep things fresh and lively. So far Scorpion seems to be the most popular (the Spider clan didn't make the cut, so Spider fans are mostly playing Scorpion this time), with Crab, Lion and Crane all making an appearance. My boyfriend will be playing Unicorn (he's Scottish, so it's kind of mandatory) so I'm looking at putting together a Dragon deck. Dragon are very focused on the Voltron playstyle - a few heroes loaded up with excellent attachments, but there are a few cheap attachment-discard cards in the core set so attachments might not be very meta viable. We'll see though - Dragon get so many that it'll be impossible to get rid of them all. I'm thinking of splashing Crane, who offer some protection against Assassinate, the other meta defining card in the core set, as well as an okay counterspell and duelling attachment which should work well with Dragon having a few super-powered characters.
{What is an LCG?...}
LCG means that there are no random boosters packs - when new packs are released, everyone knows exactly what is in them and can decide if they want those cards or not. You can get a good taste of the game with just the core box, and make a decent competitive deck with two core boxes. Devotees will want three core sets to ensure that they have three copies of every single card (the max allowed in a deck), but again you can start with just a single core box to see if you like it.
LCG means that there are no random boosters packs - when new packs are released, everyone knows exactly what is in them and can decide if they want those cards or not. You can get a good taste of the game with just the core box, and make a decent competitive deck with two core boxes. Devotees will want three core sets to ensure that they have three copies of every single card (the max allowed in a deck), but again you can start with just a single core box to see if you like it.
{What is L5R?...}
Set in the fantasy feudal Japanese land of Rokugan, The Legend of the Five Rings world sees great clans vying for dominance and the Emperor's favour. While nominally all working together to protect the empire against the evil that dwells beyond the wall, there is petty infighting, political backstabbing and occasionally all out war between clans (yep it's like Japanese Game of Thrones, except that L5R did it first, coming out a year before the first GoT book). In this game, each player represents one of the great clans and will marshal their forces, defend their lands and try to defeat their opponents via military conflict, political manoeuvring or dishonouring them before the Emperor.
Set in the fantasy feudal Japanese land of Rokugan, The Legend of the Five Rings world sees great clans vying for dominance and the Emperor's favour. While nominally all working together to protect the empire against the evil that dwells beyond the wall, there is petty infighting, political backstabbing and occasionally all out war between clans (yep it's like Japanese Game of Thrones, except that L5R did it first, coming out a year before the first GoT book). In this game, each player represents one of the great clans and will marshal their forces, defend their lands and try to defeat their opponents via military conflict, political manoeuvring or dishonouring them before the Emperor.
{How does it work?...}
Each player will have two decks to draw from: the Dynasty deck holds the majority of the clan's people and places, while the Conflict deck holds the tricks and traps that they will use to win conflicts. Sitting between those two decks in the play area will be four provinces, representing the clan's lands, with a fifth province to the side, holding the clan's stronghold. At the beginning of every round, each player will have four Dynasty cards sitting atop the four provinces, representing the troops that the clan can marshal that round, by spending fate. Fate is the main resource in the game and is used to buy various cards. One of the first twists on the genre is that all character cards will be discarded at the end of the round - effectively they have met their fate, for better or worse. When they are played though, the player can add extra fate to the cost which then sits on the card. If a character still has fate on it at the end of the round, they discard a fate but hang around until the following round. This means you can invest extra in an expensive character to ensure that he sticks around for a few rounds before fate finally catches up to him. Of course that then makes the character a prime target for your opponent's machinations...
Once characters have been played for the round, we then draw cards from the conflict deck. Each player will secretly bid an amount of honour, the game's second resource, and that bid represents how many cards they will draw. Bid high and you get a nice big hand of cards! The highest bidder must also pay the lowest the difference in their bids in honour, so the honour pools of the players will shift back and forth. Should a player ever run out of honour then they immediately lose, so bidding high is a risky strategy unless you have ways to generate extra honour, and should a player ever reach 25 honour then they immediately win.
Finally, the conflict phase begins and each player can declare two conflicts - one military and one political (anyone familiar with the GoT card game will recognise this). When a conflict is declared, attackers are committed and the attacking player picks the ring under which this attack will take place, plus a target province. The ring provides an extra little bonus should the attacking player win (draw a card, discard fate from an opponent, gain honour etc). The target province is revealed in classic trap card fashion and any effects resolved, before the defending player then assigns their defenders. Lots of exciting stuff happens during the conflict, with players alternating taking actions or playing conflict cards, but eventually the conflict will end and if the attacking player's military or political skill total is higher than their opponent's then they win. If they win by more than the province strength then the province is broken and the attacker is a big step closer to winning the game. Once three of a player's four provinces are broken, attacks can be declared against their stronghold and if their stronghold gets broken then they lose the game. This is the third (and most common) victory condition, followed by dishonouring your opponent and finally the (currently) difficult honour win.
