STILL More Ronin

I finally got in a few more games of Ronin – Skirmish Wargames in the Age of the Samurai on Saturday. It’s been a busy couple of weeks… activities wrapping up with winter recitals and seasonal holiday parties… still trying to finish up the inside of “Phase One” of the renos – before starting “Phase Two” early in the new year… lots of violin practicing.... On Friday the kids and I played our violins at a local seniors home – we played carols for a little over an hour - running around to play in each of the six dining areas for about 10 minutes each:

We’ve done this every year for the last three or four years. It’s good fun. The residents just love seeing little kids. They could play wildly out of tune and no one would care (actually they DO play wildly out of tune half the time… and no one cares…)

Today some fun stuff arrived in the mail:

That ain’t for me, yo…

The kids have become interested in painting miniatures this year. The Girl LOVES painting miniatures and burns through them like crazy! The Boy… he likes having miniatures… but doesn’t love painting them like his sister does. A few weeks back I noticed Wargames Factory was having a bit of a sale and all the Samurai/Ashigaru were 40% off!! I’m going to split up those packages – there’s five sprues in each and I thought I’d give the kids two each and try and convince Amanda to assemble and paint the figures on the remaining one to have her own Buntai and run a family Ronin Campaign!

The other two boxes (the Zombie Apocalypse Female Survivors and the Skeletons) are additional ones The Girl has been asking for that I picked up to save for her birthday in May… Or whenever she runs out of samurai to paint… which might be about the end of January…!?

Anyway... the games... 

GAME ONE

Finnegan actually made his own 150 point Bushi Buntai (with my figures) he picked them out according to the Buntai composition rules. He spent a long time going over the list and reading all the attributes and ultimately he went for a smaller group of hard-hitting Samurai. I went for numbers and fielded the Teppo I painted a few weeks back.

SCENARIO

We tried out the Capture Scenario. Both of us were to try and recover the body of a slain leader in the middle of the field of battle. Carting the body off the table or being in control of it at the end of the game was worth 5 victory points.

The game was to last 8 turns.

FORCES

Lion Clan Bushi Buntai - Finnegan

Bushou – Rank 5

- Heavy Armour, Katana, Naginata

- Commander, Intuition, Naginatajutso, Yadome-Jutsu

Hatamoto – Rank 4

- Heavy Armour, Katana

- Commander, Powerful, Tough

Samurai – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana, Yumi

- Commander, Fast

Samurai – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana, naginata

- Commander, Powerful

Crab Clan Bushi Buntai - Me! 

Hatamoto – Rank 4

- Heavy Armour, Katana. Tetsubo

- Commander, Tetsubojutsu

Samurai – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana,

- Commander

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yari

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yumi

Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Teppo

THE GAME

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

My Crab Clan Bushi enter the field of battle in a gaggle – trying to take cover as they approach the buildings.

Finnegan’s Lion Clan Bushi.

End of Turn One – my guys are all taking cover, Finnegan’s boldly striding about the field of battle. My archers had taken some pot shots but didn’t even come close.

I didn’t play nearly aggressive enough. I knew one-to-one his guys totally outclassed most of mine so I was a bit stand-off-ish and tried to take some shots with the yumi and teppo to whittle them down… totally useless – I think in the entire game my archers cause ONE samurai to be stunned (and he quickly shook it off at the end of the turn!)

Some fancy maneuvering to try and split up his force and catch the samurai carting off the body on their own.

Still with the ineffectual shooting.

I’d reloaded the teppo and ran up as close as I could – hoping to get them in close, if not point-blank, range. I kind of figured the Hatamoto would fall back to protect his samurai carrying the body… boy was I wrong. Lesson learned – never move within 6” of a Hatamoto that hasn’t moved yet!

I played all defense tokens hoping to NOT DIE and keep the Hatanoto busy… That’s why my Teppoman didn’t die outright in the first round of close combat.

Samurai about to haul the body off the table in the background there… if only I could get priority and engage them first….

No such luck – Finnegan got priority next turn and off the table they went.

My Hatamoto tried to engage the Lion’s Boshou, but she fled. So my Samurai and two spear-wielding Ashigaru tried to chase her down. My only hope of winning (or not losing as badly) was to take out the Bushou and Hatamoto to close the victory point gap.

