6 minutes ago, BayushiCroy said:

To be honest I don't know what each one does individually.

It would be neat as a way to setup and foreshadow narrative is what I meant.

Which would you want?

The first one was wasting disease wasn't it?

20 hours ago, Frentier said:

Since we've discovered that holdings do block dynasty cards from being placed I would say that it is fair trade of given the number of cards we have seen that can flip face down dynasty cards allowing more cards to be purchased with fate.

Also an additional +1/+2 on a province that can't be bowed (though we have not heard if being bowed removes your contribution to your side's total and/or removed your ability to play actions in that character) a nd that won't be removed due to lack of fate seems a more than generous trade off not even accounting for the actions they provide. This could also mean that the characters you are bringing in are more likely going to want to have more fate on them.

Think about Lion running two provinces with staging ground, able to possibly put out 6 characters (depending on the number of cheap Lion clan characters and holding % in deck) from their dynasty deck in a turn. Now they will only be around that turn since you spent all your fate but that's certainly a thing you could do.

Still need to know what happens to holdings when a province breaks. I'm guessing they are discarded and you can't play any holdings on broken provinces.

My problem with holdings versus personalities is precisely that immovable nature (not counting a card like the Battlefield Fortifications). A personality can be declared as an attacker or defender while a holding is stuck in it's province. A personality can be replaced by another card once purchased while the holding is stopping that. A Holding is going to have to be pretty good to warrant it limiting the cards you can potentially buy. It's also going to depend on whatever limits the designers give to actions and the fully revealed rules behind the holdings.

Pros/Cons of a Holding (from what's revealed)

Pros: Cannot be targeted by as many effects as a Personality, Cannot be Dishonored, Unaffected by bowing (speculation but I doubt holdings will be bowable from the position they placed), Possible powerful abilities

Cons: Limits Dynasty 'draws', Cannot be Honored, Cannot Attack, Cannot Defend other provinces, Does not count as a Personality (speculation from Conflict defense, most Attachments, Events, and/or Imperial Favor)

16 minutes ago, Suzume Tomonori said:

Plagues are always good for foreshadowing trouble on the horizon. So... the Wasting Disease?

Which scroll did Yogo Junzo open first in the AEG canon?

You got it in one. Wasting Disease was the first scroll Junzo opened.

Scourge of the double post.

17 minutes ago, DarkHorse said:

Scourge of the double post.

Was that the second black scroll? No wait, that was The Iron Citadel.

5 hours ago, Kubernes said:

My problem with holdings versus personalities is precisely that immovable nature (not counting a card like the Battlefield Fortifications). A personality can be declared as an attacker or defender while a holding is stuck in it's province. A personality can be replaced by another card once purchased while the holding is stopping that. A Holding is going to have to be pretty good to warrant it limiting the cards you can potentially buy. It's also going to depend on whatever limits the designers give to actions and the fully revealed rules behind the holdings.

Pros/Cons of a Holding (from what's revealed)

Pros: Cannot be targeted by as many effects as a Personality, Cannot be Dishonored, Unaffected by bowing (speculation but I doubt holdings will be bowable from the position they placed), Possible powerful abilities

Cons: Limits Dynasty 'draws', Cannot be Honored, Cannot Attack, Cannot Defend other provinces, Does not count as a Personality (speculation from Conflict defense, most Attachments, Events, and/or Imperial Favor)

I agree with all of this. Holding evaluation is going to be really important in deck construction.

Right now without knowing much else about the game, all of these seem mildly playable with the Lion one maybe being slightly better simply because it gives extra Dynasty card advantage. The Crab holding acting as a moving +2 in the a Conflict scenario also seems quite good, but you still fundamentally need characters to defend with so we'll see how that plays out. +2 Strength probably doesn't matter if you don't have enough guys to defend with.

The Scorpion one is cost value, but as events seems rather cheap outside of Blackmail, Fate gained there might not be better than bringing in another 1 cost guy or getting the Duplicate Fate bonus.

The Phoenix one from the Announcement article is hard to gauge as well given that we're not entirely sure how Honor draws will play out in actual games. It's just not clear if 1 Dynasty card = 1 Conflict card as of yet.

Anyway, it's going to be an interesting conversation going forward for sure.

Well your army needs more Skill than the opponents army to win the battle, but the attacker's Skill needs to be higher than the Defender's skill + Province strength to break the province. So high Province strength alone is meaningless if your opponent is just doing Air battles to honor run and Earth battles to lessen card advantage.

