Transfer to Skirmish wargaming

Hi everyone sorry for my very irregular updates, but there's a good reason for this. Me and a few others have set up a more professional site with a forum dedicated to skirmish wargames such as Bushido, the Batman Miniature game and SAGA.

So with that this site will become defunct for Bushido news but I might keep this as a personal blog.

So without further ado I invite you all to the new site where I hope to give you more quality reports about Bushido's new releases, tips and more. You can find me on it's forum by the name rice.

http://skirmishwargaming.com/

Wave 20: The best & the worst

Best model: Master Akari.
I think everyone expected this one. While Temple doesn't need another excellent fighter as Akari he is still amazing.

Fast, high amount of ki, almost impossible to hit with a ranged attack and a beast in combat. What's important to remember that Akari isn't undefeatable and is a clear example of a glass canon. Low wounds, no toughness and no armor.



Best sculpt: Mitzuki Ito.
The Ito Clan finally got a good scupt and what a sculpt it is. A clear improvement on the previous wave with Satsuki.

The pose is impressive the few but noticeable little touches like the details on the staff, her clothing and the gorgon hair is just great. The biggest improvement upon the previous wave is the face.

A lot more expressive and detailed keeping in style with the rest of the sculpt.











Worst model:Nomi.
This was an easy choice this model has no use beyond removing camouflage and a cheap objective capper.

A pity as for the 3 rice I'd rather have the Akuma and Okkete animals. This gives you two extra activations and the chicken fights a lot better than this kid.






worst sculpt: Nomi & Kani.
Yeah sorry to say Silvermoon Trade Syndicate hit a low spot this wave. While thankfully my pick was made difficult by the all-round selection of good looking models. I've chosen Kani & Nomi based on their lack of details.

All the other models especially Akari and Yugio have details on the models or little tidbits making the models fun to paint and to look at.

While still decent sculpts the other models just seem better.

Mizuki Ito Orochi's priestess

This is a good model, not only that it's finally a good sculpt for The Ito Clan, but her abilities are also good.

Pro:
3 ki statistic is great, a good amount of useful traits and three good ki feats.

First the traits. Blood of Orochi (1), bravery, Light footed and steady are all things the other naga models have. Immunity (poison) is a nice and a logical addition, fear (5) is nice to give her some more survivabilty and more use in combat. The poison (2/1), while a strong poison trait, I don't think you'll use this very often because of her low melee skill.

Now her feats are good, we have the standard token feat every faction will have. The tokens have a some very good effects. Lightening reflexes is amazing, auto disengage and elusive is great to save an important model, armour (2) is never bad and finally sixth sense another good trait the tokens give. No bad traits in the list and useful in every game.

Her other two feats obey and paralyze is where we see a bit of a gorgon influence. Obey gives a target model a control marker when succesful, great and can wreck an opponents plan. Paralyze makes a target model held and slow a good combination of effects.

Con:
The three glaring cons are her rice cost, melee dice and ki max. With a rice cost of 12 you need to be careful of what you put in your warband with her as Mizuki will take a big chunk of your warband. Her melee dicepool is low, but this is acceptable considering this is a shugenja. Lastly her ki pool max is a bit dissapointing, I would have expected her to have a max of 10. It does help that you'll be using her feats often enough that if you fill you're ki pool you're doing something wrong.

Tactics:
She's very good at buffing any list she's in, her tokens boost any model that get them and her ki feats are very useful. Pairing Mizuki with a very good fighter like Masunagi could be very useful. Giving Masunagi lightening reflexes or sixth sense when surprised.

Kaihei a whole pack of fun!

The Kaihei are finally here and now we can see if the Kaihei Alpha is worth it for these guys.

Also of note is that the Kaihei is the first model with 2 cards making a total of 4 Kaihei you can put on the table.