Should have just ran from this dude… The archers had stood around trying to fire arrows at him – into the close combat – but couldn’t even scratch him. for their folly he chased down and killed one of them after the teppo man went down.

My Hatamoto and the lion Bushou finally came to blows. I think she got the initiative and cause my hatamoto a grievous wound… I took ALL attack tokens and got in two enhanced attacks and took her DOWN! 

Finnegan still won; he scored five victory points for taking the objective off the table and two more for the two Ashigaru the Hatamoto killed. I got five points for killing his Bushou. It would have been a costly win for him in a tournament or campaign…

The Teppo wasn’t the hero-killer I feared it might be. Maybe in the hands of a samurai and/or with a hojutsu ability it might be a bit nastier. With the severe limitations on how many can be fielded I’m not too worried.

GAME TWO

In the evening Rick, Christian, Dave and Patrick all showed up to have another go at Ronin. We used the exact same scenario and forces as the game I’d played earlier with Finnegan. Dave and Christian, who hadn’t played before decided to sit and watch Rick and Patrick play to get an idea of how it goes – figuring if it was quick they could play in a second game. We didn’t get to playing a second game…

SCENARIO

As mentioned we tried the Capture Scenario again. Both sides were to try and recover the body of a slain leader in the middle of the field of battle. Carting the body off the table or being in control of it at the end of the game was worth 5 victory points.

The game was to last 8 turns.

FORCES

Lion Clan Bushi Buntai - Rick

Bushou – Rank 5

- Heavy Armour, Katana, Naginata

- Commander, Intuition, Naginatajutso, Yadome-Jutsu

Hatamoto – Rank 4

- Heavy Armour, Katana

- Commander, Powerful, Tough

Samurai – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana, Yumi

- Commander, Fast

Samurai – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana, naginata

- Commander, Powerful

Crab Clan Bushi Buntai - Patrick

Hatamoto – Rank 4

- Heavy Armour, Katana. Tetsubo

- Commander, Tetsubojutsu

Samurai – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana,

- Commander

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yari

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yumi

Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Teppo

THE GAME

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

Patrick (in the middle) played the Crab Clan Buntai. Christian (left) and Dave (right) watched on to try and figure out what was going on.

Rick played the Lion Clan Buntai.

Turn One – Patrick sent his shooty Ashigaru out on the flanks to get into a position where they might be able to cover their guys going for the prize.

Turn Two - Rick’s guys then flanked to the left – I think to chase down the teppo-gunner…?

This kind of left the objective wide open for Patrick’s Ashigaru archers to seize and make off with.

The Teppo-gunner had been hit by Rick’s Samurai archer. He fired back but missed. The Crab Samurai rushed forward to keep the Teppo-gunner from being overrun while he reloaded.

Realizing the Crab Archers were making off with the body, the Lion Bushou charged down the kill past the melee – where the Crab Hatamoto was cutting down a Lion Samurai and the Lion Hatamoto was chopping his way through yumi-armed Crab Ashigaru.

Having dispatched his samurai opponent the Crab Hatamoto charged the Lion Bushou to tie her up and keep her from chasing down the Ashigaru carrying off the body. She cut him good for his insolence – inflicting a grievous wound in her first blow!

The Ashigaru made it to the table edge unmolested!

The Lion Hatamoto, having finshed off his two Ashigaru opponents joined in the fight between the Lion Bushou and the Crab Hatanoto – The Crab – already grievously wounded didn’t stand a chance… 

These two samurai has been going at it toe-to-toe on top of the hil since turn three – on the final turn the Crab finally got the best of his lion opponent. 

The mess at the end of the battle.

This game took about two hours, but we stopped to have a few little chats about the rules and mechanics and to look up a few things we forgot or were never really sure of. I think these 150 point games of 3’x3’ table will be easily playable in 1.5 hours or less – once we get the rules solid in our heads.

Everybody seems pretty pleased with the rules so far. I think the one downside is I imagine multiplayer battles would likely bog down very quickly and take FOREVER to play…

Hopefully we’ll be able to get in a few more games over the holidaze.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Tomorrow you should see my first entry for the Fourth Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

over at  Analogue Hobbies - I finished off ALL of the Japanese courtiers, villagers and townspeople I had – 27 in all. I’ll post the picture here on Monday.

I should get going on my next volley – more Samurai and Ronin and Ashigaru….