L5R / Legend of the Five Rings General

My faves are Unicorn and Scorpion. If they were unavailable, I'd probably go Lion.

Naw nigga some sperg was bitching about no subject line last thread and I wanted to spite him.

Anyway as to what the Mantis are about it depends on where you are in the timeline. Currently they are what their detractors claim them to be, mercenaries, sometimes pirates and worst of all (((merchants))). But in old5r they grew and changed after they became a great clan leaving behind their ways of piracy and basically becoming the Navy. Later about when I started playing theme shifted towards Being favored by the Thunder Dragon who is the patron Heroes. Other themes that seemed to be constant with the Mantis is Courage is their highest virtue and Nietzschean sense of mortal ascendancy.

Would someone be up to teach via lackeyccg (assuming there's a plugin made) a person who has never played the game?

Spirit caller+brawler and the cheap guys. You can run the clan champ but don't actually buy him just charge or spirit call him in. Also for greater glory is your strongest card early and dead late but you still want to aggressively draw for it early game.
As far as provinces go:
>art of war
>ancestral lands
>shamefur display
>night raid
>fertile fields

They never stopped being pirates, they just stopped being blatant about it. Privateers are pirates from the other end.

No really by celestial edition they stopped. Why would they raid their own commerce or the commerce of the people they are taxing?

For the same reasons they did before. The Mantis have been the strongest navy the entire time. Them being a great clan had little impact on their navy.

Don't mistake card mechanics for lore. The Mantis definitely toned down the piracy (several prominent pirates ended up ronin because they refused to be subtle), but they never stopped being opportunistic.

Provide citations of post Celestial edition piracy pls.

And before you pretend to be retarded, I mean opportunistically piratical.

"Celestial" is not a lore era.

l5r.wikia.com/wiki/Yoritomo_Ietsuna
Mantis pirate in the Iweko era.

Yes it is. Its the Destroyer war.

Whelp you got me. You found A pirate.

You asked for A pirate. Go fuck yourself with those goalposts.

I actually asked for citations of the act of piracy. A keyword on one guy is a pretty shitty standard of evidence.

the absolute state of mantis fags

l5r.wikia.com/wiki/Yoritomo_Minoro
Here, have another, from literally 30 years after the destroyer war.

See This guy was coming home from a pirate raid and caught some Spiders. Because his captain was a pirate. And they were doing pirate stuff.

Night Raid over Tao?

To the Crane player:

Crane vs Lion is a difficult matchup. In that matchup you need to mulligan away all your expensive dude in your Dynasty decks and find either Kakita Kaezin, Doji Challenger or Brash Samurai's, if not found then a Savvy Politician is good to still have if you can Way of the Crane it. I was splashing Phoenix in my Crane deck for Display of Power because I know I can't stop a huge wide Lion attack so I will concede the province but still claim the ring effect and this might be enough for me to get the Imperial Favour for the next round. Ideally you threaten M breaks with your cheap military dudes to Banzai in, if they end up playing in dudes with Charge! to defend that's good for you as you need to be ahead on cards more and to let them burn out their hand. Admit Defeat ensures that they can't send in solitary defenders which means you can tie up 2 dudes for 1 in most cases.

>Night Raid

Tao. You need economy help and Tao helps.

>Fertile Fields

Again, no. Garden is better.

Certain decks profit from Night Raid more, especially Crab I find.

>Again, no. Garden is better.

Lion can be super Fate efficient thanks to Charge!, FGG and all their recursion. A Lion who also wants to pressure Honor can be better off with Fertile Fields.

Pirate and Magistrate is a hell of a combo.

Won my first game as Lion in a mirror match. Opponent made a lot of questionable decisions though. Was wondering how you feel about Hito District.

Limit 1 per deck cards are unreliable enough that you want them to have a really powerful effect. Since you can't control where this flops down, it might flop on an already broken province. And even if you get it on an unbroken province your opponent can just ignore it. Sure, it can force them onto the worse of two provinces, but it's just as likely to force them to attack the one they where going to attack anyway.

You might be able to do something with rebuild or that cares about the imperial trait, but by itself I don't see it as particularly competitive.

Question for anyone who might know. In the 4e RPG I came across the Ikoma Lion's Shadow school in Emerald Empire. Was curious if the school is any good mechanically. It seems really neat, but I couldn't really find many opinions on it except a few archived threads from years ago saying it was strong but not exactly why. Anyone know off hand if it is a good school and if so why?

