Samurai using Pikeman's Lament. Latest painted figures. Page 4

[has.been]

A volley from my guns persuades his archers to withdraw.
I take the bridge, Huzzah!!!!
James last hope, the Ashigaru throw in a last ditch attempt to
contest the bridge, but throw double ones!
The result is a 'retreat at the double.
Game over.
Much fun was had, on both sides.
We quite like Pikemans' lament as a set of rules for Samurai fights.
Well it has resulted in things getting to the table & some laughs,
can't be too bad.
We will continue to tweak them as we feel free. I might even paint
up more of my buildings & figures.

[has.been]

oops! Forgot to load the last pictures.

[vodkafan]

Some pictures from my side of the second battle.
 But first let me tell you it was a very atmospheric game.  The game was supposed to be set in the middle of rains and as it happened the wind and rain was lashing down in reality outside drumming against the conservatory roof as we played. So we both really got into the narrative.
The fast flowing swollen river took the most casualties of the game and we could picture it carrying away unwilling Ashigaru and proud Samurai alike, armour, horses and all. And the troops fighting soaking wet by the torrential rains in semi darkness.
Here are the forces of Takeda Shingen already deployed at the table edge, looking from the bridge:
.
And a close up of the Fighting Monks led by Father Jack, who Shingen has allied himself with:


A note about my leader, Mouri Hiramoto. He is not trusted by his troops and does not confer any proximity bonus in dice rolls. I was hoping this game to do something heroic that would win their confidence. I therefore placed him well forward with a unit of mounted samurai in the only open part of the terrain so he would be highly visible.
The only other unit I had on at the start was a group of dishonourable Ronin who got the job of guarding the bridge in the rain.

I placed barricades at the left and right sides but didn't put any troops behind them. These were more to try to funnel all the enemy efforts in the middle.
First turn Peter managed to activate all his units except one unit of Ashigaru. They advanced across the table menacingly. On my extreme right flank he attempted to cross the river with a unit of Ronin and immediately got into trouble, losing two in the boiling angry waters.
His archers were within range of my mounted samurai and I realised that I had made my first tactical blunder.  My intention was to withdraw them to a safe distance.
But on my activation my very first throw sprang a Double One.  Not only did this failure end my activations for that turn, the result on the "unexpected bad event" table meant that I had to charge the nearest enemy. That meant crossing the river with armoured men on horses!
The samurai plunged into the frothing waters.

Sure enough a warrior and his horse were swept away immediately and drowned.
To make matters worse they were then fired on by the gleeful archers:


The Mad Fighting Monks advanced to the left of the small bridge:

While Samurai, contemptuous of the supporting arquebus Ashigaru advanced down the road:


More to follow

[vodkafan]

 The Ronin at the bridge begin to fight fiercely with samurai of Takeda Shingen.
The sounds of fighting bring out the Mouri clan troops from the houses, where they have been sheltering from the rain. The Mouri samurai are bloated from eating sushi and the archers are half drunk on rice wine. They are jammed up in the narrow lane between the houses.


I missed a few important photos here.  First of all my officer Hiramoto tries to reverse the mounted samurai in the raging river. They manage to cross back to the south bank without losing any more casualties to the river but they lose two more samurai to the Shingen archers instead. Down to half strength, they are then wiped out by the first volley from the Shingen arquebus Ashgaru. Nobody seems to know what happened to  General Hiramoto, it is assumed he has died honourably with his samurai BUT he is later found hiding in a toilet masquerading as a pregnant woman and taken prisoner.
 The Takeda Ronin manage to cross the river on the far right flank but a unit of Mouri samurai spring from concealment in the woods, killing two and forcing the rest back into the river where they drown.


The Mouri Ronin are killed to the last man (and one woman) defending the bridge.
2 units of bloodthirsty Takeda Samurai and a fresh unit of Ashigaru are poised to attack:


But what's this??

a party of Mouri ninja spring up from out of the river and kidnap Takeda Shingen under the noses of his Samurai and whisk him away to captivity over the river. A rare bright spot in this battle for me.


Meanwhile the Warrior monks cross the river (losing casualties in the process) and are attacked by Mouri Ashigaru (sorry no photo) while they are shot in the back by the Mouri archers who finally have a clear target:

demoralized, the monks retreat back into the river where more of them drown and the remnants rout:


The Mouri Samurai who ambushed the Ronin from the woods attempt to follow up and cross the river. But this doesn't end well. Like everyone else who tries to cross this raging angry river today, they lose men and are destroyed as a fighting force.

The Mouri Samurai at the bridge rush onto it to defend it against more than twice their number.

Inevitably they are one by one hacked, stabbed and bludgeoned to death in the rain but at least they all died with honour this day.


My archers prepare to fire against the Takeda Samurai now storming the bridge but are hit by a devastating volley from the Takeda Arquebus unit, which has never failed to fire in this game. Losing half their number, the archers are forced back and there is nothing to stop the Takeda Samurai taking the bridge.


My last unit of Ashigaru run away. There is no one left.
Takeda victorious!


I look forward to the next game. Hiramoto has been ransomed back in disgrace, losing even more of his Honour. Takeda Shingen is still a prisoner. Will his clan pay the ransom, or will there be a rescue attempt? 
 

[fred]

Great write up, and a great looking game! Thanks for sharing

[Captain Blood]

Interesting to see the same game written up from two viewpoints 

You were rather unlucky with the double ones!

[Bloggard]

really smart looking game - love your pics vodkafan.

and can imagine the vibe with the real-world elements contributing to the atmosphere.

[manic _miner]

 Great looking game,terrain and figures.Dixon Samurai were some of my first miniatures.

[vodkafan]

Thanks all for the encouraging comments. Peter I had forgotten that the first unit of your Samurai broke in the epic scrap with mine on the bridge.  My bad luck that there was a fresh unit right behind it.
Fantastic game.

[has.been]

As said before, 'Good figures, good scenery & a good opponent'
These are things to be enjoyed.

The tray bases in game two (didn't arrive in time for game one,
because I didn't complete the on-line order!) When setting up for
the game I discovered that although 'War-Bases' HAD made them
to fit bases in multiples of 25mm, they had not been based to the
same exacting standard. They date back to a time before laser cut
MDF bases, and are hand cut thick card & filler. I spent most of Sunday
trimming a millimetre off two sides from EVERY infantry figure, oh
& scratch building a tray for the mounted Samurai. That I allowed
some tolerance.
MY unpainted stock for Samurai is now down to a handful of 'civilian'
figures & some more MDF buildings.
My goodness, I might get this project's backlog actually finished!!!!!

[VALIS]

This is awesome and inspiring in equal measure!

Where did you get the carpet tiles, erm I mean grass?

[manic _miner]

 Just been cleaning some Perry Samurai figures to day and did a few of the Eureka one's Yesterday.

[has.been]

Thanks for the nice comments guys.

Where did you get the carpet tiles, erm I mean grass?

Many, many years ago (about 50!) Woolworths were having an 'oddments
of discontinued ranges' sale. That was all the Green ones they had. Cost
me all of 50p each!!!!! Mind you I have had my moneys worth out of them.

Several places (eg B&Q) do sell individual tiles, though no-one seems
to do a nice green. I did buy some light brown ones, for use as 'dessert'
but because they now make the individual tiles bigger, storage is a problem. You need to lay them flat for storage & they take up a lot of space. The old tiles fit nicely into my cube storage units. I ended up
donating the 'dessert' ones to the School club.

[DintheDin]

Lovely game, a lot of action, beautiful figures and so nice table setup! Great!
Thanks for sharing!

[has.been]

Thanks Din.