(COMMERCIAL) (ish) Daimyo mass battle rules – open testing

[EnclavedMicrostate]

Hello all,

About a week ago, a new set of rules cropped up on my feed, set to be released by Osprey at some point. The author has decided to let the playtesting phase be an open one, with the draft rules freely available, although at the moment I've only seen him advertise it once on Reddit; otherwise it's all on a Facebook group. So you'll need to use either of those platforms.

https://www.reddit.com/r/wargaming/comments/1kunqa2/daimyo_mass_battles_in_feudal_japan_now_available/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1403307407485574/

Looks interesting but I've not really got the forces to have a go myself.

[fred]

Thanks for sharing - one of my gaming group had spotted these too.

The rules look pretty solid and well structured from an initial read through. There is an interesting activation mechanism which feels the core of the rules. Looks to be a good layer of clan special rules and info.

Will delve into these more, as we were keen on the Heiho rules which had a lot of historical flavour to them, but have been underwhelming on the table.

[EnclavedMicrostate]

Your thread about Heiho was exactly what prompted me to post about Daimyo here!

[fred]

Having read more of Daimyo I like what I see - the rules seem well structured, and whilst I have provided some feedback to check on my understanding most areas seem to make sense.

They are a step down in scale from Heiho - with individual elements of a sonae being the manoeuvre element and a few sonae making up the whole forces. There doesn't seem to be a layer of rules that enforces sonae style warfare - but I think the order counters allow the player to do this, as these can be played in various combinations to replicate this style of warfare.

The clan layer is much more thought through and works well with the elements of the game.

Haven't had chance to play through a game yet - but it seems promising.

[fred]

I've now played these rules twice, and have enjoyed both games.

First game was 1v1 with 3 sonae a side. The second was 2v2 players, but still with 3 sonae a side, I 'umpired' the second game.

The rules are very well put together - considering they are a play test version, we had fewer questions than with many published sets of rules. The latest version (3.3) tidies up a number of bits and adds loads of scenarios and siege rules.

The core of the game is the order tokens - these work very well as a mechanism as you start with lots so have lots of flexibility, then as the battle progresses you never have enough to hand to do what you want to do! They also let each sonae do clever things if you want to try to replicate historical tactics.

Some photos - using 10mm figures, but with the footprint of 28mm units in the game. Unfortunately only have 1 army's worth of Japanese figures so far.

Photos proving problematic as Imgur seems to have changed what it returns for a link - its no longer a link to a JPEG

This is at least the link to the gallery whilst I work this out
https://imgur.com/a/daimyo-ash9X88#QmbhdHr







Game two




Order tokens