ok, first of all: there is ZERO reason to assume the clan will be underpowered. we have seen so little. so anyone that says "they ruined the crane clan" i'll consider just a rant post.

however...

one trend that is obvious is, the whole thing of "i play in action phase and always avoid interaction in combat" will go. political actions will be a form of conflict. how do you feel about that?

personaly i believe it is good from a balance standpoint, but for me it just wont feel different/unique enough, its just military fight using political power and cards. with attackers, defenders, and province and battle resolution as normal. it feels too vanilla and non-unique, i dont think i'll enjoy(subjective) playing political decks for that reason.

what are some other people's opinions?

Mainly Scorpion player and I am thrilled with the new concept personally, I think the potential to keep my opponents guessing from turn to turn gives me a great feeling. Will I bid low and take your honor or go high and get a bunch of cards. Will I go for the Ring of Fire and dishonor your guy or honor mine? I feel like good things are coming Scorpions way. Crane are just our puppets anyways.

I like it to be honest. We get to attack players for ring benefits, break provinces, and force people to defend. All good things in my book. It will be similar to military conflicts but i think i can live with that as it makes it much easier to teach a new player about the game. It also forces interaction between players.

I'm a long term Scorpion player, and I like the shift. I've always tended slightly towards military Scorpion, but played dishonor when it was our most viable decktype (and found I was a much better dishonor player than military player preferences aside).

I like that the military and political arenas will have roughly the same weight, and that there will be speedbumps in the other arena available to every clan (from what we can see). Some of my least fun memories of L5R were the games where *I* was the one playing dishonor and setting up bombs to take people from full to dead in a turn. I'd imagine that some of the honor bomb players felt about the same.

Girltori x Kachiko.

Nothing else matters.

That aside, mechanically it feels like a lot of their other games. No surprises, it'll probably all be very balanced at the start.

Just now, Tetsuro said:

Girltori x Kachiko.

Nothing else matters.

That aside, mechanically it feels like a lot of their other games. No surprises, it'll probably all be very balanced at the start.

its not about balance. just... whenever i explained crane to any new player, i said "they are the guys that never enter combat or interact with you. we basicaly just set up a clock, SWEAR that we are weak enough that you WILL easily break our provinces, also SWEAR that we will get to 40 honor, and just look who achieves his victory condition faster since we will avoid interaction". this "setting up a clock and delaying" defined the clan's playstyle in my book.

I think that play style is ancient history, I think using the Elemental Ring ability is a must use tactic to achieve any type of victory.

I never liked being on the receiving end of the "solitaire games", so I'm pretty happy that you need to interact with your opponent in order to achieve anything.

Personally I like it a lot. Also fixes quite a few problems with the mirror match.

One minor fear, not a single word about duels (even in the Crane and Dragon quirps)

There are duelist personalities, there is one duelist personality spoiled whose ability is literally "When this person attacks alone, only one defender may be sent against her", and most importantly, in the "what's changed from CCG?" section of either product page or the second thing, there is a line saying that duels are in, but will be explained in details in their own spoiler article.

1 hour ago, WHW said:

I never liked being on the receiving end of the "solitaire games", so I'm pretty happy that you need to interact with your opponent in order to achieve anything.

Agreed. I'm just happy to know that those kind of games are going to die in a fire.

59 minutes ago, Mig el Pig said:

Personally I like it a lot. Also fixes quite a few problems with the mirror match.

One minor fear, not a single word about duels (even in the Crane and Dragon quirps)

" Dueling — Mechanics for dueling are present in Legend of the Five Rings: The Card Game , but it will function completely differently than in the collectible card game. "

From here: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/legend-of-the-five-rings-the-card-game/

I'm not unhappy. Politics were a poorly handled afterthought in the old game. Having those be their own style of battle and not a crappy boatload of limited tricks is good.

I'm going to miss the defensive attrition-based decks, though. Not "avoid battle at all cost" control-style build, or the "Go to battle, drop entrapping/flattery/etc" style, more "Go to battle to kill their personalities with ranged attacks/TDWWM/battle duels and blunt their attack". Loved those. The most Daidoji-like decks I ever played (as opposed to those offensive Daidoji abominations AEG foisted on us in the last few sets)

(And anyone who call that "playing solitaire" can go kiss a wookiee. I'm fighting battles just fine and opposing you just fine. That's only solitaire in a very deluded imagination)

You sure that's gone, though? Remember that personalities don't die from battles, and battles are not all or nothing anymore, basically having 3 possible outcomes - Win a ring, Break a province, Fail to do either. I think you totally will be able to play defensively and having to balance military defense being good enough to keep your opponent from breaking your provinces while letting Rings go, in exchange for more political power.

