Richard Diffenderfer - Nov 27, 2010 5:19 am (21.) new Variant rule ideas... Where do I start... 1. First, there's not nearly enough personal combat. So: EITHER attacker or defender may challenge, even in the event of a siege or naval combat, and if the challenge is refused, then the coward must roll TWO dice. That number TIMES TEN is the number of troops who immediately DEFECT directly to the challenger! This means a courageous upstart can march alone into a square, challenge the commander of a large army and if refused, possibly gain enough troops to survive one round of open field combat and retreat alive at the end of the round! Possibly even slipping away with a significant number of the enemy's forces! 2. Any time multiple clans are present in an area and open field combat breaks out, all participate. Each clan calculates how many rolls they'll have (e.g. 285 equals 5 "big" and 1 "small"), and then secretly allocates which rolls are directed at which clan in the area! Great opportunities for treachery and switching sides between rounds! All rolls are considered simultaneous. Royal articles can change hands round to round...Lord with an article killed hands the article to assailant who inflicted most casualties (or rolled the "11" or "12")...usually pretty obvious... And remember, kill a lord in combat and you take the royal article...if you kill him with a ninja, the article randomly relocates... 3. An army may decide its location within an area (i.e. inside the city/castle/monastery, in the open field, guarding the beach etc.) at the last moment, as an enemy enters... Not necessary to commit in advance. 4. Ocean Storms/Bad Weather/Earthquake only affect the player turn on which they're rolled...less to keep track of that way... 5. Random initial placement of royal articles: Players draw their initial 10 chits and set up their lords as desired... Roll for initial placement of articles only occurs AFTER! 6. All 10 initial draws must be placed on chart, only subsequent draws can be saved, face down, in a "secret army." All chits placed on a clan chart must be FACE UP throughout the game. 7. Ultimate Tournament game: No initial draw... Game starts with first player drawing just a single chit. Only as each player decides the time is right, he starts his first lord... and only then starts rolling random events. If a clan is completely wiped out, the player can just start from scratch again, drawing a single chit from the fate cup each turn and then only rolling random events again once he's put a live lord on the map again... ...BUT! No lord on your chart can ever be activated twice! Once a lord dies, you place him back on the clan chart UNDER his little sword marker...he is now in his grave. Once you've used up your ten lords, then you ARE out of the game for good. And the game doesn't end until a clan controls not only all FOUR articles, but Kyoto must be rebuilt as well! (Locations only rebuild 10 per player turn...except any location 50 or less instantly rebuilds... another big time saver). I've seen Ultra-Supremo Shoguns with all four articles sweat bullets while Kyoto slowly rebuilds...only to be surprised and undone at the last second by formerly-decimated players who were just drawing a single chit per turn during the slow, slow rebuilding process... 8. Kyoto Cherry Blossom Battle... As the hour grows late and the game has to end... Players agree to a final battle and all convene at Kyoto...In the following multi-clan battle (see secret allocation of simultaneous rolls above), a winner is always decided... 9. Anti-ninja body guards...Monastery counters, even the "zeros," represent highly-trained Shaolin monk bodyguards... Any lord with a monastery marker gets either a +1 modifier to Ninja attack rolls, or gets a "saving roll" against his personal combat ability... (roll equal to or less to survive successful ninja attack... roll on "wounds" table). A lord INSIDE a monastery and personally in possession of the corresponding monastery marker is ninja-proof. 10. Return of the General of Invasion: If the GoI gets sent to Korea, put his counter in Korea (faint little outline on the map) and preserve his army... then wait for that event to come up again... Then he returns! You can even let him roll a die at that time and draw that many chits from the cup as his "spoils!" 11. Minister of Roads: Lord with this title is immune to attacker siege casualties on 251+ column. Very handy for building road networks. Or allow him to siege as many unoccupied less-than-50 locations as his movement allowance allows.. 12. Home province marker is immune to "famine." Lords never die from famine therefore, just lose their armies. Also, variable famine results: Each clan present rolls two dice and multiplies by 10 for troops lost to famine. (Can you tell we've played this a million times over the many, many years?)