This is a beautiful looking game with some great artwork and components. The shurikens used as action markers are quite tactile being made of wood, although maybe a tad on the large side. Each player has three actions (Shurikens) which they can place on various areas of the board:
Go to the Dojo - Draw cards a visible stack of three
Attack a House - Attack a house using Dojo cards from your hand using stealth (Lower value card then the Gurard) or strength (Higher Value card than the Guard). If defeated you take the lowest value treasure placing it on your shuriken. Now you can push on and try against the next guard in an attempt to steal more treasure. There are 3 treasures per house, and getting all 3 will let you clear out the house but if you fail you only get to choose 1 treasures on your Shuriken and have to discard the rest.
Guards with a red symbol mean the house is alerted, another treasure added, and to steal the last treasure you need to defeat an Elite guard (tougher but worth victory points at game end)
There are 3 factions in the game, and after clearing a house, you must change the house alignment to one of the other 2 factions in the game. House alignment becomes important during scoring rounds, so you`ll want to pick a faction that you are in good with.
Visit the Sensei - Where you can learn new skills, in order to pick skill, you use your action to discard a card equal to the number listed on the skill card. Once you have one of the 3 Types (Crane/Snake/Tiger) furture skills of the same type are free. Each of the skills represent rule breaking abilities to aid you.
Appeal to Envoys in the Palace - These are allies that you gain you gain favour with. You discard treasure matching those on an Envoy cards face up in the Palace area. You gain honor (victory points), and keep that Envoy for the rest of the game.
When you score, end of rounds 3/5/7, the player with the most envoys of a certain house can choose between influence points or a rumor card. The runner up gets whats left over
Visit the Pavilion - You collect rumor cards. These are scoring bonuses giving you multipliers for scoring at the End of the game.
I can see this getting played more often, it should play quite quickly once you get to know what all the of actions do. Really good fun.
