2 hours ago, Jedi samurai said:

The difference is the The Others (read a book) are, through almost all the entire story to this point, unseen. Its a looming threat. The Shadowland horde is a very real threat that everyone knows exists, they attack the wall daily etc...

Actually, they don't know it exists. In fact, many clans regularly put down the Crab and claim they are fulfilling a duty that is irrelevant. The resources dedicated to keeping the wall maintained could be better used elsewhere in the empire (huh, sounds familiar).

55 minutes ago, ricefrisbeetreats said:

Actually, they don't know it exists. In fact, many clans regularly put down the Crab and claim they are fulfilling a duty that is irrelevant. The resources dedicated to keeping the wall maintained could be better used elsewhere in the empire (huh, sounds familiar).

Along this lines, isn't one of the major plot points of this era that up until part of the clan wars, the Shadowlands weren't really a big threat? From the CCG story.

The Kaiu Wall conflict zone was described in a manual as equivalent to Vietnam War.

2 minutes ago, Wintersong said:

The Kaiu Wall conflict zone was described in a manual as equivalent to Vietnam War.

Has the Emperor declared a ban on the clans using napalm yet?

6 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Has the Emperor declared a ban on the clans using napalm yet?

Nope, just gaijin powder. (Or has that not been discovered yet?)

Presumably the Battle of White Stag still happened. So they're aware of it and the Daidoji and Agasha still have their fireworks.

We don't have napalm, but we do have Kaiu Fire which is basically the same thing except you unleash it from a boat instead of a plane.

Just now, shineyorkboy said:

We don't have napalm, but we do have Kaiu Fire which is basically the same thing except you unleash it from a boat instead of a plane.

Another thing they took from their Game of Thrones IP, eh?

2 minutes ago, profparm said:

Another thing they took from their Game of Thrones IP, eh?

Are you just a troll?

7 minutes ago, profparm said:

Another thing they took from their Game of Thrones IP, eh?

L5R came first.

Sorry all, I was making a joke. Thought the winky face would give it away.

1 minute ago, Kakita Shiro said:

L5R came first.

I think the Greeks even have Rokugan beat...

1 hour ago, ricefrisbeetreats said:

Actually, they don't know it exists. In fact, many clans regularly put down the Crab and claim they are fulfilling a duty that is irrelevant. The resources dedicated to keeping the wall maintained could be better used elsewhere in the empire (huh, sounds familiar).

some of the flavor we've gotten says the crab know and need to convince the others.

In GoT, many of te nights watch dont believe on the others until the 3rd or 4th book

3 minutes ago, Jedi samurai said:

some of the flavor we've gotten says the crab know and need to convince the others.

In GoT, many of te nights watch dont believe on the others until the 3rd or 4th book

The Crab is the equivalent of the Nights Watch when someone says "they know". There's a lot more of the Crab, too and it doesn't say all the crab believe there is actually any true danger in the Shadowlands. The Yasuki aren't likely going out there in large numbers as they're mostly merchants and politicians.

10 minutes ago, ricefrisbeetreats said:

The Crab is the equivalent of the Nights Watch when someone says "they know". There's a lot more of the Crab, too and it doesn't say all the crab believe there is actually any true danger in the Shadowlands. The Yasuki aren't likely going out there in large numbers as they're mostly merchants and politicians.

Except the Knights watch didn't know/believe until half way through the story. The Crab have NEVER not know or doubted. The rest of the Empire has never not know or doubted (they may doubt the severity).

1 hour ago, profparm said:

Sorry all, I was making a joke. Thought the winky face would give it away.

The "pillow fight" fiasco says otherwise about winky faces?

1 hour ago, profparm said:

Sorry all, I was making a joke. Thought the winky face would give it away.

This is the internet.

A thought has occurred to me for a way to get the Spider in a bit early.

The Order of the Spider sohei are a subtly heretical group of monks that espouse the way of Shourido - a philosophy that sounds reasonable on the surface but at its core corrupts the celestial order of Rokugan. The Dragon Clan are only just beginning to notice its spread. A reason for its popularity is the way it seems to empower the lower classes.

This may not be popular but I really would prefer they did not bring the Spider back, they were a story construct to manage a mechanical design issue. If handled properly Shadowlands can become a playable faction again and play the big bad guy (if needed) and Scorpion already play the "dishonourable" clan doing the dirty deeds that need to be done. I don`'t see Spider fitting in the story unless they are treated as gaijin from outside Rokugan

The thing is, Scorpion do dirty deeds for the greater good, Spider do dirty deeds for their personal good.

16 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

The thing is, Scorpion do dirty deeds for the greater good, Spider do dirty deeds for their personal good.

Hence them being more Gaijin than Rokugan clan like.... either way whether you have Spider or Shadowlands, should not be a clan, even if a playable faction. So I don`t see the need for us to reintroduce a clan that never made sense as a clan.

1 hour ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

A thought has occurred to me for a way to get the Spider in a bit early.

The Order of the Spider sohei are a subtly heretical group of monks that espouse the way of Shourido - a philosophy that sounds reasonable on the surface but at its core corrupts the celestial order of Rokugan. The Dragon Clan are only just beginning to notice its spread. A reason for its popularity is the way it seems to empower the lower classes.

Now this is a form of Spider I could get behind.

On 4/24/2017 at 0:17 PM, Gaffa said:

Really? Only about half of their LCG lines ever have had additional factions added. In the two major examples, Call of Cthulhu added the Silver Twilight after a decade, and Conquest upfront said they were bringing two new factions into the game as the first two deluxes (something FFG had never done before, and hasn't done since). Netrunner has their mini-factions, and even they were nearly three years after release.

They've reset the timeline to years/decades before the Mantis/Spider first appeared in the old timeline (not that they could or should feel constrained to follow the old stories; what's the point in buying the IP if you're not going to tell your own stories instead of copying what came before?). A deluxe box comes out once every six months or longer. That's almost four years before we get through the deluxes with just the starting Great Seven Clans. None of their marketing so far has mentioned or hinted at Mantis or Spider. The next 18 months or so of cards are already designed and in the print queue over in China; with a Q4 release for the base set in 2017, that means we'll start seeing the cards designed based on their watching the game played in the wild in 2019 to 2020.

They certainly could bring back the Mantis, or Spider. Or a ronin army. Or the Monks. Or give us a Senpet faction. Or whatever they want. And perhaps they will. But perhaps they won't. Whatever they do, it won't be "soon"-ish.

None of the marketing so far had mentioned or hinted at the Tyranids or Necrons at this point for Conquest, either. That wasn't known until the rulebook was released in July 2014, which mentioned how they would fit in the alignment wheel. The Great Devourer was then officially announced in March 2015, and released in September 2015. Legions of Death was announced in December and released in May of 2016.

Not having any indication of any additional factions yet is not ta positive indication that we won't get any new factions in the near future.

It is somewhat telling that the Spider Mon and the Mantis Mon can be selected as your profile image for this board, but none of the other missing factions can be.

Should we read something into that?

4 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

The thing is, Scorpion do dirty deeds for the greater good, Spider do dirty deeds for their personal good.

No, this is a myth perpetuated by the Scorpion to convince the rest of the Empire to tolerate their continued existence. We shouldn't buy into it as players.

3 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

Should we read something into that?

Naw, these avatars were available for use on the forums immediately after the FFG purchase, well before they'd made any story decisions.