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Daisho, quick review

 Daisho is a fantastical Samurai ruleset. Here's a quick run down for those who TLDR, or in my case are too lazy to write proper reviews;

Lady Takori and her retainers storm the sake den, whilst the sisters and their archer move to flank


> Its what I call a toybox ruleset. Lots of options, very customisable, easy to build your bespoke warband for your toys and create your scenarios.


Is anyone in?


> It's light on game design, and probably strategy. There are points for the stats and builds of your warband, but little else. The core rules are roll a D10 and add some modifiers. It really is just move and attack, no gimmicky or clever mechanisms. You could min max your warband built, but that's clearly not what this ruleset is for.


A troop of aggressive warrior monks storms the Sake House


> It really does have a lot of options. About 10 of the 90 page book are rules, the rest is either character/warband creation options or ideas for scenarios


A brawl ensues


> It is really aimed at fantasy Japan. The best bits of content are the Ki powers, spells, and mythical creatures. Without these the experience will be very vanilla. Ki powers include rerolls, running across water, cutting arrows out of the air etc.


> Because it is a toy box it lacks focus as either a competitive game or a campaign narrative game. You definitely can create the latter but you will have to take all the ingredients, divide them out to create unique factions and really design the game yourself.


The sisters dispatch a second peasant before being shot


> In play high defence ability single characters are quite powerful. This is good from a narrative balance point of view as a swarm of peasants is not going to easily rundown the sword master. But the game can drag if two such sword masters fail to hurt each other for several rounds running. Some of the equipment choices are clearly better than others, even with the points system in place. You could create a more narrative focused warband, but it might suck.


> Daisho gets a tentative recommendation from me. Its cheap, easy to get on the table and has variety. However for it to really sing you will need to build a top notch scenario and pair of warbands from the ideas presented. There are examples, but no templates.

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Comments

  1. Anonymous25 March 2024 at 08:36

    Decent capsuler review- personally I'd prefer if it leant one way or another - tournament or campaign- as it is it sounds like it is just a quick 'filler' game better suited to one off...?

    Cheers,

    Pete.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Simon Lestrade25 March 2024 at 15:03

      agreed, it either needs more balance and variety for pick up play, or more direction for campaign play.

      Delete

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