Playing RONIN! We love it...

I hadn't really thought much about RONIN. 

It's a game I've been aware of, but unsure about the gameplay. To be honest,  I do own 'EN GARDE' and had a little tinker with it a few years ago, but found it a little too 'finicky' to learn solo, and put it on the back burner. I'd honestly forgotten I had those rules until C_ invited me to play RONIN, the Samurai version of En Garde.

I'd seen various photos of RONIN and read a lot of positives about it, but I guess I've been too stuck in my own little 'Medieval 'groove to pursue it. I guess that's the way it goes with most games. I don't think I would ever consciously avoid trying a new game to be honest, so when the opportunity arises I usually am pretty keen to try out new games & rules.

There's a caveat to that, I'll admit. I have to have the time & energy...and I'm too old now for super detailed & complicated rules.

 Yesterday, I had the opportunity to get introduced to RONIN. Good Old C_ owns bunch of really cool figures, and he knows his way around the ruleset...and he's always got super cool, amazingly painted figures to use.

I'm glad I had the chance to play two smallish games of RONIN, because in the right setting, with the right rules person, it's a cracker of a system, and it's inspired me to get busy with some figures to further delve into En Garde / Ronin.

We had a two small 100 point war bands to go up against each other. The Kung Fu School on the left, and the local Bandits-in-Blue that had wandered in to the town to harass the locals.

We ended up playing two very fun & bloody 'meeting engagement' scenarios.

I chose - as a Jacky Chan fan - the Kung Fu School. They had some pretty solid special abilities, most notably the ability to roll two dice and re-roll the weakest when engaged in combat.

I also had the Kung Fu Master, and he was rad! His best power was the ability to take a lot more 'tokens' into the fight. These tokens were used to kind of 'bid' for initiative, or simply to add extra attacks & defense.

As I'm not familiar with the rules, I won't go into them in detail...but our two games were quick, bloody and done and dusted in roughly and hour & a half.

The cool thing about the games we played, was that finally - as the player with the better stats, I'll admit - I was rewarded with lots of gushing carnage and bloodshed. It was kill, be killed, and really fun. If you've read other reports on this blog, you'll appreciate that I'm a fan of the 'Hollywood' style of game-play. 

So to see this young impetuous Kung Fu student rush head long into the fight, fatally shank his opponent and get hacked to death in the process was a moment of giddy joy for me.

C_'s best man on the day was his archer...he lazed up a few of my guys, so I had to close with the enemy as fast as I could. He had his lancer nearby to protect him...

C_ tried to keep his tactical distance with his archer but I made it my mission to close in on him...

Meanwhile I moved my master and student up to engage the Bandit Queen...

The 'secret bidding' aspect of the game before each combat was really enjoyable, but I have to admit, I'm glad I had an experienced player there adding up all the modifiers. There were a lot of modifiers once things got underway, and even though C_s is a pretty switched on player, even he was scrunching his eyes up, trying to add & subtract everything.

But he did a bang up job as they say, and I reckon once we get a few more games underway it'll get smoother. I mention this if only to say that now I'll have to delve back into my own copy of En Garde to learn those modifiers as well! 

In our first game, the Fung Fu school won... but only just...most of the players on both sides were dead. It was so funny.

The second game, again, the Kung Fu School held out for the win, but with the Grand Master basically owning the table, and everyone else dead or just about to die with 'Grievous wounds'.

What a cracker of a finish!

I am very keen to play this again, we had a really good time with Ronin. The mechanisms fit the theme really well, although I would be interested in seeing it scaled up with more figures, I'm assuming it would involve a lot more aspects to combat.

I'll have to play some more to see how it goes.

All the best.