Cool. I'm in Lake Stevens. I'll have to try and hook up with guys at some point.

11 hours ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

... Successfully defending will be key to winning in L5R, I imagine.

If I may jump in here.

After watching a few early gaming videos, I am sensing what you are stating to be quite true: Defense will be the primary factor of gauging a player's long-term potential in winning or losing the game.

Having played card games on and off for over 10 years now, this LCG is giving me the indication that a player must, must be able to defend his/her Provinces successfully at least once or preferably twice (or more) per game because both Players will likely be able to punch a Province when they are willing to commit enough resources (cards, personalities, attachments, events, etc) when they are 'ready to do so' after they personally gauge their board state and pull the trigger; thus, when a Player commits, they will/should be able to punch a Province and take it down.

(disclaimer - Holdings and Dynasty cards are not fully factored into my tabulations, but with the few that have been shown, I can see my thoughts holding merit)

28 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Cool. I'm in Lake Stevens. I'll have to try and hook up with guys at some point.

Pm me your info. We have two full playsets of everything and the decks are pretty easy to build and pull apart if you want to take time to get some games in.

I used to play down there in Ballard, but the drive sucks and 40k was discontinued by FFG so we disbanded. Found an amazing local place called Around the Table that covers all the fun games and sells beer. Anyone else near Seattle?

Lord Blunt,

Defending may seem important, but I think the deck needs to be built for it. There are so many cards revealed that bow units during combat and offer bonuses on attack that defending currently feels unreliable.

We played another game last night of Lion vs Crane. The attacker always had the advantage. The reason most of the attacks failed was due to the surprise element of the province. The province that allows one unit to be honored and one to be dishonored is so powerful!

There was one successful defense made by Lion. Akodo had 3 military attachment pumps preventing Kakito from blowing up the stronghold. It merely stalled for a turn, though, because Crane still managed a win on the following turn.

Do you think the game will be more rounds - and defense easier - when more cards are revealed? I mean, how many cards out of the entire core set have still not been shown? These are very preliminary decisions about the average length of a game, aren't they? Perhaps this is only true for Crane v. Lion as well?

Still, thanks for posting the videos!

I think defense would be a lot easier if the defender could trigger the ring. The fact that attacking gets you rings effects and closer to your win condition and defending does neither means the game will always favor attacking.

There's also a lot of card effects that only work while attacking, but almost none that work exclusively for defense. Although in all fairness they could just design more defense-only cards to balance it out. Even if they did that though, they would have to be substantially better than the offense ones since you're still not getting ring effects.

But I can see why the game designers would not want the game to be defensive in nature. Our games always last 3-4 turns and still take 30-60 minutes to complete. If the game stretched to 5-6 turns the games may very well take 90 minutes.

Nice new game guys. Dragon looks pretty strong, especially their champion.

Small rules mistake though: when you swap the ring during the conflict with Elemental Fury for example the attacker gains all fate on it(was mentioned on last stream).

very good, i like that video is <1h. If you would just comment more on what you play and actions you take instead of ramble, it would be really really awesome. You are on a good way to become the best gameplay podcast so far. keep it up!