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Game Info
Year
2023
Players
1-4
Age
14+
Playtime
20 min
Collection
Ratings
Creator Score
Mechanic profile
Not enough video data yet
Vibe profile
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Description
Senjutsu is a 1-4 Player Samurai Duelling Game with slick Deck Construction mechanics, simultaneous reveal combat and beautiful miniatures from a panel of sculptors. Control 1 of 4 fearsome Samurai, warriors bound to the Bushido Code, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and motivations.
Using Senjutsu's Deck Construction Mechanics, forge a unique deck of devastating attacks, powerful blocks, timely mediations, and dynamic special moves. The intuitive card-classifying system makes forging your Samurai’s Ability Deck easy.
The Core Box includes dozens of different Ability Cards to shape your chosen Samurai's fighting style. There are thousands of possible deck combinations available,
Gameplay Summary:
Position your Samurai on the Battlefield.
Draw a hand of Ability Cards from your 40 Card Ability Deck.
Choose an Ability Card to use and place it facedown with the opponent's card.
Reveal the cards simultaneously and check the initiatives.
Resolve the card and its effects.
Any Samurai who takes 5 wounds will fall... leaving the vanquisher victorious.
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All mentions
Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.
Total mentions: 2
This page: 2
Sentiment:
pos 1 ·
mix 1 ·
neu 0 ·
neg 0
Showing 1–2 of 2
Video v8rvHk7vOAk
Board Games UnLocked Review at 0:16 sentiment: mixed
video_pk 113534 · mention_pk 325863
Click to watch at 0:16 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
mixed
Pros
- Very thematic
- Lots of character options
- Deck construction is present
- Facing matters
- Positioning is cool and makes you think
- Kami tree system is cool
- Multiple ways to win
- The skirmish aspect is liked
- The only randomness is the deck
Cons
- Skirmish games typically don't work for the host, often being too random or resolved by dice rolling (though this game uses cards)
- Iconography can be a lot and overcomplicated
- Tie-breaking rules for initiative seem redundant
- Can lead to analysis paralysis
- The need for a specific defense card can be annoying
- Theme doesn't always make good game mechanics
- Strategic dead ends due to initiative and movement card mismatch
- Pre-constructed decks are not well-explained or balanced
- Rulebook is hard to reference specific rules
- Terrain rules are missing, forcing house rules
- Pre-cons feel unbalanced
- The warrior character might not be able to beat the ronin
Thematic elements
- Samurai duel
- Feudal Japan
Comparison games
- Gloomhaven
- Magic: The Gathering
- Aetherium Wars
- Summoner Wars
- Marvel Champions
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card-driven resolution — The game uses a deck of cards instead of dice for resolving actions.
- Deck construction — Players build their own decks of cards to use during the game.
- Facing and positioning — The direction a character is facing and their position on the board are important considerations.
- Focus resource — A resource that can be accumulated and potentially tracked by opponents.
- Initiative system — Determines the order of actions, with tie-breaking rules based on card type.
- multiple win conditions — Players can win by stunning an opponent, killing them outright, or depleting their deck.
- Skirmish game — A game where players control a small number of characters in combat.
- Stance system (Kami tree) — Characters can switch stances, which affects their abilities and can lock them into certain actions unless specific cards are played.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- I do enjoy this game, but the issues that you're going to bring up, um I'm also going to agree with.
- Battle for Japan. As game mechanics go, I think it's fine.
- there's a lot iconography and I'm trying to understand to a certain extent some of the purpose for all that iconography.
- But the fact that you have to have a specific defense card to block and I I don't have a fix for this, but that could be really annoying
- But from a game standpoint, if you're like, I wish I could block. I thought I was a warrior. Why can't I block? Oh, because you're not drawing them.
- It can still be very annoying. It's like, wow, I'm stunned again, which counts against my hand limit, which means I'm discarding more cards, which means I'm not getting any more defense.
- And so it was like, well, then what's the point of trying to get do a plan?
- So like the the feral sweep covers basically one whole side and in front of me. That should be the advantage, not the six initiative.
- It's a neat game. Um that probably just requires a lot more a lot more play to figure out maybe the slight nuances or optionally, there is no slight nuance.
- On a scale of 1 to 10, uh what are you giving Senjutsu: Battle for Japan?
- Mostly just cuz I'm never going to play this game enough to get the nuances of it.
- I don't want to deck like precon building decks before playing games anymore.
- I do like the skirmish aspect. I like how the only randomness is your deck.
- I'm just tied between I was like, 'Eight sounds too high, but I It's like I like it more than a seven.'
References (from this video)
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Video pXJ8dPybKrA
The Dice Tower Discussion at 11:35 sentiment: positive
video_pk 81964 · mention_pk 205278
Click to watch at 11:35 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
none
Cons
none
Thematic elements
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
Mechanics unknown.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
- Duck & Cover is a fantastic filler family game.
- Pentago is one of the best abstract games of all time.
- What is this in the middle of all the board games on BoardGameGeek?
- This game truly is mid.
References (from this video)
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