How to Play Gunsen: The Battle for Toshi Ranbo - How to Game
Transcript
We're claiming shrines and fulfilling clan destinies. That's right. It's Gunsan, the Battle for Toshi Rambo from Office Dog Studios.
In this combative clash of clans, two to six players take on the role of ambitious daimyo, representing one of the seven great clans. By drafting orders, recruiting heroes, and claiming sacred territories, they'll attempt various feats on the battlefield. Those will be tracked on an achievement row along the bottom of the main board, and the first player to score seven achievements immediately wins the game. Setup begins with the game board placed center. We're setting up for a four-player game today. If you're playing a two- or three-player game, use the other side of the board. There's some setup variants, but the basics are the same. The game board features a hexagonal-shaped map with various territories and an achievement track. Some important spots include the clan fort spaces, shrines, Toshi Rambo, the central fortress of the battlefield, village territories, and watchtowers.
Then, place tiles. Set the Toshi Rambo tile uncontrolled side up on its space and put the expand upgrade tile on top. Set the watchtower tiles on the watchtower territories. Take the shrine tiles and randomly place one on each shrine territory. Place the corresponding upgrade tiles on their matching shrine tiles. Randomly place one village token resource side down on each of the village territories, returning any unused ones to the box. Create a supply of koku, wood, influence, battle dice, and battle tracking tokens near the main board along with the battle board. Set the three mercenary hero cards and their standees nearby as well.
Next, create the order deck. If you're playing with less than five players, like we are, first remove order cards marked 5/6 from the game. Shuffle the order cards into a face-down draw deck placed near the board and reveal five cards in a row nearby. Each player then chooses a clan to play. Randomly select a first player to choose first. They select a clan and take the matching clan board, 15 troops, three hero standees, two building tiles, seven achievement markers, one fort tile placed on the map's fort location closest to them, 12 clan cards. We'll look at these in more detail shortly. And two randomly dealt neutral tactics cards.
Each player also gains a number of starting Koku, wood, and influence depending on their position in the turn order. They also place a number of troops on their fort tile based on their position. Three troops for first and second player in turn order, four for third and fourth players, and five for fifth and sixth players. Gameplay occurs in turns, each divided into several steps. Choose order card, place order card, activate column or noble action, resolve battle, end of turn. First step in the choose order step, the active player takes any one face-up order card from the order row. Some order cards have a cost along their bottom edge, which must be paid by the player if they want that card. Before choosing the card, the player may optionally discard and replace all cards in the order row if at least four of the cards are the same color or have a resource cost.
If the order card deck is ever empty, shuffle the discarded orders to form a new deck. Next, in the place order card step, the player places the order card in one of two possible locations, face up in the column matching its color, or face down on top of a noble action slot along the bottom of their clan board. They then pay the required influence cost listed on that space. This choice dictates their action in the next step, either activating the matching column or taking the matching noble action. Activate column is the more common choice. Starting with the topmost card in the column and working down, the player either gains the listed resources or takes the listed actions. They're allowed to ignore any benefits or actions they don't wish to take, but they must take them in order from top to bottom. We'll go over all the icons in just a sec. If the player instead placed the order card on the bottom of their board, they take a noble action instead.
A player can only perform each noble action once per game, but they can take them in any order they choose. They each cost a number of influence. The first option allows the player to take one order card from those available and place it in any column up their board regardless of matching color, and then activate that column immediately. The second option allows the player to recruit a clan hero to their fort or any territory with their army. They then may activate any column on their board. The third option allows the player to gain one of their special order cards, adding it to the top of its matching column, and then activating that column.
Okay, let's look at the icons. First up, recruit, which allows a player to add one troop to their fort tile or on any clan building they control. That one's easy. Next, build. This allows the player to build one or both of their clan's buildings, paying the cost in wood located on the top left of their cards. Each clan has a unique building and a camp building. They set the card on their clan board and place the building in a territory at or adjacent to their army or fort, provided it contains no troops, tiles, or tokens. Unique buildings have a special effect for their controller and can hold up to five troops in its territory. Camp buildings can hold any number of troops.
