Lion Clan vs. Peasants!

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…).