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The Basics of Scorpion Mobility in Gold Edition

by Bayushi Maruku

 

Mobility, the ability to move from one province to another, is a powerful tool in L5R. It permits an army to fight only when they have an advantage, and to destroy the resources (in the form of provinces) of the opponents without many ways for them to prevent it. This same sort of concept is what has made the cavalry trait powerful, allowing them to avoid fights while they crush provinces. However, because mobile infantry is able to use followers with better force to gold ratios, and because they can force even cavalry units to assign and then move around them, Scorpion mobility decks have the potential to do even better than their cavalry counterparts.

The most powerful use of mobility is to assign powerful units to attack one province, then choose a different battle to resolve and move the units into that province. While one cannot normally take actions at a province in which no units are present, this is legal because the Rule of Presence is satisfied if the action will bring a unit into the battle. When done this way, it is important to resolve the battle into which you wish to move the unit, not the one in which they are present, as that keeps the opponent from performing any actions other than ones that would move a unit in, or which do not require units at the battle. All their defenses in their hand and on their cards mean little if they cannot use them because your units have avoided theirs.

There is more to mobility than simply avoiding opponents in battle. Players who know how mobile you are, with defenses in their hands such as duels, may wish to make sure that they have a defender against your forces, wherever they may end up. In order to manage this, they spread out their defenders amongst their provinces to cover as many bases as possible. If you wish to avoid battle and they defend everywhere that you are not but avoid your main force, that may be sufficient for your needs and you can simply destroy the province at which your units currently sit. That advances you towards your victory condition, and gives you the edge in development by allowing you to produce from more provinces.

However, what is often over-looked is that this strategy of theirs also weakens each individual defending army, potentially leaving them vulnerable. If you have the right tricks to eliminate them before they can defend themselves, it is possible to wipe out both their defending personalities and their provinces. This is most likely if you have a Sneak Attack in your hand, which allows you and not the defender to take the first action in a battle, and some way of eliminating or bowing the defender. Scorpion has many tricks that can accomplish this, including the ability on the Towers of the Yogo Stronghold, Stand Against the Waves, or Arrows from the Woods, all of which can be dealt with in another article. It is generally better to kill the opponent outright so that they cannot take any actions that require units at the battle. Generally, however, you are more likely to be bowing the enemy unit, which will keep them from taking actions on or which target the defender such as duels, but will not prevent such go-home actions as Blocked Supply Lines or the playing of Terrains. If they cannot play those types of cards, their bowed units contribute no force to their army and will even give you honor when they are destroyed. Note that when you are using this strategy, you will wish to resolve the battle at which you have units first, so that you can have the unit already present in the other province in time for you to use Sneak Attack before resolving the battle at that province.

The one danger that currently arises from moving into an opponent’s battle comes from a new card, Slaughter the Scout. By bowing a personality at that battle as a reaction when you move in, the opponent can destroy the entire unit. If this happens, then you are simply out of luck unless you can cancel it using cards such as Fall on Your Knees. If you do move into an opponent’s province, you are taking a chance, so your best bet is to either be making sure of what your opponent has in their hand with Ninja Spies or the Emperor’s Underhand, or use multiple units moving in to make sure that anyone bowing will get destroyed. The amount of play that this card will see will probably depend on how well Scorpion mobility decks do in your area, but it may simply be safer to avoid combat and take the provinces rather than taking the risk. The card may even be more effective for Scorpion, for use against opponents that follow Scorpions who are moving away, but it is unclear whether it will be of sufficient use to include it in decks.

It is not always easy to use this movement strategy, as there are limited numbers of cards that permit you to shift around between provinces. If you are only going to be able to assign and move a single unit, then that unit has to be able to take out a province on its own. In order to have sufficient force, there are several options: Followers, Free Force Bonuses, Items, and Spells.

