So a while back we were discussing expanding into a new system and Bushido was bounced around a bit. At the time I was happy in my Malifaux groove – Wave 1 was out, there were cards and wave 2 was coming up fast on the horizon.
Fast forward a few months to the Malifaux UKGT 2013 in Tabletop Nation. They have a lot of demo boards laid out and 1 of these was for Bushido, Ryu vs Savage Wave i believe. The scenery was beautiful and miniatures looked very well sculpted, 32mm metal. And on round lipped bases. Cashier, write me up!
A month or so later and Mark comes in with his Cult of Yurei models and the cards for them. I have to admit I had been looking in between times. There are 6 factions so far – The Prefecture of Ryu, The Monks of Ro-Kan, The Savage Wave, The Cult of Yurei, The Ito and The Silvermoon Syndicate.
I settled on the Ito Clan, a group of samurai warriors who have devoted their existence to a Snake God, Orochi. Some models exhibit outward signs of that devotion with half-snake bodies or poisonous weapons. Others are subtler than this.
We have since played 2 games, basically set up and smash each other affairs to learn the basic rules and it seems a lot of fun.
There a few similarities with Malifaux. Each model is represented by a card with all stats, abilities and options on it and it’s a alternate activation system.
This is where the similarity ends. Dice pools are used for all combat and tests. Models get tired and exhausted each round and LOS is the key to charging and moving. In combat each player takes their allotted number of dice and secretly assigns this pool to attack and defence and then both players roll off against each other. the active player hits first and compares his highest attack to the defender’s highest defence. If the attack is higher the difference is the success level which will determine how much damage is inflicted. If the defender survives and he allocated any dice to attack it is now his turn to compare his attack to the attacker’s defence.
In this way both players are active in all combat. But be careful as a model’s condition worsens each time he is active in combat.
The game seems like it will have a lot of options and the company is churning out models every month. Good times ahead!