I never played this game , i see some matches online but they seem hard and complicated to understand.. is there anyone that could help me / teach me to get into game ?
i love the thematic and would like to experience this.

Since I just recently taught some new players...

There are 3 ways to win:

1. Get to 25 honor.
2. Your opponent reaches 0 honor.
3. You demolish your opponent's stronghold.

The starting honor ranges from 9-12. So the most common method of winning is #3.

You do this by breaking provinces. That's these things:

They represent the lands you control during a game. Each player will bring 5 of them with them. 1 goes under your stronghold, the other 4 go between your 2 decks. See that number on the card? That's the target your opponent wants to hit or exceed in order to break it.

How? Each character in the game has 2 skills: Military & Political.

This guy has 4 military and 3 political. So he would be able to break it militarily but will need 1 more to break it politically. You'd be able to get that by either sending additional characters along, or by playing cards to boost his skill...

Once you have broken 3 of those provinces, the path to the enemy's stronghold and your victory will be clear.

You bring 2 decks to the game: Dynasty and Conflict.

THE DYNASTY DECK

Contains 99% of your characters (which we saw in the previous post). Holdings also go into this deck which can strengthen your province as well as provide some utility during a game.

If this holding was on the province in the previous post, you would now need 7 to break it instead of 4.

During the game 4 cards from this deck are dealt onto your own provinces. Then you play the characters from there.

Cards that go into this deck have a white back. You are allowed 40-45 cards in this deck.

THE CONFLICT DECK

Think of this as your combat tricks with which to surprise your opponent. This is the deck you "draw" from and which you have a traditional hand of cards. It can include up to 10 characters to help supplement your armies along with attachments and events (as seen in the previous post) to supplement your skills.

Cards that go into this deck have a red back. You are also allowed 40-45 cards in this deck.

There are 2 big catches to remember in this game.

The first is that there are NOT separate turns for the players. Instead there is one big turn during which we would both participate. The "first player token" is used to denote who gets to act first during each part of the turn. So if I had it, during the turn I would play a card first, then you, then me, then you, etc.

The parts of the turn are:

1. Dynasty (we play our characters)
2. Draw (get cards from your conflict deck)
3. Conflict (actually fight over provinces)
4. Fate & Regroup (clean up steps)

The second big catch is the fate phase I just mentioned. At the end of the turn, characters leave the table (because time waits for no man). However when you first recruit a character, you are allowed to place fate on it from your own pool to ensure they will be around to help you for an additional turn or two. If a character has fate on them, 1 fate token is removed instead of discarding the character. Remember our example from earlier?

He costs me 4 just to get into play, but if I want him to help me out the next turn, I'll have to add some fate to him to keep him around, meaning he could cost me 5 or 6 or 7... etc fate total by the end.

Oh and "tap & untap" in this game is called "bow & ready" respectively.

And that is the bare bones basics of the game. Think you got it from here?

25 honour to win, not 20.

Other than that, fantastic posts.

1 hour ago, Hinomura said:

25 honour to win, not 20.

Other than that, fantastic posts.

Whoops. Edited to fix. Thanks. I have no idea why I can't ever remember that number. I've mixed it up over and over again. lol

Thank you for the explanation in a writing post with no gameplay . u're great dude hope i can see u play sometime

Hah, well I play for fun and flavor instead of trying to break the game so don't expect to see me in any kind of top koteis.

4 hours ago, Simplegarak said:

Whoops. Edited to fix. Thanks. I have no idea why I can't ever remember that number. I've mixed it up over and over again. lol

Because almost nobody wins via honor.

Although, I think that win con is getting closer to becoming relevant. There are some decent honor deck concepts out there.

Just now, Ishi Tonu said:

Because almost nobody wins via honor.

Although, I think that win con is getting closer to becoming relevant. There are some decent honor deck concepts out there.

I actually think they just need to adjust things slightly, raise the starting honor for all clans by 5 and raise the victory threshold to 30 and i think we'd have a better balance versus dishonor decks that make honor victories almost non-existent

38 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

I actually think they just need to adjust things slightly, raise the starting honor for all clans by 5 and raise the victory threshold to 30 and i think we'd have a better balance versus dishonor decks that make honor victories almost non-existent

so how do most people win? breaking all provinces ?

