So this have surprised many Lion players as we didn't expected a new SH so soon.

I confess I'm really disappointed with another swarm based SH, with so many themes to explore like ancestors, honor, tactician, deathseekers, etc...

Against control decks they will probably wait until you give your bonuses to reach the 5+M and then.. boom! kill/bow your character, letting you waste several cards/fate and blanking the SH.

Maybe Im a little pessimist with this card but I will test it to take better impressions.

At least the art is beautiful..

17 minutes ago, L5RBr said:

So this have surprised many Lion players as we didn't expected a new SH so soon.

I confess I'm really disappointed with another swarm based SH, with so many themes to explore like ancestors, honor, tactician, deathseekers, etc...

Against control decks they will probably wait until you give your bonuses to reach the 5+M and then.. boom! kill/bow your character, letting you waste several cards/fate and blanking the SH.

Maybe Im a little pessimist with this card but I will test it to take better impressions.

At least the art is beautiful..

I agree, the art is quite beautiful.

23 minutes ago, L5RBr said:

Against control decks they will probably wait until you give your bonuses to reach the 5+M and then.. boom! kill/bow your character, letting you waste several cards/fate and blanking the SH.

I do not think that will be as much of an issue as it seems. Just to break provinces you already need to be at least 3 over and many clans barely put up a MIL defense against Lion anyway. This may actually make other Clans more willing to put up a defense. Control clans would have bowed your characters anyway to prevent the break. And do consider the mind game potential! You are 3/4 up, the break is in reach, your opponent passes, waiting for you to buff your dudes once more to enable your SH and then reply by hitting them with the bow/sent home/critical debuff and... you just pass. Going home with the break.

26 minutes ago, L5RBr said:

So this have surprised many Lion players as we didn't expected a new SH so soon.

I confess I'm really disappointed with another swarm based SH, with so many themes to explore like ancestors, honor, tactician, deathseekers, etc...

Against control decks they will probably wait until you give your bonuses to reach the 5+M and then.. boom! kill/bow your character, letting you waste several cards/fate and blanking the SH.

Maybe Im a little pessimist with this card but I will test it to take better impressions.

At least the art is beautiful..

Actually this is really more anti-swarm as it favors a few big bodies to solo provinces so that you are keeping enough bodies for later conflicts. Swarm is too reliant on lots of bodies with lower totals which will make it tough to keep enough on the table to support your second military conflict.

In all honesty I don't expect to see a big change in Lion play from this box as with the lower average POL you can waste your poke with that, swing big on Military and still have a second attempt to break with your follow up military using resources you may have been able to scavenge off the first swing. (Keepers, Oathkeepers from your opponents attacks etc.)

The real stars are this will make a strong argument for Lion to actually play Sashimono again as you will need stable bodies.

Yeah, just having the THREAT of being able to make a second military conflict each turn - for three total - is sometimes good enough. I do love the idea that Lion might bring Sashimono out of the binder with this.

7 minutes ago, Saibot said:

I do not think that will be as much of an issue as it seems. Just to break provinces you already need to be at least 3 over and many clans barely put up a MIL defense against Lion anyway. This may actually make other Clans more willing to put up a defense. Control clans would have bowed your characters anyway to prevent the break. And do consider the mind game potential! You are 3/4 up, the break is in reach, your opponent passes, waiting for you to buff your dudes once more to enable your SH and then reply by hitting them with the bow/sent home/critical debuff and... you just pass. Going home with the break.

Yeah the mind game is a good point!

3 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Actually this is really more anti-swarm as it favors a few big bodies to solo provinces so that you are keeping enough bodies for later conflicts. Swarm is too reliant on lots of bodies with lower totals which will make it tough to keep enough on the table to support your second military conflict.

In all honesty I don't expect to see a big change in Lion play from this box as with the lower average POL you can waste your poke with that, swing big on Military and still have a second attempt to break with your follow up military using resources you may have been able to scavenge off the first swing. (Keepers, Oathkeepers from your opponents attacks etc.)

The real stars are this will make a strong argument for Lion to actually play Sashimono again as you will need stable bodies.

Sashimono, curry favor and the new attach lion will receive that ready a char if you have 2 rings.

Could be a cool deck for fun, I cant see this as a tournament winner, seems fragile, but.. Theres a lot of cards to be released in the packs.. maybe we got some good stuff for it.

3 minutes ago, L5RBr said:

Yeah the mind game is a good point!

Sashimono, curry favor and the new attach lion will receive that ready a char if you have 2 rings.

Could be a cool deck for fun, I cant see this as a tournament winner, seems fragile, but.. Theres a lot of cards to be released in the packs.. maybe we got some good stuff for it.

It's going to be a different mind set for a lot of players I think. Dragon shows that tower can work, and this I think will be Lion's answer.

As you mentioned Crane Splash for Curry, Voice and likely Stewards or Duelist Training, Spirit Callers for recyclable sac bait to turn on the box. The deck will likely play Charge instead of Greater Glory and you will want to maximize Dynasty characters for maximum impact. The ability to get bodies out of the fight will be key I think.

I expected a honor focused SH, I'm a bit dissappointed with this one being rush themed again.

