The Sword and Bow

L5R.. A great Game! And a worthy expenditure of my Christmas free time! No seriously, I am sick and stuck isolating myself :P Anyways… This article is the second in a series that I am writing to tackle topics for new players. This topic is preparing your deck for the military game.

Military wins are by far the most common and most straight forward way to win. Blow up your opponents’ provinces and BINGO! However, new player might find this route to actually be quite a challenge. It is a high risk route since the victor takes all in battle. So let’s start with the basics that you need to focus on.

FORCE

The #1 factor in the military game is force. I don’t care what kind of fancy tricks you have, if you can’t produce enough force you can’t take provinces. So that is the first thing to look at when building your deck for the military win. Do my personalities have enough force? 4 force is great while having 5 or more is a fantastic advantage that only a few cards give. You will find more personalities for the military game will fall within the 3 force range, however. If you can’t justify a 2 force or lower personality in the deck, do not put them in.

Another factor to think about is attachments. Weapons and followers add very powerful bonuses and more force to your army. They provide protection from kill cards and certain strategies. Never forget them as you will want a few of both in your deck.

The third factor to consider in boosting your effectiveness is your force boosting strategies. There are plenty of cards that add to your force, helping give you an edge in the battle. And do not forget the strategies that help negate penalties your opponent has given your personalities.

Now that I mention penalties, that is the next part of the military game. NERF THE CRAP OUTA YOUR OPPONANT! MAKE THEM CRY LIKE THE LITTLE SISSIES THEY HAVE ON THE BATTLEFIELD!... sorry.. I got a little carried away…. Sometimes cards will be able to give penalties to your opponents’ cards which make your own force more effective. It doesn’t matter if you play defensively or aggressively, force penalties are very useful. Scorpion Yojimbos are notorious for their force penalty abilities.

Don’t forget to show up! If your personalities are sent home or otherwise removed from the battle, their force goes with them :P

A VERY important factor to consider in force is if a card is bowed. Once you bow the card, it no longer contributes force to the army. Many abilities require you to bow to use them, including ranged attacks and similar abilities. Consider then if your loss of force is worth the damage or ability you are trying to use. Also many strategies can bow cards, which is always something to anticipate. One thing to consider is your ability to straighten cards. It is very likely your opponent will bow cards of yours or you might do so in by choice. Being able to straighten a bowed card is HUGE and can drastically change the outcome of the battle. If your personality or follower is bowed, he can’t use his abilities and is not helping you win. The same goes if you can bow your opponents’ cards. This fact makes the Scorpion Bayushi Toshimo so dangerous (look him up. If you see him in battle, get rid of him quick.)

The last thing to consider is ways to hit the province strength directly. There are a few cards that allow you to weaken the province, which of course makes your military that much better at destroying it.

ACTIONS

Now that we have hit on force so much, it is time to look at another aspect of building a military deck. Battle Actions. Do you have enough? There are never too many, but definitely too few. You want to have battle strategies on both personalities/attachments and on strategies in your hand. Why? You want to be able to counter your opponent as much as you can. The more actions you have, the more options available. If you have more available than your opponent, you have a distinct advantage. In a later article I will cover basic ‘staple’ category cards. They will not be necessarily specifically named cards, but rather certain types of effects you want included in your deck.

THE TABLE

Now building the deck is good and fun, but what about playing it? Many overlook the difficulty of the military game at first. It is high risk due to the fact that if you lose, you lose everything involved and possibly give a massive swing of honor to your opponent. There is the game of the East and West Gate. Player 1 take a province, goes home bowed. Next turn he loses a province, and then takes one, and so on. This is the military vs military match-up and it is inevitable. It is a game of momentum. If you can take that first province, you have the pressure and the production advantage. If you lost one first, you are behind and need to both defend and take a province to level the playing field or you need to take more than one province in one attack. Unicorn have the tendency to take a province or two early by using cavalry shenanigans, so watch those shifty ponies. O.o

The basic military deck archetypes are as followed:

Rush or “blitz” deck – This deck focusses on getting out fast and cheap personalities to bum rush the opponent. I have also seen this strategy with followers and kensei to get large boosts of force early. They are generally hard to defend against early game but lose their advantage late game. They have the advantage of putting opponents off balance and they disrupt the production capabilities of their opponents. Generally quick games.

Midgame deck – This is about building a strong military and attacking when you believe you can leverage your power against your opponents.’ It is the most common to see because it is reliable. It really doesn’t ever lose strength and has the most dependable start. It is weak early against the rush decks and if you face a heavy control deck (i.e. dishonor or honor runner) then you will face some issues and challenges. Be careful here, If you lose a large part of your force then the game is likely over right there as you will likely not have the time to rebuild your army.

Big Units – This is the highest of risk of the military styles, but has immense rewards. The “Pony Train” deck uses this strategy. It is about creating one or two uber units through followers and weapons. It is highly attachment based and conversely, expensive with the amount of gold you are dumping into them (you will cycle through your deck less if you do not produce or discard out of your provinces). This style has huge swings in game momentum. They can easily take out a couple provinces without much ability for the opponent to retaliate. However, should they lose that uber-unit, they lost MASSIVE force and momentum. It is heavily reliant upon getting a good economy set up and drawing attachments. That said, attachment kill neuters this deck.

“Breeder” deck – Although not quite as prevalent anymore (though still here), this deck just keeps pumping out small personalities. This deck never will be ‘weak’ during the game. It is hard to destroy the armies since they boast so many personalities and control decks have a hard time keeping up with their numbers. It is versatile and can function as a blitz and midgame deck. This deck does need to rely on fate cards in battle as generally these little weenies have few to no abilities of use on them.

While a lot of this seems highly detailed, most of the information is learned through playing the military game. You will need to be bold, risk your armies, find victory, and suffer defeat to get the hang of all the complexities of the decks. Given enough time and practice, you will be a feared battle tactician whose enemies will cower at your sight. I hope you find success in your military campaigns!

Merry Christmas!