I have only recently become aware of Shogun, and come into possession of a copy, so I have been entirely unaware of its history up to this point.

I was intrigued by the nifty bits, the 'pawns' with the shifting numbers. And I wasn't disappointed, the board is heavy, and the 'pawns' are nifty. I had some fun just moving a few around the board watching the numbered wheel inside them spin.

But to put it to the test, I called in my daughter, the strategy gamer of my brood, and we set it up.

The pieces themselves, in case you didn't already know, have a window that shows how many spaces they may move. And it will likely change when they land on their destination square. The only limitation is that they may change direction only once during a move. This means that they can move either orthogonally, or a bit like knights in chess.

The game is won by capturing your opponents king.

And therin lies the problem I have with this game. The box touts it as a revolutionary advancement of strategy games, but puzzle me this: if you don't know how far a piece can move on its next turn (i.e. when it lands on its destination square), then how can you make any long term plans?

You can't. Every move, beginning to end, is purely tactical. You move in towards your opponents king, you try to avoid spaces you know your opponent can easily reach, and then you kinda luck into a few spots that give you the checkmate.

Granted, you may be able to memorize some or most of the board, and predict which numbers will come up on the pawns if you play enough times, but its hard to imagine wanting to. The rules even advise to rotate the board to help foil experienced players.

All in all, this is an interesting abstract, for the unusual bits, and odd movement mechanic they enforce, but it is not a deep game.

I'd recommend picking this up if your an abstract fan in general, or you want an unusual game to surprise people with on occassion. But if you are looking for something to stand along Chess, Go, or even newcomers like Hive, then this isn't going to cut it.

This game is indeed very luck-based.

There is a second way to victory; I thought you could also win by capturing all of your opponents pawns except the king and another one.

You're right, you can also win through attrition. But that takes longer, which is contrary to the urge to get this thing over with that usually crops up after a few moves.

When my uncle and I would play, we did find strategy in the fact that certain pawns could control areas of the board when they were lucky enough to land on a good space (for that piece). That meant they could maintain control of that area while you move around looking for other good terrain. While it's true that you couldn't always know what that location was, you could remember it once you have found it, or avoid certain squares once you knew they were dangerous for that piece.

I've played many games of this without any perfect information (some freeware called "Moves" by CodeImp, if you're up for a Google), and have gotten very good at it - so good that I was unbeatable the last time I played - but there is a lot of jockeying around before a capturing move can be made effectively.

There is some strategy involved - lining pieces so that there isn't much "safe" area, but even I will admit that it is a very tactical game.