Here is another strategy game from the master - Eric Lang, the author of many popular games such as:, and. This time you (three to five players) will lead one of the ancient and powerful clans (each with its own unique properties and capabilities) in the battle for the unification of feudal Japan. On your turn, you will need to choose one of the orders: recruit new warriors; move units and build a fortress; “train” by purchasing a monster card, military boost, virtue or winter boost; get points from controlled lands; or commit treason and lure foreign warriors to your side.

I would like to immediately note that you and your ally carry out the order in full, and all other players only partially. This moment brings the Rising Sun game much closer to . The game will last three seasons (rounds), within which 7 orders are played out, after which it is time to sort out the inevitable clashes, the winner (receives the token of the region departing to him) in which the player with the largest army becomes, while military tricks and pitfalls are not excluded . The latter is expressed in a secret choice of actions (behind a screen of coins: whoever bets the most will carry out): commit ritual murder (seppuku) of his soldiers, receiving victory points for this; take “language”, i.e. an enemy unit from the battle and thereby take away a victory point from its owner; hire wandering samurai (ronin), replenishing your army with them; get points for the fallen by immortalizing their names in poetry. Choosing an action is always fraught with a dilemma: which one to bet on in order to play it to the fullest, what is worth fighting for, what cards to get to become more agile, and so on.

The part at the end of the battle is quite interesting, when the winner distributes his bet to the losers (which is especially flattering if only two people are involved in the conflict: he was defeated, but at the same time increased his “gold reserve”). When preparing for a game, four out of seven possible temples are selected to which your Shintoists will go during the game, which earns you points. They are awarded at the end of each round, and between them the balance of power in the temples can change (especially at the end of the game), which resembles a kind of game within a game, like a rivalry for Tuscany. It is worth emphasizing that one of the cornerstones of the game was diplomacy. So, at the beginning of each round, during the “tea ceremony,” an alliance is concluded until the end of the round, which can only be dissolved through “Betrayal.” Alliances allow you to carry out the action in full, avoid clashes between each other, and also exchange “resources” (coins, ronin), influencing the course of battles.

It’s no secret that without the concept of “honor” it is impossible to imagine the life of a samurai. In this sense, the game offers to track its indicator on a special counter (noble deeds increase it, and low ones decrease it). All controversial (draw) situations are resolved based on the players’ honor indicator. The mythology of this region is also reflected in this game, during which you can appeal to deities (expressing favor with the widest gestures) and monstrous monsters (best serving players whose actions are more likely to lower their honor in the eyes of others). By the way, 8 Monster figures are not only highly detailed (like other miniatures in the game), but also very impressive in size. At the end of three rounds, points are counted, which are awarded (in addition to those that you collected during the game for cards, temples, hostages and the death of soldiers in battles) for tokens of regions and their combinations, as well as for special cards of “winter” enhancements.

Attention, in the printed version of the rules (page 8, block “Seating Order”) the publisher made an inaccuracy. The version of the booklet with the correct text of this block (version 1.1) is published just below. There you will find a separate image of this block with the correct text: you can paste it into the printed rules.

Game contents:

• 58 highly detailed plastic figures;
• 40 colored stands for figures;
• 65 plastic coins;
• 10 plastic house markers;
• 66 cards;
• 99 tokens; 5
• house screens;
• Playing field;
• Rules of the game.

Rising Sun board game buy on BanzGames

Buy the board game Rising Sun for 5,990 R. in Moscow, delivery throughout Russia or pickup in the BanzGames online store is possible by placing an order through the website or by contacting us by phone.

A board game about feudal Japan raised over $2 million on Kickstarter! It turns out that the theme of the Rising Sun is interesting to many of us!

A new board game called Rising Sun from renowned designer Eric M. Lang (one of his creations is the game Blood Rage) gives players the opportunity to conquer Japan. Particularly notable in the game detailed clan figures. This new board game based on Japanese history and folklore has been well received on Kickstarter, raising the required amount in just a matter of hours.

The game uses various game mechanics, including military strategy and political tactics.

River Dragon (all monsters look like this in proportion next to human figures, they are very large).

Game components:

• 58 highly detailed miniatures, including 10 warriors from each clan and 8 huge monsters
• 40 base counters
• 137 markers
• 5 clan screens
• 5 political sheets
• 53 cards
• playing field
• rules of the game

The game reached its $300,000 goal within hours and has now raised over $2 million.

In mid-March 2017, there are still a full 20 days left until the end of the promotion, enough time to pay the deposit to receive your copy of the game. The minimum deposit is set at $100. The pledge also secures an exclusive Phoenix miniature.

