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Y'know, being a Great Clan isn't all war and intrigue. There are perks to the job, too. Like getting your own House Guard. Ours arrived a little late (darned UPS!), but it's well worth it. Coming to you live, from Dark Journey Home, Yoritomo proudly presents the one, the only...
Mantis House Guard - Follower - Uncommon - Dark Journey Home
Force: * Chi: +1
Personal Honor Requirement: 1 Gold Cost: 6
Personal Honor: - Focus Value: 4
GAME TEXT: The Mantis House Guard will only attach to a Mantis Clan Personality (not to a Yoritomo's Alliance Personality). The Force of the House Guard equals half of the Personality's Gold cost, rounded up.
Ever since the Alliance was introduced, I've been wondering why we haven't had any Clan-specific Followers. There were Mantis Budoka, Bushi, and Samurai, but they could attach to anybody. Everyone else, it seemed, had at least a few Clan henchmen--even Toturi's Army had The Twelve Ronin to boast of--and yet the Mantis remained stuck in that nebulous "well, we've got a few items and one crappy ancestor. Now what do we do?" realm. Mantis players noticed, and quietly petitioned FRPG for a House Guard of our very own to match our Great Clan status. Apparently, someone up at FRPG noticed, and the House Guard is the result.
Just how does it compare to its seven Great competitors? In terms of gold cost, personal honor requirements, and Focus value, the Mantis House Guard is roughly equal to its peers, which were released in the Shadowlands expansion (except the Scorpion House Guard, also known as the Funny Hat Squad, which was belatedly introduced in Scorpion Clan Coup). But, raw statistics aside, it is much better than any of them, for a number of reasons, ranging from the subtle to the blatently obvious.
Just look at what the Mantis House Guard gives you for its cost. With a low honor requirement, it can be attached to any Mantis Personality. Six gold is a reasonable price for a Follower, easily paid for with a Bushi Dojo, although it is a pain to have to find a second gold source if you're bowing Kyuden Yoritomo. A +1 Chi bonus is very rare among Followers, and should certainly be prized, for reasons which shall be discussed below. Finally, there's that weird Force thing. The Mantis House Guard has no set Force of its own. Instead, its Force is equal to half of its attached Personality's gold cost, rounded up.
Now, this is not an uncommon sort of ability for House Guards. The Doji House Guard has a Force equal to its attached Personality's Personal Honor, plus one. The Shiba House Guard's Force is equal to its attached Personality's Chi. Either of these may seem preferable to the Mantis House Guard's Force, since they aren't directly dependent on playing with expensive Personalities.
But think a moment. Is the Mantis House Guard really such a bad Follower? Look at the other House Guards. On average, they have a Force of three, possibly a little more when used to attack or defend (Lion and Crab), or when attached to an exemplary Personality (Phoenix and Crane). But, on average, their Force evens out around three. Ironically, so does the Mantis House Guard's. Remember that the Guard can only attach to Mantis Personalities, not Yoritomo's Alliance Personalities. So some of the pricier Alliance dudes out there, like Genzo, Tsuruchi, and Doji Chomei, are taken out of the running. This leaves a vast pool of Mantis Personalities. And, when attached to these Personalities, the Mantis House Guard's Force frequently levels out at around three, and is often much higher. Let's take a look at the actual stats:
As you can see, even in a weenie Mantis deck, the House Guard can fit in just fine. In fact, the Guard actively encourages the use of the higher-cost Mantids. When attached to Kamoto or Da Man, the House Guard supplies enough Force for that single unit to take a Province or even crush a decent-sized army without help. One of the best things to help a deck using the House Guard is the impeccable Yoritomo Denkyu. This hot side of Mantis beef from Ambition's Debt, aside from being a solid Samurai on his own, increases the efficiency of the House Guard by reducing the starting price of the big Mantids. It is now possible, thanks to Denkyu, to use three Yukues or Kamotos in a previously Masasue- and Aramasu-dominated Dynasty deck.
