Squashing The Satsumas.

1月8日水曜日

日Place Somewhere In Japan

        New Year and hopefully the start of a busy gaming year.Drove out to a very frosty Garvald for a delve back into the realms of the Boshin Wars with a skirmish involving an awful lot of colourfully painted Japanese soldiers from a not very gamed era the end of the Shogunate.

One Little Maid From School.

“How Much!(in Japanese)

The lull before the storm.

         El Presidente took command of the Imperial forces whilst I took command of the Shogunate forces hoping to stall the advancing enemy after the historical battle of Toba-Fushimi.The rules used were Men Who Would Be Kings and the stage was set for a short but albeit bloody game so after our usual visit to the local sake bar for beer and pizza we got down to the Japanese nitty gritty.

Bang a Gong!

“Pass the Sake.”

       My plan was just to sit and wait for the enemy to come to me which they did complete with El Presidente’s continual throwing of bad dice in fact he even swore at one stage something I’ve never heard him utter. 

Defending their honour.

My gallant men.

     The first attack came from the Satsuma infantry trying to have their way with my Onna Bugeisha which were a female unit(welcome to El Presidente’s world) but the initial sparring went the ladies way forcing the Satsumas to retreat with casualties .After their bloody nose themselves and the second Satsuma unit just peppered the girls with rifle fire in order to reduce the girls’ numbers forcing them to retreat more into their enclave and eventually disappear.

My Samurai cavalry biding their time.

The Cannon fodder approaches.

        El Presidente’s other flank wasn’t doing so well for after inflicting an initial casualty on my Aizu infantry his remaining forces tended to falter in their attempts to move forward.The Imperial cavalry moved forward with all their pomp intending to do away with my forces only to be stopped in their tracks by a a fusillade of cannon shot.Cavalry casualties were incurred and their advance faltered and eventually due to the vagaries of the rules the cavalry disappeared. 

The local police unit.

Setting their sights.

Relief arriving too late.

      My forces started to gather momentum so I decided that attack was the best form of defence my lads moved forward with my Fukushima infantry trying to relieve the pressure on the Bugeisha but alas too late.They took their revenge on the initial Satsuma unit causing them to flee.

El Presidente’s left flank diminishes.

Waiting for the advance party’s report.

   My only real mistake was moving a unit of Aiza infantry in order to attack El Presidente’s Chosu infantry in the rear only to realise their path to glory was through the field of fire of El Presidente’s artillery.The first of my units to disappear followed shortly by their sister unit.My victory was going to come at a cost.El Presidente’s Chosu unit now found that they were being isolated as the Hiroshima unit had retreated and disappeared without even losing a casualty.

Advancing to the cannon’s glory.

           I think El Presidente was realising that the Kanji was on the wall and conceded the field planning future revenge.A great game played in one of my favourite types of game involving Samurai.All figures,scenery and scenario provided by El Presidente and hopefully the beginnings of a fruitful gaming year..

El Presidente’s cavalry wondering where they went wrong.

        This has been a Garvald Studio Film Production.