Ronin Battle Report - Capture and control !


Another game of Ronin by Osprey! We were using the normal rules with the inclusion of the latest FAQ, which modified some of the weapons.


Samurai Buntai lead by Darth Vader San & Sohei "totally not-ninja" school 
William: (Samurai)
2 Ashigaru with yari, 1 Ashigaru with Yumi, 1 Ashigaru Sargent
Neil: (Kohei sword school)
1 x Sensei, 1 x Novice, 4 x Initate, 1 x Kohai

Scum - Peasant rabble & dishonoured Samurai
Paul & James 
Paul (Ikko Ikki)
Sohei monks armed with naginata + 1 Teppo)
James (Samuri)
4 Samurai armed with Katana and + 1 Yumi

The scenario was to gain control of the central objective by turn 6.

We took alternating turns for the setup, which involved placing terrain in accordance to the randomised procedure set out in the rulebook.  The opposing team henceforth named "Scum" had quite a few archers in their team and in Ronin they have a surprisingly long range. I was keen to not be shot up so deployed to maximise the cover we could get from the various buildings.  The central objective was... placed in the exact center.



Turn one! My only archer sprinted into the nearby bamboo forest to provide fire support on to the central objective.

The ninja school, fearful of becoming black hedgehogs took refuge within the nearest building. My troops continuing to use the building as cover inched forward.
The scum team moved their 4 archers into place to fully cover the central section of the map.



This guy is literally invisible in a thick bamboo forest.. you can't see him right? Unfortunately the 4 enemy archers noticed that one of the bamboo trees was dressed in red armour, had legs, arms and a bow so they made that their top priority. Volley after volley of arrows came in and my plucky archer shrugged them all off. At this stage of the game he had survived around 16 shots.



The ninja school continued their sprint and took cover behind a shack by the objective. I am surprised the photo shows anything at all due to the ninja schools extreme stealth skills. Look at them blend into that shack.. amazing!

Darth Vader sent his minions out ahead of him to provide cover from the arrows, which no doubt will be aimed at his lordship. 

Arrows start spilling in and managed to cause a light injury to one of the brave Ashigaru spearmen.  


My archer sick of being the target from so much incompetent archery decided to jump out from the bamboo forest(now renamed arrow forest) to take a shot at one of the 4 archers who have had by now given up and re positioned.    His arrow found his mark but failed to wound, causing a light injury on the enemy archer. 


James re positioned his 2 archers into the forest.. a most DISHONOURABLE move.. I would never do such a thing.... ;) 


Safety at last, the lord Vader hides dominates the peasant shack.
Using his sharply attuned senses he felt the presence of a huge group of dirty stinking peasants immediately behind the shack and so prepared himself.


Battle is joined with the ninja school rushing out to the left hand side of the shack to do battle with James samurai. James's samurai are initially vastly outnumbered but manage to keep the fight on their terms with clever positioning to limit the amount of contact they had.


With the filthy peasants busy discussing what a "bath" is and the samurai on the left engaged with the ninja school my brave lone samurai saw an opportunity and rushed out to take control of the objective. 

His comrades followed for support.

My archer no longer under cover of the bamboo regained the attention from Paul's archers and took hit after hit from Paul's archers. He was a fighter and refused to die such a dishonourable death despite now being more arrow than human.


The battle on the left hand side took a deadly turn when James's bunny ear samurai was slain. It seems that he spent too much time on his fashion-sense rather than studying the blade....  Also it seems that kawaii went back further than I thought! eeheheh


The fight on the left escalated with another soldier joining the fight and wounds were starting to build up on both sides.

With the enemy archers aiming down the center, my lone samurai with the objective wisely started dragging it away from the enemy. The thing was heavy and so he could only move at half speed and had to use an action to pick it up. The samurai gladly took on this labour as he knew the chest was full of Sushi or something equally stereotypical.

The peasant rabble now finished their discussion baths having concluded they didn't want any part of it started to peak around the corner hoping to conduct some cowardly attacks in the rear.

The lord Vader was having none of this and promptly charged into the peasant. 

As expected the combat was very one sided and the peasant achieved his dream of being cut down and turned into plant fertiliser.


The battle on the left was drawing to an end with most of the outnumbered samurai becoming injured. The sword school Sensei charged out from the fight into the nearby archers who had been shooting into the skirmish. 


With Vader occupied the peasant rabble charged around the side of the shack with their leader leading the charge.  


  

 My archer took a few pot shots at the peasants but only managed to stun one due to having arrows deeply buried in his eyes. 

On the left an archer was instantly cut down by the ninja Sensi, however this now left him exposed and the surviving archer who was not yet in combat took a shot off at him at point blank causing a wound! WHERE IS THE HONOUR? 


The peasant leader looked tougher than his purple dress may otherwise indicate and easily killed off my Ashigaru spearman.  
The lord Vader outraged come charging back into combat but couldn't quite get into base to base combat.

A peasant charged into the objective carrier but as you would expect didn't stand much chance.


On the left the combat was nearly over with the samurai almost being wiped out. 

Vader joins battle with the purple dress wearer. 


Blows were traded with both receiving a light wound for their trouble.
The red shirted peasant who although is an uneducated dolt with no honour got lucky and easily killed the Ashigaru spearman.


My archer stumbled forward as best he could with his wounds to add his claim to the chest of sushi and with that final move the game was called. Game over!

The two victors showing off their spoils. 

So great game! What I learnt is that although Archers can achieve some rapid fire when clustered together and remaining stationary. They will however struggle massively against anybody with armour. Shooting those without armour is much easier as you can expect but costs at least 123,578 dishonour points.. not that my opponents care about such things.. Bah!




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