Battle maidens are more about glory than political skill IMO - honor them to boost their political stat significantly? I would think 3 glory on most.

I would also say that Crab might actually have more evenly spread political skill across characters (and lower glory), with the Unicorn's Moto having very little political and the Ide becoming pretty important to deck construction for those stats.

Breakthrough, Shinjo Outrider and the Battle-maiden unique make me think they will be rather balanced; I don't think a full-military Clan would have gotten those cards. I can see some of their cards having a focus on Military, but for their mechanics to work IMO they need to be rather competent at both, otherwise you have no real choices when moving your characters/unbowing them ("Oh look, you have a 4/1 Military skill there and you choose not to defend my attack.. hmm what are you gonna do with it?" :P).

9 hours ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

While you are right in saying our military strength is nigh unmatched, we enjoy competence in the courts due to the finesse and honor of our Battle Maidens.

You left out the Id... Ah, well played.

The main reason I refrained from mentioning my own family was because the Ide possess very little in the way of guile, an important skill in politics for even the more honorable clans.

7 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

The main reason I refrained from mentioning my own family was because the Ide possess very little in the way of guile, an important skill in politics for even the more honorable clans.

And Battle Maidens are known for their twisty really not straightforward approach to things? The Ide make a virtue of their honesty and use it like a shield in court, perplexing their opponents because they've never seen a shield.

Unicorn is likely more balanced than Crane or Lion, but I don't think they'll be as balanced as Dragon is and how balanced I suspect Phoenix to be.

My guess is they'll be right around Crab levels of balanced.

Slanted towards military but not totally deficient at political, like Lion are.

Joe, if they had high glory on some of their characters that would potentially make them a lot more balanced than Crab though. Too early to tell of course, just speculating.

Just now, Eu8L1ch said:

Joe, if they had high glory on some of their characters that would potentially make them a lot more balanced than Crab though. Too early to tell of course, just speculating.

Well, I'm speaking more in terms of the numbers printed in the red and blue sections of the character cards.

Otherwise, I could make a similar argument for them being more imbalanced than the Crab when they're dishonored.

Being honored is something you can work towards, a high glory stat is a proactive feature. It can backfire, but being a clan that attempts to seize the initiative should make it easier for Unicorn to exploit the Ring of Fire: if you win you can make it easier to keep winning by using that.

I feel like, since this is the core set, we will see a far more core idea of the unicorn than any of their families.

I don't expect a Battle Maiden honored military in core, that could be an expansion, and it would be a perfect one to explore in the future. I instead expect to see, just like every clan, a couple of cards at most for each family with their central theme.

So a battle maiden or two, a shinjo, an ide, and the Moto.

I almost could bet that they will be a hyper aggressive military deck that is all about tricking your opponent into over commiting on the defense, pulling out, then taking a loss only to then push heavily into the second attack.

I feel like they could easily be the opposite of phoenix. Phoenix seems to be about having a seemingly massive defense to force the opponent to over commit on the assault, just to blind side them and sweep later conflicts. Unicorn could very well be about forcing the opponent to over commit on the defense, only to watch you pull out while they bow in the defense, opening the door for aggression later that turn while putting them on the back foot. But really we will have to see.

Because you don't assign multiple provinces at once Unicorn's entire concept and advantages seem like one of the most that will change by necessity so its all in the air at this moment.

I would love to see a card that let you pull at least two units out from a military combat from unicorn. It would give them a fun bluff game, because you don't know WHERE that cavalry actually goes.

11 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

I feel like, since this is the core set, we will see a far more core idea of the unicorn than any of their families.

I don't expect a Battle Maiden honored military in core, that could be an expansion, and it would be a perfect one to explore in the future. I instead expect to see, just like every clan, a couple of cards at most for each family with their central theme.

So a battle maiden or two, a shinjo, an ide, and the Moto.

I almost could bet that they will be a hyper aggressive military deck that is all about tricking your opponent into over commiting on the defense, pulling out, then taking a loss only to then push heavily into the second attack.

I feel like they could easily be the opposite of phoenix. Phoenix seems to be about having a seemingly massive defense to force the opponent to over commit on the assault, just to blind side them and sweep later conflicts. Unicorn could very well be about forcing the opponent to over commit on the defense, only to watch you pull out while they bow in the defense, opening the door for aggression later that turn while putting them on the back foot. But really we will have to see.

Because you don't assign multiple provinces at once Unicorn's entire concept and advantages seem like one of the most that will change by necessity so its all in the air at this moment.

