Legend of the Five Rings: As Honor Demands

Legend of the Five Rings: As Honor Demands

In every part of the Emerald Empire, noble samurai are pushed closer to destruction by the rapidly changing fortunes of the Great Clans. Though the natural order has been disturbed, there are still clans and samurai who choose to hold fast to their ideals—but will those ideals ultimately lead them safely through the storm or condemn them to devastation?

As with the other Dynasty Packs of the Dominion cycle, As Honor Demands puts the focus squarely on your provinces, with the new eminent and rally keywords and an assortment of dynasty events that are played from your provinces. Beyond these themes shared across the entire cycle, this pack in particular offers a host of ways for players to increase their honor, unlocking new paths to victory for the Great Clans.

The Call to Honor

Even more than many of Rokugan’s clans, upholding honor is of the utmost importance for the Crane Clan. In the game, they boast many ways to honor their own characters, and in this Dynasty Pack, you’ll find ways to put your honored characters to even better use, starting with a brand-new Crane stronghold.

Seven Fold Palace (As Honor Demands, 93) offers starting stats that are a bit lower than usual, giving you only ten honor at the start of the game and raising the strength of your stronghold province by one. Still, Seven Fold Palace can be a particularly potent stronghold, especially if you’re planning to race to 25 honor before your opponent can destroy your provinces—after an honored character you control wins a conflict as the attacker, you can bow this stronghold to immediately gain two honor! Adding your stronghold to your ways to gain more honor, on top of effects like the Air Ring and honored characters, just might be what your Crane Clan needs to push them over the edge to a truly honorable victory.

Achieving an honorable victory will naturally require a host of honored characters, and two new Crane cards in this expansion pack play off of your honored characters. Master of the Court (As Honor Demands, 98) can be a powerful force in a political conflict, and with the covert keyword, you may find it easy to push through an attack and trigger Seven Fold Palace. However, if your opponent is about the gain the upper hand with a cunning event, you can simply discard an honored status token from Master of the Court to cancel that event.

Honored characters are also essential for the new Crane event, Elegance and Grace (As Honor Demands, 108). By playing this event for just two fate, you can choose two honored characters with a total cost of six or less and ready both of those characters! As an easy way to let your characters participate in multiple conflicts or surprise your opponent by suddenly defending against an attack, Elegance and Grace is an unmatched tool for the Crane Clan.

The Path to Peace

While the Crane are drawn to the pursuit of honor, the Phoenix Clan commonly chooses to avoid a path of war, preferring a more pacifistic bent. Fittingly then, As Honor Demands brings the Phoenix Clan an assortment of rewards for refusing to declare a conflict. Of course, you’ll almost certainly want to declare some conflicts over the course of your game, but it’s equally likely that you’ll want to pass some conflicts when it’s not tactically advantageous to push forward. In times like that, it never hurts to have some bonus rewards for passing your conflict.

For example, the Asako Lawmaster (As Honor Demands, 102) simply gives you an honor whenever you pass on declaring a conflict, improving your position as you go into the next round. Alternatively, you may have the Endless Archives (As Honor Demands, 103) as a holding in your provinces. When you pass on declaring a conflict, you can place an honor token on Endless Archives to cycle cards from your hand, drawing new cards from the top of your conflict deck. The Endless Archives becomes more effective as you use it more often, but most interestingly of all, this card can be used by any player, whenever they pass a conflict. Helping your opponent find better cards is rarely in your best interest, but if it means they pass a conflict, it could end up serving your ultimate goal. You’ll just have to be sure you can close the Endless Archives once they’ve served their purpose!

The Pursuit of Bushidō

Whether you swear fealty to the Crane, the Phoenix, or another Great Clan, you’ll find a full assortment of brand-new cards to use and enjoy in As Honor Demands.