Pro:
5 rice each is a decent amount for what you get. A fast moving model that ignores difficult terrain with some nice extra's. Such as a free trait or special attack at the start of each melee exchange. The co-ordinated attack will probably see a lot of use with a max of 4 on the table plus the Kaihei Alpha. The fear (3) is nice against things like ashigaru, bakemono or shatei compensating for the low melee skill.

Con:
The most obvious one is his poor melee skill of 2. Otherwise a decent model.

Tactics:
The Kaihei on their own can be used with their charging bonus to prone annoying or dangerous models. They can't do much on their own and depend a bit on the co-ordinated attack to do enough damage.

I would suggest putting 4 Kaihei, the Kaihei Alpha and Yusha as a base for a warband. What you got is a 40 rice warband then you can add some cards to make a 42 point tournament warband. What this gives you is a warband that supports itself. The Kaihei Alpha gives all Kaihei bravery and group activation. Yusha can, once per turn, give one of the Kaihei a nice boost to the melee skill and the spur on ki feat keeps your Kaihei longer in the game. As small problem with this list is that group activation makes you lose a lot of activations and you need to play smart not to let your opponent take a lot of advantage.

Shuichi Prefecture priest

A nice addition and it seems that models with a feat that gives Disturb Flow is a theme for this wave and we'll probably see a few in the next few waves for the other factions.

Pro:
He's at a good price point with the 6 rice and his Cleansing will be useful for removing tokens from models. This is something that Prefecture had problems with in my opinion. And seeing as you can remove a large number of tokens with this feat this helps a lot against poison heavy factions like Ito.

As with Yugio the Warding Shomyo is nice and usefull for disabling an enemy fighter.

Con:
Unfortunately for Ryu I think Yugio is more effective. As Shuichi's Cleansing is only useful if your opponent actually uses those tokens. On the otherhand Shuichi receives more ki a turn so can use the Warding Shomyo often.

He's basicly useless without his ki feats. Bravery is normally a nice rule, but seeing as this model serves more of a support role you won't want to risk him by putting him in combat.

Tactics:

Basicly follow your main fighter or get him within 6 inch of an enemy fighter and use his Warding Shomyo. Use the cleansing to remove tokens and not much else to it.

Nomi & Sukoshi Kani

It seems the Silvermoon Trade Syndicate is getting desperate with their recruiting. As we now get a bunch of children to fight demons, undead, kung fu monks, oni, samurai, etc. Yeah great plan.

Okay while we have seen children before with Taka, well she's undead, and Aiko, who is a monk and a shugenja. These kids aren't that special.

Pro:
Nomi's use is to remove camouflage. His scout ability is nice when combined with Harukichi to make sure you get first turn, first pick.

He's cheap for 3 points he's among the cheapest non-insignificant models in the game. While being a horrible fighter being able to outnumber helps a lot in this guys usefulness.

Con:
Besides this Nomi doesn't bring much he's as slow as a karai, only has one melee dice, meaning he fights as well as Akuma. He's got a low amount of wounds, so you'll even have to look out for rat swarms in combat with this poor lad.

Tactics:
If you're opponent got something with camouflage, this guy can help with that, but Nomi will also be a target for his ability. I don't see much use in this modelas I think you can get more use out of an special card or two for the points.

Now Sukoshi Kani, bit of an odd note why does she have a family name? She's the only character in the Silvermoon Trade Syndicate to have one. Either there's something behind it or they made a small mistake.

Pro:
Camouflage (2) is really good and will keep this model alive long enough to use her makibishi. And that is the reason why Kani is better than Nomi. The Makibishi is a terrain that forces everything but intangible or flying models to make a movement test.

This is a really good ability and is a good way to protect an objective. As from what I understand you can place it on objectives. Be careful as your own models also have to make the test.

Con:
Same as with Nomi. Slow and can't fight although Kani has more utility.

Tactics:
Use her camouflage to get close to something important and throw the Makibishi on the ground to slow your opponent down.

