Rules Review - Daisho

The last of my "planned" reviews of Samurai Skirmish games is Daisho.  That is at least till Saga 2nd edition, with a Samurai expansion comes out (if it comes out, I believe I spotted a samurai miniature in their teaser video).  Daisho rounds out the available skirmish sized games that I know of for the Samurai genre.

It is a ruleset authored by The Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare who also authored In Her Majesty's Name (IHMN) published by Osprey.  In addition to that they have a dark ages ruleset called Blood Eagle and an expansion to IHMN called Gothic.

It should be mentioned one of the highlights of reading these rules is Section 1.6, The Golden Rules.  An excerpt:

• "Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of sensei."  Which goes on to state, if there is a rule that you and your opponent dislike, then change it if all players agree.

And covers things like respecting your opponent, conduct, etc.  I guess it should be expected from guys that call themselves "The Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare."  

Scale of Game:
The rules for Daisho recommend 200-250 points as a good starting level to get to the know the game, after which you and your opponents can agree on a point level for future games.  Note, I said opponents as the game accommodates 2+ players.  Referencing a couple of example warband lists in the rules, the Ronin list weighs in at 240 points with 6 figures and the Clan Patrol list is 300 points with 8 figures.  Both lists contain multiple samurai.  Unfortunately, the rules do not provide an expected game length for playing at various point levels.

Standard Rules:
Before really jumping into the standard rules/mechanics of the game, like it's sister game In Her Magesty's Name, Daisho offers 3 levels of play:

• Basic - This levels lacks Ki, Magical Powers and weapon qualities and is meant more for the historical players.
• Heroic - This moves the game slightly beyond "historic" but not into magical/fantastical realms.
• Legendary - Everything.

I will note up front that the game does not allow for (unless you and your opponent agree to change it) pre-measuring.

Daisho uses what I am going to called a "Phased Alternating Activation" system, by that I mean the turn is broken into multiple phases which are completed by all players before moving on to the next phase.  The highest initiative roll (d10 + highest leadership in their warband) goes first at the beginning of each phase, then the next player goes and so on.  These phases include:  Initiative, Movement, Shooting and Fighting.

Attacks are resolved based on the model's corresponding stat (Shooting or Fighting) + the weapon modifier +/- other modifiers (cover, etc) + d10 vs the target's armor rating.  Achieving/exceed the target's armor rating is a hit.  In both cases of shooting and fighting, a model can split its stat into multiple attacks albeit against different targets.  Ie, if a model has a 4 Shooting it could shoot once at Target A only using 2 Shooting and a second time at Target B using the remaining 2 Shooting (all other modifiers still apply).  Also included are rules for combined attacks, allowing weak models to group up to fight difficult targets.  Fighting includes an option to try to disarm your opponent.

When a model is hit with a successful attack, it must immediately make a Karma roll which is modified by weapon used in the attack.  If the roll is less than the model's Karma stat it is out of the game (unless it receives medical attention) and if the roll is equal to the model's Karma stat it is knocked down.  And if the model is taken out of the game, the attacking model immediately gains 1 Ki which is used to activate Ki powers.

You gain honour (using "their" British spelling) points throughout the game, totaled at the end to determine the victor.  Hounour points are gained based on Objectives defined by the scenario, the social caste of models killed, reputation, survivors/prisoners, beast/magical creatures and anything else specified by the scenario.

Any rules beyond what has been mentioned are fairly typical/straight forward.  There is a noticeable absence of a morale mechanic but maybe the intent is that is abstracted into the Karma roll.

Other Things:
Daisho provides full capability to build your warband how you want to.  This includes armor and weapon point costs, as well as a robust selection of skills/ki powers, and magical powers.  These combined with the base point costs of the model's stats determine its total point cost.

The game also provides a system/framework for campaigns.  Campaign systems can often be pretty tricky to pull off and often can be abused, with no real way to evaluate them until playing through them (sometimes multiple times).  That being said, what is offered here in Daisho looks really good and is fairly flexible.

Scenarios:
The game provides a nice, diverse set of scenarios for games which include search and recover (with 2 setup options), rescue/capture, vengeance, breakthrough, assassination, outpost defense, plus about 10 more.  This already adds a lot variety to individual games but you can augment that further by adding a "complication" to the scenario.  This includes things such as sacred grounds, fog/mist, civilians on the battlefield, twilight, plus many many more!

