Battle report - battle of Anegawa (aka history turned on its head)

renatoponti Ağustos 21, 2022

There are certain tenets of wargaming that hold true in most cases

- if you want to win, have Ian on your side
- if you want to lose, Mark's your man
- if you want to win, use Mordor dice
- if you want to lose, use your iPad . iPhone to roll dice.

All four were put to the test last night and all four proved to rock solid. As a consequence Oda Nobunaga managed to lose the Battle of Asegawa and thus the whole of Japanese history was turned on its head.

Mark does the decent - and wrong - thing.

To be fair to Mark, he played it fairly. Rather than have just two stands taking on the beseiged castle of Yokoyama he put all his missile troops around the castle (then found that they were in level 2 cover and so shooting was not as effective as he thought).

Here he missed a trick, as Oda historically lined the Ane with arquebusiers to shoot the relieving forces to bits as they crossed. In a reverse of this tactic, Russ used his Asakura troops to devastating effect and managed to shoot Mark's troops to ribbons over the course of the evening.

I cross the Ane. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

I too managed to bugger up history by taking Ieyasu Tokugawa over the river and also getting battered by a combination of impassable woods, Ian's Asai troops, awful dice rolling and waiting for Mark to stop dying in droves and to come and help. But to be fair I had the right idea. We could easily have trapped Ian between my troops and Mark's left wing. But my Commanded Shot (who were supposed to jump into the trees and ping at Ian's flanks) found that the trees were impassable. As I started rolling 1's for pips, I got stuck in the river and got shot at by Ian's samurai and then his ashigaru and was soon in a world of hurt. Especially when Ian moved his ashigaru spear round the back.

Mark was doing something which involved a) leaving his shooting troops at the back so they couldn't fire and b) moving his spear and samurai within shooting distance of Ian and Russ's ashigaru. Essentially this meant that he was taking about twice the damage he was inflicting. Which was why he couldn't come to my rescue (as Ian had more stands than me).

The opposition hatch a cunning plan - let Mark do his thang then punish him.

As can be seen above, Ian was already up to the river and Mark's missile troops still surround the castle (rather than rushing to man the riverbanks). Note also that Russ' troops (denoted by the round markers) are also close to the river. This meant that all the firepower that Mark had was focused on one stand (in the castle) rather than the oncoming threat.

Having said that, he managed to rout the stand in the castle and taking control of it. I stated that this was the victory condition and that we'd won.

I don't know what Mark is doing here. I think sprinkling Parmesan cheese on Russ' trees.

He then celebrates our one-turn victory

Unfortunately we had to take the castle AND take out the relieving force. Rats!

This was bearing down on us from all sides. Especially my side. As the woods were impassable I had to line up to address Ian's attack. But 1's for pips meant I wasn't doing much.

I look in OK shape here - but my shooters are on the right and so out of range.

But Ian slides some troops around the back of the woods and my pips and orders don't allow me to react.

I was still waiting for Mark to move up to hit Ian in the flank (which was the plan). But with his missile troops in the back it meant that he moved his melee troops up without a screen. I can now see the value of the Japanese battle formations - they invariably had their shooting ashigaru at the point where the enemy is likely to smack into you.

Mark slowly lining up his troops - too late to stop anything or to attack Ian.

Looking not particularly good for me.

As I was in danger of getting surrounded I decide to charge my spear ashigaru into Ian's samurai and get my shooters into position to do something. The charge proved a bit disasterous as samurai can shoot with bow before getting stuck in. So the spear went in Shaken and got battered in the melee - but managed to hang on and inflicted some damage themselves.

Mark finally crosses the river - but Ian and Russ are already in possession of the river banks.

Mark got up to the river but as he was leading with his melee troops this meant they were very vulnerable to the opponents shooting troops. As they waded across the river, Ian's troops had a pop at them. On the other side, he lined up some shooting troops but these were outnumbered by Russ'. You can see in the picture above that this piecemeal deployment meant that he took a whupping all down the line.

Oh dear.

On my side the spear and samurai were kicking lumps out of each other. I had the other yari and my samurai turn to face Ian's spears coming around the back.

Russ moves more shooters into range.

Mark was being shot to ribbons by Russ and even Ian's shooters were keeping him at bay. On my flank the

Mark tries to reprogramme his iPhone to throw low numbers for a change

But things were already going against us.

A look down the battle line. Note the unit marker 'banners' on the rear of the bases and some shaken flags as well. Seamless!

I managed to lose the spear vs samurai battle and thy retired shaken. Then the commanded shot routed - which caused morale checks across the board. This led to lots of shaken markers and Ian followed up this success with his choppy samurai. They are quite powerful - armoured, janissary-types (shoot and close combat specialists) and can go through shaken troops like a dodgy curry through a drunken reveller.

My army starts to disappear

This caused the Commanded shot to disappear and I was suddenly sans troops. It was now just a matter of time. Mark did charge his troops across the river but shooting weakened them fatally so when they finally contacted the sohei warrior monks they were chopped up.

Mark gets stuck in but is battered

We carried on for a couple of turns but the result was not in doubt. My army was reduced to around half its strength and most of Russ' troops were full strength. A famous victory which turned history on its head.

I made the mistake of having too big a battle and I think we should maybe replay this one on a Saturday when we have more time to get it in. But there was an awful lot of combat - it was extremely bloody - and a lot of fun.

Next week - cavalry make their first appearance!