The first, and most popular, is the use of followers. Not only do followers provide permanent force, but they provide defense against ranged attacks, stop the unit from being sent home by Refugees, and allow the use of Stand Against the Waves to eliminate defenders who have no followers of their own. One major drawback of followers is that they require gold in order to attach them. In fact some of them require enough gold that you could get additional personalities for that cost that would give you more flexibility in actions and in assigning units. This problem is somewhat mitigated by the fact that by using mobility you don’t need as many units on the attack, and by access to Bushi Dojos, which give excellent gold production but are only useful for followers- good if you run many expensive followers, bad because they don’t help with your general gold production.

The other problem with followers is that not all your personalities can attach all followers because they do not have very high personal honors. Some of the better followers, such as Elite Spearmen, have personal honor requirements (PHR’s) of 2 or higher, meaning that not all personalities will be able to use them. Generally, you want as many personalities able to attach the different followers as possible. As it currently stands, you cannot easily put together a deck of Scorpion personalities that can all attach followers with PHR’s of 2 or greater. However, you can come close, and Bayushi Yojiro Exp. 2 adds to the personal honor of your Scorpions, so that if he is in play any of them can now make the attachments. Also, there is an excellent follower for our purposes, Heavy Infantry, which not only has a 5 force for only 8 gold, but also has a 0 PHR. This is very useful, and means that even dishonored personalities, who then have a 0 PHR, will be able to attach them.

The second way to get mobile units sufficient force to take provinces by themselves is by the use of free force boosters. They have the advantage of having no gold cost, but they only last until the end of the turn (unless otherwise stated on the card), may have other drawbacks, and can result in your emptying your hand to take one province and being unable to draw sufficient cards to do so again. The primary cards for this are Charge, which gives an attacker +2 Force, and Frenzy, which does the same. Unfortunately, Frenzy also causes an honor loss (which can be problematic with our personalities honor requirements), dishonors the personality and destroys all followers attached to them at the end of the turn. Other cards, such as Meditation, Careful Planning, Family Tactics, and Contentious Terrain all give low force bonuses to individuals, making it difficult to take the province.

A third way to increase the mobile unit’s force is through items. Generally weapons and armor give the force bonuses. The advantage of items is that they can have decent gold to force ratios (especially the Clan swords), and often give chi as well as force, which can help when facing duelists or avoiding Kolat Assassins or Kolat Masters, and mean that the entire unit is straightened when using Call to Arms, where followers would remain bowed. The disadvantages are that they do not provide the protection followers do, a personality can only (except in some specific cases) have one weapon or armor, generally do not have by themselves enough force to help take a province, and can be stolen by a Ninja Thief. There is one item which stands as an exception, however, and that is Bronze Lantern. A Rare from Spirit Wars (and so difficult to find), it is a cheap item that attaches only to Shugenja, and is destroyed to create a temporary follower with force equal to the Shugenja’s chi. Considering the high chi of Socrpion shugenjas in Gold Edition, this can be a very good force bonus.

Finally, some spells and kihos can help give force for a unit to take provinces. Spells such as Biting Steel, and kihos like Strength of my Ancestors and Chasing Osano-Wo do give force bonuses. However, they require a second unit, a shugenja or monk, to cast them, which is difficult for Scorpion to have in Gold. The spells do not give a great deal of force, and neither do the kihos which are even discarded afterwards. Unless a mobility deck is built around having shugenja, which is possible with a new spell in the past couple of sets, this is not a good option for gaining force.

Now that we have covered general strategies for mobility decks, we will go over some of the cards that make the decks actually mobile. While I am not covering every possible card, or even all of those for Gold Edition, I will highlight the most popular and useful ones. The following is for cards through the Oni’s Fury expansion set.

Superior Tactics

This card has been around since the very beginning, Imperial Edition, and has remained a useful and frequently used card for all sorts of decks. As long as you are playing with personalities who have the 3 chi required to use it, which Scorpion generally do in Gold Edition, Superior Tactics will let you move between provinces. Add to that the fact that it can also be used to destroy terrains, which can frequently mean the difference between winning and losing battles, and its 3 focus value, and you have a card that should be in almost every Scorpion mobility deck.

