Samurai Time Slip

 Jon wanted to trot his Samurai out again, and offered us the prequel to the previous battle. Well, it's how George RR Martin rolls, apparently, so good enough for me. Previously we had done the Second Battle of Azukizaka. This time we did the First.

I swapped clans for this one, and led the Imagawans, who are the mostly Red army, to the top of the screen. The historical winners, Clan Oda, were commanded by Richard. I was accompanied by Chris K and a "Mystery Guest". Richard was assisted by Ian. I had the troops in the trees and, well you can see from the labels in the above picture.

Clan Oda had the initiative and advanced upon us.  The big dice show the army break points. There was some shooting, but to little effect.

Ian had moved in range of my troops, so I moved up to occupy the woods, and positioned my foot Samurai in front of my command tent. I intended for Chris to slow down Richard on his wing, whilst I took Ian apart on my wing. I was worried about Ian's centrally placed cavalry, moving up to the gap in the line.

Chris attacked along the ridge on our left, and pushed Richard off it. He held the centre line, and I moved troops up to fill the gap. This was a bit of a mistake. We moved our cavalry out to try and turn the flank. This was probably a bit of a mistake too. However, my attack on our right succeeded beyond expectations. Too well, in fact, as I followed up and my Ashigaru Spears were stalled by some foot Samurai. 

The next Odan turn, and it sort of all kicked off. We'd already knocked three points off their army breakpoint for no loss to ours, so they needed to act. Ian launched a cavalry charge at the end of our line, which was occupied by some archers. Despite inflicting a shooting hit, they were driven back a couple of times and destroyed. Whoops! Perhaps I shouldn't have moved my Samurai up, and left them as supports, and perhaps we shouldn't have sent our cavalry out to our left.

Mean time, Richard counter attacked on the ridge on our left, and charged in with his foot Samurai at the other end of our line. These were faced off against our Samurai, but had impetus. Neither of these attacks was as spectacularly successful as Ian's charge.

Ian moved up his other troops to press me on our right, and brought his other cavalry up to exploit the gap created.

Chris prevailed again on the ridge, and held the Samurai on the end of his line. And I can now reveal that our Mystery Commander was none other than our very own Phil Steele!!! Live from his hospital room, participating due to his increasing recovery and ALSO a brand new data sim, 'cos the hospital wi-fi wasn't really up to it.

My guys in the woods had a tough proposition in front of them.

Sure enough I lost the unit in the wood, but they dished out some damage first. Richard took his courage in both hands and attacked with the rest of his line, goaded into it by constant archery. Phil was struggling to get his cavalry lined up on our wing, giving the Odans some breathing space.

Ian followed up with his Samurai cavalry, straight through the hole in our line, hoping to overrun my command post. It would have been best to have left the Samurai foot to guard it, most likely, but I'd read the brief, and Ian hadn't. Or at least not understood it. The camp denied his cavalry impetus, PLUS it couldn't be pushed back. That meant he had to eliminate it to reduce our breakpoint. Because he couldn't push us back, he couldn't fight more than one round of combat. If you see the breakpoint dice to the top right, we only needed to inflict three more pushbacks, and they needed seven. Destroying the camp scored them two, but it was going to take more than a turn or two, and would eventually tie up their two best units whilst we won the game elsewhere. Hopefully.

Sure enough I was able to destroy another unit on our right, whilst Chris took a bit of damage and a push back in the centre. Phil's cavalry had held off the infantry on his wing, and were turning back to deal with the cavalry fighting the camp if the game lasted that long.

We attacked wherever we could to try and get the last hit points. Phil charged the archers but failed to break them. Our archers in the middle couldn't break a unit either. Were they going to get away with it? Then Chris charged down the hill and drove Richard's spears back, and we'd won.

Richard then taunted us that if we played to the end of the turn they'd be able to match or beat the damage we had done. Okay. Bring it on.

My foot Samurai charged forwards, and drove back their opponents...they were now in negative break points.

The Samurai followed up and then wiped them out. Over on my flank, more of their troops were tumbling back towards the baseline.

They had one final attack on the General's camp, and did overrun it. The big dice show the final breakpoints for both armies...only the blue one is a negative number.

Clan Imagawa congratulated itself on a job well done. We rode our luck at times, but it mostly went according to plan.

There'll be more Samurai in the near future I think. Basic Impetus gives a good game for them, although I think that the cavalry is a bit unwieldy. However, making them a bit more nippy might unbalance the game.

Much fun for everyone, and great to see Phil back.