Roland Delacroix said:
Nameless: Were you using the battle charts then? Damn, thats cool especially considering the duel. You musta got mucho Glory that game.
Yeah, battle charts. I wasn't the best tactician, but I had good raw water, good troops, and apparently some divine favor.
If you want to hear the full story of that battle, here it goes: Kisada sent me a missive two days before the battle, saying that I didn't have to win, just hold them off until he got there with his unbeatable, but unspecified army. I was giving the Dragon and Crane a good beating, and holding my own versus Toturi's army. Toturi ran up the parlay flag, and told me that Kisada was leading an army of zombies and oni, but I wouldn't believe him.
Fast forward a wee bit, and Kisada arrives leading a horde of shadowlands beasts, under the control of shugenja. I protest, but allow him to continue, as he is my daimyo and whatnot. His troops prove effective, but then he does another thing I didn't quite agree with: his shugenja started raising the soldiers fallen to the zombies AS zombies. Before I could complain, he unleashed Oni no Yakamo, who also decimated the enemy. When I told him that he was being foolish (knowing full well that he should crush me like a bug), he said that he was in control. I gave him a speech about the shadowlands only having one master, and he asked me what I was going to do about it.
Obviously tension was high. A little sniveling berserker was mouthing off to his daimyo, who happened to be the great bear. I questined his honor, his intelligence, and his duty to the empire. I tore off my Crab mon, laid down my sword, turned around and walked away. He let me go, and the 3,000 troops I commanded all laid down their swords too. We caught up with Toturi later that day, and pledged fealty to him.
All said, I gained 2 glory ranks that day, and a bit of honor to boot. It was the second best game of L5R I ever played... for brevity, I won't talk about the first yet.
-nameless