The game combines the creativity of Blood Rage with art by Adrian Smith and intricately sculpted miniatures created under the direction of Mike McVey. This is definitely a hit!

At the beginning of each season, players participate in a tea ceremony to forge new alliances. Having allies and playing mutually beneficial (for the time being) is often the key to victory. Allies do not kill each other during war, they also provide each other with unique bonuses. Recruit additional units, build fortresses when you are a Marshal, save coins when you train, and reap a bountiful harvest. But possible betrayal always casts doubt on alliances...

Clans and figures

Komainu, Yurei and Oni of Spite.

Oni of Skulls and Oni of Souls.

Oni of Hate and Oni of Blood.

Each of the five clans of the Rising Sun brings not only their own individual set of ten beautifully detailed miniatures, but also unique abilities that set them apart from the others and influence the strategies of all players.

Each clan has Daimyo, Shinto and Bushi figures (Daimyo, Shinto and Bushi).

Clans in the game: Koi, Dragonfly, Bonsai, Lotus and Turtle.

Koi Clan (flow like water)

Koi Daimyo, Shinto and Bushi.

The Koi clan (stream, water) knows how to constantly adapt. The Koi clan is capable of using Ronin, they are very flexible, which makes their decisions the most unpredictable.

Dragonfly Clan

Dragonfly Daimyo, Shinto and Bushi.

The Dragonfly Clan (wings, wind and spirit) is a flight on wings as thin as a spider's web. The Dragonfly Clan is able to move to any point on the map without restrictions. You never know where they will strike next.

Bonsai clan

Bonsai Daimyo, Shinto and Bushi.

The Bonsai Clan (Humility, Earth and Root) is ever-growing and evergreen, and does not have to spend any coins when purchasing resources. Fortresses sprout straight from the ground!

Clan Lotus

Lotus Daimyo, Shinto and Bushi.

The Lotus Clan (the key is patience) dictates the flow of politics, turning political mandates, they play what they want. A powerful ally on your side, and a terrible enemy if they betray you.

Turtle Clan

Turtle Daimyo, Shinto and Bushi.

The Turtle Clan (tough as wit; thin as steel) builds their fortresses on top of the shells of giant, legendary turtles. These indestructible fortresses can move around the map and even take part in provincial battles.

Rising Sun

I’ll say right away that I have Blood Rage, I’ve played it many times, so I can compare these games not based on the opinions and reviews of others, but from my own experience.

Of course, these are impressions from one game, so keep in mind that I do not pretend to provide an in-depth analysis. However, maybe someone will find it interesting. Let's begin!

Appearance

Let's get this out of the way right away. The game certainly looks stunning. All these tons of detailed miniatures of medium and large sizes and bright cardboard are very pleasing to the eye.

Also, I really like the color scheme in this game: soft lilacs, greens, blues, etc. pleasing to the eye. And also the fact that the clan miniatures are made in the main color of the clan and they are instantly identified on the field.

The monsters are done in a dirty dark gray color, which hides details at a distance, but many of them are very large and look impressive. Painted, they will probably be just awesome, although some of them are really creepy, with clusters of severed human heads in strange places, creepy limbs and scary expressions. Japanese mythology is much more creepy than the usual European ones.

How to play?

Literally two words about how to play. There are clans in the game, each with a special property. There are 3 seasons, and during each of them, rival clans in a circle perform one of the available actions. The first player draws 4 tiles from the top of the action pile and selects what he wants to do from them. Each season has 7 rounds, i.e. 7 actions.

The highlight here is that the active player (and his ally, if there is one) performs the action in full, and the other players also do it in a circle, but are content with only part of it. This system is very familiar to those who played Puerto Rico, and it is the only part of P-R that I definitely really liked. Cool mechanics! Glad to see her somewhere else.

After 7 actions, the resolution of wars occurs, which occur in all regions where there are troops of two unfriendly clans. The battle system here is the second thing I really liked. Since battles take place using a closed auction method (but with the known resources of each participant), you bet with coins on one of the possible actions: die and get points for each warrior, take a hostage, add military force in the form of ronins (if you have them ) or sing the glory of the lost, i.e. get points for each dead person. At the same time, you can place bets on at least all actions, as long as you have enough money. And only the one whose bid will outbid the others will fulfill it. This is a very interesting and cool battle.

In general, the winner in the game is the one who scores the most points, which are given for the death of soldiers in battle, for hostages, and a lot for sets from provinces in which you won (i.e., there is no point in winning all the time in one province, you need to move around the map) and for some other things (maps, temples, etc.) during the game.

