SENJI, the new Asmodee game designed by MARE NOSTRUM maestro Serge Laget and Bruno Cathala, attracted my interest not because of its uninteresting (to me, at least) theme but because of the assumption that the game would offer a diplomatic and highly thematic affair filled with intrigue, perfidy, betrayal, and alliances of convenience- all things that usually add up to a pretty fun time as far as I’m concerned.
Three to six players represent different feudal families fighting for control of Nippon, the favor of the emperor, and the accrual of honor through a variety of means both fair and foul. Conceptually, the game- more than any other that I’ve played- makes full use of the Japanese theme with the emphasis on preserving and maintaining family honor and the importance of diplomacy, negotiation, and the interaction between dynastic families. Warfare and commerce are also factors so on paper it seems that SENJI is the total package- and the promised sub-two hour duration is not a box-copy exaggeration.
Retailing at $70 and packed with extremely nice components including a big four-minute sand timer, miniature Samurai, custom dice, and a huge stack of nicely illustrated Hanfuda-style cards, SENJI certainly looks and feels like it’s on its way to awesomeness right out of the box. Between the excellent graphic design, top-notch physical presentation, a style of highly interactive and thematic gameplay and a great-reading rules set, I thought SENJI had it all locked down regardless of my general dislike for the theme.
After reading through the rules I was already imagining handing off the GameShark Board Game of the Year award to it based on some of the really interesting and idiosyncratic design choices, particularly the diplomacy system in which players exchange cards that provide actual warranties to ensure that negotiations have a solid, tangible conclusion. In my first game I was even compelled to pull a switchblade on one of my treacherous friends—and if that’s not the sign of a great game then I don’t know what is.
The game plays out in a series of phases, beginning with a preliminary phase in which the family with the most current honor (really just a fancy moniker for victory points) is chosen to host the Emperor. It’s an abstraction, but the hosting family gets the tremendously significant ability to determine the order of resolution of all other phases. In the rulebook it even warns players not to let host families go unchallenged because it is a significant advantage.
Next up is a four minute Winter Diplomacy phase (hence the sand timer) in which players negotiate with other families for three different types of diplomacy cards that offer military support, trade opportunities, and family members of different varieties- and it is entirely possible to trade cards you’ve received from other players so if someone gives you a high-valued family member card you can be a real bastard and sell it off as a hostage to their archrival. Promises, threats, and other examples of in-game statesmanship are encouraged but the phase really comes down to exchanging these cards. In the spring, players place one of three different order tokens in each region they control- producing two troops, drawing Hanafuda cards (essentially representing natural resources), or moving and attacking.
The first two phases are really kind of set up for the last two. The orders placed in spring are resolved- in an order determined by the family hosting the Emperor- in the summertime and as such it is really the main phase in which board actions are resolved.
Combat, a function of summer movement, is a one die roll resolution- the attacker rolls all nine of the included dice and anything showing their family crest scores a hit. Samurai add an automatic hit and possibly a special combat ability. The loser generally loses everything as well as honor while the winner loses some of his forces and gains honor. It works out pretty well, and it makes combat very exciting. What’s more, if a player has military support cards from another player they can play them during the battle to claim the dice showing the crests from that respective family- so results are often dramatic and there is no such thing as a foregone conclusion. Territorial holdings mean more orders on the board and therefore more resources and the ability to marshal more troops, but it has almost no function in terms of gaining honor beyond the initial points earned from winning battles.