38 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

I actually think they just need to adjust things slightly, raise the starting honor for all clans by 5 and raise the victory threshold to 30 and i think we'd have a better balance versus dishonor decks that make honor victories almost non-existent

Quite possibly. I worry that in an effort to see more diversity in win conditions that honor gets pushed and that is traditionally the least interactive of the three win-cons.

Just now, Avatar111 said:

so how do most people win? breaking all provinces ?

Breaking provinces or dishonor are the most common ways to win

Going to time and winning via tiebreakers is probably more common than an honor victory.

3 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Quite possibly. I worry that in an effort to see more diversity in win conditions that honor gets pushed and that is traditionally the least interactive of the three win-cons.

Breaking provinces or dishonor are the most common ways to win

Going to time and winning via tiebreakers is probably more common than an honor victory.

its why I'd raise the total to win by the same that you raise starting honor from, you don't move the goal post to win from start for honor decks but just make it a little harder for dishonor since the game actually lends itself to the victory condition if you have a little ability to apply pressure.

1 hour ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Quite possibly. I worry that in an effort to see more diversity in win conditions that honor gets pushed and that is traditionally the least interactive of the three win-cons.

I personally would have more fun going through a race for honor -- players trying to keep each other from finishing first over that line, as much as this is "non interactive" -- than facing more dishonor decks. In my totally unprofessional, egoistical experience, dishonor decks are very sad affairs to go against. It's probably a combination of my subpar playing, my local meta and the decks I choose (want) to play, but all those games where my hands are tied because drawing cards becomes too costly, while this sad state is increasingly compounded by the spiralling effect of never getting my own drawing resources as a result, don't offer that many bucketloads of fun... 😅

35 minutes ago, Ascarel said:

I personally would have more fun going through a race for honor -- players trying to keep each other from finishing first over that line, as much as this is "non interactive" -- than facing more dishonor decks. In my totally unprofessional, egoistical experience, dishonor decks are very sad affairs to go against. It's probably a combination of my subpar playing, my local meta and the decks I choose (want) to play, but all those games where my hands are tied because drawing cards becomes too costly, while this sad state is increasingly compounded by the spiralling effect of never getting my own drawing resources as a result, don't offer that many bucketloads of fun... 😅

Basically, if you have no way to gain honor, you lose against dishonor decks, but win against honor decks.

Seems legit.

4 hours ago, Simplegarak said:

Hah, well I play for fun and flavor instead of trying to break the game so don't expect to see me in any kind of top koteis.

np i want to play for fun too

5 hours ago, Ascarel said:

I personally would have more fun going through a race for honor -- players trying to keep each other from finishing first over that line.

I play Honour Lion and I've had this a couple of times. Makes for weird games, as either side begins to explore breaking as an option in case the opponent is honouring faster, turning abilities from self honouring to enemy dishonouring instead, etc.

15 hours ago, Ascarel said:

I personally would have more fun going through a race for honor -- players trying to keep each other from finishing first over that line, as much as this is "non interactive" -- than facing more dishonor decks. In my totally unprofessional, egoistical experience, dishonor decks are very sad affairs to go against. It's probably a combination of my subpar playing, my local meta and the decks I choose (want) to play, but all those games where my hands are tied because drawing cards becomes too costly, while this sad state is increasingly compounded by the spiralling effect of never getting my own drawing resources as a result, don't offer that many bucketloads of fun... 😅

It helps that one of the best sources of honor in the game is the air ring, so as long as honor decks have to fight over that... you'd get some interaction. (with the fire ring being second)

Oh yeah, guess this is a good point to get into this for @gmcc .

So the "FIVE RINGS" in the game title? Those are referencing the 5 elemental rings. (Air, Earth, Fire, Void, Water) In the game these are on the table to be fought over. When you aim to try and break an opponent's province, besides picking the type of skill you'll use (military or political) you'll also pick the ring you're going to fight over as well.

The person who wins the conflict, gets the ring. If the attacker gets the ring, they also get a bonus effect that varies based upon the element. So there's benefits in the game to swinging at an opponent even if you can't break their province in the fight. As referenced in this post, if you attack someone and win the AIR ring, you get to choose whether you want to gain 2 honor or take 1 honor from your opponent.

Once someone has claimed a ring, it can't be fought over again that turn.

At the end of the round, the rings are returned to the table from the player's control to be fought over again the next turn.