Impressions: What did you like?

Mechanics. In addition to the design, as I wrote above, I really liked the mechanics of choosing actions and combat. Not only are they cool in themselves, but they also always lead to interesting thoughts: what action to take in order to complete it to the fullest, what provinces to try to fight for, what cards to take to get additional abilities, and so on about each of the actions .

And in battle, and in general, mindgame turns out to be quite good. Especially if several people are involved and the opponents have approximately equal strength. Here you start to think and figure out: is there a chance of victory or, well, kill all your people before the battle and also try to sing poems to them? Or take some hostage, reducing the enemy’s strength, and call on the ronin for help? What do your opponents need, and where will they bet? Overall, it's really exciting.

Helping the losers of the battle and not necessarily winning, different ways to get points. Another interesting feature is that losers lose their bets, and the winner gives away his bet coins to the losers. In a fight with one opponent, this turns out to be especially interesting when you seem to have lost, but you “raised money” for your next fight, which for you personally may be more important, and may take place with the same opponent, who will no longer have money.

Also, in each battle there are as many as three opportunities to get points even without being the winner. True, it feels like victories in different provinces, at least 5, are very, very important, and victory in the game cannot be seen without this, so the emphasis on winning battles here is great.

Temples. 4 temples are selected for the game out of 7 available, and they can give different goodies to those who occupy them with a large number of their Shinto priests. Moreover, the calculation and receipt of bonuses occurs three times for each season, and between rounds the arrangement of forces on the temples can change, and the struggle for them is serious, especially at the end. A sort of game within a game, like the map of Tuscany in Winemaking.

Honor. Another detail in “Rising Sun” is honor, which seems to be needed only to resolve draws. Nonsense, right? But only if you don’t take into account that there are draws here on every move.

Equal strength in battle? The one with the highest honor wins. Did they put the same number of priests on the temples? The action is taken by the one who is higher on the honor track and so on. Honor is indeed very useful and keeping track of it is important and necessary. But it’s not very easy to get it if the desired temple (Amaterasu) doesn’t come out, only for godly seppuku in battles.

But if you have low honor, some monsters help you more.

Impressions: What didn't you like?

Diplomacy and the ability to betray. I don’t know how to do diplomacy, I don’t like to lie, and I hate that I could be betrayed in the game. True, no one betrayed anyone in our game, but the very possibility offends me. I would be even more offended if someone betrayed someone, and at the same time exchanged my clan or monster for their own!

I also don’t like to negotiate, bribe other players, and so on. In Rising Sun this is directly encouraged by the rules, and it turns out that if you play without it, a whole layer of the game simply remains unused.

In some places, all the battles at the end of the season also sag. I’ll say right away that 6 players are clearly too much for this game, especially when 5 of them are beginners. This is even aggravated by the fact that every action is performed by all the players, but everyone still needs to think... With experience, it will probably be faster, but I wouldn’t want to play with more than 4 players again. With six of us, we played for 3 hours, which was a big overkill for me, since you were not involved in the game all this time and managed to get bored in places. Lang’s aforementioned Blood Rage is more dynamic (although I didn’t play it with five players, I must admit).

But in general I didn’t like that all battles were resolved at the end of the season. This reminded me of Eclipse, in which I don’t like the same moment when most of the players sit and wait while 2-3 players take turns fighting. It’s the same here, and if you yourself don’t participate in any battles, it’s just wasted time that you can’t even spend on any planning, because you don’t know what actions will be chosen in the next round and who will be left with you after the battles.

But again, most likely with 4 players the battles do not drag out as much as with us with six.

Unevenly useful features of clans. At first glance, some features seemed more useful than others. For example, my “Lotus” ability to do any action, regardless of what came to hand, was useful to me only 1 time in the entire game! This is just some nonsense. While the same “Bonsai” constantly bought huge monsters and built citadels for 1 coin, “Dragonflies” flew all the time, “Foxes” died in all battles and gained points, and so on.

Uneven number of activities per season depending on the number of players. In each season there are 7 rounds, it turns out that for six the first player made two moves, and the rest made one move each. With fewer players, the difference is even greater, and no composition of players is such that everyone has an equal number of action choices. And since taking an action yourself is much more useful than doing it during someone else’s moves, I didn’t like this arrangement.

So is this “Blood Rage about Japan” or not?

