ToH - Test of Honour, The Samurai Miniatures Game.

So, my last post was a bit of a ramble about why I am interested in Samurai, this post is more what I am doing tabletop wise with Samurai.

I have had a very long love affair with Warhammer 40,000 and begrudgingly (at times) Games Workshop, as I am sure everyone has. Until the 8th edition rules came ou, I was seriously considering selling off my 40k gear as I hadn't played it regularly in about a year, maybe more.

Looking around for other avenues to pursue the hobby, I came across Warlord Games, also based in the Lead-Belt at Nottingham. The produce several historical games from Hail Ceaser (ancients) through to Bolt Action (WW2) and many others.
One which caught my eye when it was announced though was Test of Honour, it seemed to tick the boxes straight off the bat.

• 28 mm scale.
• Skirmish sized games.
• Fast playing.
• Simple rules.
• Entertaining.
• Samurai.
• Reasonably priced.

This seems perfect for a small scale project which you can go as deep into as you wish.

With my birthday looming, I decided to take the plunge and bought one of the expansion boxes (Masked Men, but they are for another time) and my girlfriend bought me the core box.

So, what did she get for £35?

Quite a lot in fact...

This box is packed with stuff!

Firstly you get a sheet of double sided cardboard tokens, everything from activation counters to blood drops to objectives, everything which you need a counter for in the game is here.

Then there is a second sheet of cardboard, this time with some reversible terrain flats on it, one side is normal, the flip side is ruined/on fire.

SPRUE CITY!

These are the Wargames Factory sprues which Warlord bought the rights to produce, they have recieved flak in reviews in the past, you can go and look other peole's reviews of them up, i'm not going to say much other then the Samurai sprue is awful, the Ashigaru sprues are a dream though, a little light on detail, but nothing major.
You get five Samurai and thirty Ashigaru in the core box.

Special dice specifially for the game, they come with a blank side also which isn't shown in my photo. All rolls in the game require you to score three swords and less crosses or blanks then swords you roll. Quite neat and easy to remember in the thick of combat.

A MASSIVE deck of cards, which covers everything from your warrior types, through to skills your Samurai can use, Injuries, Dishonour cards, Quest cards which are kept from battle to battle.
I think the skill cards are kept as well, but can't remember.

These are just some of the cards inside that deck. I need to have a proper read of the rules yet to figure out how to organise them for a game.

Speaking of rules, you also get a rule book:

Mine was lurking right at the bottom of the box, you are meant to get a "Battles Book" as well which covers the advanced rules and scenarios, but mine was missing.
I'll have to wait and see what reply I get from Warlord's customer service about it.

So, thats a quick rundown of what is inside the Test of Honour main box, I am looking forwards to getting this going and having a few games.
As the game is activation token drawn it will lend itself very well to solo play as you will never know what is going to get the chance to move next, being an integrated player turn rather then an IGO-UGO game.

well, until next time.


 - Lewis