And going a step further the rules suggest typical landscapes across Nippon that would be suitable for your battles.  This is not something I would really consider "necessary" but it is a real nice touch that I am not sure I have seen any other game do.  Of course, it does cause me a bit of anxiety in thinking "I gotta build all this!"  Note, I'm not saying you "have" to build this to play Daisho.  I'm just saying "I HAVE TO BUILD ALL THIS" (in a good way... sort of... mostly...).

Concerns:
Honestly, I don't have any major concerns about the game, only a couple of minor ones.  The first of which is availability:  I held off on reviewing Daisho for quite some time because I did not want to shell out the money for a hard copy of the rules, at the prices and shipping I was able to find.  But I finally found a e-copy of the rules at a very affordable price here.  And at less than 100 pages, it would not be terribly expensive to get this printed off/bound nicely at Staples, esp since the e-book is very printer friendly and can easily be done in black & white.

I guess that kind of brings up a second "concern."  There are no illustrations/pictures in the rules depicting gameplay examples.  There are detailed written examples throughout the rules however and because of this I never found a situation/rule complicated enough to warrant a visual illustration.

There is also some minor record keeping with whether or not a model has moved/ran.  And the "phased alternating activation" could make record keeping a little more difficult.  Honestly though, the game is potentially such low model count that I'm not sure these things need to be explicitly tracked and there is likely a slick way to do it.

Conclusions:
I find my feelings toward Daisho a bit odd, it is based heavily on the IHMN ruleset by the same authors.  I actually read those rules this summer to get a feel for what Daisho would be like, since it was easily available from Osprey via Amazon.  The reading of IHMN caused me to hold off on acquiring Daisho until now because I was not impressed with it.  Maybe I am in just a good mood now or maybe my taste have changed since then (there have been a number of wargaming concepts that I am, maybe, shifting my views on) but I really like these rules.  They offer everything I think I was looking for.  Of course, I can't really say that until I have played a few games but this looks like a very solid contender.

I will eventually get Daisho added to my list of games of this genre on the Samurai Skirmish page.  It is definitely worth trying out and is now the top of my list.

Rules/Game Review - Aristeia!

I just received my copy of Aristeia! and thought I would post up my initial thoughts.  As I wrote the title of this post, I found my self conflicted about just labeling it a "Rules" review.  I want to say I feel it is more of a "Game" review but what does that mean?  Why the distinction?  Is it the old "it's played on a board, so it's not a miniature game" mentality?  Is it because it is self contained?  Is it because it is more "structured" than a regular miniatures game?  I'm not completely sure.  Maybe it is because I plan, at least as I am currently typing, to talk more than just the rules (specifically to comment on the components and miniatures).  Yeah, that must be it.

Enough rambling, back on topic.  For any not aware, Aristeia is a new game from Corvus Belli set in their Infinity universe.  Aristeia is new sport sweeping through the Human Sphere, an arena combat blood sport.  I have been a big fan of Infinity's fluff and miniatures since the very beginning but the rules have never been to my liking.  With the release of Aristeia I hoped to find a way to enjoy the Infinity universe and miniatures without dealing with the rules of Infinity.  Ideally Areisteia also checks some of my other favorite boxes:  arena/gladiatorial combat and/or "blood sport."

Scale/List Building:
Scale of the game and list building are about as simple as you can get:  any 4 characters per side, although the rules do offer that you can (if the players want) draft characters from a pool before the start of the game.  After selecting your characters, you assemble your Tactics deck out of a set of 10 fixed standard cards and 2 selected character specific cards (out of 4 possible cards, currently) for each character on your team, giving you a total deck of 18 cards to draw from.