Yes, this is Eric Lang, the same artist Adrienne Smith, mythology, dudes on the map, big minks, clans, monsters and the same company CMON. The structure of the game is similar, consisting of 3 rounds, and you can even find similarities in the properties of some monsters and see Loki’s modified strategy in the seppuku chants, although it all works differently.

But in terms of gameplay, these two games are no more similar than “Kemet” and Blood Rage, and maybe even less, because “Kemet” also has clans, monsters, clan leveling, a map, conquests, movements, earning points and the like.

Rising Sun has a very different feel to Blood and Fury. “Puerto Rico” and Cry Havoc (with somewhat similar combat) came to mind at different times, but not BR. A different system for choosing actions and a completely different combat, no draft, no quests, clans with different initial properties and no statistics, other rules and opportunities for obtaining victory points, honor, temples, intermediate bonuses and so on, we could go on for a long time. Point blank, I don’t see any similarities and the games play completely differently, so for me it’s definitely not - this is not “Blood and Fury” in a Japanese setting.

The bottom line and why is this a good game, “but personally, of course, I won’t buy it”?

"Rising Sun" is a very cool, beautiful, interesting game. One that you need to play many times to understand how to play successfully and take full advantage of your clan, with interesting solutions and great replayability. All clans play differently, plus different trait cards add even more personality to each one. With experience, new nuances will be revealed, there was a feeling that there was plenty of depth and opportunities for different strategies and tactics here. Fans of diplomacy and influence on other players will be able to completely unwind.

I will repeat once again how much I liked the mechanics of choosing actions and the battle system, more than in many similar games, but there are some things because of which I still will not buy the game:

1. Diplomacy. I had the game Sons of Anarchy, which also allowed full diplomacy. However, we almost never used it, because that’s the kind of company we have. I personally don’t like and don’t know how to negotiate, bribe, incite, and certainly betray. Well, I’m not interested in this and I don’t like to be manipulated, much less when they manipulate me. And to play without this is to lose a whole layer of the game, which was intended by the creator, and I don’t see the point in this for myself. By the way, Sons of Anarchy sold because of this, because there was a feeling that we were playing it incorrectly and were missing the real juice of the game.
2. Kickstarter goodies. Moreover, the monsters are okay, there seemed to be too many of them, and at least we didn’t try different Chinese clans, but I don’t know how much you need to play in the database to want to include them. But damn, I can’t play without plastic action and alliance tiles, beautiful fortresses and similar awesome basic components with pathetic cardboards instead! I will always remember that gorgeous version that we played for the first time :)) Moreover, there will be an opportunity to play the full version if desired.
3. Genre and high aggression. I already have several dudes on the map in my collection, and I got rid of the “bloody” one, Kemet, and there are no less wars here than in Kemet, and it’s the victories that are important. I am becoming more peaceful and more often choose something less aggressive to play with, so I don’t see the point of having “Sun” in my collection, especially taking into account the first point. However, I won’t refuse to play with a maximum of four people.

That's all my impressions and thoughts about “Rising Sun”. Are you going to support the pre-order campaign? Are you interested in playing this game?

I know, I have always believed that not everything in this world is for sale, and there is still a generation of people alive whose horizons extend much further than the square breasts of Larycroft (at ease, Comrade Vn). Rising Sun came to us from the depths of centuries, covered with the noble dust of time and glory. We do not despise this genre; wargames are also divided into good and bad.

Time

Rising Sun Gold- the pinnacle of the evolution of wargames during the Second World War from Talonsoft with a completely unexplored theme of the war with Japan, so mysterious, crowned with a terrible, sad outcome. But before that there were 4 years of war, tens, hundreds of hours of real time, endless battles. Unlike some, the game is equipped with a full-fledged campaign: with titles, a global map and historical missions.

Back to Pearl Harbor

For those who played the original, there is nothing special to explain - a rarity, the pearl of Talonsoft's wargaming collection. Japan is doubly interesting. “They” really don’t like this war, which cannot be said, for example, about Normandy. The United States, being a naval power, was never able to persuade the samurai, winning back in the air and at sea. Note that they let us play as the Japanese. Also for the English, but this is a “bonus”.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), this article is about the game, not military history, so I will refrain from criticizing you-know-who. Although I would very much like to convey to all convinced “Westerners” that the newly invented atomic bomb was not originally intended for the Japanese. However, so do they.

Take it easy

The most interesting thing is that Rising Sun- a fairly easy-to-use wargame. The interface is friendly even to those who have never played such games. The action phases are combined, giving the same AP, which greatly simplifies the action. Sometimes it even looks a lot like Panzer General and others like it. Well, of course, the game has not reached this point yet, but the work of the designers is visible to the naked eye. These 22 buttons are at the very bottom, half of which are actually useful, almost the Everest of thoughts: it’s enough to remember (or better yet, play) the cumbersome Battleground to evaluate it.