And there are even sneakier tricks you can pull. The Shadowlands Event The Price of War increases the gold costs of all Personalities by two, giving the Guard an extra point of Force while hindering your opponent's efforts. Firebird Falls, a popular Dark Journey Home region, ups the expenses of all Personalities by their Personal honor. And the sinister Kolat samurai known only as Kado provides military force while making the asking price of all your other Personalities two koku steeper. However, the option I like best is a little-used Event from Episode 4 of The Hidden Emperor: Festival of the River of Stars, which hurts your opponent more than it hurts you. When it pops up in your Province, the Festival lets you choose one word with four or more letters in it; every card with that name in its title has its gold cost increased by two. This Event slaughters well-tuned decks like nothing else. Choose "Otaku," and your Unicorn opponent will be cursing you. Choose "Ninja" and that smooth-talking Shadow servant will be quaking in his gold-deficient boots. And, best (or worst) of all, the Festival of the River of Stars increases each of your Personalities' gold costs by one. Just how much does this help? Well, here's a revised Force list:
In nearly every case, that's a one-Force bonus. And, for the most part, the speed of your deck is nearly unchanged: cheap Personalities like Aramasu and Tsuyu still come off the Stronghold, and more expensive ones are only marginally more difficult to buy, considerably less so once Denkyu is in play. Perhaps the biggest blow is not being able to get Masasue out for free, but that's easily solved with One Koku. In return, you get a very respectable average Force and big trouble on your opponent's side of the table.
But there's more to the Mantis House Guard than mere Force. There's also that +1 Chi bonus. Most Followers don't add to their Personalities' personal statistics; those that do are either ancestors (which don't even count as Followers under normal circumstances), prohibitively expensive, unique, or not very impressive otherwise. The Mantis Guard is a rare exception. A one-point bonus to Chi may not look like much, but, in this day and age, there are plenty of ways to exploit Mantis Personalities' low Chi. The most notorious belongs to the Ninja. When attacking the Dark Path of Shadow Stronghold, your army had damn better have at least ten Chi going in, or the effort is wasted. Giving Yoritomo Kamoto, Yoritomo Yukue, or Yoritomo Tsuyu a Mantis House Guard gives you 5 Chi. Combined with Da Man, you get a three-card army capable of pasting any wimpy black-clad Province.
Along those same battle lines, an additional +1 Chi makes many of the smaller Mantids into potential targets for Superior Tactics. Many Mantis weenies, most notoriously Aramasu, offer a speed advantage, yet they must often be paired with additional units just to take care of troublesome terrains with Superior Tactics. Now, you can send a prepared one-unit army (which is preferable in most cases--remember how many times a single Blocked Supply Line has resulted in a big win for the other side?) into the fray and not worry about Deadly Ground or Entrapping Terrain. You can even move Bayushi Aramasu into another battle with Superior Tactics--a METH player's dream come true!
Another application of that Chi bonus is, of course, in the realm of dueling. While Fortress of the Dragonfly might be more desirable if you're bent on becoming an Iaijutsu master, but every little bit helps. And, unlike the Fortress, the House Guard offers Force in addition to Chi. Imagine Yoritomo Tsuyu, armed with a Bloodsword and leading a House Guard. That's nine Force...and nine Chi! But you don't even have to put the House Guard on the table for it to help you duel. With its four Focus value, you can put three House Guards into any dueling deck, or any deck which is afraid of duels, for that matter, and be assured of a couple more high-Focus cards to toss away in that stand-off between Yoritomo and Doji Kuwanan.
That's another advantage of the House Guard: a high Focus value. While having a high Focus value can hurt in rare occasions (I hate you, Test of Honor!), more often than not, it's a bonus. You can not only duel with the House Guard, but you can feed it to a Merchant Caravan for some early gold, ensure a dishonored Personality's Betrayal, kiss major ass for Flattery, gain a Tactician Force bonus, use it as a gift in a lobbying attempt, or even increase your hand size with Benifices of the Emperor.
So far, the House Guard's looking very nice. But there's another, hidden aspect of the card: surprise Force swings in battle. While not often practiced, switching a Follower between Personalities in battle can have dramatic results. Often, these results are ignored by players, since Followers tend to have the same set Force and abilities regardless of the Personality they're attached to. The House Guard is a deadly exception. With a base Force ranging, as we have seen, from one to eight, a surprise switch can turn the tide of battle in your favor. And the best part? The Mantis already have a way to switch Followers without the blatant obviousness of River of the Dark Moon or other such open threats: Yoritomo Technique. Never thought you'd use that, eh? But imagine the look on your opponent's face when Yoritomo Masasue trades his one-Force House Guard to, say, Kamoto, or when Komori, bowed to increase a Ranged Attack, passes off his bowed House Guard to Yukue--and you use the Clan-specific ability of the Technique to straighten it!
The House Guard is such a good Follower, in fact, that Berserkers are no longer as attractive as they used to be. The House Guard has a higher Focus Value, its Force is roughly equal without relying on huge armies, and its gold cost is not much of a problem, especially for what it offers. It's not even unique, like the other House Guards are! If you're looking for a cost-effective, powerful Follower that you can even build a whole deck around, you can't do much better than the Mantis House Guard.
Rating (from 1 to 10): 7.5
Nick Zube
"Colonel Mustachio"