Wave 20 models revealed part 2

First up Prefecture of Ryu. Shuichi looks greatm clothes are nicely done, the face is good and his stance is as if he's ready to summon a storm on someone's head.

Nice model for people who like to freehand, as shown by the studio model. Not a lot of small details on him but well done.

Not really the best of the bunch but a if you know how to do freehands this could become a eyecatcher.











Here we have the Kaihei pack. These look a lot better than the Kaihei Alpha. With the chance to take 4 of these it's a shame there aren't two extra sculpts for diversity as a whole pack would be great to see running around on the board.

A good sculpt and I see the chance for people to try a lot of different and impressive patterns on the pelts.














This is a good model and a much needed improvement from the previous two waves. Her concept art shows in the model and I'm glad that a naga warband wouldn't only be tough to beat now but also an amazing sight.

Only problem I have is with her hair, I like the gorgon style but might prove a bit tricky to get right while painting.

Yugio the gravedigger

This seems to me as a much needed model for the Cult.

Pro:
He's alive so he'll at least me able to move around quick enough to be usefull. There are three shugenja available to the Cult at the moment so he'll at least be usefull in most lists.

now you'll probably only take this model for his Blasphemous Conviction feat. Reducing the cost of ki feats is a big deal for cult, them being a very ki draining faction.

The Warding Shomyo feat is a good defensive feat, that it's complex sucks though, but stil very usefull as it increases the ki cost withing 6 inch by 1 for enemy models and they can't use speacial attacks or defenses. Would be excellent to kill an enemy killer like Masunagi.

Con:
The ki drain on this guy is gonna be enormous because you want to use his feats as often as possible. You'd want to have a ki battery, a model with channel, nearby to keep this guy and your shugenja's supplied with ki. Unfortunately that isn't available for now. What is available is his conspiracy of the cult trait, while this gives him ki he loses wounds, while nice in a desperate attempt to gain ki I personally don't like weakening a already weak model. Although I might have a solution for that in the tactics part.

Tactics:
Tactics with this guy is straightforward depending on what your up against. Keep him near your shugenja to keep their ki abilities cheaper, or if your up against someone with a very strong fighter use the disturb flow to counter him and go in for the kill. Nothing else to him.

Now for his ki problem. I'd advise giving this model the healer card from the generic card pack. This will allow you to gain 2 wounds for a simple action. Every turn use his conspiracy of the cult trait to gain ki, then the shugenja nearby will most likely also have conspiracy of the cult. Remember to only take 2 wounds each turn. Now Yugio will have ki for his Blasphemous Conviction every turn increase his effectiveness massively. Now about those two wounds, Since conspiracy of the cult is in the starting step and Blasphemous conviction is an active player feat you can use one action each to heal this guy. This keeps him at max wounds while netting you two ki tokens extra and cheaper ki feats for your shugenja.

Master Akari Guardian of the Jwar Isles

Master Akari card has been released and be afraid for this little guy.

Pro:

A lot is right with this model. 4 melee dice, boostable movement, can keep 10 ki stored, free combo attack, can improve his own condition and tremendous traits.

This model can dish out a lot of pain, unless he's surprised he attacks first and with his combo attack can force your opponent on the defensive.

He's also incredibly fast, with his Dash feat you can jump from one enemy to another. His Perfect Defence gives this model some much needed surviveability. His small size and ranged defense (2) means a ranged attack will need a 8 at least to hit him.

Con:
His biggest weakness in my mind is his 4 wounds this means that a single lucky hit can kill him. The nice offensive tricks he has are offset by his -1 strenght. He's got a steep rice cost, but seeing what he can do it's appropriate.

Tactics:
Keep him away from anything with armor, the penalties from the armor and his own strenght modifier will keep your damage on a minimum. I'd advise using him to attack things like ashigaru or low armored models. While the ashigaru have armor their low melee dice makes it worth it.