I would love to see a card that let you pull at least two units out from a military combat from unicorn. It would give them a fun bluff game, because you don't know WHERE that cavalry actually goes.

This all sounds fairly accurate. I would also like to see some support for scouting tactics, sort of like how Scorpion Ninja functioned in the CCG. With the way provinces work now, it would be a unique design space to explore, and much in keeping with the cavalry theme. Only the foolish race into battle with no knowledge of the terrain.

On 7/21/2017 at 11:54 PM, Eu8L1ch said:

Don't worry, the thread is fine with being resurrected

Scorpion were a bit of an enigma for me when I wrote this, and they still are to an extent. I think your question is more than reasonable.

The basis for the conclusions I've expressed in the OP come mostly from trying to evaluate the "Fate-spending pattern" of the various Clans combined with their use of "Dynasty slots". Scorpion will probably spend a lot of Fate on Conflict cards, meaning they will have less to spend on Dynasty; this in turn means they might want to make good use of Holdings - since they likely wouldn't play all four characters every round anyway. If you take a look at the card number distribution for them, they have at least 3 events with a cost of 2 or higher (2 of which have already been revealed): that is a unique thing, even the Phoenix which will likely go higher on conflict cards has just a single event costing 2.

Now, what's the point of drawing more and more cards when you already have 10 cards in hand that are so expensive that you'll never be able to play all of them? My assumption thus is that Scorpion will not want to draw 5 every round - that might not even be doable, if your opponent is bidding more conservatively.

Another point: due to how dishonor works, you need only a handful of abilties that remove honor for a dishonor strategy to become a real threat. Crab only has 3 cards, but those 3 cards go quite a long way towards the objective. We don't know yet what Scorpion have to deal with dishonor. It's true that the only hint we've had from FFG is that they will dishonor characters, not that they will make the opposing player lose honor directly, but dishonored chars still lose you 1 honor, so it's not like the two are not linked. Will we see Scorpion cards causing honor losses for their opponents? I don't know, but I think we will.

In my opinion, Scorpion will be fine with drawing an average amount of cards initially, building up a hand of cards. Then, unlike some other Clans like Dragon, which tend to burn through them, they will play few but very powerful and expensive events with Fate saved from the Dynasty phase. Being able to play on dishonor will probably depend on the match up, but in general I think Scorpion will try to bring the other player to playing a game with smaller hands. One of their events ('I can Swim') relies on their bid being higher than their opponent's, and we have already seen a card ('Bayushi Manipulator') that deals with that: I think it's a reasonable assumption to make that there will be more cards like 'I can swim', so that at specific times Scorpion will want to be certain they bid higher than their opponents; if true, the best way to achieve this is making it so that your opponent will be inclined to bid less than you. That, in turn, can be achieved only if you bid lower than them, because otherwise they have no reason to bid a low amount (honor exchanges durign the draw phase are the most significant ones). I imagine games with Scorpion will see both clans relatively close to 0 honor, with the relative positions switching multiple times over the course of a game, and with the bids during the Draw phase being very important. The reason why I think the Scorpion will not try to pursue a dishonor win, preferring to cash in a honor advantage for cards, is that they will probably have many effects that rely on you being more dishonorable than your opponent, so that if you can't finish them via dishonor you're better off giving some of that honor back to use nasty tricks instead.

Of course I might be totally wrong, but there's "my vote"!

If I remember correctly in one of the livestreams they said that one clan has a mill sub-theme. That's probably Scorpion, since from the unrevealed ones neither Phoenix nor Unicorn seem appropriate for this. Milling an opponent out results in a five honor loss which can help bring Scorpion close to the dishonor victory.

When the Lion are in play it seems like you always want to bid 1. Doesn't matter who you are against them you don't want to give them that advantage. Its kinda funny as you might see varied bids in a typical game, but not with Lion. Lions biggest weakness because of this isn't even weak POL, but rather card advantage. If you can pull ring of earth on them a few times they'll have to give up honor, or lose those options. They can play from their dynasty decently well with their holding, but that is no guarantee.

I speculate that the Scorpion may be a mirror of this. I suspect the Scorpion will have some cards (like blackmail) that are better if you are less honorable than your opponent. They are also supposed to have strong conflict cards, so they might have a play style utilizing their hand similar to how Lion play from Dynasty. If the Scorpion have powerful abilities that play off of the honor disparity (blackmail) it might create a game where both players bid 5 each time because you don't want the Scorpion to give you their honor (their honor is dirty anyway.) This also creates a milling effect since both players are drawing like crazy... If a game lasts 6 turns and you draw 5 every turn that is 30 cards. Add the 4 you start with and you're almost decked at that...

