Is it worth it: Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan?

Stealth... misdirection... cunning... cats...

These are the tools at the disposal of the ninja. AEG's new strategy game of hidden movement. Created by Fréderic Moyersoen, this game is for one to four players. The action takes place in a Lion stronghold, one player playing the diligent and numerous guards of the Lion clan, the other a pair of ninja trying to carry out their secret objectives.

I must start this off with the precursor, I am a fan of Legend of the Five rings and, when I played the CCG, I played the Scorpion clan primarily, and the Lion clan as my "back up." Needless to say, when I first learned about this game, I was pretty excited. While I have removed myself from the CCG lifestyle (which will probably be a focus of an upcoming "Is it worth it") I am still a large supporter of AEGs creation.

For those of you who do not know, the Legend of the Five Rings is a collection of games that share a rich, detailed story in the world of Rokugan. Originally a collectible card game, it has also spawned a now defunct miniatures war game, as well as a role playing game which is currently on its forth edition. As the newest addition to the L5R family, Ninja has a lot to live up to.

Having the chance to play a few games on both sides, I'll try to answer the question that any potential buyer must ask himself, "is it worth it?" I am going to try to be as objective about this as I can be, but remember, my name "facedown ninja" came from somewhere...

The game play revolves around each player having a paper copy of the game board. The Scorpion player uses this paper to track down where he actually is on the board, and where he places things like secret passages and ropes to scale walls. The Lion player uses the board to mark down where all the different possible mission objectives are, two out of the six the Scorpion player actually will actually care about, as well as hidden guards and "traps."

As the Scorpion player does actions that raise suspicions; the alert level increases and the Lion player gets to draw more cards and thus take more actions. The guards have a fairly short term memory however, and as long as the Scorpion player lays low for a while, the alert will decrease. Time is on the Lion's side: the Scorpion has only twenty turns to complete both objectives and escape. Not only that but the Scorpion is limited to the cards he starts with, and can not draw any more.

As a quick run down

Lion Advantages:

-Card Draw

-Number of units

-Unlimited Resources

-Knowledge of where the objectives are

-Time Limit

Scorpion Advantages

-Invisible movement

-Faster Units (3 spaces vs 4)

-Stronger Abilities

-Knowledge of secret passage

-Tougher (3 hits to kill vs 1)

The board looks great. The pieces are all great. I especially love that the traitor's cat is actually on the pawn. They give you plenty of maps to use, plus you can go online here to download the pdf to print out more copies. There is easily the potential for making new maps to try a different layout, although the given one seems like it has enough room and diversity to not get old any time soon.

For all that is good about the game, there are some note worthy penalties. Some of the spaces are not quite clearly defined on the map, the walls are not highlighted and are a similar color as the stone pathways, leading to some confusion. This is not too big of an issue however as the paper maps have everything clearly labeled. Still a better border around the walls would have helped. There also seems to be a misprint in one of the sample pictures in the rule book. The Lion player can put some sleeping guards in specifically marked spaces that he can wake up later. In a sample picture it shows the donation of a sleeping guard (an S) on a space without the mark. Maybe I misread it or maybe an earlier version of the game had a mark there.

Then there is an issue with listening. The mechanic itself works great. The further a ninja moves, the more spaces away he can be heard. So if he moves two squares then any guard two spaces away from where he ended up can hear him. The guard can then move two spaces if he did hear him. Walls and moats do not affect hearing, only actual number of spaces away. All of this is clearly explained on the card. What is NOT explained is that after the guard hears him to raise the alert by one. Granted the card does say to check the complete rules for listening and even lists the page number... but... why?

This was the only other part of the listening rule... and it is very important, but it is not mentioned on the card. This is the main way Lion is able to make sure they have card draw. There seemed to be room on the card to put that in, especially if you take out the message that says effectively "to read the part of the card that we didn't want to put on here, go to page 8." I am harping on this because I made this mistake the first game I played, and I had a really bad time that game. I was playing Lion and it only lead to frustration. I figured that the guards had no real chance against the ninja, that the game isn't balanced at all, and the game itself failed to be fun (for the lion anyways, my opponent had a smile on her face as she completed her missions without a guard so much as noticing that Akodo Sven hasn't come back from the bathroom yet .)

As it turns out, the game is well balanced. After that mistake was corrected every game I had sense then was reasonably close, with both players either drawing, or could have drawn if I didn't get greedy.

The box says it takes 45 minutes to play, after my first game I was ready to call AEG a filthy filthy liar, but after several goes... yeah I can very well picture it taking that long. A better guess would be an hour from what I've seen, but I suppose once you really get used to it, you'll be able to go much faster.

The game is really designed for two players, and it shows. Adding more players just splits up the existing pieces and actions between more players. I have not had the chance to try it with four people yet, but I think it'll work... although it is obviously ideal for two. There are some optional rules in the back to add some replayability. It is quick to set up as well as quick to clean up. The box holds everything quite nicely.

At about $50 I would say that yes, this game is worth it. It isn't a "must have" by any stretch of the definition, but it offers a lot for the price. You do not need to be a previous L5R player to enjoy the feel of sneaking around an enemy castle and opening up a can a Tenchu on some poor "honored house guest." The art work is stunning, the game play is solid, and the theme is very immersive. Ninja: Legend of the Scorpion Clan, coming to a shadow near you.

Click here to read Sara's take on the game (with actual pictures!)