Yokshie Tokubetsu Goes to Midgard

Weirdy-Beardy's Warrior Monks engaging Yokshie Tokubetsu's center

We got our Samurai out this weekend to try and see if Midgard would work for them. Finding a semi-biggish battle set of rules has been a problem. Ok, ok, I really haven't done much with my Samurai in a long  while, since this game of Seven Spears. Of course I haven't done anything with my Samurai, except buy (and then promptly put into storage) 6 boxes of Perry figures, since November of 2023. There were all those Quar grabbing my attention. 

Rebels on the left. The legitimate Lord, Yokshie Tokubetsu, on the right.

So Saturday afternoon I hastily scribbled out some lists for Yokshie Tokubetsu, the Lord of Tea, and the Ikko-ikki who are contesting his control of the region with their nonsensical complaints about oppressive taxes and how to properly perform the Tea Ceremony.

Yokshie Tokubetsu's sonae advancing. Formed units of 6. Skirmishers 3 to a base.

Samurai are Warriors with upgrade to Armour 4 and Spears as Tribute plus Steadfast.

Ashigaru with Yari are Warriors with Pikes.

Ashigaru with teppo are Massed shooters with Armour 3, Marksmen, Longbow and Hell's Breath 

Ashigaru with yumi (bows) are skirmishers with Longbows and Marksmen

The Mounted Samurai I made Heavy Riders (Knights)

The Hatamoto with yumi and naginata got Armour 4, Spears as Tribute, Pikes, Steadfast and Fearsome.

Hatamoto shooters got Marksmen and Hell's Breath.

Yokshie Tokubetsu himself is a Level 3, Mounted, with Battlesmiter and Today We Fight to Win.

He was assisted by five Taisho (Captains) who were all Level 2 with Battlesmiter.

This came to 362 points and 43 Reputation.

Ikko-ikki.

The Ikko-ikki are much more of a mixed bag, with everything from fierce ronin and monks swinging naginata (Brutal trait) to peasants clutching sharpened bamboo poles (Warrior Horde). As a force, they generally aren't as well equipped so the samurai were armour 3 and everyone was Reluctant. Some units were even downgraded to Armour 2. The bandit cavalry armed with bows were treated as Heavy Riders with Elf Bows, so not as shock charging as the Lord of Tea's cavalry, but the shooting helped them. They certainly held their own against Yokshie Tokubetsu's cavalry. The Bandit Chief was very tooled up; level 4, a legendary weapon and Today We Fight to Win. Their force came to 39 Reputation.

Bow armed Skirmishers foreground. Peasants beside them. 

After this game, when there was confusion over unit compositions and who was with which group, I had asked Don to print me some movement trays holding 6x 1" round bases. Some were neatly lined up 2x3, and others were more wiggly for orcs or skirmishers or peasants with bamboo spears. This naturally meant I had to quickly cut new measuring sticks for the different base width.

Yokshie Tokubetsu's Samurai doing surprisingly well against the Monks

Yokshie Tokubetsu (in yellow coat and helnet) rides to his doom. He is killed by an arrow leading his Hatamoto forward against the Monks with yumi.

The game went very well I thought. Lots of pushing to and fro. Things were looking very bleak on Yokshie's right as his cavalry fared poorly against the ronin. But in the final combat the bandit chief had his buntai of Mounted ronin destroyed around him, costing him an extra Reputation.

When the dust settled, the Ikko-ikki were at -1, and Yokshie Tokubetsu's heir was at 0. So a very tight game indeed. Although I made some errors with Reputation Tokens at the start, so this might not have been correct.

I messed up a few things as usual. I'm pretty sure I buggered up some Reputation. And I forgot that every hero had Battlesmiter and Yokshie Tokubetsu had Today We Fight to Win, which might have helped kill those monks.

I need to think about a trait for Hatamoto though. They should be harder to shift and fight to the death if their lord is killed. 

But results were very exciting and I'm now looking at those 6 boxes of Perry figures and planning what to paint next. Of course I'd been thinking about Sharp Katanas or Seven Spears when I made the order, so I've got a box of teppo and yumi commanders which will mess up unit numbers.

But, if organized into units of 3 and 6, I should, hopefully, be able to field an in house opponent for Yokshie Tokubetsu. 

Movement Trays

"It's just a small skirmish game. I just need a dozen figures or so. I'll base everyone individually."

Narrator's voice: "Indeed, he would not stop at a dozen figures. Or even two dozen."

140 orcs and goblins later....

My Middle Earth armies and my Samurai are all based individually. Which gets tedious to move, for obvious reasons. 

Fortunately both collections are organized in 6s and 12s. So I got Don to print me some movement trays. Some ranked up, and some looking skirmishy or warbandish. 

