Test of Honour

A recent afternoon saw a small band of Samurai and their loyal Ashigaru followers escorting a heavy chest of coin collected as a thank offering from local merchants for being protected from the wicked extortions of local villains.   The Samurai were hurrying home to count their collection when they found their way impeded by an assortment of villains, determined to relieve them of the coin or make them earn it.

The Samurai were led by an armoured hero - at the front on the road in the centre of the picture above - with another armoured companion - far left by the cottage with a group of Ashigaru spearmen behind him - and an unarmored wandering samurai - by the fence to the left of the hero.  An Ashigaru sergeant was carrying the coin box, backed up by another group of Ashigaru spearmen.  These were on the road behind the hero leader.  A final group of Ashigaru archers and a musket man were covering the right flank. 

This is a standard force for a game of Test of Honour.  Opposing them were a band drawn from the Rogues and Ruffians set, led by the Widow, the Witch and the Brute.

Leading villains.  From right to left : the Widow, a fearsome master of the katana; the Witch, a scheming fighter using guile to increase her strikes against the enemy; and the Brute, wielding a massive hammer that can knock down all before him.  These were backed up by five followers with varied skills.

Both sides set up 12'' in from opposite edges of a 3' by 3' table.  Activation is by drawing chits from a bag.  For each follower there is only one chit whereas the leaders have 2 or 3 chits.  The chits don't specify which leader or follower, leaving the choice to the player.  Deciding which to activate and what to do with them is a great part of the game.   Since the action takes place on a small table, with the figures starting off quite close together, you start mixing it up very quickly and the powerful leader figures can cause mayhem unless you can match them with one of yours.  Of note is that there are 3 fate tokens in the bag as well.  When the first two are drawn, the drawer does not get an action but takes a skill card which can be assigned to a character who has a skill slot that can be filled, otherwise it is discarded.  When the third fate token is drawn, the turn ends even if there are characters or followers who have not been activated.

Action is resolved by a sequence of dice rolls, using a special set of dice - each has two blank faces, two faces with a single sword blade, one face with a double sword and the last with a cross.  In all tests you are trying to roll at least 3 swords and avoid rolling more crosses than swords - if you do that, you blunder and bad things can happen.  The sequence for an attack is that the attacker rolls first to hit.  If successful the defender (if still having an unused activation) can roll to evade.  If the defender cannot evade, or fails an evasion roll, then the attacker rolls to inflict injury.  This sequence makes for some heart stopping moments - and curses if a successful first attack roll is followed by a failure to inflict injury.

The game was swift.  Play started with the Samurai hero and his armoured companion advancing cautiously.

The armoured samurai was met by the Brute, who knocked him down but failed to finish him off on the ground!

The Widow went to take on the Samurai hero but failed to get a strike.  The Witch moved to back her up as a group of Ashigaru cross the fence to see if they could move into a flanking position.

The stunned samurai on the left got to his feet and tottered back into the wood while his loyal ashigaru rushed forward to give the Brute something to distract him while their master gathered his wits.

After another fruitless engagement between the Widow and the Hero, the Hero's Ashigaru tried to weigh in, earning a bloody nose for their efforts

The Hero then managed to give a light wound to the Widow

The Widow promptly repaid the Hero in the same coin while a follower raced up to distract the Ashigaru and the unarmoured Samurai came up to support his leader.

Meanwhile, after a quick swig, the drunkard raised his musket, took careful aim, rolled a blunder and shot at his friend the archer rather than the Ashigaru!  Happily his aim was off in every sense and the archer, though startled, was able to inflict a wound on the Ashigaru archers opposite him.

Back in the centre the unarmored samurai pushed his lord aside, rolled superbly and despatched the Widow to her own and everyone else's surprise.

On the left, the Brute had made short work of the Ashigaru.  Their wounded leader advanced cautiously out of the wood, afraid of losing face more than his life.  Fresh from his slaying of the Widow, the unarmored samurai rushed over to try to repeat his heroics against the Brute, but had to deal with a follower first.  In the background, Ashigaru are blocking other ruffians getting involved.

Left by himself on the road, the Hero took another wound from the Witch, eager to avenge her fallen sister in ruffianship

The Brute dealt the second samurai a second wound but took one in return

Then, to everyone's surprise, the Brute bit the dust from a sly blow from the man he had twice wounded

while the Samurai Hero first wounded, then slew the Witch, leaving her remaining followers to slink away in shock.

So, in less than four full turns the Samurai went from shock to happy relief.  They could now continue on home to count their fortune and consider how to parley their new proven prowess into even larger freewill offerings next time they came to visit the local merchants.

Test of Honour gives a thrilling fight.  The mechanics of each fight can be a little complex but the number of figures engaged makes this easily manageable so the action continues apace.  Games are quickly over but characters can earn (or lose) skills that then carry on to future games in a campaign narrative.  Characters can behave with honour or dishonour, which modifies the dice they roll but also requires them to pick up an honour or dishonour card which may bring with it good or bad effects.  The game also allows for quests within a game, influencing the action of players.  In the fight outlined above, the Samurai had a quest to gain five honour cards, which they succeeding in doing without losing out to the reduced dice rolls that came with this.  Yet more reason for satisfaction for the Samurai.