MORE Ronin

Just like last weekend, I got in a few games of Ronin – Skirmish Wargames in the Age of the Samurai on Saturday. And again the game was with the boy in the afternoon….

We tried some bigger buntai (150 points) one a slightly larger surface ~3’x3’.

I’d noted that the close combat can be fast and deadly and very quickly become rather one-sided when one side started taking loses. I thought I’d like to test some games with a bit more shooting. I made up three buntai; a Bushi Buntai with a Bousho, a Samurai and Four Ashigaru – small with one heavy hitter, a so-so samurai and four shmoes (two of which could shoot) and all armoured, a Koryu with a Sensai, and Senpai, four Kohai(?) and an initiate (skill wise way better than the samurai, but without any armour or shooting ability), and a Bandit Buntai – the best they had was their leader who was pretty much the same as the samurai in the Bushi buntai, with a whole bunch of unarmoured, low-ranking bandits – basically a mob – with four archers!

GAME ONE

Finnegan decided to take the Bushi Buntai and thought I should take the bandits. Hunting down bandits seemed a noble thing for some Samurai to do…

SCENARIO

We played the standard Skirmish Scenario. Both of us were to kill the enemy’s leader as a secondary objective.

The game was to last 11 turns.

FORCES

Lion Clan Bushi Buntai

Bushou – Rank 5

- Heavy Armour, Katana, Naginata

- Commander, Intuition, Powerful, Fast

Samurai – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana

- Kenjutsu

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yari

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yumi

Bandit Buntai

Leader – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana, Tetsubo

- Commander, Powerful

Gashira – Rank 2

- Katana, Naginata

- Commander

3x Bandits – Rank 1

- Katana

4x Bandits – Rank 1

- Katana, Yumi

Peasant – Rank 0

- Improvised Weapon

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

Finnegan setting up his forces.

The bandits at the end of the first turn. I was playing a little cagey - not as cagey as I could have been – but these were clearly my martial superiors so I wasn’t about to charge headlong into close combat (as is my usual plan of attack!).

The Bushi after the first turn. Looks like he had a plan… archers on the flanks warriors in a tight unit moving up the center.

Those Ashigaru archers fired arrows on the move and scored one hit on one of my bandit archers.

Turn Two saw a proper exchange of arrows and I hit both of his guys!

His warriors cautiously approaching up the middle. They probably should have ran to engage as quickly as possible. 

On Turn Three, when their leader moved within 12” I let her have it with all the arrows I could – standing still in the movement phase and firing only in the action phase to give my guys their best shot. I got extremely lucky and rolled 12 with one – just enough to cause a grievous wound and then 11 with another that caused a light wound and took down the Bushou – the Leader of the Bushi!

Finnegan almost cried. (I know, I’m a terrible dad…)

I convinced him to carry one – as this was all in the name of play-testing a system that was new to me – just to see how badly it might go for the bushi after this. In a campaign I think anyone that this happened to would probably concede to save the rest of their guys.

In another turn or two they were all in contact. Actually this might have been after the second round of combat. All of his guys were outnumbered. One of the Ashigaru (Rank 1) was fighting the Gashira (Rank 2) and a bandit (Rank 1) – I was pretty amazed how long they held out. I think armour really helps!

Eventually I took one Ashigaru down (that had been grievously wounded by his opponent in the first round of combat and stuck around for two or three more rounds and even managed to wound his assailant before expiring).

Then finally I got his other Ashigaru – the one that had been fighting the Gashira and another Bandit.

His Samurai was fighting, for a number of turns, against my leader (which was pretty much his equal) and two bandits and managed to grievously wound my leader – while only being lightly wounded himself. I can’t remember if we played another round and saw his Samurai go down in a blaze of glory or if we called it at this point because he was way to upset… (there were tears… many tears…)

While he finally kill two of my archers – and grievously wound another I only managed to take out one of his.

Afterwards to show him that it really was just terrible luck to have had his bushou killed in the hail of arrows and how badly it would have gone for me if she had made it into contact I set her up against my own leader AND two bandits – just to show him how badass she was. In one turn my leader was dead and I think one of the bandits may have been grievously wounded. She was unscathed. Bushou are nasty. NASTY!