Accessible Terrain

This action, which can be played at a battle where you have no units, has the advantage that you can move every straightened unit you have, one at a time, into its battle from other battles or from your home. The disadvantage is that so can your opponent. That means that if you cannot go head to head with your opponent’s armies, the card does not do you a lot of good. However, because your opponent will usually wait to move a unit into that battle until you have done so, it effectively allows you to take the first action at that battle against the opposition to eliminate them (especially if you are using Slaughter the Scout). The other interesting use for Slaughter the Scout is to permit units to destroy multiple provinces by attacking, using Rallying Cry to prevent being bowed, and then moving in to the second province with Accessible Terrain. It is an old combination, and as it requires multiple cards more difficult to pull off, but is useful if you intend to include Accessible Terrain in your deck for other uses (any attack deck should always include 3 copies of Rallying Cry to permit defense against opposing attack decks).

Ghedai

This is a Naga Shugenja, and so is neither eligible for the in-clan 2 gold discount, nor does he get to use the Yogo Towers stronghold ability. However, he does have the innate ability to bow and move your units between provinces. Essentially, once in play he provides a permanent Superior Tactics for your personalities. Other drawbacks for using Ghedai are that his 0 Honor Requirement means that he is also vulnerable to honor loss, and his Personal Honor of 1 cannot attach some followers nor be increased by Bayushi Yojiro Exp. 2. The final problem with using him is that he is a support card, and does not attack on his own, meaning that you need other built up units for him to be effective, and so an early Ghedai slows down your deck’s attack, while a late one becomes useless as there aren’t enough provinces to which you can move your units. The only other benefit is that as a Shugenja, Ghedai can use spells and kihos and so fit into a mobility deck using those as its basis.

Bayushi Sunetra

Sunetra is a Scorpion samurai with decent stats (3F 3C 0 7 2) who has an exceptional ability: once per turn she can move between provinces. There are limits to her ability in that she cannot attach items other than weapons, or multiple followers if she wants to use her ability. However, she is capable of sustained mobility, performing her action turn after turn without needing additional cards to do so. Because of her 0 Honor Requirement, decks that include her have to focus on not including too much honor loss. This is somewhat balanced by Bayushi Yojiro Exp. 2’s ability to bring you back to your starting honor, but that option is not available if you have Shadowlands cards in play. Overall, she is the mainstay of Scorpion mobility decks.

Fire and Air

The spell has two parts. The first is a strength 2 ranged attack, useful for eliminating opposing units or followers. The second part allows the shugenja, once per turn, to move to an adjacent province. Originally released in A Perfect Cut, the spell was reprinted in An Oni’s Fury with additional text to make it clear. The clarification was that the Elemental Battle ability to move between provinces did not require the shugenja to bow in order to cast the spell. This means that a shugenja leading a unit can move between provinces and still contribute force. Because it is both cheap, costing only 2 gold, and permanent as it is not destroyed by casting it, this provides sustained mobility in a deck. The difficult is that the spell will only attach to shugenja, and in Gold Edition Scorpion only can have 7 in-clan shugenja cards in their deck. They are relatively expensive, and only have Personal Honors of 1, limiting the followers that they can attach. They also have Honor Requirements of 2, making them even more vulnerable to honor loss than Bayushi Sunetra. Essentially, to use this spell effectively, a mobility deck will need to be built around shugenja, a possibility with the existence of Bronze Lanterns and Clay Soldiers, but more difficult than doing so with samurai.

