Yesterday, we started our inside look at the brand new characters for Restoration Games’s new Unmatched set, Sun’s Origins. Today we view the highlights of the other character that comes with the set, Oda Nobunaga, designed by first time designer, Zack Mader.
Like the other character, Tomoe Gozen, this set comes with a thirty card deck and a plastic hero miniature, but also comes with two sidekicks. The Oda Nobunaga set is all about flanking, a new card key word for Unmatched that has positional abilities, traps, and buffs. Flanking is simple, the rule book explains that it just means that an opposing fighter is adjacent to two or more fighters under a player’s control. Nobunaga’s hero and sidekicks are all about using that flanking ability to get more cards, do more damage, heal faster and get more actions.
Let’s first look at the sculpt:
Next, we turn to the inside of the box and focus in on the two sidekicks.
Yes, these sidekicks bring a lot of life to the party! Each of the sidekicks, called “Honor Guard”, have six health. I don’t think we have seen any other character walk around with that much stout help before. Even Yennenga’s sidekicks only had two health (but had that cool flipping mechanism to chart the damage).
With these two tanks by his side, and with tons of cards that has him staying in the same zone, but maneuvering the two tanks at will, flanking and then pinning opponents into corners on the different maps will be a key strategy for me.
One of the best parts about playing Oda Nobunaga has to be the special ability he brings. Nobunaga gives a +1 on all combat values of friendly fighters in his zone (although the buff does not apply to Oda Nobunaga’s own attacks and defenses). Let’s turn to the cards to see our favorite additions to the Unmatched series.
I love Student of War because it is an easy way to draw cards. Oda Nobunaga draws cards up to the amount of damage that he does to opponents.
Spring The Trap is interesting. Players can not only deal one damage to an opposing fighter after combat, but also, before the combat even starts, allows a player to switch the fighter being attacked by the other player to switch places with another fighter. I can see two situations — either protecting the hero by using the Honor Guard as tanks that can jump in front of any attack or even surprising the other player by bringing in Oda Nobunaga to block and save one of the Honor Guard from a killing blow.
I like Battle Maneuvers, too, especially in conjunction with Oda Nobunaga’s special power of buffing up the Honor Guard combat values. It not only has a two attack/defense value, but it also lets a player draw a card and then move the fighter.
In Demon King of the Sixth Heaven (shown above), Oda Nobunaga gets to show off how using the flanked ability can put the hurt on the other team. Demon King is a scheme that tags flanked opposing fighters with two unblockable damage.
Overall, I like what I see in this new set. Oda Nobunaga not only has some very tough partners in the Honor Guard, but most of the set complements their moving wall status with buffs and traps if they are in his zone, or even better, if they are flanking the opposing fighters.
We will be playing Sun’s Origin live on stream on Twitch soon, at our twitch.tv/boardgamegumbo channel, so stay tuned for our live plays! The boxed set should be hitting retail in February, and we’d love to hear what you think about the new characters!
Until next time, laissez les bon temps rouler!
— BJ from Board Game Gumbo
** A copy of the set has been provided by the publisher. **
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