Dice & tiebreaks
Discard natural ones. Take the highest remaining die and add +1 per supporting die, normally up to two. Adept allows extra supporting dice; Kata keeps natural ones in melee. With no surviving dice, the result is 0, including with Brutal or Parry.
In melee, tied results compare the total surviving Attack and Defence dice. If still tied, the Active Player wins at SL 0. No allocated Attack dice means no attack.
Initiative & HP
Lightning Reflexes takes priority over Reach. Reach requires the model to have started its activation outside BtB with every enemy; enable Reach only when eligible. Matching traits cancel. Slow together with Reach or Lightning Reflexes cancels those traits and Slow for the exchange. Initiative never changes the Active Player.
HP means remaining Wound Boxes. A target killed or removed by the first attack cannot counterattack, except that Last Stand preserves the counterattack after lethal wounds. Average wounds is uncapped and includes misses. Plots show HP actually lost, capped at remaining HP. Out-of-action chance and counterattack interruption use remaining HP. For the uncapped average, Dual/Combo potential continues beyond lethal wounds, but stops on Critical removal; a cancelled counterattack still contributes zero. Manually adjust statistics affected by wounds.
Damage rolls & special attacks
2D6 + weapon strength − effective Armour selects a Wound Table row (2–12). Pierce reduces Armour; Sharp reduces positive Tough. Strong keeps the highest two dice of 3D6; Weak keeps the lowest two. If both apply, choose Normal.
Agreed order: Tough → halve (round down) → Durable. Dual Attack makes two damage rolls at the original SL. Combo Attack subtracts 2 SL for each additional roll; an original SL 0 or 1 grants an extra roll at SL 0. Apply Tough and Durable to each roll.
Critical Attack: doubles on the selected damage dice remove the defender, regardless of wounds. Strong/Weak enforce their usual selection. Assassin — eligible overrides Strong/Weak and allows any two of 3D6, choosing doubles for Critical when available. Critical removal has its own probability; it does not count as additional HP lost.
Use Assassin only when its targeting/approach conditions are met or the enemy is Surprised. Choose Critical Attack as the special ability. Half damage + Prone cancels a counterattack on success, even without wounds. Movement and collisions are not resolved. Enter pools after costs, states, assists and Ki Boosts.
Last Stand
Advanced only. At 0 HP the model remains in play until the End Phase, so lethal wounds do not cancel its counterattack. Critical removal and Prone still interrupt it. “Removed by turn end” includes lethal wounds and earlier Critical removal.
Counterstrike Defence
Requires allocated Defence dice and at least one allocated Attack die on the opposing model, including dice that rolled 1. A successful defence at SL 2 or higher causes one Damage Roll at SL − 2. Apply weapon strength and damage traits, then Tough and Durable normally. Resolve it immediately; lethal damage stops the exchange. Counterstrike replaces a Special Attack. Damage statistics combine Counterstrike with the same model’s normal attack when both occur; the SL plot shows that model’s highest damage-event SL.
Damage summaries
Average and median wounds are uncapped and include misses. The lower median is the first integer damage value whose cumulative probability reaches 50%. Averages and medians are not necessarily the most likely individual outcome. The HP rings show the selected summary against remaining HP, with overkill clipped only in the graphic.
Friendly fire
After a successful ranged attack against an enemy in BtB with a friendly model, roll a new Ranged Challenge (6), modified by the original target’s size: Tiny +1, Small ±0, Medium −1, Large −2; Huge succeeds automatically. On failure, the nearest friendly model becomes the target at the original SL. Only the friendly-fire chance is shown here. Redirected shots cause zero damage to the intended target. Friendly model size does not affect selection.
Brutal applies only to the original attack. Prowess and Adept [Ranged] also apply to the targeting test. Prowess maximises success probability on this binary test.
Reroll strategy & limits
Prowess maximises expected final pool value; Feint and Dodge minimise it. Equivalent choices favour surviving dice. Prowess [Melee] shares one budget across both own pools after seeing them: Balanced maximises combined expected results; Attack first or Defence first prioritises that result. Shared Prowess replaces separate values. This is not a global optimisation of win or kill probability against all revealed pools. Probabilities are exact for the stated strategy.
The side without initiative rerolls enemy and own dice first, followed by the side with initiative. Remove ones and apply Unblockable/Impenetrable Defence afterwards. Limits: 0–8 dice per pool, 0–3 rerolls per trait; shared Prowess [Melee] supports 8 dice in total. Feint/Dodge optimise the affected pool individually, even against shared Prowess.
The Wound Table extends beyond SL 10 using the same agreed shortcut.
Rise, Poison, triggers and individual card effects are not resolved automatically. Models are entered manually; this is not a complete card database.
Sources
Bushido and its rules belong to GCT Studios. This independent tool is not affiliated with GCT Studios.