On the other hand you can use Akari to exhaust your opponents strong or important models. With 4 melee dice and a +2 on defense and his Perfect Defense feat, while ki draining, will protect him from most if not any fighters. But if you do this prepare for the next turn as this guy can't handle a long fight without support.

My Silvermoon trade syndicate tournament warband

Every two months I organize a tournament at my local game store, while I don't often join in being the organizer I do have a list ready to compete when I get the chance.

While it's always fun to fight against your opponent and win by being the best fighter (or the luckiest). I like toying around with my opponent while going for the objectives. To do this I got all the Roses, the Envoy and the Golden Sentinel.

Hanami 11
Tsubak 7
Saki 7
Yukio Koshimori 7
The Golden Sentinel 8
Event - Dark Secret 2

This brings up a total of 42 points. We play this often in my group as it offers enough choices and plays fast enough.


Strenghts:
This list excells in tricks, the Roses can cause a major problem to your opponents plans, with the ability to cause stupid(5), lure opponent models or to change their facing to setup a surprise attack. Added to this there are two models, Hanami and Yukio, plus the event that can create control tokens.

The plan is to take control of your opponents models at key moments, scenario turns or when he's setting up a charge, and disrupt or even kill your opponents models with his own models.

The safety in this list is that the Roses all have disguise making them impossible to target with ki 1 or lower models. and Yukio is protected by the Sentinel. The Roses are also very fast with all having a movement of 5 helping with taking up a good position or running away when a ki test fails.

Weaknesses:
The only model who can do a reasonable job of fighting is the Sentinel. While the Roses are still decent at it with 3 dice, their lower wounds and lack of offensive traits or feats means they'll have problems with anything better than an Ashigaru.

Wave 20 models revealed part 1

So far halve of the factions have been revealed for wave 20.

First up Master Akari's model is revealed. As with Master Ekusa you get a number of smaller animals decorating the model and base. Akari looks good and is an improvement on their humanoid models compared to the Kitsune. She isn't ugly but the face is off.

I expect this model to be popular for painters seeing the little details on the model and the small animals.















Next up we have Yugio, does anyone else remember a certain card game with this name? The model looks great I was a bit confused what the stuff in his backpack was until I saw the characters on it and realised they're gravemarkers, a nice touch and a visual reminder about what the model is all about.

A very good amount of detail and I won't be surprised if I pick Cult again as best model for the wave again.














Last up we have the Sukoshi Kani and Nomi. I'm mildly dissapointed with how they look. While the girl is fine with the bag of spikes, the boy is bland and won't be very interesting to paint in my mind.

Rise of the Kage funded!

So a few days ago Rise of the Kage got fully funded. What's more is they added all kinds of goodies when they reached their funding and added more stretch goals.

So what was added upon funding?

An extra ninja was added to the roster. This brings the total to 5 ninja's and at the rate the kickstarter is going we'll be seeing Bushido cards for all the ninja.








A royal hostage has arrived, so probably we will see a few missions having a search and rescue vibe.

She's also a kickstarter exclusive so you can only get if by pledging.







The last instant funding bonus is a new board. This is an interesting board with the wide avenue in the model making it hard to sneak around.









The first stretch goal is also unlocked bringing the 6th ninja. So people can play with 2 ninja teams or switch them around for a different game each time.

Rise of the Kage launch

Alright everyone tonight Rise of the Kage will be unleashed onto kickstarter. Now some of you might be curious what this means, for those familiar with you can skip to the next paragraph. Kickstarter is a crowdsourcing website where companies and individual people can post their concepts or products. Then people can fund these project ensuring the product comes on the market.

What does this mean for Rise of the Kage? We'll probably be able to get it at a lower price then when it comes out in the webstore, by pledging we can even get Bushido profile cards for the miniatures in Rise of the Kage. I for one will join this to get a nice boardgame out of it and some extra mini's for Bushido.

