Hello again everyone. In this thread and post I am going to be keeping as up to date as I can with the spoilers that have been seen for the big box, Children of the Empire. After I've had some time to do some analysis, I'll put that here as well. For the moment we just have the 10 cards.

The original of the spreadsheet I maintain is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GmAPhAh0Efi-bZ_bizsETTAGBnYrS7BkIj_ZqmOtn9M/edit?usp=sharing

My current guess is 9 cards per clan, 5 provinces and 14 neutral. The 6 one-ofs are the provinces: 1 for each element + Toshi Ranbo, but that's wild speculation TR won't fit in the setup now, so it's probably the Emperor, possibly as a holding. I have noted speculation with italics.

There are a number of cycles of cards in this set:

• Composure cards: we have Lion, Phoenix, Scorpion, Unicorn and most of Mantis, meaning we lack Crab, Crane and Dragon. (Might be no Crab?)
• Challenger cards: we have all the Challengers.
• Story events: we have Crab, Phoenix, Lion, Scorpion and Unicorn, meaning we lack Crane and Dragon.
• 4-Cost characters: we have all the 4-costers.

Overall, we lack 1 Province, 9 Dynasty (6 character, 3 holding) and 9 Conflict ( 4 attachment, 5 event) cards. We have almost 80% of the cards.

Toshi rRanbo and alternate roles?

My assumption is that this product will be "evergreen" (not to be rotated out) and so will not have the Scorpion Toshi Ranbo province. I think it will be in the next cycle.

I'm thinking the 6 will be role or strongholds. Non-clan provinces are really nice to have 3 of so you can add them to other decks.

Lion Spoiler in the AMA:

Thank you.

After consideration, I am even more convinced that card 6 will be Toshi Ranbo. If this is to be an evergreen set, then it should have either 7 Strongholds or none. Likewise for roles, I'd expect 5 possibly elemental ones, not 6, unless something really weird is going on. Toshi Ranbo is a big Prize for a clan, so I feel it ought to be in a permanent set, and it wasn't in the Scorpion one.

So, I reckon 5 new neutral provinces, 1/element, and Toshi Ranbo. Then about 5 Dynasty Cards per Clan, about 7 neutral ones, including Akodo Toturi and Hantei XXXVIII, possibly also Daisetsu and Sotorii. Finally about 4 conflict cards per clan and about 6 neutral.

I agree that Toshi Ranbo will be in the set.

Since this set is boasting about having an array neutral characters, I would think there would either be a neutral stronghold or a role card so as to make said neutral characters competitively playable. As things currently stand, any Clan that could much make use of the neutral characters pretty much has an in-clan character with better stats and abilities for the same cost.

Also, all the clans are getting additional strongholds in the clan packs, so I don't know that additional extra strongholds will be necessary here.

Anyway, I don't see why simply because a card of something is printed in this set that it has to be a permanent fixture of the setting. The initial set had Akodo Toturi as Lion Clan Champion and now this set has a neutral aligned version of him.

And the set promises a card of the Emperor-- but I feel like the Scorpion are likely to hold onto Toshi Ranbo longer than the Hantei XXXVIII is likely to continue occupying the throne.

2 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

And the set promises a card of the Emperor-- but I feel like the Scorpion are likely to hold onto Toshi Ranbo longer than the Hantei XXXVIII is likely to continue occupying the throne.

Well, we also have Hida Tomonatsu in the core set, which is evergreen (allegedly), and she was killed off the first fiction she was featured in, so...longevity is hardly a requirement to be a card, it seems.

On 10/13/2018 at 6:41 PM, Tabris2k said:

Lion Spoiler in the AMA:

That's not a hand...

1 hour ago, Hida Jitenno said:

That's not a hand...

Sure he's got two on them in the art work, He's just not using them at the moment

1 hour ago, Hida Jitenno said:

That's not a hand...

No, that’s actually Roshambo .

BTW, has anyone noticed that you (and your opponent) can actually resolve this ability indefinitely, potentially discarding all attachments in the conflict?

3 minutes ago, Tabris2k said:

No, that’s actually Roshambo .

BTW, has anyone noticed that you (and your opponent) can actually resolve this ability indefinitely, potentially discarding all attachments in the conflict?

Oh that was spotted, and confirmed in the AMA when the preview was dropped, as soon as the card came out. Really if your opponent uses the discard themselves effect that is on them but I don't see it getting past the first round of hot potato before one player or the other determines that their attachments are more valuable than an opponents.

The Crane bushi throws scissors, and the Lion bushithrows paper....................

But since they are on the battlefield playing RPS, "all actions are honorable" and the Lion bushi kicks the Crane bushi in the gut before they can resolve the contest.

Lion wins

"A Crane won't tear your arms off for beating them. Lion are known to do that."

"Let the wookie win."

13 minutes ago, AradonTemplar said:

"A Crane won't tear your arms off for beating them. Lion Crab are known to do that."

"Let the wookie win."

Fixed that for you. If anything the Lion will debate the use of Paper as a counter defense to Scissors as with a sufficiently large bundle of paper (the way that Akodo Ken used in 613 when he defeated Daidoji Jan) the Scissors are unable to cut the Paper and so the Paper would still win out over the Scissors. And then while you are trying to figure out if that's true he hits you with the ambush kick, for "As long as one does not surrender he will never be beaten, and the determined mind and sound body is the greatest weapon any Lion can bear." "Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems."

9 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

If anything the Lion will debate the use of Paper as a counter defense to Scissors as with a sufficiently large bundle of paper (the way that Akodo Ken used in 613 when he defeated Daidoji Jan) the Scissors are unable to cut the Paper and so the Paper would still win out over the Scissors.

Or Lion Pride Brawler just grabs the stack of paper and beats their opponent into submission with it.

"I am the student of Kakita Ujirou! His technique shall -- OOF!"

"So am I, Crane-san!" **BOOT TO THE CHEST**

This is bonkers, conditional and mutual Restoration on demand. There's your bid one meta.

I like how Dragon are so dangerous with unknown bombs. Gotta play around Restoration. Gotta play around Feast or Famine. Gotta play around their Monk Shrine. Gotta play around this guy now, if your hand is high.

It's hard to keep your balance against them and avoid their traps, but there's so many options or possibilities they really feel a bit inscrutable.

It's how they retrain their zen and introspective, by making you stress over it.

I like that

A) it removes itself from the game to prevent abuse

B) that shuffles your discard into your deck

? Clan just $^%*ed things up..... thanks a lot. ?

Hey, it could be worse.

It could make it so that the players have to return fate tokens to the fate pool until they have only as much as the player with the fewest, choose provinces to break until they only have as many as the player with the fewest and discard personalities until they only have as many as the player with the fewest like some cards called "Balance".

I like how between resto and this, apparently balance means having 4 cards in hand.

1 hour ago, psychie said:

I like how between resto and this, apparently balance means having 4 cards in hand.

Well, it's what you start at, before any shenanigans.

People kept asking for hand limits... FFG design team wish fulfillment at Wishmaster level, confirmed. No wonder there's a djinn problem.