>Mfw reading up on oni summoning for a villain in my game

Someone explain a couple things to me, cause this kinda seems like a raw deal. Giving your own name seems to be a last resort, which makes sense, because if they overtake you they can steal your name and make you their slave. But what if you use someone else's name and then the oni succeeds in stealing that person's name? The person who named it loses control over them, does the oni then proceed to murder the namer? Or do they not care so long as the namer didn't do anything to piss them off while they were under the namer' control? The implication I'm getting is that oni becoming free means the summoner is either dead, enslaved, or going to be dead, is that not necessarily the case? If it is, what's even the advantage to using someone else's name if it doesn't shift the heat onto somebody else?

Lion Bros, for the first time I played something other than Lion, Crane, and I liked it more than Lion, how should I seppuku?

Basically? All it's techs work in battle and in court. They're an amazingly adaptable school capable of tossing big numbers at lots of things, while maintaining plenty of tricks.

It IS a raw deal. Oni lie about it and rely on the summoner's hubris to get their hooks into them. Remember characters don't get to read the RPG books so make deals with monsters not fully understanding the implications of what they are doing or think they are better than others who have done the same.

This plus it has an aspect of having your cake and eating it too, with the ability to use Low skills with relative impunity.

Bow your Stronghold to search your Dynasty deck for a Gifts and Favors that you know isn't in there.

Haha, I actually saw that happen in a tournament. A guy did it first turn as usual and then forgot and did it again third turn.

I see. That makes total sense. I'm definitely going to be considering that school then as I prep a character. Appreciate the reply!

Can anyone give some snippets of conventional wisdom on creating a char in L5R 4e? Want to play a bushi.

>think they are better than others who have done the same
So this is every time an Isawa does it right?

Get agility 3 a3k chargen. Earth 3 and Reflexes 3 are both important-- you can survive without one of them for a little while, but at the very least buy one of them, preferably both. If you have free points and no other plan, Strength of the Earth is a good cheap advantage.

For Bushi

Start with Agility 3 and either Reflexes 3 or Earth 3 (depending on how your family/school stats you). Start with a 3 in your primary weapon skill. Odd numbered skill ranks are where you need to aim (they get you mastery bonuses). Load up on advantages as you might not be allowed to purchase them after creation. Avoid advantages that give you stuff you can easily earn in play, for example Virtuous as you can gain honor by acting honorably. A level of Luck is always a good investment, I rarely make a character without at least a level of it. I always take an artistic skill to give my character a hobby, but it is something that can wait till you get some exp.

The one time I heard of it was a Lion player doing it immediately after saying NO I WILL NOT CONCEDE. It was beautifully in character.

1. Be related to a leader
2. Have cute sister
3. Parents get killed
4. Go into hiding
5. Change name
6. Get mask
7. Get Underaged Girls to hang out with
8. ????
9. She could have been like a mother to me!

I'll get back at you when I'll have a colony to drop

You need to betray and murder your daimyo and his entire family in there somewhere. In between hanging out with different underage girls I guess.

Agility and Reflexes. What school?

I have never lost a game to Tao but I have lost games to night raid.

Tao tends to be more consistant than Night Raid. I'm playing Night Raid at the moment, but it really depends on the deck.

Your opponent may or may not have fate on his guys but he will have guys attack you and have cards in his hand.

Hey Veeky Forums, I'm working on a unicorn-splashing-crane deck, the idea being that I'm going for a balanced approach--not so much zerg rushing with moto, but being able to take with military and politics as well as defend, since we're Keepers right now. Here's the two list variants, what do you guys think of them?

fiveringsdb.com/strains/2d7b0648-c97a-11e7-9e9b-8e1ccf16fca4/view

fiveringsdb.com/strains/3f76e120-c936-11e7-9e9b-8e1ccf16fca4/view

Actually, I've had guys attack me before with no cards in hand. You can get blow-out turns with Night Raid, but normally you'll only hit for 1 or 2 cards of your opponents choice. With meditations you get to choose the target and, if it survives, you can use the ability if they attack into in on future turns.

I prefer the second. Is favorable ground doing much for you? I'd also be tempted to reduct the number of assassinates, but I'm probably in a minority there.

It's saved me a few times in playtesting; and it adds another layer of mindgames to the whole thing. Also helps with the non-cavalry characters I have if I can't afford to put saddles on them.

Not sure you really have enough honor abilities with Shameful and Court Games to fuel Voice of Honor.

That was something a friend of mine brought up; Voice is honestly there for matchups against people who don't care about having honored characters. Crab, scorpion and hte like; it's a dead card against say lion or crane, admittedly, but I'm coming from Old5r where sometimes you just had to do that. If you took it out, what would you replace it with?

Potentially Steward of Law if you want to find something to cut for For Shame. A third Political Rival or Admit Defeat would be nice.

A third copy of admit defeat and two copies of Stuart Law?

> Is favorable ground doing much for you?

Not him, but as a Dragon I can say that Favorable Ground is 6/5.

