I think Bang! gets a bad rap. If you choose your expansions properly it won't be a long game. We often have finish a game in 1 hour! If you use High Noon and/or A Fistful of Cards you set a kind of "doom track" in game length. Also if you do not use the Shadow feature of Gold Rush, you shorten the game as well. People want to use it to eliminate player elimination, but you gotta accept it in this kind of game, besides I offset this with 2 cards from High Noon and Fistful of Cards with the cards "Ghost Town" & "Dead Man". Dead Man allows the 1st player eliminated to come back, thus its not so bad, as it only brings back 1 player (I believe at half life), and the 1st one out, so they don't feel they got the wrong end of the stick. And Ghost Town brings back everyone, but only for just 1 turn. BTW, sometimes these cards don't even show up, and most games end before we reach the end of this deck! I usually put in 12-15 cards in this deck. We have only reached the High Noon card 2-3 times! I also want to say the other half of Gold Rush speeds the game up because it encourages players to shoot other players, even their own team mates, to get gold. So I use this half of that expansion only. We had 1 or 2 long games, and this was before I added all the expansions, tho I don't own or use Wild West. So the use of the expansions I share here, helps and does not hinder the game. I really believe playing Bang! this way will fix most problems people have with the game, but it won't fix disinterest or dislike of mechanics such as player elimination.
Just picked this up and coup today. A random stranger in the local game shop recommended Samurai Sword and picked up a copy too. Was just looking for sushi go lol but they didn't have a copy. Hope I didn't make a mistake
Hmm, I think icons are good. Allows you to play with kids who might not be the strongest reader as well as allowing the game to be played all over the world. Look at Eclipse as a good example. IMO, I much much prefer icons on cards for more reasons than I can list here, but one of teh main ones is that card games are often linked to the art and icons do not interfere with art and in fact can aid it..
If everyone should go after the ronin, then why not have everyone reveal their identity willingly? The ronin may not reveal his indentity, but the rest will so everyone will know who he is...
The difficulty still matters in a three player game. Firstly, there is the armor card which is a permanent +1 to difficulty to hit you. Secondly, one of the heroes has +1 difficulty to hit them as their special ability. In fact, I recently played a 3 player game, and I realized that in order to win, ninjas sort of need armor, in order to ensure range-1 weapons are unplayable for the shogun. Otherwise, it is too easy for the shogun to empty their hand, and thus become untargetable. The only other counter is cards that can force the shogun to draw a card (and hope the card drawn isn't a parry). Which isn't common enough to make it a reliable strategy.
@francesco castelli -> What do you mean, when someone is reduced to 0 honor the game ends. So the games are fast. Check the rules again, because it seems to me you've been playing it wrong with your friends.
I had a chance to play Samurai Sword and I have to say that I disagree with a good part of the review. The game doesn't play faster than Bang!, due to the harmless rule. Pretty much the harmless rule means that a character that is out of cards or out of hit points can't be attacked anymore. Which makes bring any character down to zero hnor a tedious and time-consuming process. While this rule prevents ganing up ona defenseless opponent it causes the game to drag. A lot!
Just bought this from my local gaming store..watched the review in the store..sold me. Thanks!
I think Bang! gets a bad rap. If you choose your expansions properly it won't be a long game. We often have finish a game in 1 hour!
If you use High Noon and/or A Fistful of Cards you set a kind of "doom track" in game length. Also if you do not use the Shadow feature of Gold Rush, you shorten the game as well. People want to use it to eliminate player elimination, but you gotta accept it in this kind of game, besides I offset this with 2 cards from High Noon and Fistful of Cards with the cards "Ghost Town" & "Dead Man". Dead Man allows the 1st player eliminated to come back, thus its not so bad, as it only brings back 1 player (I believe at half life), and the 1st one out, so they don't feel they got the wrong end of the stick. And Ghost Town brings back everyone, but only for just 1 turn. BTW, sometimes these cards don't even show up, and most games end before we reach the end of this deck! I usually put in 12-15 cards in this deck. We have only reached the High Noon card 2-3 times!
I also want to say the other half of Gold Rush speeds the game up because it encourages players to shoot other players, even their own team mates, to get gold. So I use this half of that expansion only.
