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Saturday, March 15, 2014

Followup on Samurai skirmishing

Thought about this some more over the past week. The current concept is to build a maneuvers deck. Basic moves out of contact will not require a card play or will use any card and ignore the card's details. A typical card will depict the movement of a character, and possibly of an enemy character in response (so you can get the mutual circling for advantage effect or similar. You play one of these cards to enter combat. Part of the movement depicted will be before the clash, part after, so characters will seldom end up toe to toe, instead they will be moving into and out of contact, until immobilized. Each basic card will also have a built in combat modifier.

Attackers that start in contact still play a card to attack.

Some cards will be interrupts that replace a card played if played by the character on the receiving end. Some might only be playable by an more experienced or equally experienced character.

Some cards would enable characters to act together. Some would allow higher experience characters to scare lower ones into a retreat. A few cards will cover special acrobatic moves, like wall running and aerial flips, for use in cinematic games.

The hand size would be increased by having more experienced characters in a buntai (group).

Next I'll need to build a starter deck, and try some run-throughs to work out a reasonable card mix in the deck, handsize details and draw/discard rules. Will also need to work out the interaction when card moves bring figures into contact with terrain obstacles or other characters.

I can see this working towards the feel I want but need to keep it pretty simple to avoid bogging down.

So lets see what a deck might look like:
Wherever a recoil is listed, the wounded loser recoils or the attacker if neither is wounded or stunned. It should be 2-3".

4 cards move straight in, loser recoils straight back 2-3" after attack
4 cards pass to left, attacker recoils forward left, defender recoils directly away from contact to the attacker's right if wounded.
4 cards pass to the right, attacker recoils forward right, defender left if wounded.
4 cards circle left, close to 1", both circle 45 x 1d6 degrees, fight, loser recoils straight back from there
4 cards circle right, ditto but in reverse.
3 cards - wave attack, up to 4 starting with intervals of no more than 2" move in together against an equal or higher experience character they can group attack. They
3 card - group attack - ditto, but up to 3 move in together, will attack from left, right, front, and recoil out at those angles, splitting up
3 cards - pair attack - ditto, but only two together, left front and right front spread by at least 90 degrees if they recoil.
2 cards* - wall run attack, using a wall to left or right, can run up to wall, and up to 3" on it to go around intervening figures or obstacles and remaining move back on the ground. Can fight anywhere from the wall or later, but will recoil away forward like a pass to the left or right.
2 cards* - acrobatic charge - a character in light or no armor and greater than base skill can leap or flip over a linear obstacle and attack from the air, will end by passing over target and recoiling forward.
2 cards - counter rush group - interrupt,  break up a group attack by rushing forward, they recoil without attacking,
2 cards - flank the group, interrupt, defender plays to swing out to meet one end of the group, and only engages that end attacker, with him screening others
2 cards - evade group, interrupt, evade back from a group attack without combat.
1 card - trick group, interrupt, evade back at the last moment, and one group attacker strikes at a friend instead.
2 cards - interrupt -  intercept - a defender within 3" of the attacker's line to the target figure can interpose itself, replacing the intended defender in the combat.

A single attacker that moves in such that multiple defenders come within 1" or 2" if using either Yari have to face the one vs many dicing at the disadvantage.

Starred special moves and interrupts can also be played as basic straight in - straight back attack cards.

I will try mixing this into Ronin, shifting the melee combats to be part of the movement phase like shooting, and adjust from there.

Hand size will be the sum of the Buntai's ranks, critical wounds remove the figure from the rank count, with a refresh to full after stun removal, minus 1 card per stunned or grievously wounded figure, minus 2 if the Buntai is shaken, minus half (round down) of the remaining cards if routed.



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