So choosing provinces seems like a potentially very powerful decision for the game, naturally, but apart from wondering if you guys have started to develop personal strategies for them yet, I wonder if there has been a confirmation as to when we choose which Province cards go where? I mean that when we sit down at the table, do we know what the setup will be?

Do we sit down against an opponent with a face down stronghold and a facedown set of provinces and we just go with it, or do we know what the opposing stronghold is first? Because it may seem really rule-lawyery, but I feel like it's relevant if that could be pinned down. If I'm running Entrenched Position and Ancestral Lands and see that I'm going against a Crane stronghold, I'm putting that Ancestral under my stronghold, but without having some information FIRST, that decision might as well be a random roll.

Are they actually supposed to be a random shuffle of five?

And out of curiosity are there any that you guys are favouring specifically for the SH? Cause that to me seems like the most relevant one. It's a tricky decision cause the odds of that Province getting flipped are either 0 or 1, and none of the others are like that. Ideally, that Province is one that you never want them to actually see(cause that means that you box is never under threat), but on the other hand, it's the only Province that, in a sense, they must attack eventually. If that makes sense lol. I know what I mean!

Personally I find myself going between Shameful Display and Night Raid right now because that seems, to me, to guarantee value out of those two. In my games so far people aren't attacking the SH with anything less than a horde and likewise I'm not going to NOT defend my Stronghold cause that's basically a scoop... So those two seem like good SH bets for me because I find that sometimes having Night Raid or Shameful in my provinces leads to those two getting either little or no value. However if I KNOW that I'm going against something that's loaded to either M or P, or that I am especially vulnerable to one, then I'm putting the +5s under my last line.

But yeah, there seems to be some real meat here, tactically speaking. What are your thoughts ladies and gents?

Roll on the release of the proper rule book!

So here's how I understand things:

You begin with the knowledge of what Clan (and/or Stronghold) your opponent is playing. While you can choose which province cards go where, the only real decision to be made (baring extremely deep psychological study: "opponents are more likely to target X province first because of Y reasons" ... yeah, no, lol) is deciding which province card you want underneath your Stronghold's province, since the Stronghold is the only fight you can be sure of.

So you'll want to always have your best province card underneath your stronghold, and what constitutes "best" will probably be heavily dependent on which clan you're facing, as well as what the Province effect is. For instance, if the Province card activates after a defeat, such as The Art of War, it would be pretty silly to place that under your Stronghold. Additionally, a card such as Night Raid will probably be very strong against clans like Lion and rather bland against clans like Dragon, making the choice significant for each game.

So, to kinda tl;dr - Only your Stronghold Province will really matter, since you can't predict which provinces will be attacked in a game, and you will know which clan you face when you choose. This is going to be rather predictable in the beginning, but as expansions come along and the clan options grow, simply knowing which clan you face won't necessarily tell you what their strategy will be, so it will become harder to plan accordingly.

3 hours ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

If I'm running Entrenched Position and Ancestral Lands and see that I'm going against a Crane stronghold, I'm putting that Ancestral under my stronghold, but without having some information FIRST, that decision might as well be a random roll.

Point of order: Entrenched Position and Ancestral Lands are both Earth. You can't play both.

1 hour ago, Yogo Gohei said:

Point of order: Entrenched Position and Ancestral Lands are both Earth. You can't play both.

Unless you had a stronghold that read otherwise, of course. (Though I'm not sure what that would even mean, thematically.)

37 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

Unless you had a stronghold that read otherwise, of course. (Though I'm not sure what that would even mean, thematically.)

I could definitely see, once they get a bunch more province cards into legality, a SH with the trait "you may only use Earth provinces". Or the other elements, but you get the idea. Probably for monks or shugenja or even just hyper focused on what that element represents, to the extremest of extremes. So a Kuni school of jade and rock might be like that. But that won't even be possible for a long while. lol.

Edit: oh, and to keep on topic, I have found Shameful Display to be a wonderful SH prov. It can be used in every attempt, so if you repel the first attack but don't win on a counter attack you can still use it. That is why I favor it over night raid.

34 minutes ago, fyrm said:

Edit: oh, and to keep on topic, I have found Shameful Display to be a wonderful SH prov. It can be used in every attempt, so if you repel the first attack but don't win on a counter attack you can still use it. That is why I favor it over night raid.

I'm of the opposite thinking; Shameful Display has a lasting impact on the game, and can help you avoid ever having to defend your stronghold in the first place. Its ability can swing a conflict by up to 5 or 6, but that's only really likely in a Lion vs Crane matchup, and it's offset by the low province strength. I'd rather have my opponent hit it early and give me momentum for the rest of the game than leave it for the stronghold. I'll take my chances that they might not hit it.