Here's a link to the demo on Gencon.  
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=ngvfVHSU8Ok

And the game's own website.
http://www.riseofthekage.com/

Concept art speculation

All the concept art has been released for wave 20 and there are some exciting models in there. The two I'm most interested in are Cult of Yurei and Ito Clan. Hopefully soon we can expect the cards to be shown on the site so I can see if my predictions are true and what possibilities they bring on the table.

I'm curious how Yugio wil interact his discription has him protecting the spirits and ancestors. While I think he'll most likely be a support model for the Karai, which they really need. Hopefully a model to make the Cult more reliable on the field.








Ito Mizuki will be a favorite of mine for this wave as she'll be the biggest model, probably the most rice heavy and hopefully the best sculpt.


From her discription we can take 3 things. 1. She's a Shugenja. 2. She'll give boons to allies and 3. A gaze that immobilizes.

She might turn out to be a Shisai which would be better synergy wise. And boons will be hard to guess. But her immobilize will mostly be a ranged attack or a line of sight based ki feat.

For the other factions Temple get another master, great but I think people would like to see more diversity in Temple except for more monks even if they're Tanuki.











Wave will finally get their Kaihei beast to support the Kaihei Alpha and Yusha. Hopefully this brings a new theme to the Savage Wave of savage beasts and monsters.

I expect these two, the Alpha, Yusha and the Giant Cave Bat to be an interesting list to play.

Prefecture of Ryu will be getting a priest in the form of Shuichi from the discription players can expect him giving allies armor or toughness and removing poison,fire and control markers.










And finally Silvermoon Trade Syndicate will get..... a bunch of kids. Don't expect these to hold up in a fight, you'll most likely use them for their abilities or as a point filler.

Kitchener commands

Sorry about not posting Monday, but I with the newest range of models from Battlefront I've entered into the Great war.

For people more interested in Bushido next week Saturday I'm hosting a tournament at Gamers of the West in Rotterdam and will be posting reports about each round, best painted warbands, best painted model and some tactical tips from me and from some of the players.

As is common for most of my historical wargames I drift towards the British front. Now with the tremendous price of the armydeals that came out this month, a mere 80 euro's, I couldn't withstand ordering a box.

Fortunately a regular opponent of mine on the field of plastic and tin mayhem has also gotten the World War fever and gotten the German box.

Hopefully I will get around to painting and playing these guys soon.

The picture doesn't do justice to the true size of these ironclad behemoths

This will be a lot of work, but at the end I'll have a respectable army ready to go. Just have to keep in mind all the hard work like glueing and painting will be over by christmas.

Wave 19 review: The best & the worst.

Some like their girls to have a good head on their shoulders.
With the Cult it's all they require.

Best model: Penanggalan.
For only 7 rice and in my opinion the amazing abilities this model is the best model of the wave. The other contenders were Akio Takashi and Taisho Tenbatsu.

 I chose this model above the other two because of the their difference in rice. not because Akio and Taisho are overpriced but with 7 rice this model could easily fit in a 35 rice warband, while Akio and Taisho are 13 and 12 rice respectively limiting their use in lower point games.

Taisho, so awesomely sculpted,
 he makes everyone wish they played Cult or Wave.

Best sculpt: Taisho Tenbatsu.
While just missing the spot as best model Taisho's sculpt is great and I might even go as for as call it the best sculpt on the game so far.

And it's easy to see why, not only has he been painted amazingly but the amount of detail on the model is incredible, just look at all the detail just on his face not to mention his armour and swords. His pose is also very action filled as if he's stalking towards another prey.

While I do have to admit that he didn't really have much of a contest during this wave.... looking at you Satsuki, which is a real shame as models like Taisho and Penannggalan are amazing and what atract people to the game and show the GCT has the sculptors to do a great job.