Once built, the owner controls it even when they have no troops present there. However, each of these buildings can be controlled by opponents if they bring an army in while the owner isn't home, gaining the benefits as well. Also, building both clan buildings provides the player with an achievement. Tactics. This allows a player to buy one or more of their tactics cards, paying the koku on the top right of the card, placing the card on one of the three spots of their clan board, and gaining the benefits for the remainder of the game. Though a player has four tactics cards from setup, they can only acquire three during the game, but they earn an achievement when they do. Movement. This icon allows the player to move an army from one territory
to one adjacent territory. An army is considered a group of one or more troops in a single territory. No more than five troops from a clan can be in one army except at forts and camps. Armies can be combined and split. If troops end the turn on a village token or upgrade tile, they will claim it. An army can move multiple times in a turn. When an army enters a territory with an opposing army, all movement for the turn ends and a battle will resolve in the next step of the turn. A number of other icons, not tied to actions, can be found on the clan board and other cards, including strength, blood, and armor, and dice roll symbols, including roll dice, reroll dice, and keep dice.
All of these icons have a red background on them to help remind players that they are not gained resources. They provide various strengths and abilities in battle. And that's the icons. After the column is resolved, play moves to the next step, resolve battle. A battle will be triggered whenever a player moves an army into a territory containing an opponent's army. Otherwise, this step is skipped. To resolve a battle, players first calculate their armies' initial strength, blood, and armor. Each of these icons can be found on a player's clan board, order cards, and hero cards if they're present in the army. Additionally, each troop in the battle adds one strength. Players track these values on the battle board, red for attacker, blue for defender.
Then players roll dice equal to their number of roll dice icons, up to six maximum. Defenders roll first, followed by the attacker. Players may reroll as many dice as they wish a number of times up to their reroll icons. And finally, they keep a number of dice equal to their keep dice icon total, then resolve those icons. Each blood symbol kills an opposing troop, removing it from the territory back to their owner's clan board. Each armor prevents one of these kills. Note that removing a troop doesn't lower the calculated strength. Finally, determine the winner by comparing strength values. There's an elaborate, yet easy flowchart in in rulebook to help define outcomes, but generally, if the attacker has higher strength than surviving troops, they take control of a territory and earn a battle achievement. If the defender has higher strength than surviving troops, they win, but don't get a battle achievement. The loser must retreat with any remaining troops, moving them all to their fort or any clan building they control. Then, in the end of turn step, the player resolves any end of turn effects and collect tokens or tiles of territories they've captured. If any player has less than three troops on the board, they gain troops into their fort until they have at least three.
Replenish the order card row, and the next player clockwise takes their turn. And that's the turn structure. Some other important mechanics, villages. These provide the first player who controls them with a token and a bonus on its other side. Players can only have up to three tokens, but once they do, they gain an achievement. Shrines. If a player controls a shrine at the end of their turn, they take its tile onto their matching column, upgrading the listed benefit. These can be stolen by players who take control of the shrine. Watchtowers. A player may pay one influence to transport an army between their forts and a watchtower or from one watchtower to another, provided they are resolving a movement icon. This can be done before or after that movement.
Toshi Ranbo. Holding this legendary fortress provides two achievements. One for gaining it once in the game and another for holding it, which can be stolen by opponents. The first player to arrive here must have at least five strength. If they do, they take the expand upgrade tile, the achievement marker, and gain an achievement for taking it. Additionally, any defender here gains a strength and armor when fighting at Toshi Roundbow. Heroes, each clan has three heroes that can be recruited via tactics cards or noble actions. There's also three mercenary cards available to any player. Recruited heroes can be added directly to an army or fort, don't count against the five troop per territory limit, and can never die.
However, there can only be one hero in an army and they cannot move on their own. Finally, let's talk end game. There is no end game? Once a player achieves their seventh achievement, they immediately win the game. This keeps the tension high the whole time. Achievements include winning battle as the attacker, which you can earn twice, clan goal, two buildings built, three tactics purchased, all three noble actions used, controlling two shrines simultaneously, having three village tokens, gaining control of Toshi Roundbow, and maintaining control, which is a stealable achievement. And that's the basics of Guns & Steel. I'm Becca Scott.
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