One Dragon-trained ronin and a bunch of desperate peasants versus someone trained by some of the finest instructors in the Empire, using a well-made weapon they've been drilled with endlessly?

Hotaru certainly did exceptionally well, but this is L5R. Hida Amoro used to slaughter over four hundred Crane samurai by his own hand in the course of a single battle...

Training in the martial arts, I can say an untrained fighter is nothing compared to a formally trained fighter.

1 minute ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

One Dragon-trained ronin and a bunch of desperate peasants versus someone trained by some of the finest instructors in the Empire, using a well-made weapon they've been drilled with endlessly?

Hotaru certainly did exceptionally well, but this is L5R. Hida Amoro used to slaughter over four hundred Crane samurai by his own hand in the course of a single battle...

*Snort.*

Four hundred Crane and one hundred thirty Crab... because to hell with realism!

18 hours ago, williamobrien said:

While this might be true of how the Lion are *supposed* to function within the empire, it's mostly confined to the backstory and not really how the Lion ever *actually* function within the ongoing story. The closest it comes is Tsuko being told to stand down against the Crab, and that had nothing to do with reining the Lion in.

It's literally the Lion's entire back-plot for the First Edition L5R RPG and anything and everything set prior to the fall of the Hantei Dynasty.

18 hours ago, williamobrien said:

L5R rarely has a stable ruler during times of peace where this kind of chain yanking can occur. There's generally always either an empty throne or an outside threat for the Lion to deal with. The only arc that had stable ruler-ship and minimal Lion interaction with an outside threat was Diamond, where the Lion were attacked by the Unicorn and Imperial interference actually benefited the Lion.

The fact that the original L5R CCG story got caught in a creative disaster brought on by making the premise of the game "The Emperor is dead / dying / missing - grab the throne while a once-in-1,000-years crisis hits Rokugan" over, and over, and over again is just a warning about not repeating mistakes, IMO. I'm heartened by the fact that no such premise exists at the start of the LCG.

18 hours ago, williamobrien said:

Maybe we'll see more of it in the new stuff, but it's not really a story you tell multiple times. "Lion kick ***.... then shenanigans" would get just as old as "Upstarts prove themselves against the Lion" did.

Eh, "Samurai chooses between duty and honor and dies so someone else might benefit or the status quo can be restored for just one more day," is a pretty tried-and-true plot of the genre, though.

35 minutes ago, Wintersong said:

The heimins with no real, even less champion level, fighting training?

And yet three of them were able to make a decent showing against Nerishma. I understand they wanted to show her as being better trained and whatnot, but having her at least expend some effort would have made her seem far more real and less a caricature.

7 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

And yet three of them were able to make a decent showing against Nerishma. I understand they wanted to show her as being better trained and whatnot, but having her at least expend some effort would have made her seem far more real and less a caricature.

This presumes a level of quality on Nerishma's part that we don't know.

42 minutes ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Four hundred Crane and one hundred thirty Crab... because to hell with realism!

I want a Dynasty/Samurai Warriors L5R Edition video game now.

Just now, RandomJC said:

This presumes a level of quality on Nerishma's part that we don't know.

We do know that he's a Bushi, so he has training. Everyone's defense of Hotaru was, "she's trained and they're not, so of course she wins easily!" so why wouldn't the same be said for Nerishma? Yes, she may have been better trained or just be better skilled, so I don't mind a bit of disparity, but the level shown is just far, far too much.

They said they want to show the champions' flaws, but so far it just looks like min-maxing. "She's good at fighting, so she has to be absolutely peerless at fighting. She's flawed at leading, so she has to be an absolutely abysmal leader."

Just now, JJ48 said:

We do know that he's a Bushi, so he has training. Everyone's defense of Hotaru was, "she's trained and they're not, so of course she wins easily!" so why wouldn't the same be said for Nerishma? Yes, she may have been better trained or just be better skilled, so I don't mind a bit of disparity, but the level shown is just far, far too much.

They said they want to show the champions' flaws, but so far it just looks like min-maxing. "She's good at fighting, so she has to be absolutely peerless at fighting. She's flawed at leading, so she has to be an absolutely abysmal leader."

So peerless she was wounded in a fight. Come on, now you're just exaggerating. She killed 3 peasants as they were distracted trying to kill Nerishima. That's hardly peerless.

1 minute ago, RandomJC said:

So peerless she was wounded in a fight. Come on, now you're just exaggerating. She killed 3 peasants as they were distracted trying to kill Nerishima. That's hardly peerless.

As I recall, she killed two of the three, then went on to dispatch three more in a matter of seconds. I'm just saying, Nerishma should have done a lot more, or else she should have been backed off just a little.

Plus historically (standard caveats that rokugan is not japan) peasants at one point formed the bulk of the armies. So allowing (caveat caveat) the same structure applies here then the peasants could also have had actual military training beyond the practice gained bumping off convoys. You don't attack an armed convoy unless you think you can win so they had some competence. The alternative is that they were desperate (which could be assumed but since the leader stated they were grabbing the rice for other starving people then they may not personally be desperate)

1 minute ago, JJ48 said:

As I recall, she killed two of the three, then went on to dispatch three more in a matter of seconds. I'm just saying, Nerishma should have done a lot more, or else she should have been backed off just a little.