Almost the same as a real rose.
Pretty to look at not much use otherwise

"worst" model: Hanami.
Alright I put worst into quotation marks because Hanami isn't a bad model, but simply put every other model this way is better because their stronger or easier to use. It was a contest between Hanami and Ashinagi for me and what made the choice for me is that while Ashinagi has less utility all his abilities work towards the same purpose.

 That's the problem with Hanami you want to use her ki feats to control your opponent, but to control you have to be in combat which means losing disguise which you don't want because she only has 5 wounds. She also can increase her melee dice for only 2 ki, but you want to use her ki for her feats.

Orochi why, just why?

Worst sculpt: Satsuki.

I apologize in advance for whoever made this sculpt.

Alright where to start, well the face is bad, really bad. She looks like she drugged herself and is looking out into space, the only other face I think is this bad is the Grey Pilgrim and she looks as if she ran a few times too many against a brick wall.

Body isn't bad besides the fact that the sculptor took the effort to sculpt her nipples, is that really a priority? She is also the female model showing the most skin of any model in the range. All this makes her simply look like a blow-up doll.

 Even the snakes look weird when compared to Sakura where you can easily say "that's a snake". Here well, it looks as if she's balancing on a pile of rope to say the least.

Wave 19 review: Hanami, the Queen of Flowers.

To me it seems as if the Queen of Flowers has wilted during her years as a Oyabun. Overall it's a good model but from what I can see from the picture I don't like the face. Being A Silvermoon player I hope seeing the model will change my opinion.

Pro:
The third Oyabun for Silvermoon, by now giving them enough options in building warbands.

Hanami has the two best ki feats from Saki and tsubaki, Seduction and Lure while having another ki feat especially for herself.

Kiss of the Rose gives control markers after a succesfull opposed ki test equal to succes level, but only one model may be affected by this ki feat at any given time.

She can buy a extra melee dice for only 2 ki.

Con:
11 Rice is pricey for a control model, making her the most expensive Oyabun so far.

While the control tokens gained from kiss of the rose seems fun it requires you to be in base-to-base making it a risky option in my opinion. This means that either you've lost disguise because you're being attacked or a valuable target has become available.

Tactics:
While I'll be playing Hanami with the other Roses this gives me a great amount of control options, it doesn't give me a lot of damage potential. For this you could go for a Buto or a lot of the Shatei. Buto leaves you with only a few models limiting you're options while the Shatei will probably outnumber but need to outnumber to take out bigger targets like Oni or Samurai.

Wave 19 review: Satsuki, Orochi Priestess

And after the amazing model of the penangglan we're back to the lackluster. this time with Satsuki the newest Shisai for the Ito Clan.

Pro:
At this point it's a pro that Ito finally get's it's third Shisai so they can get the maximum from each Shisai's unique effect.

Cheap ki feats of which one steals up to 3 ki from an opponent and the other causes the poison tokens to resolve during the turn and as normal at the end of the turn.

Con:
A perfect example of a model relient on it's ki feats to be usefull, when things go well she earns her keep but should she fail a few rolls she quickly becomes just an easy target for your opponent.

Tactics:
Satsuki should in my opinion be used for ki control steal 3 ki for the cost of 1 netting you 2 free ki you can immediatly channel it to your ki sinks in the same activation. But besides this Satsuki will only be usefull if you use a lot of poison, since it's Ito this shouldn't be a problem, with her accelerate venom ki feat it has become usefull to stack poison markers on a single model and kill them during the turn instead of having to wait for the end phase.

Wave 19 review: Penanggalan

Here we have a model again that's amazing to see, a wondrous sculpt of the organs flying out of the body. Just hope it's easy to assemble.

Pro:
Cheap for 7 rice with the potential this model has with average rolls, wouldn't recommend it for new players though.

Camouflage (4) is great for keeping this model save and to help it get close to it's target.

 Hypnotic gaze is simply amazing a good range, only 2 ki and when it succeeds the opposing model's condition worsens one step and gains a stun marker. Luckily this model has force of will to get a +1 on opposed ki test, as don't like how ki feat dependant models are either succeed and win or lose and die.

