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Senjutsu: Battle For Japan (Kickstarter – All-In Gameplay Pledge)
15m - 20m
1 - 4 Players
Ages 14+
Deduction
Hand management games are games with cards in them that reward players for playing the cards in certain sequences or groups. The optimal sequence/grouping may vary, depending on board position, cards held and cards played by opponents. Managing your hand means gaining the most value out of available cards under given circumstances. Cards often have multiple uses in the game, further obfuscating an "optimal" sequence.
Hand Management
The simultaneous action selection mechanic lets players secretly choose their actions. After they are revealed, the actions resolve following the rule-set of the game.
Simultaneous Action Selection
Deduction
170.00
€
30 day low:
Out of stock
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Kickstarter – Gamefound
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Dragonnox
Big Box All-In, Includes: + Ghost in the Night + Legends + The Gathering Storm + The Shadow Under the Steel + The Wolf at the Door + When Two Worlds Collide + Winds of Change
Josepheus
KS 1st Edition (All-In Deluxe "Große Box") inkl. Ink Drop Miniatures, [thing=381141]"The Winds Of Change: Solo Narrative Campaign #2"[/thing], Quad-fold XL 'Daimyo's Castle' Board & Premium Sleeves; inkl. Senjutsu Campaign Rose Metal Coin & Signed Art Print
happyjosiah
There is a vast world of tactical minis games in which players battle on an arena-like board. Senjutsu: Battle for Japan enters this space bringing along a single-player campaign mode as a primary selling point. Personally, I almost never play solo games, and I haven't even tried the solo mode here. So there is a sense in which I can't give an accurate rating of the full experience. All I can talk about is the two-player duel mode. Each player will have a unique deck of cards representing a ronin, student, master, or other various samurai tropes. Each player will draw a hand of cards from their personal deck and then select one card to play face down. Players do this simultaneously, trying to bluff and predict the choice their opponent will make. It can be very satisfying to pull off a perfect block right in the spot where your opponent attacked. Just as important as whether to attack or block is the speed at which your action occurs. Each card has an initiative value, and it can be quite powerful to act before your opponent does. Certain cards can even replace the card you've played once you see what your opponent intends to do. Very powerful cards may even cause you to discard additional cards from hand, leaving you with fewer options. Once you succeed in hitting your opponent five times, you win the game. This only takes about 20 minutes. But there is a decent amount of additional complexity notwithstanding this brief arc. There are various stances you can be in that will influence certain actions. There are attacks that give negative statuses to your opponent, limiting their initiative or reducing their hand size. And there is a resource called focus, which is required for more powerful cards, but may as ask you to spend whole turns simply gaining more of it in preparation. These various angles to consider make Senjutsu a more complex dueling battle game than something like Unmatched. And yet Senjutsu is also more restrained in its construction. For example, nearly every ability can simply be described in symbols, which means surprise and wonderment take the form of "you stepped left when I thought you might step right" instead of the "I'm sorry, that card lets you do WHAT?" that other games offer. This also means that the characters don't play tremendously differently from one another. Players will spend their twenty minutes feeling austere emotions and proffering expressions of "good show ol' chap" rather than jumping out of their chairs with exclamations of "you'll pay for that you dirty rat". There is a place for both of these kinds of games as I see it, but you can probably deduce which style is my preference.