Initial Look Can it be that I'm growing old and less crochety? Is my tolerance level improving? How else can I account for the fact that SAMURAI I found "tolerable", whereas KINGMAKER (see REVIEW, December 1979) didn't even hit this level? SAMURAI is, in essence, an oriental KINGMAKER. In place of KINGMAKER's royal family lines, use noble clans. Instead of England, use Japan. Instead of members of the royal family to be captured, use "Imperial Articles" ( the EMPEROR, the Heir, etc.). Replace the KINGMAKER deck of cards,,from which one draws one's playing pieces with a "fate cup" filled -with printed cardboard tokens. And commence each turn, not with a random card draw to determine chance happenings such as storms, plague etc., but with a dice rol I to determine an "event". In essence, therefore, the same game. Perhaps, because of my exposure to KINGMAKER, SAMURAI came across in a better light. There are 4 imperial articles; a clan possessing 2 of the 4 becomes the "court clan" and one of its lords may be appointed Shogun. Victory goes to the clan that has the Shogun at the end of 20 turns. I'm not sure how I would have formatted the ruiesbook, but I know I would have organized it quite differently. There are broad "chapter" topics such as Samurai Lords and Their Holdings, Movement, Battles, etc. But the content of these chapters encompasses all sorts of topics... and in some cases, not enough. For example, Samurai Lords and Their Holdings rambles on about control of castles, provinces, and cities, and the death of a lord, and the transfer of holdings, etc. What it doe5 hot cover, however, is the fact that if a lord's home province is conquered, the lord must commit hari-kiri. This item is written up under the chapter titled, most appropriately, Hostages and Hari-Kiri. The result is an endless flipping back and forth in the rulesbook... at least at first. Once play gets underway, the action seems to speed up. Combat is of 3 types. One may besiege a city or town. The difference in troop points between besieger and besieged is correlated with a die roll to see who lost what number of points. Only when the defenders reach zero is the siege successful. The second area of combat is personal combat, i.e., one lord against another. At the game's beginning, all lords throw a die to give them their Samurai rating; the difference in abilities is coupled with a combat die roll to determine if a lord is wounded, runs or is killed. The last type of combat pits troops against troops. Both sides cast dice each round to determine how many enemy troop points they knock off. We really didn't play long enough to see if there was any special strategy to be employed in the quest for the imperial articles. Setting up and-rulesbook referencing took most of our gaming time. In all, SAMURAI, in retrospect, was not that bad. Praise from Caesar is praise, indeed. The most negative thing I can think of at this writing is the confusing mass of teeny 3/8 inch cardboard tokens sprawled on the board indicating lords, ships, holdings, imperial articles, etc. But, to me, any boardgame with over 5 tokens per side is confusing. What it all comes down to is that I'll have to have a second go at it. I do remember distinctly, however, that a second - and third - go at KINGMAKER only convinced me more than ever, that the game was not for me. Hopefully, such will not be the case here. Back to PW Review December 1981 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1981 Wally Simon 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