Night Raid was my default choice for the stronghold among the original 4 neutral provinces spoiled, but now that the Earth provinces have been spoiled, they seem like my go to choice, depending on matchup. The water province that switches conflict type might be a good option, too.

2 hours ago, Casanunda said:

I'm of the opposite thinking; Shameful Display has a lasting impact on the game, and can help you avoid ever having to defend your stronghold in the first place. Its ability can swing a conflict by up to 5 or 6, but that's only really likely in a Lion vs Crane matchup, and it's offset by the low province strength. I'd rather have my opponent hit it early and give me momentum for the rest of the game than leave it for the stronghold. I'll take my chances that they might not hit it.

Night Raid was my default choice for the stronghold among the original 4 neutral provinces spoiled, but now that the Earth provinces have been spoiled, they seem like my go to choice, depending on matchup. The water province that switches conflict type might be a good option, too.

I'm generally in this boat. Usually the game is already over by the time someone even declares an attack on a stronghold.

I would assume you both reveal strongholds first, then you can choose your province to go beneath your stronghold. I assume you can pick where the other provinces go, but they might as well be random as its basically rock / paper / scissors for which gets used.

5 hours ago, Casanunda said:

I'm of the opposite thinking; Shameful Display has a lasting impact on the game, and can help you avoid ever having to defend your stronghold in the first place. Its ability can swing a conflict by up to 5 or 6, but that's only really likely in a Lion vs Crane matchup, and it's offset by the low province strength. I'd rather have my opponent hit it early and give me momentum for the rest of the game than leave it for the stronghold. I'll take my chances that they might not hit it.

Night Raid was my default choice for the stronghold among the original 4 neutral provinces spoiled, but now that the Earth provinces have been spoiled, they seem like my go to choice, depending on matchup. The water province that switches conflict type might be a good option, too.

I'd be hesitant to put a province that only activates on reveal under my stronghold. If they scout it, or have a way to swing twice, it could be totally or mostly wasted.

7 hours ago, Kiseki said:

I'd be hesitant to put a province that only activates on reveal under my stronghold. If they scout it, or have a way to swing twice, it could be totally or mostly wasted.

I don't think Night Raid is a great choice for stronghold, it just seemed like the best of the original spoiled provinces. The Earth provinces are better in most matchups, IMO.

11 hours ago, Casanunda said:

I don't think Night Raid is a great choice for stronghold, it just seemed like the best of the original spoiled provinces. The Earth provinces are better in most matchups, IMO.

FWIW I view Night Raid as the worst of the provinces. Only time it's really good is if you run into it in games where you're low bidding.

I forget is the gameplay video made this clear: are we allowed to look at our face down provinces during the game? I've been playing blind to not give away info, but I think going forward a player could make really smart deployment choices if they know what's underneath each province.

3 minutes ago, kiramode said:

FWIW I view Night Raid as the worst of the provinces. Only time it's really good is if you run into it in games where you're low bidding.

I agree, it's the least impactful, hence why I used to SH it. Rivaled only by the Dragon province, which can be devastating in the first few rounds, or completely pointless with a measly 3 Str.

32 minutes ago, kiramode said:

I forget is the gameplay video made this clear: are we allowed to look at our face down provinces during the game? I've been playing blind to not give away info, but I think going forward a player could make really smart deployment choices if they know what's underneath each province.

Deployment choices? You reveal the province before you assign defenders.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

Deployment choices? You reveal the province before you assign defenders.

I think kiramode was talking about leaving something juicy that your opponent would love to get rid of on a province that you want your opponent attack. Leaving a Lion's Pride Brawler face up as bait on a Shameful Display, for example. Pretty sure I'd rather have the LPB in play, though :).

Incidentally, I do believe you can look at your face down province cards at any time. I mean, you can decide where they go, so you should know which is which at any time anyway. You just can't look at what's in those provinces.

On 7/22/2017 at 7:24 AM, Ide Yoshiya said:

Unless you had a stronghold that read otherwise, of course. (Though I'm not sure what that would even mean, thematically.)

Maybe a Dragon Clan Monk Stronghold?

3 hours ago, Casanunda said:

I think kiramode was talking about leaving something juicy that your opponent would love to get rid of on a province that you want your opponent attack. Leaving a Lion's Pride Brawler face up as bait on a Shameful Display, for example. Pretty sure I'd rather have the LPB in play, though :).

Incidentally, I do believe you can look at your face down province cards at any time. I mean, you can decide where they go, so you should know which is which at any time anyway. You just can't look at what's in those provinces.