Anyway - that is my observation and speculation for today.

7 hours ago, shosuko said:

When the Lion are in play it seems like you always want to bid 1. Doesn't matter who you are against them you don't want to give them that advantage. Its kinda funny as you might see varied bids in a typical game, but not with Lion. Lions biggest weakness because of this isn't even weak POL, but rather card advantage. If you can pull ring of earth on them a few times they'll have to give up honor, or lose those options. They can play from their dynasty decently well with their holding, but that is no guarantee.

It's for this exact reason that I say, as a person who lost a game primarily for this reason, if you run into their Art of War province and are not currently breaking it but have the opportunity to break it - restrain yourself. That province probably is not worth the 3 cards you'll give them.

Unless, of course, it is the 3rd province before going after the Stronghold, maybe it'd be worth breaking it just to try and close out the game.

But I had a game where the Lion player was, predictably, going 1 on all their bids. I had card advantage and my opponent had, I think, 2 cards in hand. I ran into the Art of War and I had two choices. I could A. buff up to likely win the conflict and not break the province or B. I could remove their character from the conflict and break the province.

I went with B. And those 3 cards he had made a huge difference in him taking the next 2 provinces from me haha.

8 hours ago, shosuko said:

When the Lion are in play it seems like you always want to bid 1. Doesn't matter who you are against them you don't want to give them that advantage. Its kinda funny as you might see varied bids in a typical game, but not with Lion. Lions biggest weakness because of this isn't even weak POL, but rather card advantage. If you can pull ring of earth on them a few times they'll have to give up honor, or lose those options. They can play from their dynasty decently well with their holding, but that is no guarantee.

I speculate that the Scorpion may be a mirror of this. I suspect the Scorpion will have some cards (like blackmail) that are better if you are less honorable than your opponent. They are also supposed to have strong conflict cards, so they might have a play style utilizing their hand similar to how Lion play from Dynasty. If the Scorpion have powerful abilities that play off of the honor disparity (blackmail) it might create a game where both players bid 5 each time because you don't want the Scorpion to give you honor (their honor is dirty anyway.) This also creates a milling effect since both players are drawing like crazy... If a game lasts 6 turns and you draw 5 every turn that is 30 cards. Add the 4 you start with and you're almost decked at that...

Anyway - that is my observation and speculation for today.

Lion is play honor dial 1 90% of the time, with maybe 2/3 on the occasion when you just don't have the board state to do much, and then screw honor draw 5 when you plan on swarming the stronghold.

Lion, in my play, has very strong on card abilities that make up for a lack of card draw, and of course since it's kind of a swarm you just have bodies everywhere.

I just can't wait for Unicorn to stop playing not my clan to play my clan.

31 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

Lion is play honor dial 1 90% of the time, with maybe 2/3 on the occasion when you just don't have the board state to do much, and then screw honor draw 5 when you plan on swarming the stronghold.

Lion, in my play, has very strong on card abilities that make up for a lack of card draw, and of course since it's kind of a swarm you just have bodies everywhere.

I just can't wait for Unicorn to stop playing not my clan to play my clan.

What character abilities do you see as being "very strong" for Lion? From the play tests I have seen, Kitsu Spirit Caller and Lion's Pride Brawler have the best abilities. Would you categorize any others as being close?

Lion's honour bid, IMO, will directly reflect the aggression/conservatism of their opponent. It's not that they will bid 1 90% of the time. That will only happen if the opponent is conservative in their bidding. However, most of the time, the opponent will likely play off of Lion's need to stay ahead in honour and bid more each turn. 2-3 cards is relatively close in honour, and 5 when they no longer care about the separation. In turn, Lion will start to bid heavy when the opponent draws deeper.

9 minutes ago, Anemura said:

What character abilities do you see as being "very strong" for Lion? From the play tests I have seen, Kitsu Spirit Caller and Lion's Pride Brawler have the best abilities. Would you categorize any others as being close?

Lion's honour bid, IMO, will directly reflect the aggression/conservatism of their opponent. It's not that they will bid 1 90% of the time. That will only happen if the opponent is conservative in their bidding. However, most of the time, the opponent will likely play off of Lion's need to stay ahead in honour and bid more each turn. 2-3 cards is relatively close in honour, and 5 when they no longer care about the separation. In turn, Lion will start to bid heavy when the opponent draws deeper.

