Samurai Battles: Games and Painting

Jake brought his 6mm Samurai Battles Travel Edition to Spokane for an afternoon of Samurai Battles before the Christmas holiday.  Details of his 6mm travel set can be found at Dartfrog's Adventures in 6mm.  Jake's game pieces are even better looking in person.  His river tiles are really well executed and tempt me to do something similar for my own game map. 

We played three games to conclusion on Sunday.  Two games of 4th Kawanakajima: Attack Against Takeda Command Tent with both getting a chance to play the aggressor and attacking Takeda command and one game of 4th Kawanakajima: Ford of Amenomiya.

In Game 1 of 4th Kawanakajima: Attack Against Takeda Command Tent, I commanded Red and Jake took Yellow.

Yellow began by attacking on Red right followed by counterattacks  by Red.  Casualties were heavy on both sides.

Red prevailed in the center-right and then advanced up the center as Yellow left collapsed.

In desperation, Yellow launched an attack with his cavalry to try to rebalance the game.  Red units that had fallen back from early casualties were hit in this cavalry charge. Two Red foot units were eliminated but it was too little too late.  Red was victorious. 

In Game 2, we replayed the Game 1 scenario but switched sides.  This time I commanded Yellow.  Jake wasted no time in putting Yellow command tent under pressure and the command tent soon fell to Red.  Not able to recover, Yellow managed to destroy a few Red units before losing the battle 6-4.

In the final and longest game of the afternoon, Red harassed Yellow as he slowly advanced upon the fords.  Yellow took a pounding from missile troops before finally closing to contact.  First, the far left ford fell to Yellow and then pressure and clashes increased over the central ford.  In the end, Red cavalry was destroyed and Yellow held all three fords in an overwhelming victory. 

In an attempt to put down every threat across the entire board, Red used his cavalry as a mobile fire brigade.  Once it was clear that the left ford was permanently lost, Red shifted his cavalry to the center and launched a series of desperate attacks across the ford.

Jake has soloed the Game 3 scenario several times and all attempts to win as Red fell short.  This result was no exception.  Next time, I would like to give this scenario a try as Red and see how I might fare.  Another fun afternoon on the field of battle with Samurai Battles.  With the addition of Honor tokens and the Dragon card deck, no two game likely will play out exactly the same.  For those minimaxers, every turn presents tough choices.

Maintaining the Samurai Battles theme, two more 15mm units mustered off the painting table this week.

One unit of ashigaru with sword:

One unit of dismounted samurai:

I now have six units in this army consisting of four Ashigaru and two Samurai units.  The Ashigaru have two missile units (one bow, one arquebus) and two shock (one spear, one sword).  The samurai units are made up of one foot and one horse.

My plan is to field another six units having the same troop mix but this time the banners will be distinguishable from these first six.