Baiting overcommits to weaken the defence before a big voltron attack, Duel-killing attackers with Raitsugu and pulling out. Bowing attackers with Niten Adept and pulling out.

It is simply amazing.

Also I flat out wouldn't run Perfect Gift.

Not really played Favorable Ground (or Unicorn) but it seems more playable in Dragon precisely because you can bait one attack and then switch into the other. Whereas Unicorn seem like they'd need to rely on Captive Audience to really make that play work.

For most unicorn decks, yes, but 9as the guy who posted the ones above) I'm specifically trying to make balanced horses, so I can swing in with political or military battle and still make it work.

I think in Unicorn especially what FG does well for you is letting you put someone in so they have to use a lot of resources to win/break and then pull the character out after they've done that and be able to use that character on the offense in the next conflict.

...

It's every time anyone does it. An Oni probably won't kill it's summoner even after it's free, but it will change the dynamic between them in the Oni's favor. Remember, it wants to be here and its agenda is to cause misery and spread taint as long as possible. That means being smart and sneaky, and having minions is a good way to do it.
Maho and the taint in general are good at tempting people. It's all so easy, and can solve so many problems. They don't tell you that it irreparably taints your soul every time you draw upon it.

I just wanted to call the Isawa arrogant.

Ikoma Eiji is a trash card and lion players need to stop running him.

Qr66661

Qr66665

Qr66664

That's nice

go on

Hey guys. I scored the Battle of Beiden Pass at a Half Price Books. Looks like it's missing a small handful of cards. I was able to find listings for most of them on eBay, but is there a better source for old singles? Yeah, I know, proxies, but a few dollars for not-so-jank cards would be cool.

Still working on that villain for my campaign, came back to ask. Is Daigotsu bushi any good? Not asking for opinions on the Spider, just the school in terms of mechanics. How effective is the first rank, can it be swapped out with something else without losing much? What else should I give him to make him a formidable threat, in terms of advantages and such?

oooo nice. Took me awhile but pastebin is a good place to drop the full playtest files.

How do you guys feel about bidding? Especially on the first turn.

He doesn't seem that bad as long as you don't pay full price for him.

Spoonfeed me!

If you want a real threat, make him a Maho-Bujin. Raises are limited to Taint if it's higher than Void, extra rolled damage equal to taint, SAA with no stipulations, initiative increase every round equal to taint, Invulnerability power, heals every time it takes someone down. Maho-bujin are no joke.

What do with these?

Can't, said villain isn't actually Lost. He has taint, but he's not at Taint Rank 5, and I can't make him that Tainted for what I plan to do with him.

Can we use this!? Can you just post pics!? I'm thirsty daddy

Depends on a lot of things. Did my opponent mull more than 1 card? +1 to my bid. Am I missing a card I need/want +1 to my bid. Am I going 1st? +1 to my bid. Do I have a library on my provinces? -1 to my bid. Is my opponent scorpion or dragon +1 to my bid

>What else should I give him to make him a formidable threat, in terms of advantages and such?
NPC support, so he isn't the big solo threat.

Any time there's a big solo threat, a good enough dice roll can take them out of the running. That's not even mentioning grappling, etc.

So if your opponent mull'd one card or less, you're not missing a card, going second, opponent is non-scorpion or dragon and you have no library, what do you bid?

As a phoenix, 2 unless something crazy like way of the crab happened and I only have 1 character in play. Then i would do 4

Do you take things like a Lion opponent playing Obstinate or Steadfast into account, or is the potential card advantage worth ignoring the potential free board presence?

O yes With Lion I take that into account and -1 more often than not especially because in timed games their 12 honor is significant

You still continue?
Nothing better to do?

I'll have to try out your rubric or a similar one, I like the idea of having an actual mental checklist of reasons to bid at a particular level rather than just going with my gut or the frequent 5 first turn 1 after that I see from other Phoenix players.

Yea, I get having the 5,1 rule lets you jump into the other decisions you need to make more quickly but once you're 4 or 5 dozen games in, a more nuanced bid choice can give you the slight edge you need.

In any case I like both over the "never bid more than 1" idea that emerged early on in the game. Do you use the same rubric after the first round? (presumably taking honor and cards in hand into account)

I tend to open with a bid of 4. Cards are good, obviously, but I don't like to start the game with my opponent having twice as much honour as me.

5
If your opponent tries to be cheeky and bid one, you can easily grind him out on conflicts with your larger hand, hitting Air and Fire to mitigate the honor loss.
Will this change when people can Contingency Plan into Way of the Chrysanthemum? Probably not, but you never know. Lion can conceivably win T1 before conflict phase, but that's telegraphed as all Hell.

Yep pretty much!

The Unicorn can too. 3xYurt (either through draws or Rebuilds), Contingency Plan, and Way of the Chrysanthemum.