An army commander had to bring some measure of order to the chaos that constantly hung over a fighting Samurai army.
The fighting force that maintained some measure of control and discipline was likely to be the army that won the day. Honor & Fortune in a roundabout way serves to measure an army’s discipline, its honor and the fortunes of war.
Players will be challenged to maintain a balance between exploiting the use of these tokens to impact the army’s fortunes when using Dragon cards and a Leader inspired close combat actions, while at the same time retaining enough honor to prevent chaos in the ranks when morale fails and a unit must retreat.
Honor & Fortune tokens are initially placed in a common Honor & Fortune pool, alongside the game board within easy access of all players. During the course of the game, the Honor & Fortune a player earns is placed in his Honor & Fortune reserve in his play area. The number of Honor & Fortune tokens a player holds is public information throughout the game.
Managing and Replenishing Honor & Fortune Reserves
Just as important as managing his hand of Command cards and Dragon cards, a player must carefully watch his Honor & Fortune token reserve, and make sure to keep adequate reserves if he is to launch his own Dragon card actions at the most opportune time and prevent army block losses because of a Lack of Honor.
The following are some of the ways a player may gain Honor & Fortune.
- A number of Honor & Fortune tokens are taken at the game’s start as indicated by the scenario’s battle notes.
- At the end of the active player’s turn, the player opts to pick 2 Honor & Fortune tokens instead of drawing a Dragon card.
- At the end of the active player’s game turn, when active player has not played a Dragon card, the player may discard 1 of his Dragon cards and gain 1 Honor & Fortune token.
- As a result of playing certain Dragon cards.
- Honor & Fortune tokens are gained for each honor & token symbol rolled in a close combat battle.
- Honor & Fortune tokens are gained for each honor & token symbol rolled by some units with ranged weapons when battling.
Rolling an Honor & Fortune symbol during other times during play, for example, a Leader Casualty Check, Lack of Honor roll, etc. will not gain Honor & Fortune tokens for a player. There is no limit to the number of Honor & Fortune tokens a player may have in his reserve. However, should the common Honor & Fortune token pool run out, no further Honor & Fortune tokens can be gained until the common pool is replenished. Actions that normally grant Honor & Fortune tokens when the common pool is empty will grant nothing for a player.