The Scorpion have a long history in L5R. Originally vilified for the coup and hunted in a pogrom led by the Crane their actions were proven justified during the clan wars when Fu-Leng possessed the emperor and nearly destroyed the Empire. In their original incarnation they were masters of political trickery, showing up the foibles of their opposition and exposing their dishonour to the harsh light of the sun.

    Their first stronghold appeared in the Shadowlands expansion and reflected their nature by being difficult to destroy and impossible to dishonour (albeit at a price). Early Scorpion decks were of two types. Firstly there were the dedicated dishonour decks featuring Shame, Breach of Ettiquette, Test of Honour and such cards to keep the opponent low on personalities, along with cards like Bayushi Goshiu and Ninja Shapeshifter to copy honour losses multiple times from dark oracles to your opponent while he or she was weakened. This deck got stronger through the later expansions with such additions as Yogo Asami from Forbidden Knowledge, Bad Kharma from Crimson and Jade and Dark Lords Favor from Time of the Void. The deck was very strong versus the military decks of the time, often beating the feared Lion Speed Deck and doing horrible things to the Crab Oni decks. The other thread of decks based on the ruined fortress were proto-junzo decks relying on the ruined fortresses ability to survive below -20 honour to provide a home for all the honour hitting bad guys like Moto Tsume and the ever fearsome Oni no Akuma. A deck of this type won the first ever storyline tournament. The deck however was short lived as Anvil of Despair saw the introduction of Yogo Junzo's army which did everything the ruined fortress did, only with 4 gold starting.

    After the clan wars were done, we saw a glimse of the Scorpion prior to their coup attempt. The Shadow Stronghold of the Bayushi and a slew of military personalities allowed the Scorpion for the first time to play a military deck with their own personalities. Hub villages were used to supply the scorpion bushi with enough followers to compete with anyone on the field of battle. The potential of the stronghold to work for dishonour had not gone un-noticed either. A slightly higher starting honour and lots more gold allowed for playing out of clan personalities like Doji Shizue and Kakita Yogoso. This, coupled with the ability of the stronghold to always be able to breach the opponent made for a faster dishonour deck, although without the defensive value of the previous stronghold. Jade edition was truly the doom of the scorpion, reduced to a mere shadow of our clan, the main body having been exiled to the burning sands by a blatant marketing ploy. Those of us who played through these times truly understand what it means to be scorpion.

    No truly effective archetypes exist from this period, most of us played dishonour although the release of the Ninja in Dark Journey Home makes that more difficult by introducing another faction that are effectively immune to dishonour. The release of Honor Bound marks the beginning of the modern period of Scorpion deck design with many hands setting about the task with new found enthusiasm. The Towers of the Yogo has a strong military ability and many of our new personalities are truly excellent (Soshi Jujun and Kachiko xp3 spring to mind). The decks focus on getting many people into play and overrunning the opponent, winning battles with the stronghold ability and street to street (a terrain that temporarily detaches followers) along with a few actions that unbow people to provide force to win the battle with. The deck takes its place among the expected archetypes of the modern era. More recent testing has revealed that we can function perfectly well with the underused Norikazu sensei, preventing events from resolving. This advantage proves to be crucial in open where many people rely on the crutch of powerful events to propel them to victory. A reasonable example of this archetype is as follows (This is what I played at the UK Kotei) :

3X Soshi Jujun

3X Yogo Shidachi

3X Shoshuro Ikawa

3X Bayushi Hisa

3X Yogo Oshio

3X Bayushi Tangen

3X Yogo Asami

1X Bayushi Kachiko xp3

1X Abresax xp

3X Geisha House

3X Corrupt Geisha House

3X Small Farm

3X Merchant Caravan

3X Large Farm

1X Scorpion Charter

1X Jade Works

1X Norikazu Sensei

1X Hantei Sensei

1X Ring of Void

1X Ancestral Sword of the Scorpion

1X Broken Sword of the Scorpion

3X Spearmen

3X Ashigaru Archers

3X Ashigaru

3X Bandit Gang

3X Summon Undead Champion

3X Wedge

3X Dying Effort

2X Test of Courage

2X Confusion at Court

3X One Koku

3X Rallying Cry

2X Street to Street

2X Shosuro Technique

This deck is good versus honor runners as it removes all their events that would normally stop you from attacking or speed their honour run and is difficult to defend against without losing personalities. Against military it needs to take a province early to allow the deck to outproduce its opponent and swarm in the later game. If your opponent isn't playing followers the game is nomally a fairly swift one as you bow out his or her big guys and kill the army one turn and the provinces the next. The major weakness the deck has is against dishonour (you do most of the work yourself) and against decks with a high number of ranged attacks.

Parallel to this version of military Scorpion is the Ratling Scorpion Deck.   Ak'tok'tuk sensei was released in Honor Bound. His ability to allow ratlings to join the Scorpion bolsters the force of the Scorpion army into something that doesn't neccessarily need to use tricks to win battles. The deck isn't overly popular among Scorpion players many of whom consider consorting with rats beneath them. The archetype does better against straight up military as it can go toe to toe for force with nearly every deck in the environment, and if they're not playing followers you always have tricks to fall back on. A theoretical example of a deck follows:

3X Ruantek

3X Mackuk

3X Soshi Jujun

3X Yogo Shidachi

1X Bayushi Kachiko xp3

1X Ropp'tch'tch

3X Ratling Villages

3X Ratling Nests

3X Geisha House

3X Small Farm

3X Corrupt Geisha House

3X Black Market

1X Inheritance

1X Return of Myth

1X Kachikos Promises

1X Winter Warfare

1X Imperial Gift

1X Ak'tok'tuk sensei

1X Ring of Void

1X Ancestral Sword of the Scorpion

1X Broken Sword of the Scorpion

1X Kitsuki Kaagi's Journal

3X Ratling Bushi

3X Ratling Scouts

3X Ratling Packs

3X Tattered Ear Tribes

3X Chitachikan

3X Rallying Cry

3X Ratling Hordes

3X Sneak Attack

3X Co-ordinated Strike

3X Test of Courage

3X Deadly Ground

2X Wedge

Modern dishonour decks have suffered from several causes recently, there are 2 factions immune to dishonour, and there are other factions in the game that can do dishonour better than we can (until recently Phoenix, now Dragon and dishonour is getting popular among the Ninja.) Recent expansions have seen some interesting dishonour cards and the deck may be due a revival, I'll post a Gedanken-deck early next week.

So, a scorpion player going to Gencon has two paths to follow, military and dishonour, prevailing opinion is that military is a better choice as you have no near autoloss games as opposed to dishonour which struggles vs Horde and Ninja. To all those taking the Scorpion to Gencon, I'll see you there.