Kaneka’s Advance

A new card arriving with An Oni’s Fury, it moves a unit from a battle where it is opposed to a different province. The problem is that it can only be played during the battle where the unit is assigned, so that unless a Sneak Attack is used the opponent will get the first action and might be able to kill the unit before they can move. The opponent can also bow one (and only one) personality as your unit moves away to give your personality ­2 chi, but that shouldn’t kill most of your Scorpions. It can also leave the opponent vulnerable, as you may be able to move back into that battle with other tricks and now face a bowed opponent. Finally, it has a focus value of 3, which is decent in case you need it for dueling or with such cards as Bayushi Ambushers.

Bayushi Paneki Exp.

Another card from An Oni’s Fury, this is the Experienced version of another Scorpion personality, but with some nice additions. Generally it is nice because he is a 4F 5C Tactician with a ­ Honor Requirement and the ability to ignore followers’ honor requirements, for only 11 gold. Even more so however, he can, once per battle, move a Scorpion Personality in with him. They do not have to come from another province, and if you move him around he can perform this action at multiple battles, making him similar to an Accessible Terrain. He is strong on his own, but his ability makes him fit into the scorpion mobility concept even better.

The final section that I will include in this article is the current incarnation of my mobility deck, which would be classified as an honorable Scorpion mobility concept. I have won my share of games with it, including a tournament, so with decent draws it can work. It uses all samurai except for Bayushi Kwanchai, and for mobility uses Bayushi Sunetra, Superior Tactics and Bayushi Paneki Exp. For force above the personalities, it relies mainly on followers (both from my hand and the Farmlands) and the Scorpion Clan sword. The Kwanchais provide duel defense, sacrificing themselves instead of their fellows with followers. For honor loss, there are mainly ­ honor requirement personalities and Bayushi Yojiro Exp. 2, with no Shadowlands cards to prevent him from using his ability. It can gain honor from the Kabuki Theater Troupes, the Imperial Gift, the Welcome Home, and from bringing in personalities for full, but generally is not effective at honor running except possibly against the Horde if it can hold them off militarily. Ambushes are used for Personality Kill, and are the only honor loss in the deck. For battle tricks, it relies on the Yogo Towers stronghold, Stand Agains the Waves, ranged attacks from the Elite Spearmen, and Strike at the Tails to kill off opposing followers. In almost any battle, if the enemy doesn’t have followers, they are almost always dead, because I will happily bow my smaller personalities to take out their larger ones. Generally I will avoid battle with it if I can, but I have enough tricks that when I fight, if they can’t Iaijitsu Duel or Deadly Ground me first, I will take out most armies, even those with higher forces. Defensively, it can take out most attackers head on with battle tricks, or for those too big to fight or who use cavalry, it uses Refugees and In Search of the Future (which don’t need my units at the battle) to prevent them from taking the province. Corrupt decks using shadowlands free money may be faster, but the possibilities that provides for corruption in the storyline make me hesitant to do so. Enjoy!

 

40/40 Gold Edition (Through An Oni’s Fury)
Honorable Scorpion Mobility
The Towers of the Yogo
Tsudao Wind

Dynasty 40

3x Hiruma Dojo
3x Jade Works
3x Geisha House
3x Small Farm
2x Kabuki Theater Troupe
2x Bushi Dojo
1x Emperor’s Underhand
1x Scorpion Distractor

3x Bayushi Kwanchai
3x Bayushi Sunetra
3x Soshi Tishi
3x Bayushi Churai
3x Bayushi Paneki
1x Bayushi Paneki Exp.
1x Bayushi Yojiro Exp. 2

2x Farmlands
1x Imperial Gift
1x In Time of War
1x Welcome Home

Fate 40

3x Ambush
2x In Search of the Future
3x Inner Fire
3x Rallying Cry
3x Refugees
3x Sneak Attack
3x Stand Against the Waves
2x Strike at the Tail
3x Superior Tactics

3x Elite Spearmen
3x Medium Infantry
3x Heavy Infantry
3x Imperial House Guard
1x Bayushi House Guard

1x Shiryo no Shoju

1x Celestial Sword of the Scorpion