We had 1 or 2 long games, and this was before I added all the expansions, tho I don't own or use Wild West. So the use of the expansions I share here, helps and does not hinder the game.
I really believe playing Bang! this way will fix most problems people have with the game, but it won't fix disinterest or dislike of mechanics such as player elimination.
Just picked this up and coup today. A random stranger in the local game shop recommended Samurai Sword and picked up a copy too. Was just looking for sushi go lol but they didn't have a copy. Hope I didn't make a mistake
Hmm, I think icons are good. Allows you to play with kids who might not be the strongest reader as well as allowing the game to be played all over the world. Look at Eclipse as a good example. IMO, I much much prefer icons on cards for more reasons than I can list here, but one of teh main ones is that card games are often linked to the art and icons do not interfere with art and in fact can aid it..
love the banter
Sam's shirt MW(Mage Wars), and the game they review has M,W letters withe red color saMurai sWord...is it a coincidence???
If everyone should go after the ronin, then why not have everyone reveal their identity willingly? The ronin may not reveal his indentity, but the rest will so everyone will know who he is...
I really like the Japanese theme, and I love Bang. This is a must buy.
Samurai Sword Vs Shadow Hunter. . . Which one would you choose?
I would said Shadow Hunter.
Shadow Hunters
Does difficulty of weapons happen in three player?
All players are not far from each other so the difficulty will be just 1 for each weapon card??!!
The difficulty still matters in a three player game. Firstly, there is the armor card which is a permanent +1 to difficulty to hit you. Secondly, one of the heroes has +1 difficulty to hit them as their special ability.
In fact, I recently played a 3 player game, and I realized that in order to win, ninjas sort of need armor, in order to ensure range-1 weapons are unplayable for the shogun. Otherwise, it is too easy for the shogun to empty their hand, and thus become untargetable.
The only other counter is cards that can force the shogun to draw a card (and hope the card drawn isn't a parry). Which isn't common enough to make it a reliable strategy.
ha, good question. That's actually why I came here again today! (I had just watched the Shadow Hunter review before watching this)
@francesco castelli -> What do you mean, when someone is reduced to 0 honor the game ends. So the games are fast. Check the rules again, because it seems to me you've been playing it wrong with your friends.
Who is the distributor? Can't find it at Funagain or Amazon or anywhere else :-(
not japanese word...but italian.
armatura=armor
parata=parry
the 2° lenguage on the cards is italian
Love the game. But can’t find players that’s in to it
Yes, yes we do.
Nice game and italian is not a problem for me ;)
If someone's losing, can't win, & they can't die... what's to prevent them from ruining the game for other people with their in game actions?
You can "die", when you loose your last honour point. When it happens the game ends after one last round
"Jones' out 'Bang'"?! Now the Jones Theory/Postulate/Effect or whatever you want to call it has become a verb!
from Italy,good job
Great review, im not sure to buy it until now :)
..... why does the bow do more damage than the gun?
FishofMuu I not long ago bought the game. And when I look 👀. At the card and was saying the same thing. The gun should do at least 3 damage.
I had a chance to play Samurai Sword and I have to say that I disagree with a good part of the review. The game doesn't play faster than Bang!, due to the harmless rule. Pretty much the harmless rule means that a character that is out of cards or out of hit points can't be attacked anymore. Which makes bring any character down to zero hnor a tedious and time-consuming process. While this rule prevents ganing up ona defenseless opponent it causes the game to drag. A lot!
The japanese word for armor is armatura? the word for parry is parata?...
I don't think so
Sound like Bang
They share the same creator, Emiliano Sciarra. Samurai sword was created as an improved version of the game Bang!
English review with Italian cards...lol!
Actually on every card there are both languages
The creator is Italian so every card has the Italian and English language on it
Bang! The dice is better
Oh nevermind... I see the game is in italian
muito legal
do we really need another Bang?
It's a huge conspiracy!
Half-Life 3 confirmed.
I'd rather play Bang! than....this thing. I don't care about honor-points.
Shouldn't it be called Slash? Or maybe Whhhhiiiippphhhh?
This is a copy of the chinese game sanguosha