Exclusive look at more cards from the upcoming L5R Embers of War set

Previews continue for Embers of War, the upcoming set for the Legend of the Five Rings CCG. This week Boardgaming.com gets to preview two more exclusive new cards!

The Distant Reaches

The Celestial arc was not an environment that was particularly favorable to attachments, aside from certain very specific decktypes (the Lion Followers decks of early Celestial, or the Mantis decks out of Dragon’s Guard City) and a few individual cards (namely, Chagatai’s Armor and Armor of the Ryu). Early Emperor, by contrast, has seen plenty of attachments being played, in spite of numerous countermeasures like Sundering Strike or Broken Alliance. Now you can add The Distant Reaches to the list of cards that can help you deal with your opponent’s attachments.

The Distant Reaches is pretty unique among anti-attachments cards for a number of reasons. Unlike cards like Sundering Strike, it cannot deal with attachments permanently (by destroying them), but can only neutralize them temporarily. This is offset by the card’s ability to deal with two attachments at once and during the Action Phase, rather than having to wait to do it during battle (of course, if those attachments do make it to battle, The Distant Reaches won’t be any help against them). Then there’s the fact that this card is a Region, which means that it can be destroyed fairly easily by your opponent if you don’t protect it.

This Region seems to be better against Followers than against Items, as bowed Followers do not add their Force to their unit’s, while bowed Items still do. However, many of the most popular Items, like Wyrmbone Katana or Cursed Relic, have great abilities that can only be used while unbowed, so bowing them before combat will deprive your opponent of options or force him to expand more cards to straighten them. Not that The Distant Reaches should be your sole anti-attachments tool (especially because of how fragile it can be), but if used in conjunction with cards like Broken Alliance, it can do wonders against attachments-heavy decks.

Hiromi’s Vassals

Speaking of attachments, here’s a nice, cheap one. Kill actions have so far been the exclusive domain of expensive Followers rather than cheaper ones in Emperor, with Champion of Thunder and Elite Sentry as the most obvious examples, but Hiromi’s Vassals is set to change things up a bit.

At 4 Gold and 3 Force, the Vassals are on par with most cheap attachments like Vigilant Riders or Nightingale Blade. There are, of course, major differences between Items and Followers, especially when it comes to medium-sized ones, with Items generally coming out on top (that is, in decks that aren’t built to take particular advantage of one particular type of attachment), but this particular Follower more than makes up for it with its ability and Focus Effect.

This Follower indeed provides you with a cheap kill action. In fact, its Ranged 6 Attack is similar to the one on Champion of Thunder, a card that costs three times as much as Hiromi’s Vassals (although it comes with more Force and built-in protection, and its action is cost-free). A Ranged 6 Attack kills a lot of things, and the Thunder keyword means that, if you’re playing the Mantis Stronghold Suitengu’s Torch, whatever it is you’re trying to kill will die.

Given the low Focus Value of the Vassals, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever get to use its Focus Effect proactively, but it provides some nice protection against duels. You’re very likely to lose the duel, but at least you’ll get a free Follower out of it, one that you can immediately use to kill the Personality standing in your way. At 4 Gold, Hiromi’s Vassals is a solid Follower; at 0, it’s a bargain!