Well, we were coming up on our next Tuesday game and I had to cancel my plans for an 1812 game, as I had to deal with some car issues… So, I turned to my buddy and asked him to bring his samurai for a quick fill in!
He obliged and brought his troops and terrain. Unfortunately, he did not have a stream, which he needed for the scenario he put together. Unfortunately, our FLGS does not have anything that would work for such a long table. There was some light blue felt, but I am allergic to that. The is, my eyes are allergic to looking at it on a war-games table! What can I say, I’m a terrain snob!
So, out came the foliage clusters and some plants that he had. This would represent an overgrown stream! He was a bit short on trees, so we helped ourselves to some at the FLGS.
With the terrain in place, we set up the troops and were ready to go!
Unfortunately, I have totally forgot what battle this was supposed to represent! As such, no historical context from Wikipedia on this one…. Well, at least we got to play with some pretty Jaapnese in 28mm. All the bases are three inch square, to give you an idea of scale.
The scenario was that one of the clans (also forgotten), was hold on one ed of the stream. The other clan was attacking. The winner would be the one that got rid of the other shogun. Very similar to our other game, just this one required a stream crossing.
The stream was a light cover barrier for melee. Any unit defending within three inches would get the bonus. Units would have to stop when they reached the stream and would be half move, while moving, if their bases touched the stream (flocked area).
We used the Samurai Rampant variant we fund online for the units. The only change we made was we did not do half arquebuser units, as this did not work well. We just changed it for the Handgonner stats in the main rules.
The alternative challenge rules were also in place. Basically, the Shogun got three dice in a challenge and the Samurai commanders got two. It was three round of roll off, with the winner being the one that got the first six.
The attack started aggressively in the center, with the flanks holding and some missile fire kicking off. Not much happened in the early rounds, as it was more of a case of jockeying for position.
The cavalry attack on the flank seemed to start off well, which was supported by a full attack in the center. However, some maneuvering was able to parry this and put the attacking flank into disarray.
The center continued to move forward, but started to peter out, as the defenders counter attacked. At this point, it was pretty much a scrum across the field!
Just as the defenders too the upper hand, the two Shoguns saw each other in the carnage and got into man to man conflict. It was a short fight, with the defending Shogun lopping out the attacking Shogun’s head in the first swing. This mirrored the rest of the fight, with the attacking forces remaining fleeing the field!
It was a fun game. The high morale of the elite troops really shows up in these types of fights. When they do fail, it hurts that much more!
- Manteuffel