You did a great service for L5R and FFG with your article, letting new players know what is Crab are all about!

Any little tidbits on the site to help keep L5R on people's minds!

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/4/10/the-mountain-does-not-fall/

This article was great! I hope there are more of these kind of articles in the future. We know we are going to have gaps in releases and hopefully articles like will soothe the "OMG we have heard anything this game is DEAAAAAAD!!!" mentality.

More good stuff from hatamojoe.

Gets me all excited for some Shadowlands cards so we can get this party started properly. Kind of hard to pick a fight when you only have Goblin Sneak on your side.

I haven't been this excited for more Shadowlands cards since the Tadaka and Amoro reveals.

That article depressed me so bad. I started laughing thinking about whatever attempt at Unicorn puff-pieces somebody might write...

"With your stronghold, you can pretend you don't care about your attack and only send one guy, and then when they commit their military dudes because obviously you're going to actually commit several forces to your military conflict, you can just bow your stronghold and send your other guy in like you meant to all along!"

Edit: Sorry, let me take another stab in-character: "With our swift cavalry and advanced battle strategy, we can cunningly hold forces in reserve, only to surprise our opponents by swooping in at the last moment to reinforce our feeble attacks with obvious reserves, giving our opponent the choice of when and where we can fight our battles.

Also, thanks to our industrious Ide Traders, we can simulate a real economy by expending resources to generate currency, and then turning that currency into more resources, all while never recuperating the cost of hiring the traders in the first place! We turn the battlefield of our opponents into a veritable commercial industry, leaving them hopelessly bewildered by our frequent arrivals (and occasional departures) from the marketplace.

In the Unicorn Clan, it is our way to go first. We firmly believe that by seizing the initiative, we can show our opponents our hand, but it doesn't matter, because our inefficient-but-numerous forces will DEFINITELY show up on their doorstep. With some sort of battle plan. It will be complicated. They will not understand it. It may not work. We might have to send some more forces. But that's ok, we can do that, if we really have to.

Get ready. We are coming."

38 minutes ago, AradonTemplar said:

"With your stronghold, you can pretend you don't care about your attack and only send one guy, and then when they commit their military dudes because obviously you're going to actually commit several forces to your military conflict, you can just bow your stronghold and send your other guy in like you meant to all along!"

OR we can keep our under-stat MIL guy back in reserve to go against you next round POLITICAL! Or defend against your incoming MIL conflict and your superior stats!

So many options!
So tactical!

1 hour ago, caseycheesecake said:

So many options!
So tactical!

Such horse!

I've always enjoyed his articles. These are great news!

8 hours ago, caseycheesecake said:

That article depressed me so bad. I started laughing thinking about whatever attempt at Unicorn puff-pieces somebody might write...

Maybe they'll get a doctrinaire Phoenix player to rant about the dangers of Meishodo for your article...

"SEE WHERE UNHOLY OUTLANDER MAGIC GETS YOU?!"

Thanks for the kind words guys!

It was a little bit of a different article to what I usually do, being somewhat set "in character," but it was a lot of fun and I was still able to get a few jabs in .

I think it's appropriate for FFG's front page to write something more playful and new player approachable. You did a great job.

Off Topic-ish:

I think a Unicorn primer like this is entirely possible, in fact, probably necessary. IMO, one of FFG's smaller mistakes, but still a mistake, was the way they presented the Unicorn Clan as this aggressive military clan that dominates the opposition with superior numbers by using their movement.

Maybe that was what Unicorn played like in playtest, or that's the overall theme and Unicorn will get there at some point, but, they aren't there yet and I feel like the expectations people had for Unicorn at release were not fulfilled.

Personally I think FFG should have gone down the path of Unicorn still being somewhat of an enigma as they use resources, tactics, magic, etc. that is foreign to the rest of Rokugan. They are still searching for alliances that will best utilize their strengths and with no enemies to fight beyond the wall they are struggling with their identity. For me the Unicorn are very much a clan that is defined by the alliances they make. I've splashed every single clan with them and each deck ends up having a different feel to it. Some Unicorn cards are universal across all therr decks and I think those should get some sort of a spotlight, while correcting the narrative on what the Unicorn Clan is, or is striving to be.

We still have seen essentially nothing of Meishodo and only 2 shugenja isn't filling me with any confidence that this particular theme will see any significant progress in the near future. With the cards we are seeing in the Phoenix pack and the next expansion cycle, it appears that FFG is trying to fill out that main theme of "movement and numbers matter." If FFG is going to push that agenda then they will likely have to wait a bit longer to write a Unicorn Clan summary that is honest.