Rules:
The game begins by determining which player is the underdog, accomplished by adding up total initiative values among your characters.  The player with the lower number is declared the underdog for Round 1 and will get to determine how tied initiative values or simultaneous effects are resolved.  After Round 1 the under dog designation belongs to the player with the lowest number of Victory Points.  Once characters are deployed, each player secretly places each of their characters in the initiative track positions, which are numbered 1-4.  Then starting at position 1 on the initiative track, each player reveals their character and compare its initiative value (the higher value getting to decide if they or their opponent will go first).  The active character then gets a number of actions equal to their action value, which can then be spent moving, attacking and using character skills.  Then the un-activated character in the 1 initiative position activates.  This process proceeds through position 4, after which the game proceeds to the objective phase and then the recovery phase,

The core resolution mechanic of the game uses the character card to specify the number and types of dice to roll for each skill/action.  These are d6 dice of different colors and with special symbols, ala X-Wing, Armada and many other games that have recently come on the market.  Two type of rolls exist in the game.  The first being an unopposed roll or simple roll, usually a character skill check like using a medkit.  The second is an opposed roll, usually for combat, where both players roll, cancel results, and compare totals.  Additionally, special triggers (called switches) can occur based on the results.  It should be noted that this resolution mechanic also allows the defender to potentially injure the attacker, as well as both characters being injured.  Reducing an enemy to zero wounds provides the attacker with a frag counter (used to resolved tied victory points) and also allows them to draw a card.

If a character is reduced to zero wounds, it is moved to the infirmary and if that character has not activated yet, it basically looses it's activation that turn.  During the recovery phase, all characters in the infirmary are moved to the bench and receive a -2 action token.  At the beginning of the next round benched characters can move onto the field when activated but they will enter play again albeit a slightly reduced capacity with less action points.

Objectives are scored at the end of each round and totaled at the end of Round 5 to determine the winner.  You also draw a tactics card at the end of each round and an additional card if you scored any VPs that round.  The rest of the game and mechanics are fairly typical and straight forward.

Scenarios:
There are 4 basic scenarios provided, with a promise of more to come, with each scenario providing different objectives for scoring points.  I think the inclusion of only 4 scenarios is a bit light, hopefully the community/Corvus Belli will be quick to develope/release new ones.

Components:
I found the components of the game to be of very good quality.  Nice thick playing board, punch out tokens, nice quality cards and excellent box control.  The one, possible, exception to this is the plastic miniatures.  The detail in the miniatures is a little suspect but I wont really know till I start to paint them.  They are certainly decent quality "board" game miniatures but honestly, I had slightly higher hopes with this coming from Corvus Belli.  In fact, I was really excited to see what Corvus Belli would do with plastics.

Additionally, while the miniatures come assembled, they are cast as multi-part models and assembled in the factory.  The "quality" of this assembly process is likely to vary greatly but several of my minis have significant gaps that will have to be filled before painting.  And maybe that was not the assembly, maybe that is the miniature itself but either way it is a slight disappointment.  The miniatures are also pre-attached to bases which is not a big deal except they are completely blank bases.  That just seems like they missed an opportunity to put them on some nice flight deck type bases that Infinity miniatures typically shine on.  And it is going to make it a pain in my ass to re-base these miniatures.  Also, why are these not the typical 25mm sized bases found in Infinity, not that it matters game play wise, just wondering.

The entire plastic miniature thing also raises another question, did I make the right choice?  Should I have bought the collectors edition which game with a metal set of miniatures (in addition to the plastic ones)?  I assumed the future expansions would be in plastic, so I opted for just the regular version with plastic minis for "consistency" and to satisfy a bit of OCD-ness.  As it happens, during writing this up, I found confirmation that the expansions will be plastic.

I can also understand that hitting the right price point for the game is one of the most important things a company can do.  That being said, a simultaneously release of plastic obstacles/terrain (rather than the 2d punch outs in the core box) would have been very appropriate in my opinion without raising the box price with their inclusion.  Or at least an announcement that it was in the pipe.

Standouts:
There are a couple of very clear standouts in this game to me.  The first is the getting started booklet is fantastic.  I really appreciate the industry trend in this direction but I believe Corvus Belli really nailed it.  It does the typical good job of introducing the concepts in a clear, logical order and provides examples at every turn.  It also provides a suggested build for your first game, again somewhat typical.  It then walks you through a complete example first round with these builds, which is a lot less typical.  Maybe this is not "necessary" but I appreciated it.  I will also note the booklet sized rules reference, weighing in at only 28 half-sized pages, has a table of contents, an index, and a quick reference sheet.  Very nicely done.

Note, these are the metal miniatures from the collector's box.

A second standout is the character design.  I really love the design of this first batch of characters.  They are all different and unique, reflecting an individual personality.  They all seem to have different abilities/skills and purposes.  I can't help but be reminded of the Overwatch video game.

