7 Ronin

I picked this game up after watching “The Board Game Kaptain” on youtube. He highly recommend this game as a favorite (2 player only) programming/ strategy game.The game is themed on the movie “The 7 Samurai”. Ronin are samurai that don’t have a master or lord. In the movie “The 7 Samurai” the samurai are protecting a village from bandits. In “The 7 Ronin” game, the ronin are protecting the town from invading ninjas.In the game, the ronin have special abilities to deal with the ninjas. The areas of the village that the ninja occupy have special area abilities that if unoccupied by ronin, the ninja can either effect the ronin or bring more ninjas into the game. There are 8 rounds which represent 8 days of attacks.The goal of the game is for the ninja to either kill all of the ronin or occupy 5 areas of the town. The goal of the Ronin is to prevent the ninjas from occupying 5 areas of the town, while trying to outlast the ninja attacks.The game illustrates an important point with plans in combat in that, “Most perfect Battle plans don’t hold up when they meet the enemy”.The game took about an hour to learn, but that could be that we read the rules very carefully and watched several YouTube videos to clarify that we were playing the game correctly. The rulebook is done very nicely, with pictures, diagrams and examples. Once you get the rules down the game takes 15-30 minutes to play.Check out The Board Game Kaptain’s video on YouTube’s reviewIng this game. He also does a play through.Once you get the rules down, it’s very fun to play. I played this game 8 times in a row with my friend after we learned the rules, it’s that fun!

Wonderful two-player game. It is well-made and easy to learn. But, there is a lot of depth here. My wife and I found it to be a nice mix of casual play and hardcore strategy. It has also been a lot of fun teaching to our friends and then seeing the new strategies and tendencies that they went with on their first play-throughs. Every match has been different!

It's okay. It's a strategy game but it doesn't have any other dynamic to it. I think the powers for the samurai should be altered to have more interesting effects.

Really enjoyed this game.

love it!

7 Ronin is a really cool 2 player asymmetric board game that pits Ninjas against Ronin in a battle that can have several winning conditions. This was an immediate like for me, could only have been better if it were Ninjas vs. Pirates, but being a very nicely done take on the movie Seven Samurai I couldn't help but love what this brought to the table.Each game you play of this will be different either because you are playing a different side this time, either the Ronin defending the village or the Ninjas trying to control and take over the village. Or better, and this is what I love is that you can get into your opponents head while playing in a fun way, but it can make for some nice moves that I think makes this a lot of fun. As you're playing though you'll each place your character tokens on different areas of your hidden player maps and then reveal and then proceed to placement on the game board and resolution of powers or area abilities that get triggered. Where the fun comes in is the mind gaming during the first Phase when the hidden placement is taking place.A few comments made aloud of well if I go here obviously you will go there, so of course I can't possibly consider going there and will have to consider the area you didn't guard last time. It may not be an intended part of the game but it is what makes this perfect for me. There aren't a lot of rules or difficult choices to make, more there are calculated moves based on how your opponent is playing. It's less of you playing the game but instead playing your opponent directly and reacting to them. Again, I love this, my wife however who is my usual 2p game partner was not amused. She did not care for me trying to influence the game in this way.In the end we're a bit of a split household on this one, she will play this when I want to and loves when she wins and can laugh at my lose, which is fair. However she doesn't like the theme, Ninjas and Samurai just don't do it for her. On the other side though I love older black and white Samurai movies and this game captures a bit of nostalgia for me. I enjoy playing either of the two sides and love the choices I can make and possibly the ones I can lead my opponent into taking.Great game if you like the theme or can at least appreciate the awesome game mechanics going on behind the theme. I can't make a choice about which side I enjoy playing more, I am very drawn to the unique powers of the individual Ronin, but find the area abilities of controlled parts of the map to be very powerful for the Ninjas and I like to try them in different combinations each game. Both are great choices and even with my wife being less a fan of this one, we can play very fast games of it so that I can get my enjoyment from the game and she doesn't have to play one for a long time that isn't her favorite. So 7 Ronin in the end works out great for both of us and we've enjoyed quite a lot some of the social interaction we have during the game rounds.

An excellent strategy game, that takes several plays to truly appreciate. The game has a great theme on top of very nuanced play. It loses a star because the board doesn't quickly convey your options in each sector as well as I would have liked. Also, the ninja pieces are extremely fiddly. The game play is fantastic though, so definitely pick this title up.

Nice little strategy game for two players. A bit of a learning curve, but not too steep. Takes some time to figure out the different Ronin/Area abilities and how to use them effectively.Once we got those down, the game moves fairly quickly (15-30 minute playing time.) My only real negative on the game is that the ninja pieces are so small and difficult to work with, other than that it's a really good game.