Hello all! Welcome back 😉
Last week I visited my FLGS, Grognard Games, to meet up with my buddy Greg to play second ever game of Bushido. Since my last game, I had constructed a board to play games over, so this was a great opportunity to try it out!
We had decided on a 35 rice game, and so we set up the terrain. Greg supplied a couple of buildings and the shrines for the scenario (I still need to pick up some buildings), but the table looked pretty sweet.
Then it was on to selecting which individuals to pull into the game… Bear in mind that this was only my second game, and I’m still getting a handle on the mechanics etc, and additionally, have no ‘game plan’ as to who to use in a list. I literally go by “this one looks cool, lets use it!”. My final force comprised of:
- Kato, The Puppet Master – 11 rice
- Armoured Kairai – 5 rice
- Kairai Militia – 4 rice
- Yama Uba – 9 rice
- Kami of Sapping Silt – 4 rice
- Plague Rat – 2 rice
Going up against the Ito I knew that I’d be facing ranged attacks and lots of poison. Thankfully having a predominantly undead force, I wasn’t too worried about the poison, but the archer(s) employed by the Ito clan could start making short work of my force before I can get too far (The Cult are slow to get into battle, but can be pretty terrifying once they are there!). We can ‘rise’ after being killed but only on a successful roll, much to the chagrin of the enemies!
The scenario we were playing was having to control and influence the three shrines that were midway up the board. I didn’t have much of a strategy other than to get my Cult members up as quick as I could to the objectives and basically “see what happens from there”.
Greg moved his heavy hitter tank types down the flanks to the left and right objectives. I wanted to be wary of his charge range so I played it a little cautious with Kato on the left, but was less cautious with my ballsy plague rat that took off up the right side of the board. With the rat being ‘insignificant’ it couldn’t influence the shrine for the Cult, but it could prove to be an annoying pest for any enemies that were there. He served his role well but ultimately ended up getting stomped. It bought me some time to bring up my forces to other shrines.
Yama Uba I think has become a list favorite for me as she can use ki feats for extra movement, and a really useful feat called ‘Morph’, which means you can basically steal a characteristic from a model that you’re in base-to-base with. Quite a versatile character, and frakkin’ scary to boot. She literally scared the crap out of one or maybe two of Greg’s troops, which sucked for them, as it denied them certain bonuses on the attack.
My Armoured Kairai moved up to take the left shrine and (hopefully) be supported by Kato. Kato is able to generate a ‘marionette’ which has a life of its own and can go and harass enemies and slow them down. This and the Kami of Sapping Silt are great tarpit models which can not only slow the enemy down, but only take one point of damage, regardless of the damage given in any combat against them, thanks to the ‘durable’ trait. My marionette proved especially useful as it came into base-to-base with Masunagi who was one of Greg’s heavy hitters. After losing a Ki test to me, I gained control of his model and went and slaughtered some of his own! I had control of Masunagi for 4 turns, which really put the hurt on the Ito Clan
There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the center of the board, and I did lose a couple models to the Ito: the Plague Rat and my Kairai Militia, but I did spill Ito blood as well.
Yurei was pleased.
There were quite a few tense moments where I really thought that my force would get battered into the mud, but alas it was not to be, and The Cult won the skirmish, sending the snakes back into the woods. It was a bloody fun game and I’m really keen on getting another one in real soon so I can try out some of the other models. Also, I’ll actually write a batrep too lol!
Thanks for reading gang! any other Bushido players out there that can share any good tips?
When Cannons Fade... 