6mm Sengoku Jidai

[Osmoses]

It's just 5 years since the first figures turned up. 'Small battle' is in the sense of the number of actual participants rather than number of figures. So I'm planning on doing the Battle of Inō, which is a small battle in that it only involves 2,400 men in total, but I'll play it at a 1:1 figure to man ratio so it will still use a lot of figures. The difference between the 'small battle' and 'big battle' project is mostly one of different organisation.

I have more or less enough figures to do most of what I want to do, but I'll be adding command groups to add to the Eiroku project bases to make specific armies.

[Osmoses]

More command bases. This time it's for the Hōjō. Hōjō Ujiyasu in his honjin is joined by commanders Kasahara Masataka, Tame Mototada, Tominaga Naokatsu, Hōjō Tsunataka and Hōjō Tunashige.

The 'Hōjō's 5 coloured units' thing is almost certainly an Edo-period invention. But I've gone with it anyway, mostly for the visual appeal and also because we're never likely to find out the reality and an alternative would be mostly just guesswork.

[Osmoses]

Played a game based on the Battle of Inō, mainly to try out some ideas for modifying my 'small battle' rules. More info on the 'blog: https://tenkafubu608971038.wordpress.com/2022/06/09/the-battle-of-ino-with-ningen-gojunen/

Some pics:

[MGH]

I just checked out this topic. Wow, those are nice looking armies. Small scale stuff always looks like armies to me than 28mm.

[fred]

I love your view of what constitutes a ‘small’ battle!

Excellent looking as always!

[jon_1066]

Looking amazing as ever.  Small is probably the wrong adjective given the scope!  The difference is in the base element and what it represents I believe?  So small battles the base elements are different weapon types (eg spears, bows, cavalry etc are mounted on separate bases).  For the large battles the base element is a Sonae - so a mix of weapon types united by a clan and a leader.

Perhaps Tactical and Strategic?  Strategic sounds a bit too far out in scope. 

Tactical and Grand Tactical?   

Gumi and Sonae?

Daisho and Daimyo?

I guess small and large is as good as any! 

[Osmoses]

Yeah, I've used 'small' and 'large' as a descriptor for the size of battle in terms of combatants. So a battle with 700 men on one side and 1,000 would be small according to most people's definition. But if you do it at a 1:1 figure scale it becomes 'big' in terms of the game I suppose. It's much easier in 19th century rules where you could just use army/corps level and brigade/divisional level. Traditionally, wargames rules haven't had these different levels of battle for ancient and medieval periods, and there aren't usually the same clear terms for organisational units.

Indeed the difference is in the base unit. For the large battle game the base units are 'sonae,' composed of a mix of weapon types, whereas in the smaller game the base unit is a 'kumi' which could be a unit where everyone has the same weapon. Though, the period I'm focussing on at the moment for small battles probably didn't have dedicated weapons groups.

[Osmoses]

Some more generals bases. Takeda this time.

25mm x 30mm bases.
Takeda Shingen, Baba Nobuharu, Kudō Sukenaga and Oyamada Nobuari, (or Nobushige etc.)

[fred]

Those are some very nice command stands!

Those banners with the script on, it must be tiny!

[Osmoses]

Shingen's square, black 'Sun Tzu' banner there is 8mm square. The red Suwa long banner is 3.5mm x 16mm 

[fred]

8mm square, with 4x4 pictograms on it!

I can’t count how many are on the 16mm tall one - too many!

I’m assuming these are printed then stuck on?

[Osmoses]

Yes, all printed.

[wkeyser]

Did you give up on adapting the Tnkatoitsu rules for the table top?

[Osmoses]

I moved on to making a hybrid of Tenkatoitsu and To the Strongest. So I've taken the command system from Tenkatoitsu and the movement and combat from TtS. The rules have evolved away from strict implementations of those two, but are still grid based. The rules are (inevitably) called 'Tenka Fubu,' and are available to download here:

https://tenkafubu608971038.wordpress.com/tenkatoitsu-mods/

[Osmoses]

Revisited the campaign driven by the board game 'A Most Dangerous Time.' The game generated the Battle of Shōryūjijō, Hosokawa Fujitaka is besieged in his castle of Shōryūjijō by the Miyoshi. An Oda force under Takigawa Kazumasu marches to relieve the siege.