I would consider Eiji extremely powerful as well.

But yea, Kitsu Spirit Caller is probably the best character we've seen so far in the entire core set, pound for pound, (maybe a tie between her and the Niten Adept).

Then the brawler, Eiji and the Honored General are all ruthlessly efficient.

And then, they aren't overpowered, but Beiona and the Venerable Historian are very efficient cards, especially when combo'd with Eiji and Spirit Caller (Eiji out Beiona when you have 3 bushi, 5 free fate, Spirit Caller the Historian and honor her for 4 political strength)

11 minutes ago, Anemura said:

What character abilities do you see as being "very strong" for Lion? From the play tests I have seen, Kitsu Spirit Caller and Lion's Pride Brawler have the best abilities. Would you categorize any others as being close?

Lion's honour bid, IMO, will directly reflect the aggression/conservatism of their opponent. It's not that they will bid 1 90% of the time. That will only happen if the opponent is conservative in their bidding. However, most of the time, the opponent will likely play off of Lion's need to stay ahead in honour and bid more each turn. 2-3 cards is relatively close in honour, and 5 when they no longer care about the separation. In turn, Lion will start to bid heavy when the opponent draws deeper.

In my experience with Lion, it's been 90% bid 1.

Honestly, on just about any Lion I like their card ability and always work for me, while of course Lions Pride Brawler and Spirit Caller are clearly the best, Honored General and Matsu Beiona are pretty good for me too. Steadfast Samurai I love. The Ikoma's are nice, even if not the best, but Prodigy gives me an honor boost. Deathseeker is a mixed bag, but I've not used her much to judge.

In my game as lion, I've never been bothered by a small handsize, and found that ability on cards have done what I needed in the game.

2 hours ago, RandomJC said:

Lion is play honor dial 1 90% of the time, with maybe 2/3 on the occasion when you just don't have the board state to do much, and then screw honor draw 5 when you plan on swarming the stronghold.

Lion, in my play, has very strong on card abilities that make up for a lack of card draw, and of course since it's kind of a swarm you just have bodies everywhere.

I just can't wait for Unicorn to stop playing not my clan to play my clan.

I'm super excited for Unicorn. After finally playing the game I realize Way of the Unicorn is actually VERY strong for closing out a game as you can take first conflict when its time to go for the stronghold giving you full resources for that 1 conflict.

1 hour ago, Anemura said:

What character abilities do you see as being "very strong" for Lion? From the play tests I have seen, Kitsu Spirit Caller and Lion's Pride Brawler have the best abilities. Would you categorize any others as being close?

Lion's honour bid, IMO, will directly reflect the aggression/conservatism of their opponent. It's not that they will bid 1 90% of the time. That will only happen if the opponent is conservative in their bidding. However, most of the time, the opponent will likely play off of Lion's need to stay ahead in honour and bid more each turn. 2-3 cards is relatively close in honour, and 5 when they no longer care about the separation. In turn, Lion will start to bid heavy when the opponent draws deeper.

The opponent can only bid so much before they are honored out. When I played Lion I put in Levy because Lion are the ones who, I think, make the most use out of it early game by building that honor advantage right away. If you go aggressively for Ring of Earth to build card advantage, the opponent has to either give you more honor or lose their hand. They can't bid 2-3 per turn and then start bidding 5 considering clans only start with about 10 honor.

I'll need to play them more to say for sure but if the opponent draws deep and the Lion holds steady bidding 1 the Lion may just get an honor win / loss instead.

48 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

In my experience with Lion, it's been 90% bid 1.

Honestly, on just about any Lion I like their card ability and always work for me, while of course Lions Pride Brawler and Spirit Caller are clearly the best, Honored General and Matsu Beiona are pretty good for me too. Steadfast Samurai I love. The Ikoma's are nice, even if not the best, but Prodigy gives me an honor boost. Deathseeker is a mixed bag, but I've not used her much to judge.

In my game as lion, I've never been bothered by a small handsize, and found that ability on cards have done what I needed in the game.

So if we assume an average of 5 turns per game, you bid more than 1 only 1 time in 2 games on average? That seems very conservative. Is your opponent always close in honour? Is your opponent also bidding conservatively?

