This article originally appeared in Pyramid #20

Pyramid Pick

HONOR OF THE SAMURAI

Published by Gamewright
Designed by Scott Kimball,
with Monty Stambler
$23.00

Gamewright's offerings tend to target the family and children's game market more than the adventure gaming hobby. As a result, some of their previous releases — such as Quests of the Round Table and Eagle Kingdoms — had pretty components but suffered from simplistic game play. Not so with their latest offering, Honor of the Samurai, a card game for 3-6 set in feudal Japan. It both looks nice and plays like a charm.

Honor of the Samurai comes with six dice, 110 cards and 60 cardboard counters used to keep track of your family's honor. The dice supplied are quite attractive, being decorated with the mons — family crests — of six noble houses. Initially, we thought these would have special meanings in the game but, nope, these dice are read just like ordinary dice. The cards, however, represent samurai, daimyos, their wives, castles, armies, various family possessions and fate cards plus one shogun card.

Each player plays the current head of a samurai house, striving to acquire 400 family honor. During setup, players places their samurai cards below their daimyo (overlord) cards dealt face up to them. The remaining daimyos are then shuffled with the other cards (except the shogun) and each player is dealt a hand of seven cards.

All cards, except fate cards, are rated in three areas: honor, ki and military strength, and may be played to increase your side's current . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: July 1, 1996

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