With the recent move to the forty-forty format, I am presenting an honorable one on one Crab deck. This deck is not heavy on the rare cards and might be a good place for new players to start.

The idea of the deck is to get as much as possible out with just your stronghold. If things work out well, you can take out a province on your second turn. With the Frenzies and Strength of Purities combined with followers, you should be fired up and ready to go quickly

If you have someone in your province that is very expensive, send one of your smaller people on a suicide run. When they die, use Duty to the Clan to bring out your expensive personality for free and then Feign Death the person that died. Keep in mind that Feign Death will kill followers so you need to be careful abo who goes on that suicide run. Your best choice will be the experienced Hida Sukune, who gets shuffled into your deck if he is honorably dead.

In your early game, if you have a choice between dropping a follower and attacking or using the money for another personality, you should drop the follower. A chance at a province is always worth more than given personality. No Fortificatiob makes this Kaiu deck an anomaly. We are using this stronghold for the 4 starting honor and the province strength. This will put you on slightly more even footing for honor. You won't miss the bowing the stronghold for a three higher province strength, you'll be using the stronghold to pay for followers.

Substitutions

If you run into a problem with a Scorpion Military Deck you can remove your Feign Deaths and put in Evil Portents. You will have a disproportionate amount of personalities with three Chi. If you are able to drop two Evil Portents, you stand an excellent chance of crippling your opponents army while keeping yours intact (and remember, Evil Portents does not affect non-Shadowlands followers, so you can still attack that turn). This tactic will work well against Scorpion, Unicorn or a Crab deck using Berserkers.

Dynasty

Events

As the Shadow Falls
Time of the Void
Are You With Me?
Imperial Gift
First Scroll is Opened

Personalities

Hida O-Ushi exp
3 Kuni Sensin
3 Hiruma Yoshi
3 Hida Sukune
3 Hiruma Kage
3 Hiruma Osuno
Hida Kasada
Hida Kasada inexp.
Hida Yakamo
Hida Sukune

Holdings

3 Merchant Caravans
3 Sanctified Temples
3 Iron Mines
3 BlackSmith
3 Jade Works
3 Quarry

Fate

Actions

3 Duty to the Clan
3 Strength of Purity
3 Frenzy
3 A Test of Courage
3 Rallying Cry
3 A Call to Arms
3 Feigned Death
3 Stand Against the Waves

Items

Ancestral Standard of the Crab
Ancestral Sword of the Crab
Dragon Pearl

Followers

3 Berserkers
3 Spearmen
Lt. Sukune
Hida House Guard
3 Light Infantry
3 Naga Bushi

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com