1) Team Rokugan goes first, yes, but any one teammate takes an action then passes to the Shadowlands player. He takes an action, then a member of Team Rokugan takes an action.

2) It's been a while since I played, but I don't think it matters for that action. Also, Team Rokugan can't have the Favor at the start.

3) As long as you are familiar with the rules of the game, you should be fine. It's a lot of fun!

I was also thinking of picking this up. I was very active in the CCG during Jade/Pearl, but haven't played since the transition to Gold Edition. Does the game come with a full rulebook? I'm sure that some things have changed in the last 15 years.

I was also thinking of picking this up. I was very active in the CCG during Jade/Pearl, but haven't played since the transition to Gold Edition. Does the game come with a full rulebook? I'm sure that some things have changed in the last 15 years.

It doesn't come with how-to-play-L5R instructions. You used to be able to download them from AEG's website, but I suppose that's no longer an option.

I was also thinking of picking this up. I was very active in the CCG during Jade/Pearl, but haven't played since the transition to Gold Edition. Does the game come with a full rulebook? I'm sure that some things have changed in the last 15 years.

It doesn't come with how-to-play-L5R instructions. You used to be able to download them from AEG's website, but I suppose that's no longer an option.

Main rulebook is here. http://rules.l5r.com/Main_Page

Inside Siege box is additional ruleset how to play Siege variant.

I just picked this up planning on using just the included decks and I had some questions. I played through the beginning of ivory so some may be rules changes I'm not aware of.

2) The Scorpion clan coup card has a favor action only usable by the siege player. As he will never have the highest family honor, how is he ever supposed to take the favor to use the action?

3) Is there anything I need to be aware of playing it as is out of the box?

"Favor" is just a keyword on the action. It can be negated with Confusion at Court, for instance.

Most of the Junzo player's turn will be independent of the Rokugani players' turn. There are few Open actions in the Junzo deck -- most of them are Battle, Engage, Interrupt, or Dynasty, to avoid prolonged back-and-forth action sequences in the Rokugani Action Phase.

All players should read both sides of the Territories carefully, as there are actions available to the Junzo player for much of the course of the game, and benefits to the Rokugani players on the reverse sides (especially on the second-tier Territories).

The Junzo deck plays as an attrition game: unless you are strongly confident in wiping out a Rokugani army (and really, this should almost never be the case), defend minimally, with the intention of inflicting the most damage with the fewest losses. Cards that save your forces, such as Kyojin and the Beiden Pass A-side, can allow you to get in one or two good shots and still save your shooter. The Unique Personalities will help you get the most use out of your most brutal cards.

Fallen in Battle is amazing negation, but the Engage action is ridiculously good at starting the theft engine a turn early, or stopping Rokugan from knocking down the first territory if they get gun-shy.

If Rokugan wins, it should be hard-fought. It is certainly possible to stack their decks with some meta, but the pre-constructed decks are actually fairly well-balanced to achieve somewhere around a 30-40% win rate if the pilots are reasonably familiar with the decks.

Point of reference: playtested the product; also successfully piloted the Junzo deck against two separate pods at GenCon 2015.

I, for one, highly recommend both the Seige products. They were the most fun I had playing L5R in a solid decade, when they came out. Both play well with their included decks, and I have preserved / rebuilt both since the closing of the IP at AEG in order to keep them as stand alone games.

Which of the included Strongholds in the Siege: Clan War deck are the best to use if you are planning to make a Seven Thunders Deck? Would any of the other 20F SH work?

6 hours ago, muzouka said:

Which of the included Strongholds in the Siege: Clan War deck are the best to use if you are planning to make a Seven Thunders Deck? Would any of the other 20F SH work?

Hmm, it really depends on format you want to play. Please notice that Strongholds in Siege expansions weren't tournament legal (they don't have any legality kanji) and some of them (like fe House of the Black Lion) were even banned in some Legacy variants like Obsidian Hand.

If you want to simulate environemt it was designed for you should try to play it under Twenty Festivals Arc legality, so with all card with "blue" kanji, since base Ivory set till Evil Portents. As reaching 7th Thunders win condition is really, really hard to achieve it's not easy to build a deck around it. Some people tried, as Thunders have a good Chi statistics, just to build dueling decks with Event victory as additional solution. Most of them were built from Phoenix and Dragon 20F strongholds.

If you want to focus to hit 7th Thunders ASAP you must just built glass deck with massive gold acceleration (The Blessing, Coastal Lane), Dynasty cycle (Kharmic Holdings + refillable ones) and dig to Event ASAP (Ominous Revelation) becasue if it his discard from destroyed Province you're screwed. Fate should be built around honor/dishonor meta and defending