Heiho Sengoku Rules

[fred]

Has anyone tried the new Heiho mass battle rules from Helion?

I've had a read, and like the idea of them, but am struggling a bit to parse some of the rules. So wondering if anyone else has got them, read them or even played them?

[Cat]

I haven't.  But if you do facebook, some folks on the non-denominational Feudal Japanese Miniatures Wargaming group have been trying it out and posting.  Search function for 'Heiho' pulls up the threads:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1197990153597100/search/?q=heiho
 
It's a public group, so anyone should have access to it.

[fred]

Thanks - I don't facebook. But will point a couple of my group who do at the link

[fred]

Had a play though of these rules last night - disappointed would be the summary.

The rules are really hard to work with - stuff is mixed up in sections.

There is poor consistency in terms (element vs half base or around general's being killed in one paragraph is 4,5 or 6 they are safe, in the next is 1,2, or 3 they are killed - its the same outcome but makes you read it again)

It feels that things have been changed, but then not updated throughout the rules (serried defence in the text vs dispersed defence on the counter sheet, a note that a sonae always gets 1 dice in combat, but there is no way to loose dice and the fewest you can start with is 3).

The QRS is missing several items, and includes a couple of things that don't seem to exist in the rules any more (eg edge)

We worked through all of this as the game seems to have strong period flavour to it.

But the big problem seems to be that units are brittle, and there is little attrition. Both of which seem odd for the scale of game it is representing.

With combats we tended to have two outcomes
1) fairly even fights, 1 sonae loses one base (out of 4 or 5). Which can then be recovered the next turn for a command point.

2) attacker flanks the defender. This tend to destroy the defender, with no damage to the attacker. And whilst I'd certainly expect the flanked unit to loose - it feels odd that one side looses 5 bases and the other none. Most of the casualties are from the attacker winning, they cause a base loss due to flanking, and a second for pursuit if they have a commander, or non-fighting cavalry stand). And the defender is likely to have lost a stand in the melee due to number of hits. So 3 bases lost which causes the sonae to disperse.

Basically this meant on one flank I rolled up my opponent as a pair of my sonae could keep picking on one of his, and on the other flank he did the same to me.

It felt very odd that the victorious units were not degraded at all and could just keep hammering away. This is largely down to the combat mechanic which is down to difference in number of hits being applied to the loser rather than each side causing hits on the other.


Other bits of combat that seem unnecessary
The order token - the skirmish option is fine, but there other two just seem a coin toss to decide if the attacker gets an advantage. there is no option for the defender to get an advantage. These feel like they should do more, but it feels you just randomly pick one and hope to not pick the same as the defender (there are a couple of situational times where the choice has some effect).

2nd round of melee - this is just fiddly for no real benefit. It can't kill a stand (unlike the first round) and may roll slightly different number of dice than the first round so you need to work through the advantage rules again. And just adds to the result of the first round - which may have been significant so these extra rolls have no effect.

Ordering of stands - this feels like it should be significant - but really seems quite minor - you could easily say shot can always shoot from wherever in the sonae. Then you can just decide on the order of your melee bases - which nearly always seems to want to be spear backed by samurai.

C in C - he has two options leading from the saddle or from the enclosure. The sample army lists we used had both C in C in the saddle. This seems a really good option as he gets to activate two brigades (te) for free and if fights he adds an advantage, and gets to pursue. So this is at least 3 command points of value per turn. If he commands from the enclosure he gets a bank of 2 command points per te (so 6 in this game) which have to be pre-allocated to turns. So it feels you get much more value out of him being on a horse and charging around. I suspect in larger games this may be less effective - but I'm not certain.

[PBR Streetgang]

Thanks for the review Fred. I purchased them and started reading through but haven't had a chance to try them. There are some things I like: basing system, the use of a square grid. However, reading through the rules they did seem a bit fiddly and disorganized. Perhaps there are some parts of the rules that can be salvaged for a home brew set.

Sengoku warfare is a tricky one to replicate on the wargaming table. There are certain aspects that need to be included to have some resemblance to reality (combined arms units changing tactical deployment depending on the situation) , the exotic army formations, etc. However, these are the things that can make a ruleset fiddly or complicated.

I have yet to find a ruleset that I have been pleased with enough to adopt and consistently game with.

As a side bar, I felt this same with pike and shot rules for many years until I started playing Liber Militum Tercios. So I do have hope that something will come along that I like enough to be satisfied with.

[fred]

Yes, the Heiho rules seem to have a lot of the flavour of large scale warfare - until you start playing. Then it doesn't feel like that at all as these large formations are both strangely brittle but also safe from attrition.

But as you say the rules are far from the clearest - so if someone else has found differently, it would be good to know.

[SJWi]

Fred, thanks for posting about your experience . You have just saved me £25 or so. I really wanted your answer to be different as my mates and I want to game this in 10mm. I may use Simon Miller's TTS as I know he has lists for this period, albeit I doubt they will cover the specificities of Samurai warfare well enough for many people.

[fred]

I too want to play in 10mm - I have lots of lovely Pendraken figures ready to go



As you say I'm sure TTS will work, but will be fairly generic medieval mass battle.

I've had a look at the play test version of the Diamyo rules - and these look promising (see the thread, probably just below this one!)

[SJWi]

Fred, I'm not a Facebook user but might see if I can get these. I'm not a huge fan of the Osprey "blue series" of rules but in the absence of anything else will consider them.

 

[fred]

Blue series are a bit mixed. The draft of Diamyo seems to be double length which is no bad thing IMHO

[Cat]

Fred, thanks for posting!
 

Fred, I'm not a Facebook user but might see if I can get these. I'm not a huge fan of the Osprey "blue series" of rules but in the absence of anything else will consider them.

Peter Pig has Battles in the Age of War for consideration too.  I have them, but not played.

[jon_1066]

I’m going to use Hail Caesar but with sonae able to adopt different  formations which will change their stats.

I can pop a draft up if there is any interest?

[fred]

That sounds interesting Jon, it would be good if you can share.

Been a good while since I’ve played HC, but we did play it a lot back then

[HerbertTarkel]

Fred, I'm not a Facebook user but might see if I can get these. I'm not a huge fan of the Osprey "blue series" of rules but in the absence of anything else will consider them.

Literally, no one is a Facebook user, anymore - it’s dead.

There are so few holdouts, it’s kinda … sad?

[jon_1066]

This is where I have got with it.  Hopefully self explanatory in terms of the modifications.  Note I haven't tested this yet as I haven't painted up enough 10 mm figures.  The idea is to use small scale figures so each kumi is a single base and a sonae is made up of multiple kumi of different types.  The relative positions of the kumi indicates the posture / formation the sonae has adopted.