Why? Why can't the hero of the story look cool in the battle by killing nameless weaklings in a battle?

Also... the story wasn't about Nerishima, it was about Hotaru.

18 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

We do know that he's a Bushi, so he has training. Everyone's defense of Hotaru was, "she's trained and they're not, so of course she wins easily!" so why wouldn't the same be said for Nerishma? Yes, she may have been better trained or just be better skilled, so I don't mind a bit of disparity, but the level shown is just far, far too much.

They said they want to show the champions' flaws, but so far it just looks like min-maxing. "She's good at fighting, so she has to be absolutely peerless at fighting. She's flawed at leading, so she has to be an absolutely abysmal leader."

Well she was trained by Kakita Toshimoko, so that must count for something in regards to her martial skill level.

In fact, we have a pretty good idea of his skill level. He has a Military Skill of 3, but no Military-related abilities. Which is good enough, although equalled by 3 bandits, so they probably have a Military Skill of 1 each.

I'll now guess that Hotaru has about 5.

6 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

Why? Why can't the hero of the story look cool in the battle by killing nameless weaklings in a battle?

Moreover, those three were killed one by one. At no moment, they were three against her at the same time. If killing 5 guys one by one in a battle is so superhuman that it's mary-suish, we can stop having heroes in fantasy stories... I mean, did you ever see a fantasy hero that struggled to kill 5 peons?

2 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

Why? Why can't the hero of the story look cool in the battle by killing nameless weaklings in a battle?

It's not that you can't have her looking cool killing stuff; it's how it's portrayed . When you have someone defeating a foe that another person struggled against (or clearly would have struggled against) you don't just show one as being more capable than the other; you are also giving some indication of how much more capable the one is. I have no problem with her being stronger than Nerishma and the others, but not as much as portrayed.

Also, I just re-checked the Nerishma card, and he's got a military skill of 3. To live up to her portrayal in the fiction, Hotaru's going to need a Military skill of 10 or more.

8 minutes ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Also... the story wasn't about Nerishima, it was about Hotaru.

The fact that the first seven fictions will be about the clan champions rather than about the clans is a completely separate complaint.

Just now, JJ48 said:

Also, I just re-checked the Nerishma card, and he's got a military skill of 3. To live up to her portrayal in the fiction, Hotaru's going to need a Military skill of 10 or more.

You seriously doesn't understand the difference of difficulties between facing 3 ennemies that attack you at the same time and killing 2 ennemies that are facing another guy, then killing 3 one by one?

4 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

It's not that you can't have her looking cool killing stuff; it's how it's portrayed . When you have someone defeating a foe that another person struggled against (or clearly would have struggled against) you don't just show one as being more capable than the other; you are also giving some indication of how much more capable the one is. I have no problem with her being stronger than Nerishma and the others, but not as much as portrayed.

Also, I just re-checked the Nerishma card, and he's got a military skill of 3. To live up to her portrayal in the fiction, Hotaru's going to need a Military skill of 10 or more.

I have no argument against this. you honestly think she was portrayed as well and above the power of everyone else in the fiction, and that's absurd.

1 minute ago, KerenRhys said:

Moreover, those three were killed one by one. At no moment, they were three against her at the same time. If killing 5 guys one by one in a battle is so superhuman that it's mary-suish, we can stop having heroes in fantasy stories... I mean, did you ever see a fantasy hero that struggled to kill 5 peons?

You mean, do we ever see heroes actually exert a tiny bit of effort in fighting grunts? All the time.

1 minute ago, KerenRhys said:

You seriously doesn't understand the difference of difficulties between facing 3 ennemies that attack you at the same time and killing 2 ennemies that are facing another guy, then killing 3 one by one?

In addition to however many must have ganged up on her BEFORE she got to Nerishma (unless the peasants were absolute imbeciles who decided to swarm all the guards except one)?

1 minute ago, JJ48 said:

You mean, do we ever see heroes actually exert a tiny bit of effort in fighting grunts? All the time.

Like being wounded, in the arm.

1 minute ago, RandomJC said:

Like being wounded, in the arm.

Oh, of course. I'm forgetting the "wound" that in no way impaired her ability to fight nor even warranted having it checked before the caravan began moving again. Silly me.

10 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

You mean, do we ever see heroes actually exert a tiny bit of effort in fighting grunts? All the time.

In addition to however many must have ganged up on her BEFORE she got to Nerishma (unless the peasants were absolute imbeciles who decided to swarm all the guards except one)?

Lol, that's false and you know it. At this point, you're just being stubborn. Moreover, you're adding stuff to the story that were not here just to support your point. Nowhere it's said that all the guards were swarmed. On the contrary, it's said that the other guards were driving the ambushers back, so either they weren't as swarmed as Nerishma or Nerishma is the lowest skilled guard of the caravan. Your choice, both go against your arguments.

Dude, much as I despise the Crane... you're gonna begrudge their Clan Champ a victory over some no-name pudknockers in her debut?

You have no argument.