There are some refreshing game mechanics in this game. What made an impression on me was this variant of "I-go-you-go", where there is a chance that current turn ends abruptly. This means you cannot count on getting to activate each of your models/model groups.
We started to play a scenario driven campaign.
Introductory scenario was this where both samurais and their small retinues happen to come to the same shrine at the same time, and cannot agree who gets to pray. After some crude remarks about the families and the choice of color of opponents uniform, a bloodbath ensued.
I didn't know a thing about this game, so I tried out a dual-wielding Samurai. Opponent had Naginata.
My samurai felt a deep connection to the torii-portal and for a long time was the sole actor of red forces. The bowmen seemed unable to do anything, and Loyal Spearmen group were too busy with their tea ceremonies that it wasn't until the last rounds of the fight when they noticed something was going on.
Anyway, my samurai was a whirlwind of death at the doorway to the shrine, but turns out a samurai cannot wipe an opposing force all alone.
My samurai didn't die, but had to swallow the bitter defeat. These things are nasty on your ego, so samurai swore an oath of vengeance against this blue impostor, who won only because seemed like my spearmen were as loyal as they were stupid.
Scenario 2 is my revenge on the blue outpost.
This game was kind of weird.
This time blue samurai comes at my forces pretty much solo, as my red samurai is speeding to the objective markers. Red samurai notices blue samurai running past him, and is torn between his vindictive tendencies - will he personally humiliate blue samurai, or bring distress to whole family of his?
Red samurai can't decide. He tries to fight blue samurai a little, but this is useless. Blue samurai accumulates a tremendous amount of wounds, but doesn't die. At last red samurai glances his wrist to take a look at a watch that hasn't been invented yet, and takes a run at the objective markers.
Blue samurai plays ping pong with my loyal spearmen and experienced bowmen - with he being the ball, himself.
Time was running too short, and eventually scenario ended in a draw - both forces had one objective marker under their control, and one was being contested.
Scenario 3 was where red and blue families were trying to find some family members from the burning village ravaged by war and hatred.
I tried to see how almost a full-boat shooting would go. I had a group of loyal and experienced bowmen, plus a bow sergeant. This shooting range quickly depleted blue samurais from their activations when they were trying to check one of the objectives. But they just wouldn't die.
Hell-bent on having my vengeance, red samurai went to the middle pretty much alone. Eventually opponent had both of his samurais nearby.
Some luck was involved when red samurai killed blue devoted samurai. But was my leader sated? Heck he wasn't! Despite having four-or-something wounds, he continued to pursue blue naginata wielding samurai. This took many turn, but finally red mist began to fade from my leader samurai - he had taken blue guy down.
By this time all but one objective marker had been checked.
What followed was perhaps some sort of negative aspect of the rule set - game revolves so much around samurais that once opponent had none, he couldn't do much. I had much more activations than he did, so mostly I was able to make his troops to spend their activation on Avoid check. And killing stuff isn't all that easy in this game. Maybe some sort of surrendering mechanic might be nice if opponent loses all of his samurais and is outnumbered 2:1 or something.
Anyway. Three fights. One loss, one draw and one victory.
If we ever get to continue the campaign, my samurai had acquired the skills Red Mist and Fountain of Blood. It's possible, yes, that I picked the ones most fitting to my armor color.
I don't remember how long we played, but considering we got three games with me having no earlier experience and opponent having only a little, the time spent seemed very reasonable.
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