Legend of the Five Rings solo & Collection Update

It was finally time to bring this back out. My collection has grown again (by a little), but I wanted to play my Unicorn deck before changing things up. I already played the Phoenix deck last time (here). I also bought some matte sleeves to use so there’s less glare than the other sleeves, but now with the decks sleeved, I won’t be as tempted to constantly take them apart and build new decks before they’ve been played.

Fan-made solo mode: here.

Setup. I’m using the Lion playmat because I don’t have Unicorn, but they’re both very aggressive, military-focused clans. The Lion playmat was actually a gift from a BoardGameGeek user.

This was the closest game I’ve had so far, I think. Phoenix was very aggressive early with the prince, and some lucky draws for the AI not only rebuffed my first attack (I won but didn’t break the province), but it broke one of my provinces. The next round wasn’t much better for me with another failed attack and another broken province. I was able to turn things around by breaking a province and defending against their attack.

It was still looking close after I broke a second province. The AI had a strong board, and I wasn’t really able to afford to spend extra fate to keep characters around very often, instead opting to go more aggressively. That seems to be how Unicorn wants to play. I had instead been relying on Cavalry Reserves on defense to keep the enemy back. Didn’t help that some of my strong conflict cards weren’t coming up. I could have been drawing much more aggressively, but I couldn’t really remember what was in the deck.

In the last round, despite going second, I felt my best hope to win was to go all-in with one last hurrah. Paid 5 for Moto Chagatai, no bonus fate. He’s a big dude who doesn’t bow if he can break an enemy province. Have to win the first fight and break a province at all costs. Bring in a Young Warrior for backup. And sacrifice.

The first battle was fine. I spend the last of my fate on Adorned Barcha onto Chagatai. AI didn’t have a strong defense. Province broken. Use my stronghold, sacrificing the Young Warrior, to be able to declare a second military conflict.

AI doesn’t attack yet since only 1 attacking condition is true (needs 2 true conditions). Problem is, during the conflict action window, the AI, with a huge pool of fate, is able to load up Shiba Tsukune, including with Ofushikai.

We go into my second military conflict with Tsukune defending. The province is Shameful Display (which was chosen randomly, but I like to keep it on my stronghold as well for the dramatic turnaround), but luckily the AI had used Festival of the Fortunes to honor all characters. Tsukune doesn’t benefit but Chagatai loses honored status. AI’s first action is to use the action on the sword to send Chagatai home.

But. Adorned Barcha lets me bow Tsukune and put Chagatai back into the conflict. Tsukune is now bowed and Chagatai has plenty of strength to overcome the stronghold and province.

Unicorn victory!

Here’s my full collection as it stands. Technically, one of the core boxes belongs to my friend, but he has allowed me to incorporate it into my collection for deck building (I build decks for both of us to use).