Marco9603 yeah I mean within the dice tower. Outside of there I think SU&SD are the only real intelligent journalists

I agree. Zee is the only one I can stand watching.

Except for the Shadowlands.

The different borders are highlighted.

Boardgame Fan Girl I haven’t played rokugan. But based on my plays of Ethnos, I think the tactics on Ethnos are more straightforward and less cutthroat.

Ethnos is definitely the lighter of the two and plays more quickly. The rules are also easier for kids to pick up and offers them a reasonable chance of winning against adults. (Yes, I'm speaking from experience.)

Ethnos

Amy Wright heard it’s good at 2 but better with more.

I have played once at 2 and did does not seemed suited to it, but I need to try it out a couple more times.

Cthulwho? I was sceptical of that at first but I think it works well. Players can save 1 token per round by using the bluff token and everyone goes through their token pool (except for 2 tokens) so everyone get to use the same tokens in the end. There are many things you can do with weak army tokens. You can boost your defenses or just launch attacks on provinces no one cares to defend. Weak army tokens are also an excellent way to have your opponent waste his best tokens for basically nothing. The first player card is something I think was designed for 4-5 players in mind. It's too OP in lower player counts. The other cards are great, though and add another tactical element to players with weak tokens. You can use those cards to remove tokens and mess their game. I just wished there were more of them. It's an aspect of the game where I can easily see FFG introducing an expansion into.

Xenon Doro Well yes you can stack your defences, but those 3 x Army 1 tokens still get stuffed by your opponents 1 x Army 5 one. What’s more your opponent is still taking four other actions around the board whilst you have committed 60% of your actions in one action. Add in the fact that one of your two remaining actions could be wiped out by the First Player card and you can have a really bad round. And yes, you do all roughly get the same actions across the game. But the Army 5 you received in turn 1 May get you a zone you needed for a secret goal but it won’t help you hang on to it till the end of the game. Meanwhile your opponent who draws that in the last turn is well set to get that one area he needs for 10 bonus points.

Cthulwho? This feeld like one of the games where 3 or less players will be peettt boring

Save your Shugenja for the last round when your opponents actions are predictable if you're worried about your opponent making a late big play. The odds of someone doing well enough to maintain first turn cards and draw all of their best tokens late seem slim. How are they beating you without their best tokens?

It seems that the design of the game sort of addresses this problem by itself. If you draw all your 1s and 2s on the first round and your opponent gets their 4s and 5s, then that just means there is going to be a future round where your opponent draws their 1s and 2s and you get your 4s and 5s.

King Xerocole The lack of miniature was a big sell for me!

Completely unnecessary and would not really work with minis.

You would turn it into Rising Sun. We already have Rising Sun.

Sekigahara is a good one, but is for 2p only

Shogun (the one from Queen Games that is a retheme of Wallenstein) is an excellent Japanese-themed game with strategic placement and area control. And the cube tower is great fun!

Samurai, rising sun, and onitama

Senji. Hands down the best of the crop.

Very different games

This is what I was thinking too.

Brett Petersen That might be a good thing.

Rising Sun has a big diplomacy aspect. In some sense that is a good chunk of the point of the game. There is no such aspect in this game. The only way this is Rising Sun Lite is in the fact that it is a Dudes on a Map game set in Japan (or a Japanese based world).

not really other than the theme they dont look to be that similar it reminds me of game of thrones a little

Yeah, it’s far more like Games of Throne Lite than Rising Sun lite. With Rising Sun everything is there to see on the board, you know who’s doing what and where and what they are using to do it. This is far more about secret actions and misdirection.

I've never gotten to play the physical game, but that app is amazing. I wonder if Zee has tried it or not. It might change his opinion.

The physical game is a blast too. He just hates the "watch the piece of crap you built because you were rushed for time fall apart" phase which is all the fun. That's like hating Oregon Trail because your family dies of dysentery. We all know the #1 overrated game of all time is Pandemic.

really? FFG rule books seem to be always some of the best writen rules. They can be more complex games but don't think hard to understand

It's very lightweight and all the rules regarding the tokens are printed on the player screens.

Brandon Z - I've never had a chance to dive into a lot of deeper and heavier games, and especially not ones that I was the sole one trying to learn. To this day I have been unable to figure out Forbidden Stars and World of Warcraft The Boardgame, and they are both FFG, so I've had just a small sampling of their products. I'm sure if I had the time to really sit down and study them that I could figure them out. Xenon Doro - That's great to hear. I can't wait to try it. One of my friends loves Game of Thrones and thinks that this looks just like an almost too light version of that, but that's what draws me to it.

Nicholas Hayes hmm i think ffg games are very different from other boardgames / cardgames so its a one of a kind ruleset But investing a bit of time will help u learn it easy

@@mnBroncos1 oh boy they are the worst, especially those games with several rule books