Test of Honour (Activation)

Hey Game Fans, we’re back with another article about our new favorite Skirmish game, Test of Honour.  Set in feudal Japan, Test is a fast paced game of historical violence.  It’s designed for a player to control between 5 and 25 models, with most games falling somewhere in between.  With fast task resolution and some interesting mechanics, we love the game (and now that we have our color scheme chosen, can start assembling our boxes).  Today we’re going to take a look at the Activation mechanism for the game.  Units activate in a dynamic fashion that keeps the game tense and the players guessing about how their tactics are going to unfold.  Let’s take a closer look at this, and show you one of the ways this game grabbed our attention during a demo.

Preparing the Cup/Bag

After you’ve selected the models/units you’re using for the game, you also need to set aside a number of action tokens equal to the number on the recruitment card in the column with the Fan icon.  Ashigaru have their own symbol, (a stylized hat) and Samurai also have their own symbol (a samurai helmet).  You need one token for each potential action that your recruitment card has.  

Example: In a 15 point game, I select the 5 point Samurai commander, a pair of 2 point Musketmen, and 3 multibases of Spearmen.  The 5 point commander has a 3 in his fan column, meaning he can activate 3 times per turn.  Each of the other units has a 1 in that column.  That means i’ll need 3 samurai helmet tokens and 5 Ashigaru hat tokens.  Now that i know what tokens i need, i draw them out of my supply and put them in the cup/bag.  My opponent does the same and we add 3 Fate tokens to the cup/bag and give it a good shake.  

Alternating Activations

Now that the cup/bag is ready, the battlefield is prepared and the miniatures are on the field the game starts.  One player reaches into the cup/bag without looking and pulls one of the tokens out.  If it’s a Fate token, they immediately pass the cup/bag to their opponent who gets to pull a token of their own.  If it’s either a hat/helmet token, the player assigns the token to one of their unit/models and has that unit/model take an action.  Once that action is complete, they put the token on the unit card it was assigned to, and play passes back to the other player.  The turn continues until the third Fate token is drawn from the bag.  The turn immediately ends, and all used action tokens are returned to the bag (along with the Fate tokens).  

That’s the crux of how the game is played and i like the way it handles initiative.  Without knowing exactly when your units/models are activating forces you to play a more flexible game.  Battle plans are going to fly out the window when the token you desperately need to kick off your strategy doesn’t show up.  It also creates a dynamic battlefield because your opponent can react to your moves and try to counter your plan.  The back and forth of this process is a lot of the fun i see in this game, and one of the major draws i see in it.  

 

Progressively More Complicated

There are a few more elements to this that make this process more fiddly.  These nuances can dramatically change the game and are driving forces of the dynamic back and forth.  The Avoidance mechanic, the unassignable action situation, and removal all affect the activation process and can tilt the game in unexpected ways.  Let’s take a closer look at each of the situations and see how they interact with the game.

Avoidance

Whenever a unit/model is hit by an attack, if the unit doesn’t have an action assigned to it, it must spend its action trying to avoid getting hit by the attack.  When that happens, the controlling player reaches into the bag and pulls the appropriate token out.  Assign the token to the unit like a normal activation and make the avoidance roll.  Whether or not they take a hit, they have been tied up for the round if they’re Ashigaru, or they lose an action if they’re Samurai.  Being able to tie up an Ashigaru unit or force a Samurai to spend one of their actions can tilt the game.  

Note:  Remember when you are pulling the action token out of the bag you can look into the bag to pull out the right token (just remember to give the bag a shake after).  

Unassignable Actions

If you pull a token out of the bag for a unit/model type that you’ve assigned all the actions to, you get to hand that token to your opponent and they can activate one of their models/units of the appropriate type.  This can make things very interesting from an activation standpoint and prevents actions from being a “dead turn.”  If your two remaining Ashigaru archers have already activated, it means you pulling an Ashigaru hat from the bag doesn’t waste your turn, but it lets your opponent activate his Ashigaru.  No actions are wasted and it keeps the game fast and dynamic.  

Removal

As models/units are cut down, the controlling player sets aside their action tokens (if they’ve activated this turn).  If necessary, they must pull tokens out of the bag until all of the unit/model’s tokens are accounted for.  This trimming keeps the game fast because units that can’t be activated are no longer in the pool of activation.  It keeps either player from drawing dead turns and helps keep the game moving forward.  

Shenanigans!

There are a few unit/models that can take specific actions to enable other units to activate out of sequence.  Those are special cases and we’ll examine those when/if we dig into the recruitment cards   It’s always worth considering these choices when you are putting your models together, so do some digging through those recruitment cards and see what interesting synergies you can find in them.  We’re working out of the Test of Honour starter set, and a Samurai Warband, so i’m sure we’re missing some additional unit/models that can cause mischief, and we’ll go over those when we get those additional sets in.  That’s what we have for your folks today, so Game On, Game Fans and we’ll see you all next week.