Bushido The Wretched Review - Living Nightmare

The Cult of Yurei faction in the Bushido wargame is made up of spirits, monsters, and humans who dabble with them for ill intent. They've had undead samurai and ashigaru before, but now with the new Cult of Yurei starter set, they get a new theme made up of an undead samurai and their followers, known as the Wretched. In this article, we check out what's in the starter set and where you can go next.

We've been covering Bushido for years, so if you'd like to learn more about the game, check out our guide to Bushido Risen Sun, our review of the Bushido Risen Sun 2-player starter set, and our "Start Collecting" guide to Bushido, which includes an interview with the game's developer.

Thematically Themed

When selecting a warband in Bushido, you must first choose a faction from the 13 available to select your fighters from. Each faction also has access to theme cards, which offer special abilities but restrict the units that can be included in the warband. The Cult of Yurei is a faction for Bushido, and Wretched Existence is a theme card that restricts you to Cult of Yurei ashigaru, wretched, and samurai, and ronin samurai, which means you can't take the other evil spirits from the faction, but get several benefits on Turn 4 (following the Cult of Yurei bad things happen to your opponent on Turn 4 theme), and also a once per game ability to replace a Wretched model with another Wretched model that has been removed, more on that later.

Everliving Curse

Ikeda Kokou has cursed himself and all that follow him to eternal life, but it isn't how he imagined it would be. Rather than immortality, Kokou has damned them all to a cycle of death. This comes across in the rules that all 5 in this Cult of Yurei starter set share, and when one of them is removed from play, their special rules allow them to bring another back. Kokou brings back Shindarei, who brings back Kosho, who brings back Kanashi, who brings back Fukou, who completes the cycle and brings back Kokou.

This means that your warband can become almost immortal through a cycle of resurrection, and if one of your fighters is taken out of action, you can throw the fighter that resurrects them at your opponent, who can ignore them, and suffer their attacks, or take them out and start the cycle of resurection again. They can delay but never entirely stop this by tactically taking out fighters who resurrect those that haven't been removed yet, but you will almost always have 1 or 2 fighters on the board who are constantly resurrecting others as they are taken out.

Circle of Death

As mentioned above, The Wretched come with 5 fighters, led by Ikeda Kokou, the samurai master of the warband. Kokou has a ki ability with a growing aura (with inches equal to the turn number) that gives Wretched models tireless, which means they don't get an activation counter for melee exchanges initiated by the enemy, so they can continue to defend themselves without penalty. Kokou is a decent fighter, armed with both a +1 damage katana with push and counterstrike defence, and a +1 masakari, with brutal (1) and forceback attack.

Supporting Kokou is Shindarei, who has the apparition ki feat to bounce them an extra 2 inches each turn. They come armed with a +2 damage long masakari with brutal (1) and reach. Shindarei also gains ki equal to their target's ki stat when they damage them in melee, which can then be used to boost their melee stat, which they can do for a cost of 1 ki, 3 times, to make them incredibly deadly in combat. Being a Kami, their ki is also their wounds, so be careful that they don't take too much damage back after you've used all your ki.

The 3 ashigaru support for the Wretched are Kukou, who, with a ki feat can gain a Disguse (6) token that makes them difficult to target, and also comes armed with a +2 long masakari. Kanashi is an undead Kairai that can bring themselves back from the dead with their Rise (3) ability, along with a powerful +2 damage no-dachi. The final ashigaru is the skeleton Kosho, who regenerates 1 wound a turn, but with only 3 wounds, it can be hard to keep them alive (which can also be useful for making sure they're out of action to be brought back by Shindarei. All 3 of the ashigaru have coordinated attack for ganging up on enemies, and when nearby, to gain Kokou's tireless aura benefit, they can really steamroll over your opponents' fighters.

All Spirits Accounted For

GCT Studios has produced some incredible themed warbands recently, and while I'm a huge fan of samurai, and usually a player of the sneakier Shiho and Shadow Wind Clan, the Passing the Night themed warband for the Prefecture of Ryu was my favorite theme, until the Wretched. I absolutely love how, even though they are part of the Cult of Yurei, their theme doesn't allow the more evil spirits to join them, they are simply an unfortunate group trapped in a terrible cycle. I also love how it perfectly captures the cycle of death, including the different types of yokai with spirits, skeletons, and zombies.

You may have also noticed that this is a starter set, rather than a themed warband. What that means is that it has a cheaper cost point than the themed warbands, and comes in a slightly lower rice cost (around 69 for the fighters here, with themed warbands aimed at making 100 rice warbands out of the box).

If using the Wretched Existance theme, you're limited to Cult of Yurei samurai and ashigaru, and ronin samurai. The Wretched themselves will want to keep close, to make use of Kokou's aura and the fact that they can bring each other back, meaning you won't be left too out of position, although I'm sure there's some shenanigans with you running a solo Wretched up to get killed, only to be replaced by one of the stronger members to take an objective.

In expanding the force, if you want more bodies (or parts of) to fill out the battlefield, the Animated Militia provides 4 cheap ashigaru gashadokuro, and Akoshi is another coordinated attack ashigaru. If you want some staying power, Satou Hatchi is difficult to remove, and Masaema Tadao has Armor (3). You are also able to use the Wretched in a wider Cult of Yurei force without the theme, and they are still powerful, but to get the benefit out of them, they need to be taken together, and their combined 69 rice will be most of your 100 rice warband.

What Are Our Final Thoughts On The Wretched?

With the Wretched, GCT studios are pushing me further away from my beloved Shiho and Shadow Wind clans, with yet another incredible theme. The cycle of death is captured perfectly, as is the handling of being Cult of Yurei, but not fully Cult. The fighters can hit extremely hard, but aren't very durable, but the resurrection cycle aspect is inspired and feels incredibly thematic on the tabletop. 

The Wretched are available to preorder from the GCT website now.

The copy of Bushido The Wretched used to produce this guide was provided by GCT Studios.