Senjutsu: Battle for Japan is a rather unique game in one respect - there are actually two games in the box with vastly different experiences but identical systems. In fact, you can play the game as a "PvP arena" where individual players fight against each other (which you can spice up by creating a deck of ability cards), or you can play two campaigns against the game: one solo and one in two-player co-op.
The rules are quite difficult to read and play for the first time and the recommended age of 14+ is not there for fun. They're not easy to read, there's a lot of terms and pictograms, effects, continuity... Once you get into them after 1-2 games, you're good to go, but the beginning is really fiddly.
And the rules aren't just hard to read and learn, but also to apply them well in practice, as the board game is also gameplay challenging, and it's no walk in the park, with your samurai gracefully making his way through a bunch of enemies. Here you have to think ahead, guess what your opponent will do and really think about where to stand, where to turn and how to attack.
Draw your katanas
At the core of the game are fighters (there are four to choose from in the base game) with different abilities, stats and play styles. Each character chooses their activation cards, which are shuffled into a deck from which you draw them to your hand. At the beginning of each round, players secretly select one card to play simultaneously with their opponents, and the effects of the cards are evaluated in turn according to the cards' initiative.
There are cards for movement, defence and attack, or combinations of these. And when you attack your opponent, you're done by playing a card - no dice rolling, he simply gets hit unless he has a blocking card in his hand. But blocking is not obvious, as it only works on attacks in a certain direction. So a flanking card won't protect you in any way if the enemy attacks directly. At that point, you just have to take the hit.
And getting hit is no fun. Heroes have five lives, and there are attacks that take more than one life, or go chained together in a single activation. You can be unlucky and only take maybe two hits and die, which makes Senjutsu: Battle for Japan a pretty quick and brutal game, with one game taking under half an hour.
A special feature of the game is the "Kamae system" or combat stances, which affect the action cards played (adding bonuses to them or being directly linked to them). This makes playing the game feel like playing a video game souls game, or better yet, Ghost of Tsushima. So not only do you have to think about your turn and your opponent's turn, i.e. where to stand, but you also have to plan ideally two or so rounds in advance the appropriate positions for what you will do in the distant future.
Playing against an opponent is easy and there is nothing to go wrong, except what the players themselves cause. However, solo and cooperative play has its pitfalls. While in PvP each player chooses their own activation card at will, in these modes individual enemies have their own smaller decks from which the top card is always drawn completely at random.
In the third mission of the solo campaign, where the player first encounters a "boss" in the form of another game character with whom to have a classic duel, the random card unloading meant that my opponent and I met in the middle of the arena on the first round, and while I was slashing away at him, the game was only pulling out movement and boost cards for my enemy, but no attacks. So I calmly attacked him while he stood helplessly in front of me until he fell. And that's not exactly fun.
But otherwise, the story campaign, solo or co-op, is fun. It also has increasing difficulty and a nice story, complete with a comic book. The campaign itself will last players for a few mostly enjoyable hours.
PvP mode can then be played in theory indefinitely. Senjutsu: Battle for Japan features 4 heroes who have dozens of their own special abilities and weapons, plus another hundred generic cards. So there's really a lot of opportunity to piece together a deck of abilities for your hero to suit your play style and have fun playing. And when you get tired of them, you simply try something else.
The only problem with the PvP mode is that the game is really hard and you have to think about it, even if you already know the rules. So playing with a newbie is the proverbial beating of a dead horse. It's really very tactical and the mechanics take some time to sink in, so the only way to get the ideal gameplay experience against a live opponent is to be at a similar level - either you're all learning the game together or you've all got the same game experience.
Which is easier to arrange with one friend, but you can play the game with up to four players, where unfamiliarity with the systems becomes all the more apparent. So it's definitely not a game you just pull out in front of a friend with the idea of " measuring up samurais". On the other hand, you don't have to immediately taunt him in a duel, but instead reach for the co-op campaign, which will be a more enjoyable initiation for a newcomer after all.
The Retail version of Senjutsu: Battle for Japan is a deluxe edition of the kickstarter campaign, so in addition to four nice samurai figures in circa 28mm, it also has terrain miniatures to enhance the arenas, such as a bamboo field, burning carts, rocks or booby traps, which is a very nice bonus that adds plasticity to the game area and complements the overall experience.
Unfortunately, the soldier figures intended for the story campaign are just cardboard boxes in a stand, but since the game is made in regular wargaming scale, it's no problem to swap them for some ashigar figures if you own them or can buy them purely for the game. Feudal Japan is one of the popular periods, so there is a plethora of options on the market. And in the same way, Senjutsu heroes can be used as samurai characters for wargaming.
Finally, just a reminder that if the base game appeals to you and four samurai aren't enough, you can add more in the Shadows of Steel and Calm Before the Storm expansions.
Verdict:
Senjutsu: Battle for Japan is a nice board game that really offers the feeling of controlling a samurai in a duel. You have to plan his moves, slashes, defenses, and stances while thinking not only about what your opponent will do after you, but what your moves will be in the next few rounds. Additionally, if you don't have a live opponent, there are two nice campaigns against the game that will keep you entertained for a few evenings on their own. And as an added bonus, the game has some very nice game pieces. The only drawbacks are the randomness of the PvE mode and the fact that the game is quite difficult to play, newcomers won't get the hang of it, and it doesn't help that the rules themselves aren't written in the clearest way.
Also, if you find this article helpful, you can just buy me coffee. :)
Originally published in Czech on the ZeStolu portal.
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