I think I probably could have prevented her getting killed if I’d given her the Yadome-jutsu (arrow-stopping) ability – basically knocking arrows out of the air with her naginata! Would have had to have swapped out two of her other abilities to give her this and the prerequisite Naginatajutsu. But that would have made her nigh impossible to kill with arrows. Basic defence of 6, +3 for heavy armour, +2 for Yadome-jutsu… 11… so only if a 12 was rolled could she even be STUNNED, 13 for a light wound. Archers would have to be standing still and shooting at medium range to have a hope of causing any sort of injury. This, of course would not help against Teppo… (Arquebuses).

Despite all the tears and disappointment, when I asked the kids if they wanted their own Bushi Buntai to paint and play with, they were both very excited about the idea (I happened to notice that Wargames Factory Samurai and Ashigaru are on 40% off until midnight tonight!) 

GAME TWO

In the evening Rick and Curtis showed up to have a go at Ronin. Curtis took the Bushi Buntai (because it was closest to where he was sitting down) and Rick decided to go for he Kakita Academy Koryu Buntai. Had the Bushi been facing the bandits again I might have switched up those abilities just to see, but as the Koryu had no missile weapons to speak of, I left it as is…

SCENARIO

Again I set up a Skirmish scenario. And again, both rolled the same secondary objectives: kill the opponents leader.

FORCES

Lion Clan Bushi Buntai

Bushou – Rank 5

- Heavy Armour, Katana, Naginata

- Commander, Intuition, Powerful, Fast

Samurai – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana

- Kenjutsu

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yari

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yumi

Kakita Academy Koryu Buntai

Sensei – Rank 5

- Katana

- Commander, Kenjutsu, Powerful, Intuition

Senpai – Rank 4

- Katana

- Commander, Kenjutsu

4x Kohai – Rank 3

- Katana

- Kenjutsu

Initiate – Rank 1

- Katana

THE GAME

The Koryu completely outclassed (and slightly outnumbered) the Bushi in terms of rank and ablilities, but completely lacked armour or missile weapons, so I was curious to see how this worked out…

Having heard of how things went down in the afternoon, Rick, sensibly attempted to keep his Buntai in cover as they approached the Bushi. Unfortunately they had to come out at some point. Curtis’ Ashigaru rained down arrows on them from the moment they could see them in the woods. By the time they rushed out into contact with the Bushi two or three were already injured, one, I think, grievously so…

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

I think this was Turn Five at the end of the movement phase when everyone had moved into contact. Two of the Koryu students are lightly wounded, one is grievously wounded.  

“Hey, D’you think we should shoot into that mess…?”

They probably could have - friendlies being all quite well armoured... but Curtis chose not to, he did try to pic off a few of the trailing students. 

The end of the first round of combat… The Koryu’s Sensei is critically injured (after his class with the Bushi’s Bushou) along with one of his students. Two other students are grievously injured. Things are looking bad for the Koryu.

The Bush had only suffered one fatality - an Ashigaru - and the other Ashigaru was grievously injured.

The Koryu had to check morale the next turn and I believe they failed and thus were “Waivering” (also with the death of their Sensei their morale level dropped from 9 to 7)

The end of the second round of combat. The Senpai has now been slain by the Bushou, and two other Koryu students have been finished off.

On of the students, however, managed to charge one of the ashigaru archers and cut him down before he could get another shot off..

I think we rolled morale for them at the beginning of the next turn and they failed and thus would be routing…

It was a slaughter…

Armour, hey? It works.

I’m wondering if Teppos (Arquebuses) would be the leveler – or if they’d be unbalancing “hero-killers”. I have one model with a Teppo that I just finished painting. I’ll have to work him into the next game.

There's a few things I have to work out, but I'm feeling fairly confident this will work fine for the Winter Wargaming Weekend!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More Samurai, Ronin, and Ashigaru miniatures – and hopefully some more Ronin game reports.