Or they can have you write the article @Ishi Tonu. Maybe it's because I venture little else than these forums for my L5R info/fix, but you're one of the few posters that doesn't just say "unicorn are unplayable, play something else". Though I am aware that unicorn is just your placeholder until Goblin Sneak gets some buddies, going back as far as July I recall your posts actually intrigued me enough to devout even a tenth of my play time testing unicorn for fun.

To be fair, the overall theme for the next cycle is supposed to be elements and the pack descriptions go on and on about shugenja and spells, so it would be very surprising to me if Unicorn doesn't get some sort of boost in that department during the cycle.

Of course, everyone's shugenja support pales in comparison to the Phoenix clan. As it should be.

1 hour ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

To be fair, the overall theme for the next cycle is supposed to be elements and the pack descriptions go on and on about shugenja and spells, so it would be very surprising to me if Unicorn doesn't get some sort of boost in that department during the cycle.

Of course, everyone's shugenja support pales in comparison to the Phoenix clan. As it should be.

I think it's tough to push one of the "minor" clan themes when the "major" clan theme hasn't even reached the point of what was advertised at launch.

I also suspect there will be something in the way of Meishodo for the Unicorn in the next cycle, but, that won't suddenly make that theme playable. It's going to take a clan box for that..............but even that might not be enough when the Unicorn don't even have their "major" theme fully developed.

2 hours ago, HirumaShigure said:

Or they can have you write the article @Ishi Tonu. Maybe it's because I venture little else than these forums for my L5R info/fix, but you're one of the few posters that doesn't just say "unicorn are unplayable, play something else". Though I am aware that unicorn is just your placeholder until Goblin Sneak gets some buddies, going back as far as July I recall your posts actually intrigued me enough to devout even a tenth of my play time testing unicorn for fun.

I'm glad I could help make the Unicorn somewhat interesting for you. I think all the clans are unique and fun to play with. I've enjoyed the heck out of the Unicorn the most. Probably because I like to support the underdog and the Unicorn are rarely favored. And I've I had way more jaw dropping "wtf" moments when playing the Unicorn, than any other clan.

I could try write something about them, but, I can pretty much guarantee you that it won't be as good as what Joe did for the Crab, and in a couple expansion's time, I suspect it will be outdated, as it does appear that FFG has a specific end game in mind for what Unicorn "should be." Also I don't know if the other Unicorn players want an Oni speaking for them. By the time I got around to it, I'll be playing Shadowlands..............Oni fingers crossed............all 30 of them!

It's not like I'm a Unicorn hatamoto or anything. People seem to respond to street cred, and I don't have the time to carve out of my real life schedule to go get that cred for this game. It doesn't mean I'm just babbling nonsense (at least not all the time) or not putting any thought into how I play the Unicorn. I rarely know if I'm really on the pulse of what the Unicorn players think right now. Any time I went to discuss things on the Unicorn site, which now seems to be abandoned, I would just get the forum "know-it-alls" telling me I didn't know what I was talking about because they won their single core event with Unicorn/Dragon, or the only way to play is Unicorn/Lion because the Unicorn Hatamoto played it. Most Unicorn, now, seem to be playing with Crane or Scorpion splashes, doing the "Unicourtier" builds that I was playing when Lion splash was all the craze. I prefer my Unicrab or Unichicken decks.

Unicorn/X Clan decks are an interesting puzzle. I play them all, and I like them all, but, their success is much more about the match ups and luck, than any other clan currently. That doesn't mean Unicorn cannot win, they just have a much harder time doing it than the other clans, as they lack any clear direction or game plan that they can force an opponent to play around. If people are interested in strategy discussion I'm down for that, but, I think a fluff piece on them would be a pretty mixed bag because I don't think the Unicorn can point to any one real theme and call it their own or do something that stands apart from the other clans. Most of the best stuff the Unicorn has gets borrowed, and used better, by other clans. I can't in good faith pick a Unicorn deck and call it the clan's top deck, whereas it's pretty easy to do with most of the other clans. Phoenix being the most difficult because they multiple good options.

Never played Crane with my Unicorn. Always played Crab or Phoenix. I did try scorpion but always for strong military offense, and very few courtier (just for be able to use some cards). I have a very poor strategy: keep on run in and out the conflict, making people hating me. Not a great one, but I like people face when I enter and/or go out a conflict XD.

And to be honest, I like to play Unicorn because they are the underdog. I have never been good to this game (or other cards and strategy games), but I search just for fun times, so for me it is ok. I had my victories, and my loses. I will keep on improve myself.