I recently had a chance to try out
Test of Honour, a skirmish game involving samurai and other feudal Japanese warriors. We didn't play an actual scenario from the rules, but an introductory game where the goal was to remain within a certain distance of the objective markers while keeping the opponent's troops away.
You draw chits to activate your units, with ordinary troops having one chit each and samurai having three; therefore, samurai can do a lot in a turn when compared to the rank-and-file. However, there is also a chit that will end the turn for everyone. And since the battle usually ends after a certain number of turns, this throws some uncertainty into the game.
The battle I played was very swingy--meaning that first my opponent had the advantage, while I was losing troops thanks to adverse die rolls. However, the combat reversed course when I had a string of good rolls and was able to defeat my enemy. It was an interesting game, and I would like to see how it plays using a scenario from the book.
