Test of Honour Battle report - Attack at the Shrine!

Test of Honour Battle report - Attack at the Shrine!

The win conditions are on kill points which are totaled up at the end of turn 5. The defender gets bonus points for each action his hero spends praying at the temple. If you attack the hero who is deep in prayer, you immediately get one tasty dishonour card.

We played with 24 points each on a fairly terrain heavy board.

Will  (Dishonorable temple desecrators) 
Ronin Hero
Ronin Second
Ronin thug X 1
Ashigaru archer
Ashigaru archer

Ashigaru archer
Loyal Spearmen group

Loyal Spearmen group

Ashigaru Sargent

Attack doggo

Rob  (Pius fool)
Unarmoured samurai hero
Devoted samurai
Experienced musket group
Ashigaru archer group
Ashigaru spearman group

Experienced Ashigaru spearman 

The scenario:

We decided to continue running with the house rule "Martial Mastery", which only applies to melee armed common troops. It changes the game up quite a bit and although the common troops still don't get many critical hits (somewhat reserved for heroes and companions) they are a LOT more deadly and games are now bloodbaths, rather than exercises of troops bouncing ineffectively off each other while heros do all the killing.

We flipped for who was going to defend/attack and the fates chose Rob to be the pius defender who then gathered his forces in defense of his hero at the temple.  Once he had completed his set up, I chose the table edge I would come on from. 

I started off and deployed a lone archer, who took a shot at and killed a musket group lurking at the back.

Next up, Rob advanced some ashigaru to act as cannon fodder for the man at prayer. 

With some juicy targets in sight I took shot at and killed the one of the nearby group of ashigaru.

The next few turns were uneventful with me bringing troops onto the table and Rob spending his actions to pray at the temple to his false god.

The ronin second, thinking he is a Ninja with his black armour jumped up and climbed the roof of a nearby shack.

While Rob continued to pray the black ronin jumped down from the rooftop, aiming his giant sword (and yes he is compensating) at the group of warriors below.

Unfortunately his sword was just for show and although he was throwing down 6 dice to hit, he completely fluffed his shot at glory!  USELESS!!!

Rob's nearby archer group took umbridge with this and sent a insult in the form of an arrow, luckily it missed... looks like the black ronin is not the only incompetent solider on the field...

Rob's hero was still praying at the temple, showing his back my archers. In the end the temptation was too great and an archer let loose a shot at the old man.  Instant dishonour card! Luckily the card was "private shame" so nothing happens in-game. Luckily the ronin archer felt absolutely no remorse regardless and would sleep well tonight.

Unfortunately after all that, the arrow completely missed and embedded itself in the temple.

Rob's archer group took a shot at the black samurai who managed to avoid it by the skin of his teeth.

The next turn involved the Ronin red archer taking a shot and killing a nearby warrior group.

Enraged by this Rob's devoted samurai joined the fight and ran into the Ronin Hero! The twin sword technology was too much and landed a heavy blow.

From sheer strength of will and a burning desire to desecrate the temple, the Ronin Hero stood back up and shrugged off his arm injury. Nothing would stop him!  Well technically another sword slap to the face would but lets ignore that for now.

 

Blamo! Rob's warriors in blue killed the black samurai... his career spanned the exciting exploits of climbing a small building, jumping down and completely missing with his attack and then being killed off by some common soldiers.  He won't be missed.

Like some kind of undead monster (and just ugly) the ronin hero slowly stood up, picked up his arm from the floor and used it as a meat club to instantly kill Rob's twin sword samurai.

The blue Oni slowly lumbers forward while daydreaming of just how red and shiny his club will soon be once he has caved in a few heads into mush.

Twang!   The archer takes aim and shoots at Robs hero at prayer. He was distracted by the incessant chanting and missed his mark with the arrow embedding itself in the shrine.. only inches away from the heroes head!

The loud noise WHACK of the arrow embedding itself in the wood was enough for Robs hero to shake off all thoughts of holiness and instead turn his thoughts to VIOLENCE.  He walks cautiously down the steps, ready to deliver some holy vengeance.

The group of nearby ronin charge into the self-processed holyman who used his cautious marker to roll for a free evade.  He was obviously praying to the wrong god as he rolled 3 blanks and 3 crosses. FUMBLE!  

With this disastrous avoid roll he promptly tripped over his prayer beads and fell on the floor. Luckily for him the ronin failed to cut him down and just caused a light wound instead.  His humiliation had just begun.

A surprise attack from the nearby armored Shiba Inu caught the blue swordsmen unaware. His sharp teeth found their mark and relieved a swordsman of his finger but not his life.

Rob's nearby archers who were definitely not members of the RSPCA shot a volley of arrows at the Shiba Inu and the poor little dog became a poor little hedgehog. :( 

The nearby ronin, scared of the advance of the blue swordsmen decided to take a detour towards the local geisha house, which surprisingly was still open for business. Apparently monks were their best customers!

The ronin hero had quite enough of the incompetence of his lackeys and advanced up to the temple with his club in hand, ready for the most enjoyable task of beating up an old man on the floor.  Annoyingly the old man was quite the limber character and wiggled around on the floor, artfully dodging the furious club hits.

The next few turns consisted of inaccurate clubbing and the old man dodging death either through extreme worming around or having tough skin, impervious to heavy wooden implements. The blood drops were starting to add up as more and more dice were being thrown.

An upstart ronin who had been watching this from the sidelines decided it was his time to shine... yes, this would show everyone that he was the big man, the boss.. the man with the big riceballs.. you get where im going with this. He charged in and.......

killed the old man instantly!!!  The ronin hero muttered that he had been doing all the work and quite literally softening him up with all the club hits. 

The ronin archer gambled and lost by attempting to shoot over a group of allies. He fumbled and the arrow stuck into the back of a nearby ronin. As he dropped to the floor his last vision was of the geisha ruefully looking at a lost customer.

With that death the game ended as we reached turn 5. The ronin hero climbed the steps to the temple to begin his prayer vigil.  As he kneeled down he thought to himself... hmm, looks like there was room for both of us at the temple after all.. whoops

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