Yes, we're playing it (along with many other games), in a semi-formal campaign style. Usually with 3 or 4 players, either playing as 2 allied forces or every-man-for-himself.
Headline: it's great fun and we enjoy it considerably. Some very cinematic moments.
Details (or if you prefer, some semi-random thoughts and impressions as they pop into my head):
+ The core game engine works well. Strategy is definitely a thing, though there's a certain amount of randomness involved in which model(s) get to activate and in the effectiveness of a strike or other test.
+ I find the movement penalty for crossing a barrier [such as a wall] a little odd: just -1" of movement? Seems very generous – I imagine that even the fittest samurai would need to put a little more effort into this! Fortunately it can easily be changed with a house rule. Ours is this: it costs half your move to cross a barrier cautiously, or you can take a test of agility and use your full move, falling flat on your face if the test is failed!
+ Any model, however powerful, can be taken down by virtually any strike, if the dice go that way. It may be extremely unlikely, but the constant [and realistic?] risk adds to the tension.
+ Skill cards add a lot of flavour, especially if the skill deck is biased towards the character(s) in a warband [i.e. don't create a monk-ish skill deck if you're running ninjas!]
+ Quests vary between the reasonably achievable and the nearly impossible. It would be good to have more variety as well.
+ The extremely fluid army and skill deck composition rules [roughly, use whatever you want] leads to an enormous amount of freedom that can be overwhelming. Also might would be open to abuse by over-competitive gamers.
+ Scenarios are reasonable, but are possibly a bit single-minded. By this, I mean that they often have just a single objective which determines victory or defeat, without much nuance. I'd like to see more scenarios, especially ones that don't require special terrain or other models.
+ I strongly recommend tracking character development across multiple games, rather than starting afresh each time. However, setting up games then takes a little longer as you need to search various decks for the skill cards, upgrades, honour/dishonour cards and quests that your characters need. Or you can keep them together at the end of a game, rather than putting them back into their original decks.
+ Honour and Dishonour give tactical options, but only to a small part of the band [i.e. the leader(s)]. We've seen them used mostly to fulfil quests…