Most fit 1 inch fender washers, my base of choice. But I also got some to accommodate the 20mm washers I use for dwarves and goblins. 

I noticed a few fit problems setting up the first picture, but it's just sand or flocking overhanging the edge that I'll have to remove. 

The stands will help define groups in Seven Spears too, and hopefully make it easier for people to know what is what. 

The Last Samu... Oh, Who Am I Kidding?

My last 18 ashigaru have been sitting and waiting for 6 weeks while I got distracted by terrain for the Quar.

But using up my last vacation day to eat bacon and paint last Monday got them completed and ready to be based. 

Nine ashigaru with yari.

Nine ashigaru with teppo.

Saturday night's planned game was canceled by the Austrian commander being sick. But Big Pat came over and a 3 hour 45 minute painting session got the basing on the ashigaru finished and these 5 civilians completed from white primer to the flocking tub.

I do have reinforcements for the Ikko-ikki sitting an hour's drive away at a friend's house (the sick Austrian commander). I ordered through this friend because he buys so much Perry figures that he gets a decent discount! But I won't be seeing him until the week after Christmas now. 

I'll have to console myself with painting some Napoleonics in the meantime. But for a couple of weeks at least, I have all of my feudal Japanese painted!

Sharp(ish) Katanas

I had Weirdy-Beardy and Big Pat over last night to inflict some fuzzy rule ideas on them.

The game was mostly straight up Sharp Practice with some modifications to shooting from the Tenka Fubu blog here. I also added in an Armour Save to shooting hits, but forgot to give teppos better armour penetration and forgot to use the Armour Saves in hand to hand. ho hum....

A Random Event: the hatamoto-gashira has a broken sandal and suffers a -1 to his movement dice.

Deployment Point and some Support Options

Cavalry on a flanking move from a Secondary Deployment Point

Weirdy-Beardy's sohei monks (center of picture) are out of the box after many years of silent meditation

Sohei with bows covering Weirdy-Beardy's Secondary Deployment Point

Heavy cavalry vs light cavalry. Ouch. Although the bushi with yumi (horse archer samurai) managed to take 4 of the bushi with yari (samurai with spears) with them,

Hatamoto clear archers out of woods

Fight to the death! Samurai Big Man and last sohei archer kill each other.

Remains of the Daimyo's cavalry wipe out a shattered group of sohei, dropping the Ikko-ikki Force Morale to 0.

Big Pat had fun because he won. His die rolling is notoriously bad, so he was happy for a change. Weirdy-Beardy started out badly and struggled to recover; his cards weren't coming up, his initial deployment off his DP was a traffic jam,  it seemed he couldn't roll any 5s or 6s to save his life. He did mangle Pat's ashigaru-yari, but at a heavy cost and it was too little too late.

So I should probably next go back to Seven Spears and see about importing the things I like from Sharp Practice; Deployment Points, moveable DPs, Support Options. I'm still internally debating whether the Command Cards in Sharp Practice are "better" or "worse" than the Fate Cards from Dux Britannarium/Seven Spears. I like the Random Events in SP, but how to reproduce that in Seven Spears? I would also like nobori (those big banners that an awful lot of man power was assigned to) to actually mean something for game play.

Samurai Assortment

In the two weeks since my flurry of assembly, I've bashed on with getting paint on things. 

First done, mainly because they were the easiest, was the group of unarmoured warriors converted from Pulp Figures Tong gangsters. I spent a little more time on the skin tones than I usually do.

I also have this fellow, ready to give an energetic drum solo. The drum came to me already quite nicely painted. I should make a pavilion for it.

Next is this handful of mounted bushi which were given to me years ago already based and primed. They're from The Assault Group. They're from an earlier era. By the Sengoku Jidai Samurai had moved away from mounted archery and were acting more as shock cavalry.

But I think lighter armoured, mounted archers in archaic armour works for Ronin living off of raiding and banditry. 

Their much more individual and elaborately laced armour did slow me down. 

I had originally thought of using the chap in red armour as my overall commander, but with his quiver of arrows I decided to keep him with the archers. 

That leaves the chap in blue armour to be my Ronin commander. His blue armour provides a nice contrast to the dominant red of the Daimyo's force.

Here's my group of six Samurai on foot, including the two where I switched katanas for pole arms and fixed broken scabbards. 

Finally the last of my mounted bushi, giving a big boost to Yokshie Tokubetsu's cavalry arm.

So until my order from Perry Miniatures arrives, that's all of my Ronin/Ikko-ikki done. I've just got 9 ashigaru with yaris and 9 ashigaru with teppos to paint for Yokshie Tokubetsu. Can I get them done before the order arrives?

Stay tuned!