Having had a proper chance to sit down and analyze the mechanics
of Bushido for a couple of weeks now there are certain things that should be
kept in mind if you want to get the most out of your force. Keep in mind
these three ideas have a fair amount of overlap, so many of the explanations
will meander into each other.
Model Count & Activations
Forcing your enemy into a position where
their models are all exhausted before your models has a significant advantage.
There are three main benefits from this: firstly, exhausted models suffer
penalties while fighting; secondly, you can achieve more objectives during your
turn; lastly, you can force your opponent into unfavorable choices of strategy.
Certain lists are designed around the idea
of having more activations - notably Savage Wave Bakemono hordes - and aim to
simply out-activate you. This means you end up wasting a lot of
activations dealing with expendable models while the enemy's important models
can wait patiently for the right moment to strike, or that they swarm you with superior numbers to stack the dice bonuses and penalties in their favor.
There are certain ways to counter this or
at least prepare for it. Certain Ki feats - Master Ekusa and Ryoko-Sha
being the most obvious candidates with appropriate Ki feats - can nullify an
opposing force with more activations for a time, either allowing you to deal
with their force or have some time to recuperate for a counter-attack.
Certain models allow additional activations - Hanzo using "Move
It!" for example - which can be a surprising advantage when timed right.
Of course, killing enemy models is the
most viable way to reduce the number of activations they can use, and is the
optimal outcome in most cases. Do not underestimate the power of choosing the simplest action.
If you have more activations than your opponent, force them to activate their important models before they would like to - typically by engaging in melee, but simply waiting out your opponent until they have nothing else to activate can work too. You can also seize objectives much easier if you have additional activations, even holding off enemy models from scoring while you do so. Typically you will have the upper hand simply through exhausting all the enemy models and then being able to abuse their reduced effectiveness while in this state.
While you have an activation advantage, do not become lax thinking that you have an insurmountable advantage, particularly in scenarios. Getting to those scenario objectives first is more important than exhausting the enemy force as you cannot trigger most objectives in an enemy Zone of Control, and scenario actions prevent you from attacking or moving. Whomever gets to a scenario objective first instantly starts with an advantage for scenario purposes.
Your activation advantage will be most obvious if you can gain a lead in scenario points as you can continually trigger scenario actions while fighting off an enemy force at the same time; your opponent can only choose one or the other, and often cannot use scenario actions as your models will already be there.
Melee Rule of Threes - Dice for Defending
or Attacking
When making melee attack or defence rolls,
three dice is the magic number since you pick the highest die and up to two
additional dice for the bonuses. After that, I personally prefer buying flat bonuses over additional dice, but 3d6+1 works out almost the same as 4d6; what you choose most likely depends on how much Ki you are willing to spend. Consider how many dice your opponent is going to be rolling in response too though, don't go full kamikaze just because you read this article and decided the three dice advice was the only way to do things.
So,
if you want to defend yourself as best you can, three dice in defence, whatever
else goes into attack; if you want that model dead as dead can be, three dice
in attack, everything else in defence. This also relates loosely to ranged attacks, where three dice
is a pretty good bet, but it's less important since you have a flat target
number rather than a slightly nebulous enemy result.
As a side note, nearly always put at least one die in defence. You may be going for that one big kamikaze attack to kill the enemy model quickly, but if you fail and rolled no defence dice, you are almost guaranteed to be killed if your opponent rolled any dice in attack.
Stacking Debuffs
This particular mechanic seems to be
rather underused, though it might just be the factions I tend to examine the
most. Basically you want to layer as
many negative effects on an enemy model as you can before you move in for the
kill: for instance, my 50 rice Ito Clan list can drop Blind and Stunned on the target
model, for a total of -2 melee dice. Given that the majority of models have 2 or 3 melee skill, that's a significant debuff and almost guarantees I'm going to be able to really hurt (if not outright kill) the model I'm attack - of course there's the luck of the dice, but I've stacked the odds into my favor as much as I can.
Many debuffs figure into the Model States section of the rules (p.18 of the New Dawn PDF) and it's worth reading up on those as many of them apply negative modifiers and impose powerful restrictions. Figure out which models in your warband can hand out debuffs and exploit those models as much as you can.
Of course, there's more to the game - notably special attacks and defences (and my mancrush for Side-Step Defence) - and this advice isn't drawn from games and games of experience, I've only had a couple of games and this is what I've noticed while playing. Other more experienced players will be able to give better advice through practical experience.