Now it's unique effect adds a nice degree of survivability with regeneration 2 and causing 2 damage ignoring toughness.

Con:
This model can only store 6 ki and that's not a lot for a model dependant on ki abilities. I find the lack of fear odd for a decapitated flying head with it's organs sticking out.

Tactics:
I would combo this model up with Nezumi. Nezumi can make rat swarms during his activation and these are excellent to exhaust enemy models. In an optimal situation I would try to use the hypnotic gaze first then attack with a rat swarm, if all goes well the opposing model is now exhausted and stunned. Always remember to declare the immobilise attack. It's free so you can always call it and it's needed for Penanglan's unique effect.

 Now I think the best targets for this tactic are ashigaru, peasants, etc and support models, as these often have 1 or 0 dice left when exhausted and stunned making them an easy target to kill in a single turn.

Wave 19 review: Ashinaga Tenaga

This is an odd looking model and while it's a yokai I'm a bit underwhelmed so far with the sculpts compared to the marvelous Taisho Tenbatsu.

 I'm a bit worried how the net and spear are supplied as I don't like how GCT Studio has a tendency to supply small and easy to break parts seperate.

Pro:
The ability to get armour piercing is always great and I think this will help the Temple deal with armored foes better. The quagmire is amazing, a movable dificult terrain with a max radius of 8 inch and seeing that a decent amount of the temple have light footed this will give a lot of control when done right.

The believer trait is nice for keeping ki but not really what you want this guy to do.

Con:
At 8 rice he's not overpriced but needs some thought or strategy to field this guy. His ranged attack only works once, while being held is nice, it does no damage and you lose his special attack. A tough choice to make in my opinion.

Tactics:
He's nice for protecting supporting models like the farmers or Aiko. for example with the farmers keep him within 4 inch to make the farmers ability to lower the cost of the monks ki abilities cost efficient and do what temple does best. throw around ki like a madmen. And in the off chance a disguised or model with concealment sneaks past the monks you can use his quagmire to protect your models.

I recommend this model with a few peasants and 1 or 2 monks to dish out damage while the peasants boosts the monks and Ashinaga makes the farmes cost efficient and save.

 Also don't underestimate this model in a fight 3 melee is decent but combined with first strike a large amount of wounds and the ability to get armour piercing this guy is a serious threat for Ashigaru, Karai and such.

wave 19 review: Takashi Akio

After a small unplanned break because of technical difficulties i'm back. To start off again on my reviews of wave 19. Starting with samurai sensei Takashi Akio.

For the looks of the model i'm a bit dissapointed he looks bland compared to the concept art in my opinion.

Pro:
A 4 die samurai is always something good to have, he can save up 8 ki which is a respectable amount and can buy an extra melee dice for only 2 ki. This combined with his special attacks: combo attack (0) and critical strike (0) make this a good offensive model. Even when pushed on the defensive this model got some tricks up it's sleeve with impenetrable defense for 3 ki.

Con:
This model is expensive 13 points for a human is a lot and this guy will probably won't get played that often because of it.

Tactics:
The strenght of this model lies in his ability to distribute tokens to make your other models better, just as Oda for the Silvermoon Trade syndicate. But opposed to Oda Akio can stand his ground and deal some damage on his own. Remember to be carefull with Akio though, you take him to boost your force and that's what you pay for.

Fielding Akio means you won't be able to field a lot of models and you need to work around this and play smart with what you got. Not being a Prefecture of Ryu player myself I find it hard to see what would be the best combined with him to get the maximum out of his kenjutsu ability.

Flames of war: update to my army

Something amazing that I overlooked when looking at my list for FOW is that forgot that I can take a tankhunter platoon. So now instead of fielding a single King Tiger i'll be fielding 4 Hetzers.