Concerns:
As a very odd coincidence, this game arrived at my doorstep just a day after a local gamer had shown me how to play GW's Shadespire.  I say odd, because I find the two games strangely similar.  I don't really view this as a problem or concern, it is just that the recent exposure to Shadespire made a couple of things jump out at me when reading through the rules for Aristeia.

The first of which is that I really missed the "dynamic/unknown" objectives of Shadespire and thus found Aristeia a little static in in that respect,.  Maybe this will be resolved with new scenarios in the future.  The second is with its deck building element:  Will it follow the same buy-to-play model (where you have buy an expansion you don't want just to get access to certain cards:  X-Wing, Armada, Test of Honour) that Shadespire does?  And lastly, will the game itself be fun?  Because while I found nothing mechanically wrong with Shadespire, I'm not sure it was fun.

The price point for this game also seems little off at ~$70 RSP.  Since you are buying a full game, comparing price per model to a box of space marines (for instance) is not fair but there is some argument that one can compare the price per model to other "full" games like Shadespire, Necromunda, Mice & Mystics, Tail Feathers, so on and so on.  So at ~$8.75/model, it is pretty high without having the plastic quality of some of the other offerings (Games Workshop).  And compared to Zombicide Black Plague (which has great quality, IMO)  it is sinful.  Furthermore, comparing the cost to Operation Ice Storm/Red Veil for Infinity (which are full 2-player starter boxes) is more disheartening (pretty much the same costs per figure).  The expansion boxes better come in at less than $15 each (with 4 figures) if this plastic quality continues and I highly doubt they will be that cheap, which does not bode well for the game.

Conclusion:
I am very interested in trying this game out and I really really hope it is fun, but I think the price point is off.  It seems to be a nice, tight ruleset and should allow quick games to unfold while still providing nice depth of tactics.  That being said, if Corvus Belli does not provide a constant and consistent stream of support for this game (Organized Play, new releases, new scenarios), I think it wont stand out among the crowded crowd (here is a great video demonstrating Corvus Belli's planned support for the game - it looks like full commitment).  You also should not expect, even though it is Corvus Belli, the plastic miniatures to be insanely good (they are decent board game quality in my opinion, although mine have some unfortunate gaps).

I would love to see this game expanded to multi-player.  Mechanically, nothing is jumping out at me right now as a reason you couldn't do it.  Except the board and deployment zones maybe, but that would be an excellent reason to explore (and sell) different shapes and designs of boards...  Just saying...

Lastly, I had decided a while back to not spend so much time reviewing rules that are freely available, you should and can just go read them for yourself after all.  But I did not know these rules are available for free until I had wrote this up.  You can find them here.

October Recap

Well, it was not a very productive month for managing to get games played.  The family vacation to Disney world caused me to miss the first game day of October, while the threat of having to play Frostgrave kept me from going to the second one.  Now the local group is all spun up for Ghost Archipelago, so this trend will likely continue.  I need to set down and really digest the rules for GA and try to give it a fair shake.  And stay away from 4+ person games of it...

While things were light on that front, I did manage to get a few random games of misc stuff in with my daughter so that was good.  I also painted up 3 test models for my K47 British Infantry and was fairly happy with how they turned out and the time invested.  I then I jumped in on batch painting another 12.  Ugh...  Anyway, I will post something up for the test models soon(ish).

October was also a very expensive hobby month.  I pre-ordered several things, including the Fallout miniatures game!  Along with also buying into FFG's new version of Legend of the Five Rings.  Unfortunately, I have not really gotten to try it out.  I played one turn with my wife (we both used to play L5R back in the day) before she opted to go to bed.  Not because of anything game related, because we have a 1 year old...  I also backed my first kickstarter of the year.  Yep, that is right I made it all the way to October before surrendering to the newest expansion of Relicblade.  I have backed the other Relicblade kickstarters at just the rules level (the same for this recent one) and while I have never played it, I do like what the guy is doing and his lovely art.  I had no problem continuing to throw a few bucks his way.

November will see the opening of an all new game store in Huntsville:  Lucky Dice Cafe (actually, it has already had its soft opening).  It is on my side of town and is a fairly short drive.  Hopefully it will turn out to be a good store and allow me to find some game time during the week and/or the weekends, opposite the regular game days.  We will see.

The end of the year is fast approaching.  Lots of projects to wrap up and trying to satisfy some hobby goals.