I'm sure playing defense will be a possibility and a huge element in the new game; but it won't be quite the same style of deck without a clock ticking in the background. What you describe is more like a counterattack deck, defending then using Counterattack (or the original Harrier sensei) to hit back. Only in this case the "hit back" involves a different kind of conflict.

Mind, that can be a fun type of deck in their own right. But it's not quite the one I was describing

As a Crane, I like the fact that my opponent gets to interact to my political game, while I get to participate in their Battle phase.

I imagine I'll still be sending them home, gaining some Honor and then getting out of Dodge like I always did, but hey, my Provinces were always too pretty to destroy.

35 minutes ago, Himoto said:

I'm sure playing defense will be a possibility and a huge element in the new game; but it won't be quite the same style of deck without a clock ticking in the background. What you describe is more like a counterattack deck, defending then using Counterattack (or the original Harrier sensei) to hit back. Only in this case the "hit back" involves a different kind of conflict.

Mind, that can be a fun type of deck in their own right. But it's not quite the one I was describing

Who knows if there isn't a ticking clock type of card? I certainly haven't seen enough of the core set to say there isn't a way to gain honor once per turn that isn't connected to conflicts. We might very well have something with the Imperial Favor mechanic that hasn't been revealed yet, a holding that can generate an honor for a high fate cost, or even a character that generates honor.

As someone that played Scorpion as my main clan way back, I quite like the changes. Forcing players to interact more with their opponents is never a bad thing and who knows what delicious cards we'll see in the future. I just want to know what the ninja are going to look like (esp. with that philosophy card picturing one). Plus, more Kachiko!

True. I was answering to the speculation that honor needs to be won by entering conflicts (political or otherwise). If there are ticking clock effects in, then Defend the clock decks would indeed be possible (and fun).

To be brutally honest, I am a little disappointed. I was really hoping that they would do something more unique with the politics other than being a different style of attack.

From a game design point, it was a good idea and I understand why they did it. I also like that we can destroy providences with a purely political deck.

But this does make me curious about the personalities and various stats. In all the images, the military and political values ranged from 0-3. It makes me wonder if the base stats will top out at 3. These values seem a little on the low side to me.

I do like the you can only make one Political and one Military attack each turn, it forces non-Political factions to participate in it.

I don't like that it's basically just a blue flavored attack (with red flavored being military) instead of being something unique.

5 minutes ago, Kakita Shiro said:

I do like the you can only make one Political and one Military attack each turn, it forces non-Political factions to participate in it.

I don't like that it's basically just a blue flavored attack (with red flavored being military) instead of being something unique.

The Rings are a variant. Political centric decktypes going to focus on Rings that military Decks do not generally choose.

The Personalities, Conflict cards, and various other effects are likely to be night & day.

21 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

To be brutally honest, I am a little disappointed. I was really hoping that they would do something more unique with the politics other than being a different style of attack.

From a game design point, it was a good idea and I understand why they did it. I also like that we can destroy providences with a purely political deck.

But this does make me curious about the personalities and various stats. In all the images, the military and political values ranged from 0-3. It makes me wonder if the base stats will top out at 3. These values seem a little on the low side to me.

You are seeing generic Personalities, not named Samurai or Daimyos.

Just now, Daner0023 said:

You are seeing generic Personalities, not named Samurai or Daimyos.

True. I didn't even think about them being just generic names. It will be interesting to see how they compare to named characters.

2 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

True. I didn't even think about them being just generic names. It will be interesting to see how they compare to named characters.

Stat wise they will likely line up to cheaper Uniques, but the Uniques are likely to have actions & traits that add flavor & utility.

I'm fairly certain Hida Kisada and Akodo Toturi are going to have a Military skill of at least 7.

I like the artwork for the personalities. I also like the idea of honor loss plus draw cards, perfect feel for the scorpion.

I think we need to see what sorts of cards affect which types of conflicts before we can say that military and political conflicts are too similar.