21 minutes ago, shineyorkboy said:

Well your army needs more Skill than the opponents army to win the battle, but the attacker's Skill needs to be higher than the Defender's skill + Province strength to break the province. So high Province strength alone is meaningless if your opponent is just doing Air battles to honor run and Earth battles to lessen card advantage.

If your opponent isn't winning their attacking battles, then they're not getting their Ring advantages.

But if there's no opposing army they're winning by default.

4 minutes ago, shineyorkboy said:

But if there's no opposing army they're winning by default.

Why is there no opposing army? Just because that player chose to run a holding? Seriously?

Do we know what the mini sleeves are used for yet? All I know is that there will be 50 or less mini cards (as you only need one pack of sleeves).

Honored/Dishonored mini cards I think?

7 minutes ago, Doji Makoto said:

Honored/Dishonored mini cards I think?

Hmm... I would have though tokens are more practical for that. Don't know though.

The speculated honoured/dishonoured mini cards might be cards rather than tokens because they have reminder text?

Or just because mechanically being dishonoured/honoured is very different from having a token on a card?

20 minutes ago, Gaffa said:

Why is there no opposing army? Just because that player chose to run a holding? Seriously?

I'm just saying that province strength is less relevant than it used to be. It used to be that failing to exceed province strength meant a lost battle, but that's no longer the case.

1 hour ago, slowreflex said:

Do we know what the mini sleeves are used for yet? All I know is that there will be 50 or less mini cards (as you only need one pack of sleeves).

Old L5R used to be quite keen on token cards. Like 1F ashigaru followers, 0F Naga followers, +1/+1 Sword items etc. I was thinking it would be something like that.

If anything deserves to have reminder text it's those darn Rings.

1 hour ago, shineyorkboy said:

I'm just saying that province strength is less relevant than it used to be. It used to be that failing to exceed province strength meant a lost battle, but that's no longer the case.

Why? It looks like it is still the case here. If the opponent is unable to break the province then they still lose.

Losing when you don't have any personalities assumes that presenceless defense is not available. Also I remember the Crab 4 wall decks had only holdings and events, no personalities. Maybe they bring the 4 walls back?

2 minutes ago, muzouka said:

Why? It looks like it is still the case here. If the opponent is unable to break the province then they still lose.

Losing when you don't have any personalities assumes that presenceless defense is not available. Also I remember the Crab 4 wall decks had only holdings and events, no personalities. Maybe they bring the 4 walls back?

I thought the current possible outcomes of a battle are as follow:

a) Attacker is weaker than Defender --> Attacker loses, nothing happens unless etiher side has special effects triggering on a defensive win

B) Attacker is stronger than Defender, but not strong enough to break a Province --> Attacker wins and gets to claim the Ring

C) Attacker is stronger than Defender and strong enough to break a Province --> Attacker wins, gets to claim the Ring, and breaks a Province

Am I incorrect?

3 minutes ago, WHW said:

I thought the current possible outcomes of a battle are as follow:

a) Attacker is weaker than Defender --> Attacker loses, nothing happens unless etiher side has special effects triggering on a defensive win

B) Attacker is stronger than Defender, but not strong enough to break a Province --> Attacker wins and gets to claim the Ring

C) Attacker is stronger than Defender and strong enough to break a Province --> Attacker wins, gets to claim the Ring, and breaks a Province

Am I incorrect?

I think you are slightly incorrect.

A) Attacker is weaker than Defender --> Attacker loses, Defender claims the ring, but not the benefits.

B) Attacker is stronger than Defender, but not strong enough to break a Province --> Attacker wins and gets to claim the Ring and the associated benefits.

C) Attacker is stronger than Defender and strong enough to break a Province --> Attacker wins, gets to claim the Ring and benefits, and breaks a Province.

If the Defender didn't get to claim the Ring when they won, then it would be available at least for Ring-switching shenanigans if not outright selection.

Could the mini-cards be the rings themselves? Haven``t seen a ring card just know they are part of conflict every turn?

6 minutes ago, Isawa Tasatu said:

Could the mini-cards be the rings themselves? Haven``t seen a ring card just know they are part of conflict every turn?

There are 5 large, round, double-sided Ring tokens.

2 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

There are 5 large, round, double-sided Ring tokens.

Aahh...

Just saw this, assume this is what you get in the box....

Yep. There's even more empty space than normal in this LCG box

But seriously that's 2 Dynasty cards, 3 Conflict cards, 2 ring tokens (blue and red round things), the Honour dial of repute (big hexagon), an honour token (small red hexagon with kanji) and a fate token (small round with cherry blossom).

I really hope TC or somebody ends up doing acrylic sakura petals for fate tokens. Seems like a way more evocative symbol for the fleetingness of life IMO.