This is exactly it. A good example is if you have LPB and Totori as deployment options. Let's assume you're going second so LPB isn't an auto play. If Totori is sitting on a Manicured Gardens and LPB is on Shameful Display/Elemental Fury then I think you for sure play Toturi. Or vice versa. When attacking provinces I think most players default to attacking whatever province has the most threatening card if all things are equal. So knowing what provinces you have can be huge.

Another example is what if you have a holding on something you want your opponent to swing into. The last card I want my Staging Grounds on is Shameful Display. But it's typically the correct move to never attack into holdings if you don't have to. So maybe you optionally discard the holding to give your opponent the chance to swing into that province.

Of course at high levels I'd be worried about giving away too much information. There's a certain safety in not knowing what you have.

Ah - good points. I hadn't considered that part.

Why's it a good move not to attack into holdings? They're the only thing that you can attack which is giving your opponent a tangible benefit if not destroyed.

9 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Why's it a good move not to attack into holdings? They're the only thing that you can attack which is giving your opponent a tangible benefit if not destroyed.

Holdover from the CCG, I guess. Discarding a personality by breaking its province reduces your opponent's options. It's less true in the LCG since the card is replaced, but it still makes some sense.

13 minutes ago, Khudzlin said:

Holdover from the CCG, I guess. Discarding a personality by breaking its province reduces your opponent's options. It's less true in the LCG since the card is replaced, but it still makes some sense.

But, unlike the CCG, that personality will be replace with a face-down card. all things being equal, I'd say the least useful thing to attack is a face-down card, since that changes nothing. Some holdings are ones you'd attack, others aren't. Likewise, some characters are ones you'd attack, others aren't. If there's a character that my opponent didn't buy, and is not useful to the current board state, I'd leave it be eg An Obstinate Recruit when you're on higher honour than the Lion.

Night Raid is a fine choice on the SH. It is such a fine choice, our players just know that it is there already, no scouting required. It still hurts to attack into Night Raid even if you know it's coming.

There is a possible strategy of throwing away a conflict by attacking light and triggering Night Raid before the big game. From what we've seen, a major indicator of victory is whether you are attacking the SH as the first player. I don't foresee throwing away that advantage to chump attack a SH very often - even if you get to keep a few more cards. The meta is young, though. (Also, Way of the Unicorn ++.)

As for attacking holdings, the old rule doesn't seem to apply. Cards typically aren't sticking around from turn to turn. Chances are good that provinces were swept or that the big money target was purchased. Holdings, however, stick around and let's look at them.

I would always attack a Staging Grounds, for instance, because it has double value. I would always attack a Funeral Pyre because sacrificing bowed dudes with no fate for cards and possibly also trigger sacrifice abilities is stupid good. You have little control over attacking Crab's Fortification holding, but after I played as Crab a couple games, I think it is nice to have one out, so as an opponent against Crab, I'd like it gone. The Crane/Phoenix holdings that basically draw cards are probably worth destroying under card advantage logic. I'm not sure I'd attack the Dragon holding because it can be played around, but losing fate generally sucks, and playing around it might lead to sub-optimal decisions. The neutral holding that draws you a card probably isn't there anymore. We've yet to see if the Scorpion holding matters that much - probably does looking at the cost of their conflict cards so far.

In conclusion, I think the rule is turned on it's head. Attack those holdings.

7 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Why's it a good move not to attack into holdings? They're the only thing that you can attack which is giving your opponent a tangible benefit if not destroyed.

In general you just don't want to swing and get hosed by not breaking a province by 1.

21 hours ago, kiramode said:

This is exactly it. A good example is if you have LPB and Totori as deployment options. Let's assume you're going second so LPB isn't an auto play. If Totori is sitting on a Manicured Gardens and LPB is on Shameful Display/Elemental Fury then I think you for sure play Toturi. Or vice versa. When attacking provinces I think most players default to attacking whatever province has the most threatening card if all things are equal. So knowing what provinces you have can be huge.

Another example is what if you have a holding on something you want your opponent to swing into. The last card I want my Staging Grounds on is Shameful Display. But it's typically the correct move to never attack into holdings if you don't have to. So maybe you optionally discard the holding to give your opponent the chance to swing into that province.

Of course at high levels I'd be worried about giving away too much information. There's a certain safety in not knowing what you have.

Has it been stated yet, after a province is broken, is the discarding of face-up cards a one-time thing or an every-turn bleeding effect?

12 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Has it been stated yet, after a province is broken, is the discarding of face-up cards a one-time thing or an every-turn bleeding effect?

When you break the province, you have the option of discarding the card on it immediately. Any face-up card on a broken province is discarded at the end of the turn (in whatever that final phase is called).