I think this and the Unicorn stronghold (if the rumors are true) are important because they make swarm a real threat now. Being capped at two conflicts really keeps swarm decks down. It will be interesting to see how this impacts the metagame.

37 minutes ago, Barbacuo said:

I expected a honor focused SH, I'm a bit dissappointed with this one being rush themed again.

I don't really see the core stronghold as rush themed. I mean sure it's only good on attack and increases in value when you have more characters in a conflict, but, that strategy isn't really viable and the deficiencies of that stronghold are one of the reasons why. It seems like just vanilla lion theme we like to attack and we're better when we have more characters fluff

The new stronghold is clearly doesn't want the lion to hold back. I'm sure there are some people already testing unicorn splash for captive audience to get 3 military conflicts.

Also keep in mind, if you trigger this off first conflict, your opponent has to be ready to defend against either Pol or Mil on your 2nd conflict, since you can declare in any order. you could arguably never actually make three conflicts, and just focus on two Mil conflicts each turn instead. If you're facing a strong Pol deck, you can save your Pol characters for defense.

So do you gain a 3rd conflict? I was under the impression it just let's you declare a military conflict a second time forgoing your political attack.

Just now, Jamadman said:

So do you gain a 3rd conflict? I was under the impression it just let's you declare a military conflict a second time forgoing your political attack.

Yes, the ability allows Lion to have a 3rd attacking conflict that can only be Military
http://www.cardgamedb.com/forums/index.php?/topic/39804-ruling-hisu-mori-toride/

6 minutes ago, Danwarr said:

Yes, the ability allows Lion to have a 3rd attacking conflict that can only be Military
http://www.cardgamedb.com/forums/index.php?/topic/39804-ruling-hisu-mori-toride/

Thanks for that

I think it's interesting. It synergizes well with cards like Akodo Toshiro and it sends the guy summoned by the Kitsu Spiritcaller back to the discard to be used again instead of the bottom of the deck.

The fact that it can give them three conflicts is annoying, but given how low tier Lion currently is it's probably manageable.

19 minutes ago, shineyorkboy said:

I think it's interesting. It synergizes well with cards like Akodo Toshiro and it sends the guy summoned by the Kitsu Spiritcaller back to the discard to be used again instead of the bottom of the deck.

The fact that it can give them three conflicts is annoying, but given how low tier Lion currently is it's probably manageable.

Design team ruling has also confirmed that Waning Hostilities overrides this, so if it looks like Lion's building wide to make use of this, it's a good option to neuter them for a turn or two.

I also realized how similar the name is to the Unicorn village that was overrun. Hisu Mori Toride vs. Hisu Mori Mura. I'm kind of new to the L5R customs, any chance these are the same place and Lion opted to rename it after claiming the village? It was important enough to have a Unicorn commander and small garrison, after all...and for Lion to lay claim to it. I think it would be super cool if that is the case, and it turns out Unicorn gets the rumored stronghold with a similar ability (triggering on more participating characters and saccing a cavalry character) as Hisu Mori Moru, and tie it into the cycle fiction with Shono attempting to reclaim the village from Mitsuko (especially with both Shono and Mitsuko making an appearance in this cycle's cards).

Must be the same place but the "suffix" changed. Mura means "village" , Toshi means "City", Shiro means "castle", Kyuden means "palace" and Toride means "keep, fort".

So the Lion took the place and built a fort, so the place is now known as Hisu Mori Toride (Mori is forest, but for Hisu, I found hysteria as translation...)

2 hours ago, Kaito Kikaze said:

I also realized how similar the name is to the Unicorn village that was overrun. Hisu Mori Toride  vs. Hisu Mori Mura. I'm kind of new to the L5R customs, any chance these are the same place and Lion opted to rename it after claiming the village? It was important enough to have a Unicorn commander and small garrison, after all...and for Lion to lay claim to it. I think it would be super cool if that is the case, and it turns out Unicorn gets the rumored stronghold with a similar ability (triggering on more participating characters and saccing a cavalry character) as Hisu Mori Moru, and tie it into the cycle fiction with Shono attempting to reclaim the village from Mitsuko (especially with both Shono and Mitsuko making an appearance in this cycle's cards).

Probably not. Maps and place names are regulated by the Imperial Cartographers and it can take them a loooong time to recognize changes. For example, Friendly Traveler Village is still called a village despite it having grown to the size of a city centuries ago.

15 minutes ago, Nitenman said:

Must be the same place but the "suffix" changed. Mura means "village" , Toshi means "City", Shiro means "castle", Kyuden means "palace" and Toride means "keep, fort".

So the Lion took the place and built a fort, so the place is now known as Hisu Mori Toride (Mori is forest, but for Hisu, I found hysteria as translation...)

Google translate gives Hisu as 'his', Mori as 'forest', and toride as 'with birds'. Although it gives the whole thing as 'tickled string'.

So take fortress, and google it back from English to Japanese, you'll see.

In old lore, the monkey fortress was called Toku Torid-e, the vigilant keep of the Monkey.

L5R was never known for Japanese grammatical accuracy and you need often to translate word by word, so who knows what they mean by Hisu.

Tori means bird indeed, so maybe google translate just picked up that part and got confused.

Hisu Mori gives me "chilling"...

Fortress of chilling sounds weird for an offensive deck ?