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This stronghold, just pre-viewed, is an interesting blast from the past
for older players. It is 7 Province Strength, 4 gold production, and 5
starting honour. It also has an ability and a trait. The ability is to,
as a limited action, bow a courtier to gain 2 honour if you have not lost
a province since your last turn. The trait says that as a battle action,
you may bow a defending personality to lower an opposing personalities
force by your guy's chi.
First, a look at the stats. 4 gold production is average for the Crane,
and has been from the start, so no change there. The 7 Province strength
and 5 starting honour are the same as Kakita Dueling Academy. It would
appear, for Crane at least, that they either get the highest starting
honour and lower province strength, or the higher province strength and a
lower starting honour. This actually goes back to Crane's first
stronghold, where they had a lower starting honour than Lion and Phoenix.
Also, like the first Crane stronghold, this one has the ability to gain
2 honour a turn. Unlike that one, this one can only gain the honour
under certain circumstances. First, you must have not lost a province
since your last turn. This is strong, but balanced. Against other
honour runners, this is much more likely, and against decks that do
attack, it depends on how you do. Thus, the honour gain is dependent on
actions, rather than being a certainty. The other drawback is that you
must bow a Courtier to do it. This means, first, you must have a
Courtier in play, and second, that the Courtier is available to bow.
This may seem trivial, but it means you do have to include Courtiers in
the deck to begin with. Also, I have seen many games where there are no
personalities left over to be bowed.
The trait, or second ability, is interesting. You may bow a personality
to give a force penalty to an opposing personality. The first thing to
notice is that this is strictly on the defense [unless Hida Technique is
reintroduced]. It also fits the Daidoji method, as Crane, at least in
general in Diamond, have more chi than force on their personalities.
The reason to use the ability is several-fold. It lowers an attacking
personality's force. First, this gives you a better chance of surviving
the attack with your province intact, allowing you to use the other
ability of this stronghold. Second, it lowers Immensely powerful
personalities to the level of Really powerful, useful if the other player
uses force duels. Third, it can lower a personalities force to where you
can take them out with a ranged attack, or To Do What We Must.
What are the weaknesses of this stronghold? First, it does start at
only 5 starting honour, which means it will not start first all the time.
This may not seem much of a weakness, some clans start last most of the
time. For Crane, however, it is. This stronghold lends itself most
easily to a defensive strategy, which needs the advantage of going first.
If it does not, it will be at even more of a disadvantage than it may
seem. We will see how this works out in time.
Another weakness is that the honour gain ability depends on a specific
type of personality, so if you do not get it, you might as well not have
the ability. Also, the second ability is only available on the defense.
This means this stronghold is defensively focused. This allows for less
creativity in building decks for this stronghold, though any that are
offensive from this stronghold will be truly creative indeed.
Only the future will tell how accurate this review [or preview] was.
Lets see how this stronghold works out in the months and years to come.
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