The game is convenient to play. What could be better? The engines in such projects are written to last for centuries, and I’m not talking about modules at all, but how many good hexagonal wargames have suffered from banal neglect of the interface! For example, HPS Simulations, while creating exact copies of our patient, does not in any way want to save me from nausea when looking at the screen. It took people several months even for multi-colored circles to appear under the troops. IN Rising Sun however, despite the clarity of the graphics, which makes it possible to easily distinguish friends from foes in a 256-color mess of bmp files even without any visual markings, markers are elevated to the category of extremely necessary things. As well as convenient dialog menus, combat units that stand out in color with detailed information about their capabilities, and not an abyss of verbal husk from useless facts.

In order for the visual picture of what is happening to fit into the convolutions as tightly as possible, add to everything described good graphics, smooth animation and even, as they say now, a “dynamic landscape” (funnels... a trifle, but how nice!).

Learn!

Long-standing traditions in Rising Sun kept sacred. What the wider gaming community calls gameplay is missing here. Such games are wonderful in their own way, and if you firmly believe that Submarine Titans- “rulez”, I don’t want to convince you. Moving soldiers for hours on a flat map, almost with a ruler, measuring out effective fire zones and making calculations for the decisive counterstrike, is not an activity for the weak younger generation, mired in unnecessary “three-dimensionality”, where, in fact, the main time of game development is spent, crowding out others important components.

Everything is given for the sake of balance. The strategy of the game exists at an amazing level: one can only marvel at how many parameters the developers had to take into account. And this is with just one programmer! Command either a battalion or a corps, you won’t be bored. In any case, the AI ​​will not let you fall asleep. This is a real game - here you have to fight not with the interface and crooked controls, but with enemies, which we are slowly starting to get used to, right?

And yet the world Rising Sun- the world of conventions. You shouldn’t forget this, and it won’t work. For those who are particularly picky, a huge historical and technical reference base on military equipment has been prepared with the accompanying transfer of “facts and formulas” within the framework of the rules of the game.

Firework

Real wargaming gold, requiring the close attention of true connoisseurs of such hardcore. We will never see anything better, you understand this especially well in the light of the console threat (the young guard has lost another fighter... - Note ed.).

The sun rises over the slope of Mount Fuji. Kami spirits descend from the skies, while evil spirits do their dirty deeds in the forests and floodplains. "Rising Sun" is a board game for 3-5 players set in feudal Japan. As the divine beings of the Kami descend from the heavens to remake the land according to their own will, each player will have to lead their clan to victory. Enter engage in political intrigue, negotiate, enter into profitable alliances, worship the Kami spirits and fight monsters from legends and tales to win this battle for the Land of the Rising Sun.

In total, there are five clans in the board game “Rising Sun”. Each clan has at its disposal not only a set of ten miniatures of warriors of three types (Daimyo, Shinto and Bushi), but also a set of unique abilities that determine the clan's strategy. Choose your favorite clan (Koi Clan, Dragonfly Clan, Turtle Clan, Lotus Clan and Bonsai Clan) and go ahead, conquer the Land of the Rising Sun!

War of clans

The political phase plays a vital role in the game mechanics of Rising Sun. During the Political Phase, players can recruit new warriors, move their troops around the map, train fighters, reap the harvest from the provinces they control, and conduct political intrigue by making and breaking alliances at a convenient moment. During the political phase, players will receive coins and fame points. You can spend coins in different ways: from improving your clan fighters to hiring huge monsters that can turn the game around, bringing enormous benefits to your clan.

At the beginning of each new season, Rising Sun players participate in a tea ceremony to make and break alliances. Having the right ally in Rising Sun is often the key to victory. Allies not only avoid killing each other each other during wars, but also provide each other with a unique bonus. Recruit additional troops, build fortresses and reap a rich harvest from all your provinces.

Eastern passions

While playing Rising Sun, situations will often arise where it is extremely advantageous for you to betray your ally and attack him. You can easily earn a lot of coins this way, but be careful! After all, your every betrayal brings dishonor to your clan. Honor in the game Rising Sun is the same resource as money and fame. A clan with greater honor receives more benefits from Kami worship and will always have an advantage over a rival clan with less honor. But sometimes being dishonest can be a winning strategy, because this is the only way to gain the support of the nightmarish Oni.