			Armour
Name	Mobility	Front	Side	Top	Equipment and Notes
Weapon	Range	ROF	Anti-tank	Firepower
Hetzer	Standard Tank	7	2	1	Hull MG, Overloaded.
7.5cm PaK39 gun	32"/80cm	2	11	3+	Hull mounted.

Hetzers are great tank hunters with an AT 11 and FP 3+ most allied tanks will be easypickings for these badboys. I do have to be carefull with my positioning as a side armour of 2 means that they're vulnearble to a lot of weaponry around.

Now what makes them standout in my list is that my tankhunters are veterans. This means that when I deploy at the start of the game or through an ambush. I can pick a piece of concealing terrain at least partially in my deployment zone, while within this terrain or concealed by it the hetzers shoot a full ROF even when moving and do a stormtrooper move on 2+. Now if I keep general Von Saucken within 15cm I get a re-roll on my stormtrooper move practicly guarantee I get that stormtrooper move that i'll often be using to move the Hetzers away out of my enemy's sight.

Next week i'll finally be playing with my army against a soviet shtraf bataljon, this will be a difficult match-up,but it does give me the opportunity to make a few photo's and provide you all with a battle report.

Wave 19 review: Taisho Tenbatsu

So Taisho got previewed early which means I get to review it!



First up an amazing model, whoever is doing the Tadao, Penanggalan and Taisho sculpts should be praised for their amazing work. As I personnaly think that these are some of the most amazing sculpts of these two waves.

Pro:
Well the easiest pro is his 4 dice in mellee something both Cult and Wave have been struggling with, he's well armoured, fear (4), martial prowess and split attack will mean that even if only looking at his traits he's an amazing fighter. He's also got 7 wounds putting him right between a regular human and an oni.

Now his ki feats are incredible first up: immovable and toughness two for 3 ki once per game. This means that this model will be almost impossible to kill on the turn he uses this feat. Second ki feat gives armour piercing for 2 ki for the activation, a solid ki feat especially against Ito and Ryu. His last ki feat costs only 1 ki and let's him heal for the ki statistic of an enemy model killed within 3 inch once a turn.

Now his unique effects are interesting as he either gets soulles and fear 5, this means auto-winning any opposed ki rolls. His other unique effect is even better depending on what your opponent is, he gets brutal (1), impetuous, oni rage and powerful attack (1).

Con:
Alright this gonna be difficult. In my opinion his only con is that all of his special attacks require one dice. That's it. Now you might look at the 12 rice and think he's on the pricey side, trust me he's not, models with 4 dice are always more expensive and this guy makes up for it with all the extra's he's got.

Verdict: Awesome
Both Cult and Wave have been struggling with 4 dice models and this is an easy counter, I can see this model become an easy choice for both factions at the 42 rice mark.

Rise of the Kage: announcement

So last Sunday GCT Studios officialy announced a new product set in the Bushido universe: Rise of the Kage. So what is this game? Well simply put a boardgame for 2-4 players where you divide the roll of ninja's or guards between each other, where the ninja's need to kill the daimyo and guards protect.

While I haven't heard anything about this besides the product i'm not excited for this, why? Because this type of product already exists. The miniature game Ronin, a historical samurai game by Osprey publishing has a scenario that works about the same, that was published in the Wargames Illustrated. AEG more know for their card games also used to publish a game that works on the same basis. Not to say that they shouldn't make this product, it has enough possibility to be an exciting and fun game, but in my opinion it's not original.

What i'm more excited for is the expansion of the lore of the bushido-verse and the miniatures.

While miniatures provided with boardgames are almost always plastic and quite simply designed, it is a promising concept art, maybe for an upcoming miniature? One can only hope.

Also in terms of artwork GCT has made great improvement. Just compare this with some of the artwork found in the rulebook, it's amazing!

I'll be looking forward these coming weeks about news from Rise of the Kage. you can follow them on facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/riseofthekage