It is impressive when a game designer creates one clever system that mixes a theme and a game mechanism that do not seem to fit together. However, it is even more impressive when they do it a second time. The designers of this game must have a giant wheel in their office. They spin it to pick a war theme, and then they apply their game system to it. Whatever they are doing, it works very well, and I am a big fan of their style.

Game Details

The game is called General Orders: Sengoku Jidai. It gets a high score of 9 out of 10. It is designed for exactly two players. If you enjoyed the previous game called General Orders: World War 2, you will likely like this one too. Osprey Games is the publisher. The game was designed by Trevor Benjamin and David Thompson. Please note that this is a review copy.

If you have already played the original General Orders: World War 2, the rules here are mostly the same. You can skim through this explanation to see what has changed. The game keeps the same tight and strategic feel of the first one. It condenses a big war experience into a very small box. The goal is to make war games more accessible to people who like familiar game mechanisms. The theme might not be for everyone, but the gameplay is excellent.

How to Play

First, you pick the side of the board you want to play. You take the pieces for that side and set up the board. Each player has a number of commanders. On your turn, you will place one of your commanders on the board or you will pass. If you place a commander, you put it on an empty activation space. Then you do the action written on that space.

Before we talk about the actions, we need to explain “being in supply.” You cannot activate a space unless it is in supply. A space is in supply if you can draw a line from that space to your Headquarters (HQ) without any breaks. The line must go through spaces that are next to each other.

When you move into a space, you can bring units from spaces next to that space. You can also bring them from spaces next to a water area that is next to that space. However, at the end of your turn, you can only have five units in one space. Any extra units must go back to your supply. You might ask why you would bring more units than five. The answer is battle. If you move into a space with the other player’s units, you fight. The defender rolls a die. The attacker removes units equal to the number rolled. Then, both players remove units one for one until one player has units left or everyone is gone. The Sail action works the same way, but it only uses your ships.

The Bombard action lets your ships attack a land space next to them. You roll one die for each ship and add up the numbers to destroy that many enemy units.

The Shell action is like the Bombard action, but it targets water spaces. You roll two dice no matter how many units you have. If you play as the side with siege engines, you have the Siege action. This works like Bombard, but it targets land spaces next to you.

You can also place commanders on the side board. This board has two Reinforce actions, two Embark actions, and two Plan actions. Each player can use each of these only once per round. Embark and Reinforce let you add more units to the game. The Plan action lets you draw command cards. One space on the board also gives you the first player spot for the next round. Command cards have different abilities. You can also spend a command card to re-roll any dice you just rolled. Some spaces give you bonus abilities if you control them, like drawing extra cards or reinforcing more units.

The game ends in one of two ways. It ends if a player takes control of the opponent’s HQ. If that does not happen, the game ends after four rounds. If it ends by rounds, players score points. You get points for stars on spaces you control that are in supply. The player with the most points wins. If there is a tie, the player who goes first in the current round wins.

The Student Becomes the Master

The first game, General Orders: World War 2, was a fresh take on war games. It used worker placement, which is a familiar mechanism for many gamers. It was tense and brilliant. It fit a whole war into a tiny box. It was easy to learn, which made it appealing to a wide range of people. Topping a game like that is hard to do. But for the designers, it seemed easy. I will explain why later. First, I want to talk about why their system is so good.

It does not take long to see how smart this system is. It is especially good when it comes to controlling areas. In other area control games, spaces can change hands many times in one round. In this game, it takes more effort to take a space. This is because you have a limited number of actions. In the World War 2 game, you could Advance or Paradrop to take a space. In this game, it is even tighter because you do not have the paratrooper action. Planes were not invented yet. The only way to do that would be to fling people with a catapult, which is not practical. Once you use your actions, a space is still not safe. There are other ways to weaken the enemy to take the space later. In the first game, there were few ways to do this. In this game, they have added more ways to attack.

With ships and siege engines, every space feels vulnerable. This raises the tension. Nothing is safe. You have to decide if you want to attack or defend what you already have. It is not impossible to do both, but you will usually lean one way in a round.

I See No Ships!

Let’s talk about a change from the first game. Before, you could only bring in units from areas next to the space you are moving into. Now, you can also bring them from areas next to ships that are next to that space. This means you can bring in units from further away. It gives you more freedom to move your units around. It also helps you hide your plans. If you put units next to an enemy space, they know you are going to attack. Now, you can be sneaky by putting units further away. I love this change because it makes cutting off supply lines more tactical. Water spaces cover a lot of the board, so you can get to important spaces quickly. I used to try to cut off my opponent near the end of the game to stop them from scoring points. Now, you might want to attack their ships to limit their resources in a whole section of the board. Adding ships turns the strategy up to eleven. You have so many more options and ways to swing the fight to your side.