Ronin - Questions about the rules

[Mr. White]

I plan to place an order for the rulebook and some of the Northstar models next week, but a few questions.

Does the rules support multiplayer games?
Is there a Mordheim-like campaign, if so, about how long is it?
I see there's a pdf of mythical creatures...do these get added to warbands or are they scenario adversaries all the warbands have to content with?
I don't see a lot of elevation on people's tables...is climbing terrain not as prominent as in other systems?
Anything that stands outside the norm of small model skirmish games I should know about?

It seems like this is a really well regarded set of Samuari skirmish rules still getting played and talked about ~8 years after release. I wonder why Opsrey doesn't elevate it to a more expanded hardback book like they did with Gaslands?

[nandrin]

Hi,
couple of answers below.

Does the rules support multiplayer games?
 Yes, we did some 4-player games and had lots of fun.
Is there a Mordheim-like campaign, if so, about how long is it?
There is a short campaign in the rulebook, suggested are kind of linked scenarios with about 6 games. But you can play an extensive campaign where your buntai improves. There is also a pdf called The Kenshin Ryu Campaign
I see there's a pdf of mythical creatures...do these get added to warbands or are they scenario adversaries all the warbands have to content with?
We didn´t use the pdf until now, but I think I remenber you can play a goblin band
I don't see a lot of elevation on people's tables...is climbing terrain not as prominent as in other systems?
You can certainly build your tabletop like you want, with houses, hills, rocks etc. It´s only a matter of personal taste.
Anything that stands outside the norm of small model skirmish games I should know about?
Not really, the only thing people seems to stumble over are you can shoot in the maneuver phase and in the shooting phase as well (with penalties for movement, double-shooting). It seems a lot of people dislike this, I don´t know why.

I hope this helps. Ronin is a really fun game, mostly for historical players. If you prefer a more mythical touch with monsters and magic I recommend Daisho.

[SJWi]

I think Gaslands is the only other set apart from Frostgrave that Osprey have turned into a hardback. I think that both have a tie-up with Northstar who produce ranges of figures and accessories. Whether the “hardback” and “tie-up” are linked I wouldn’t know.

[Maniac]

Adding to nandrin:

Does the rules support multiplayer games?
I can safely say I've very rarely played a game with less than 3 people (some of the early games with my kids, where only one was old enough to play).  As such I think it plays pretty well with 3-5 players (we have not tried larger than that).

Is there a Mordheim-like campaign, if so, about how long is it?
You might also try En Garde!  It has a more fleshed out idea around campaigns.  It is Ronin with a slight reskin for Buccaneers/Musketeer films.  There is not going to be the D&D like aspect of stats and new spells, save for a few limited things.  Unless of course you want to add that, but don't go crazy. 

I see there's a pdf of mythical creatures...do these get added to warbands or are they scenario adversaries all the warbands have to content with?
The mythical creatures, from what I recall, can be used in either fashion (a buntai unto themselves or as 'ronin')

I don't see a lot of elevation on people's tables...is climbing terrain not as prominent as in other systems?
Entirely up to you and your table.  Remember, there are not tons of 'hives' in Feudal Japan in the same sense of the 40k world.  En Garde! had rules for jumping across things if I recall, not sure on Ronin.

Anything that stands outside the norm of small model skirmish games I should know about?
In terms of skirmish games, the big difference is the combat pool.  The rest is mostly straightforward, but the combat pool mechanic will take a little bit to get a feel for.  There is a fair bit of strategy in choosing your stones, and when to enhance or not.

[SotF]

The mystical aspect of things seems to work best with just a touch of it from the mythical pdf.

The two major things that I would suggest for those playing are basically to make things less of an issue.

First, mounted figures should be on the full, round base rather than a normal cavalry base, essentially going with the LotR type cavalry basing rather than the more standard type. This prevents minor issues with the rules in handling them in combination with the free rotation for the models that some people will take advantage of (Free rotate to move, then rotate to create more distance from enemies...it just saves the headaches of dealing with other players who might take advantage of it).

Second, put caps on units. This mainly makes things manageable for handling Peasants and Bandits...someone deciding to just go for maxed peasants is someone who is there more to win by irritation, an easy way to do it is to have a force with peasants making up more that 50% of the total units must have at least half of them upgraded with Yari.

With elevation, you can have boards with a lot of it built in, I've played on three big ones. One was inside a city with warehouses along docks, several layers of things built into it. One was in a damaged castle that had different ways to move between sections of it. The last, that I remember, was mountaintop peaks with bridges and such going back and forth and the bottom of the board was covered in worked out cotton for misty clouds and a few painted on features to show the far below the mountaintop shrines and temple.

There are campaign rules in the book, though they are a very slow build. It works very well for preventing one force from snowballing. In the larger campaign that I played in (and partially ran) we added short scenarios into it after various game numbers that added bits to it that functioned in different ways. Such as a hunt for a white tiger, searching for an appropriate gift to take to a master swordsmith, a search through a coastal village where they'd found a gaijin (yes, the last one was basically taking from the Ronin novel), and a few other things like that which could add interesting things to the winning Buntai such as a tiger pelt, special sword, and a sword for hire added to their Buntai that had some different options.

Multiplayer games are quite easy to have, but largely depend upon the scenario