Zvezda has announced the impending release via its U.S. distributors of Samurai Battles (MSRP $79.95), a new historical board game that comes complete with 122 plastic highly detailed and historically accurate miniatures of feudal Japanese warriors.  Samurai Battles is actually two games in one box. Commands & Colors is a card-driven game system designed by Richard Borg (Abaddon), while Art of Tactic is based on Konstantin Krivlenko’s hidden planning and simultaneous movement system unveiled in his Origins Award-nominated Barbarossa ’41 game and modified to be used in the feudal Samurai conflict context of Samurai Battles.

 

Everything needed to play both games is contained in Samurai Battles including separate rulebooks and historically-based scenarios.  In addition to the 122 plastic model warriors, the deluxe Samurai Battles game box contains 6 doubled-sided modular game boards with 30 terrain hexes and 13 plastic elevation tiles, which can be used to create an almost unlimited number of battlefields.

 

In addition to the core game, Zvezda is also releasing four Samurai Battles Model Kits (some assembly required), which players can use to augment their armies.  The first four kits that are available include Samurai Commanders (MSRP $3.95), which contains six warriors with bases, Mounted Samurai (MSRP $3.95), which comes with 3 mounted warriors with bases, banner, unit stand, and unit card, Ashigaru Archers (MSRP $3.95), which comes with 6 peasant archers, banner, bases, arrows, unit stand and unit card, and Ashigaru with Yari (also $3.95), which contains six peasant warriors with long spears, bases, banner, unit stand, and unit card.