I got in another game of Ronin – Skirmish Wargames in the Age of the Samurai with Christian Saturday evening. I wanted to try out some opposites – see how well a peasant buntai might do against a powerhouse buntai of four samurai.
SCENARIO
We played the standard Skirmish
Scenario
Chrisitan had to capture an
enemy of rank 3 or higher, I had to control the table.
The game would last 7 turns.
FORCES
Lion Clan Bushi Buntai -
Christian
Bushou
Heavy Armour, Katana, Wakazishi,
Naginata
Command, Naginatajutsu,
Powerful, Intuition
46 points
Hatamoto
Heavy Armour, Katana, Wakazishi,
Command, Kenjutsu, Inexorable
35 points
Samurai
Heavy Armour, Katana, Wakazishi,
Naginata
Command, Naginatajutsu
30 points
Samurai
Heavy Armour, Katana, Wakazishi,
Teppo
Command, Hojutsu
30 points
Peasant Buntai – Me!
Senior Ronin
Heavy Armour, Katana, No-Dachi
Commander, Kenjutsu, Fast,
Powerful
40 points
Ronin
Medium Armour, Yumi, Katana
Kyujutsu
27 points
2xRonin
Katana
@17 points each
12x Peasants
Improvised Weapons
@4 points each
THE GAME
(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version)
Turn One - The Bushi Buntai
rushed forward at top speed. The peasants just wandered up to the edge of the
hill.
Turn Two – The Bushi getting
closer! I split off the Senior Ronin and some peasants to… um… do… something…?
I think I had a loose plan of just running around for seven turns and trying to
avoid the Bushi and make sure I had more guys in each quarter to get the bonus
five victory points for “Controlling the Table”.
The Teppo gunner fired and
missed. I managed to grievously wound him with some arrows.
Turn Three – the first combat –
my Senior ronin (along with three peasants) took down the Lion Clan’s Hatamoto.
I also managed to lightly wound
the Bushou with another arrow – that ronin archer was smoking hot!
Yup… things were looking up for
the peasants at the end of turn three… Dead Hatamoto… Grievously wounded
Samurai… Lightly wounded Bushou… and I’d only lost one peasant in the fight
with the Hatamoto!
Perhaps that’s why I got a
little cocky and decided to stand and fight the wounded Bushou and Samura
charging up the hill.
Actually I had priority – so
before the Bushou even charged in I shot one more arrow at her – scoring a
second light wound – which made here Grievously Wounded! Two Grievously wounded
and one Dead out of four bushi at the start of Turn four! Houw could this not
end up a win for me!?
Well in Turn Four the Bushou and
naginata-armed Samurai charged up the hill and cut down that Ronin archer and
wounded my other ronin.
dang.
So we had some setbacks in Turn
Four… things were still looking up.
On Turn Five the rest of my guys
were closing in one the other Samurai… soon it would be two dead and one
grievously wounded.
Unfortunately also on turn five
the Bushou (who is still grievously wounded, remember!) and Samurai cut down
the ronin and two peasants and grievously wounded two more peasants…
AND the grievously wounded teppo
gunner shot down another peasant.
This prompted a morale test for
my at the beginning of Turn Six.
I failed. The Buntai was
Wavering!
With Wavering morale, peasants
won’t even enter combat…
So one of my ronin – who didn’t
split (like the Senior Ronin did!?) – had to step up and cut down the
teppo-armed samurai on his own.
The Bushou and Naginata armed
samurai cut down the rest of the Peasants and started collecting heads!
On Turn Seven my buntai routed.
The Senior Ronin and two peasants went right off the table. One ronin and three
peasants remained.
The Bushou and Samurai took a
few more heads.
In the final tally…
I scored seven victory points –
for killing the Hatamoto (Rank 4) and the teppo-armed Samurai (Rank 3). I
didn’t really control the table with numbers…
Christian scored four victory
points for heads taken, two and a half for those that routed off the table (the
Senior Ronin and two Peasants) and another nine and a half killing two ronin
(Rank 3) and seven peasants (Rank 0 – worth 0.5 VP) – for a whopping TWELVE
victory points!
I had a LOT of fun – this was
probably the most exciting game yet – a lot of back and forth – if felt like it
could go either way.
I’m not totally concerned about
the hard-hitting, four samurai bushi buntai… They lost 65 points worth of stuff
and their Bushou was grievously wounded – and would be out for a game or two
(were this a campaign). So it was a costly win.
I lost 72 points worth of stuff…
Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:
Painting… probably…
It’s been quite a week.
Tuesday I was over at John’s playing a Russo-Japanese
Wargame. On Wednesday I was
over at Other John’s place playing A
Study in Emerald (which is a pretty fun game!). Friday I got to hook
up with Gary and play some Ronin - Sohei
vs. Ikko-Ikki. Friday evening I hooked up with Other Tim to do some
painting. And then I got to play this game of Ronin Saturday evening! It’s
almost like I have a social life or something!? (This is what happens when
Amanda and the kids go away for a week – unfortunately they’re going to be away
for THREE MORE DAYS – due to flight delays out east…).
Posts
Nice stuff. I didn´t expect such a decisice coming back after all those wounds, my initial assessment was that the Samurai could win if they were able to isolate smaller groups of peasants or outmaneuver them to cut them down one or two or three at a time. Seems like that´s what they did even with severe wounds ^^
ReplyDeleteA bloody, nice looking, battle!
ReplyDeleteAnother great skirmish, Tim; Ronin is certainly being put through its paces! This is good stuff, as it is a period I am completely unfamiliar with ;)
ReplyDeleteLooks like a great game and what a lovely table.
ReplyDeleteTim should have won - we forgot on two occasions that grievously wounded models lose half of their movement. It would have meant that the bushou would have taken another turn to close with the archer on the hill, and would have likely been shot down.
ReplyDeleteBut it was a good game nevertheless. Next time I will not split the hatamoto off to die. Looking forward to the tournament!