Each player will have two decks to draw from: the Dynasty deck holds the majority of the clan's people and places, while the Conflict deck holds the tricks and traps that they will use to win conflicts. Sitting between those two decks in the play area will be four provinces, representing the clan's lands, with a fifth province to the side, holding the clan's stronghold. At the beginning of every round, each player will have four Dynasty cards sitting atop the four provinces, representing the troops that the clan can marshal that round, by spending fate. Fate is the main resource in the game and is used to buy various cards. One of the first twists on the genre is that all character cards will be discarded at the end of the round - effectively they have met their fate, for better or worse. When they are played though, the player can add extra fate to the cost which then sits on the card. If a character still has fate on it at the end of the round, they discard a fate but hang around until the following round. This means you can invest extra in an expensive character to ensure that he sticks around for a few rounds before fate finally catches up to him. Of course that then makes the character a prime target for your opponent's machinations...
Once characters have been played for the round, we then draw cards from the conflict deck. Each player will secretly bid an amount of honour, the game's second resource, and that bid represents how many cards they will draw. Bid high and you get a nice big hand of cards! The highest bidder must also pay the lowest the difference in their bids in honour, so the honour pools of the players will shift back and forth. Should a player ever run out of honour then they immediately lose, so bidding high is a risky strategy unless you have ways to generate extra honour, and should a player ever reach 25 honour then they immediately win.
Finally, the conflict phase begins and each player can declare two conflicts - one military and one political (anyone familiar with the GoT card game will recognise this). When a conflict is declared, attackers are committed and the attacking player picks the ring under which this attack will take place, plus a target province. The ring provides an extra little bonus should the attacking player win (draw a card, discard fate from an opponent, gain honour etc). The target province is revealed in classic trap card fashion and any effects resolved, before the defending player then assigns their defenders. Lots of exciting stuff happens during the conflict, with players alternating taking actions or playing conflict cards, but eventually the conflict will end and if the attacking player's military or political skill total is higher than their opponent's then they win. If they win by more than the province strength then the province is broken and the attacker is a big step closer to winning the game. Once three of a player's four provinces are broken, attacks can be declared against their stronghold and if their stronghold gets broken then they lose the game. This is the third (and most common) victory condition, followed by dishonouring your opponent and finally the (currently) difficult honour win.
{Who are the clans?...}
A deck can contain a main clan and a splash clan, so most of your cards will be in-clan or neutral, but you can also include a small number of conflict cards from a single other clan. The main clans are Crab (big defensive hulks who hold the wall and don't care for court politics), Crane (elegant courtiers and duellists, winning through political battles and honour), Dragon (mysterious monks who focus on a small number of super effective characters), Lion (aggressive but honourable military with a side of courtly politics), Phoenix (heavy magic users with lots of tricks to manipulate rings and fate), Scorpion (the underhanded secret police, doing the dirty jobs that the other clans deem beneath them) and Unicorn (the outsiders, focusing on cavalry, movement tricks and striking quickly).
The previous version of the game also had my beloved Mantis though they were really a collection of smaller clans fighting under a single banner. They have yet to appear in the new version but I'm hopeful that they will eventually. Another clan that didn't survive the transition was Spider, though unlike Scorpion who are anti-heroes working for the Emperor, Spider were genuine bad guys and never really fitted into the clan lore properly. Each deck can also splash another clan though, so your Scorpion dishonour deck might also have some Dragon attachments and discards, or your military focused Lion deck might have some Unicorn cards to move their heaviest hitters around or avoid political battles.
A deck can contain a main clan and a splash clan, so most of your cards will be in-clan or neutral, but you can also include a small number of conflict cards from a single other clan. The main clans are Crab (big defensive hulks who hold the wall and don't care for court politics), Crane (elegant courtiers and duellists, winning through political battles and honour), Dragon (mysterious monks who focus on a small number of super effective characters), Lion (aggressive but honourable military with a side of courtly politics), Phoenix (heavy magic users with lots of tricks to manipulate rings and fate), Scorpion (the underhanded secret police, doing the dirty jobs that the other clans deem beneath them) and Unicorn (the outsiders, focusing on cavalry, movement tricks and striking quickly).
The previous version of the game also had my beloved Mantis though they were really a collection of smaller clans fighting under a single banner. They have yet to appear in the new version but I'm hopeful that they will eventually. Another clan that didn't survive the transition was Spider, though unlike Scorpion who are anti-heroes working for the Emperor, Spider were genuine bad guys and never really fitted into the clan lore properly. Each deck can also splash another clan though, so your Scorpion dishonour deck might also have some Dragon attachments and discards, or your military focused Lion deck might have some Unicorn cards to move their heaviest hitters around or avoid political battles.
Phew, I think that's enough background info for those that wanted it. I've picked up a couple of core sets and my boyfriend picked up one, so between the two of us we should be able to put together some very competitive decks. A lot of my friends at my game club are old L5R fans, so it's likely that we'll have a circle of maybe ten players, which should be enough to keep things fresh and lively. So far Scorpion seems to be the most popular (the Spider clan didn't make the cut, so Spider fans are mostly playing Scorpion this time), with Crab, Lion and Crane all making an appearance. My boyfriend will be playing Unicorn (he's Scottish, so it's kind of mandatory) so I'm looking at putting together a Dragon deck. Dragon are very focused on the Voltron playstyle - a few heroes loaded up with excellent attachments, but there are a few cheap attachment-discard cards in the core set so attachments might not be very meta viable. We'll see though - Dragon get so many that it'll be impossible to get rid of them all. I'm thinking of splashing Crane, who offer some protection against Assassinate, the other meta defining card in the core set, as well as an okay counterspell and duelling attachment which should work well with Dragon having a few super-powered characters.