Samurai training: L5R @ Ace Comics

On Sunday I finally made it along to Ace Comics for a session of Legend of the Five Rings - actually it's probably the last meeting prior to Gencon Oz so I'll need to commit further if I want to get enough practice before "the big game"... which means Wed nights at Annerley.
For the sake of those who live in Annerley I don't have a problem with the place (the steep hill up from the station is annoying, although this can be avoided by catching a bus) my concern is that I usually have a nap in the early evening so I am refreshed and awake for my 2am nightshift start - this of course clashes with meeting up at night for gaming. To extend the tangent further I lived in a sharehouse on Chester Road in Annerley during the mid-90's which left me with (mostly) positive memories so I don't hate the place, although the closing of Two Faces of Eve cafe has left the area without a soul <- at the risk of sounding DRAMATIC... anyway, back to my story:

Sunday saw me trot out the clumsy Crab deck that has been highly modified since it was a starter pack from Glory of the Empire a few months ago. Against Mike's Scorpion deck they seemed to be able to maintain tempo for the early and mid game but they lost steam and were overwhelmed - covered in poison counters! For the second game of the day we faced the Unicorn and managed to keep up a good pace until two of my Hida Yumiya could hit the table and save the day for the Crab clan. Lastly we had a quick play with the learner decks from Imperial Gift 2.


During the day we spotted quite a few cards in my deck that had become obsolete in Celestial format. Sadly many of my beloved cards were relics from the previous edition and had found their way into my deck via the above mentioned Crab starter or from the generosity of other players. Once I got home I painstakingly went through the deck removing anything not legal for Celestial and to my dismay lost most of my favourite Crab personalities! Whilst disappointed I can understand bouncers like Hida Daizu and Hida Kaoru (Exp) becoming obsolete; they are rather good.

The result of all this? Well... I'd been considering shifting my budding loyalty from Crab to Spider - both of these clans can put out some heavy hitters in military decks. In the Crab clan I was able to find big beefy berserkers, in Spider it's big scary Shadowlands monsters such as Furu no Oni and the gargantuan Akuma no Oni (Exp2)... did I mention I like BIG CARDS?


Coupled with tricksters such as Daigotsu (Exp 3) and Datsue-ba (for when I feel like less of a thug) supported by a horde of undead the Spider look like a very tempting new loyalty for someone who has found their previous clan a little deflated.


Of course Hida Yumiya has the Shadowlands keyword so he'll be in my Spider deck as a nod to my previous clan (although I'll be paying full gold cost for him).

...and now to eBay to look for cheap Spider cards!