My comment about Lion character abilities was made more about the thinking that their abilities are good enough to compensate for the card draw disparity between them and their opponent. Other clans have characters with good abilities as well. So this would mean that Lion would have to have better character abilities when compared to those clans, no?

The use of Honoured General has been debated on here. Some think he's unnecessary (I think he's good).

1 hour ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

I would consider Eiji extremely powerful as well.

But yea, Kitsu Spirit Caller is probably the best character we've seen so far in the entire core set, pound for pound, (maybe a tie between her and the Niten Adept).

Then the brawler, Eiji and the Honored General are all ruthlessly efficient.

And then, they aren't overpowered, but Beiona and the Venerable Historian are very efficient cards, especially when combo'd with Eiji and Spirit Caller (Eiji out Beiona when you have 3 bushi, 5 free fate, Spirit Caller the Historian and honor her for 4 political strength)

Eiji is powerful, but I seldom see him played. I don't think many see him as being efficient. No disagreement on LPB.

Honoured General is debatable.

Do you see these Lions as being the best collection of 6-7 personalities a clan can offer? Do they offer a comparative advantage?

8 minutes ago, shosuko said:

The opponent can only bid so much before they are honored out. When I played Lion I put in Levy because Lion are the ones who, I think, make the most use out of it early game by building that honor advantage right away. If you go aggressively for Ring of Earth to build card advantage, the opponent has to either give you more honor or lose their hand. They can't bid 2-3 per turn and then start bidding 5 considering clans only start with about 10 honor.

I'll need to play them more to say for sure but if the opponent draws deep and the Lion holds steady bidding 1 the Lion may just get an honor win / loss instead.

The opponent can bid 2-3 rather consistently if Lion keeps bidding 1. They can also gain honour, so they are not necessarily in danger of losing by dishonour. Main point being, the opponent can gain card advantage simply by Lion playing static. Then it's up to the Lion to pursue the Ring of Earth or rely on their character abilities to see them through.

2 minutes ago, Anemura said:

The opponent can bid 2-3 rather consistently if Lion keeps bidding 1. They can also gain honour, so they are not necessarily in danger of losing by dishonour. Main point being, the opponent can gain card advantage simply by Lion playing static. Then it's up to the Lion to pursue the Ring of Earth or rely on their character abilities to see them through.

Or the Lion could bid 2-3 themselves.

9 minutes ago, Gaffa said:

Or the Lion could bid 2-3 themselves.

Right, but the premise is that Lion bids 1 consistently (first sentence). The reason this is the premise is that other players have said that they bid 1 with Lion quite often, so I'm trying to understand why and how that affects them in their games.

It sounds like the Ring of Earth may be pretty important in games with the Lion. The Lion want it so that they can consistently bid low and threaten either an honor victory for themselves or a dishonor loss for their opponent. The opponent will want it to starve the Lion of cards, forcing them to bid higher and reducing the importance of the honor game.

26 minutes ago, Anemura said:

So if we assume an average of 5 turns per game, you bid more than 1 only 1 time in 2 games on average? That seems very conservative. Is your opponent always close in honour? Is your opponent also bidding conservatively?

My comment about Lion character abilities was made more about the thinking that their abilities are good enough to compensate for the card draw disparity between them and their opponent. Other clans have characters with good abilities as well. So this would mean that Lion would have to have better character abilities when compared to those clans, no?

The use of Honoured General has been debated on here. Some think he's unnecessary (I think he's good).

My opponent is never close in honor, when playing my opponent usually goes for a 3-5 on the first flip, and maybe 3 range from then on to keep from dishonoring out to my one. Times they will drop, but they really need the cards more often than I feel I need the cards, so rarely do I see super conservative bids against me. (Even in the one Lion mirror I played, they kept bidding high)

In my opinion, Lion clan is a good clan to have of just playing off the characters themselves, with some awesome cool tricks in hand. In my play bodies on the field play better than cards in hand. well, most the time. Crane tends to over run me a bit, and is kind of my deck's weakness, but I'm currently trying to tweak to improve my honor game.

Really, I'm playing Lion trying to honor out, with a secondary in military might. Defend just enough that they don't break provinces, I don't mind losing the favor or the ring, 9 times out of 10. I can still swing at a mil conflict, and my biggest misses have only happened when I swing mil, and the conflict type is flipped. I'm working on tuning my deck for more honor gain at the moment.

And I love Honor General, and no one can tell me he isn't good, between honored and everyone gets mil, he's just a great card for Lion.