Samurai rules

[Nick the Lemming]

Thanks for the reply Mark; like Ithoriel I think I'll stick with something based on Tenkatoitsu though. I'm not persuaded by your claims, as I don't believe they accurately describe Sengoku-era warfare.

Ithoriel: When / if you do your home-made Tenkatoitsu rules, I'd be interested in what you've come up with.

[mmcv]

My understanding of the warfare is that you'd typically have a front line of guns covered by archers while reloading, mostly in loose groups rather than a continuous line. Then the spears would advance to combat. The samurai, cavalry or foot, would typically be used to fill gaps in the line or charge into areas of weakness to break the enemy.

From what I can tell, cavalry in the period were not a major component of the warfare due to the lack of powerful horses and the rough terrain not lending itself well to horses. There are a few notable exceptions where full units of cavalry were fielded but that seems to have been fairly rare and only in the more northern regions where it was less mountainous. So small groups of cavalry interspersed through the infantry formation does make some sense in a support role when massed cavalry charges are impractical.

This means there was certainly less need for the close order pike and shot style formations seen in Europe, but does seem like various troop types would have worked in mixed formations, certainly in the earlier stages. One of the reasons Oda was so successful was his massing of firearms from different clans together into concentrated units rather than the loose formations favoured previously. This would indicate that mixed formations had been in common use.

The Sengoku Jidai covers a wide period and the warfare did seem to change a fair bit over the course of it. And there are very much different scales. I don't think a single ruleset could cover both the smaller battles between clans and the huge battles towards the end where the likes of Tokugawa was fielding 20 sonae himself let alone the other allied commanders and sub clans.

[Ithoriel]

Mark, I will await your rules with interest .... and am not above stealing good ideas to incorporate into my own

My aim at the moment is to produce a game with a dozen or so units a side, which models my own view of how things may have worked, that is set in the middle 1500's period of the Sengoku Jidai, that models the friction inherent in any battle and also the challenges of commanding troops without radios or even megaphones! Nothing like giving oneself a challenge

I suspect your aims are not radically different!

On cavalry, all the accounts I've read (all secondary sources as I don't read Japanese) of the period I'm aiming for refer to small groups of cavalry attached to the sonae to exploit success or cover failure.

Even the accounts of the supposedly massive Takeda cavalry charge at Nagashino has groups of 30-50 horsemen riding up to the barricades, half a dozen to a dozen being shot off their horse and the rest riding off.

The few stats I've seen show 5% to 15% of samurai armies fighting mounted with the higher percentages being Eastern Japanese clans.

I'm not a big fan of the view that Japanese horses were broken down nags capable of no more than 9mph when loaded. I believe they were small, sturdy and agile. Ideal for raiding, skirmishing, tip and run tactics and pursuits but not for devastating heavy cavalry charges.

As ever, YMMV

[YORSTONS]

Well thanks for all the comments. Some very interesting ideas to work with. I'll maybe get a copy of the Peter pig rules to start with and wait for the new rules release.

[AndyT]

As Leon states - we have something being worked on at present

I have played Samurai armies to a lot of rules in the past - from specialist sets - through to the larger commercial rules - such as Armati, WRG, DB, Art de la Guerre etc but have never really found anything that captures the flavor of the period. I'm a huge fan of the epic Akira Kurosawa films - Seven Samurai - Throne of Blood - Kagoshima - The Hidden Fortress and ultimately Ran. So I am looking for sweeping moves and bloody combat.

Lock-down has allowed some major reworking and much more solo play-testing to take place ...  and we are heading towards a final play-test copy shortly.
The army-lists are also under construction as I type this. The idea being to allow players to create forces that range from small but extremely effective and highly trained professional retinues - through to huge peasant rebel armies (Ikko-Ikki being a favorite of mine).

For those planning ahead - buying paining and basing your forces - basing will be 100mm x 50mm for 6mm-10mm-15mm figures - 120 x 60 for 20mm -28mm - 30mm+
There are some basing exceptions - around Artillery and Ninja formations - which will be 50 x 50mm or 60 x 60mm respectively (NB: Ninja are included for specific smaller scale scenarios and campaigns rather than larger battles).

The idea is to try to allow players to create big battles - so it is about spectacle and the 100 x 50mm bases allow for a lot of figures on a base.
So hopefully this will give you all the motivation to start buying and planning armies.

Mark

Did these Samurai rules ever see the light of day?

[Big Insect]

Did these Samurai rules ever see the light of day?

Sadly not. Other things have kept getting in the way unfortunately - such as CWCII lists, The Forgotten War (BKC supplement), FWCII prep and my heart operation 
But they are not forgotten - just a fair way back in the writing queue I'm afraid to say 
Cheers
Mark

[paulr]

Good to see you have your priorities right Mark

[mmcv]

I have a playtestable set I've been working on in fits and starts, happy to share, discuss or run a game with on Table Top Simulator if anyone is interested. DM me if you're interested.

[Ithoriel]

I've been playing around with a variant of Strength and Honour for mid-1500s samurai warfare, tentatively called Koku and Katanas.

Nowhere near ready for play testing but the basic building blocks of forces are sonae of mixed troop types - ashigaru and samurai, mounted and on foot.

There are options for units of teppo, peasants and of mounted samurai. Teppo units can be split to beef up sonae.

I am using the 80mm x 40mm bases I got for Strength and Honour with things scribbled on top to show unit type, deployed on the 50mm squares mat I designed for S&H.

Am still working out how I'll be using Oddzial Osmy 3mm miniatures to show different unit types. No artillery, monks or ninja from O8 so unless I can work out how to make them none of those. A paint job might just let me create monks. The loss of Magister Militum as a supplier may scupper short term plans

[steve_holmes_11]

I'd imagine 3mm Ninjas are ... invisible.

[Ithoriel]

[Big Insect]

Has anybody played with the Bushidan set of Samurai 'Age of War' rules - written by Pauli Kidd and published by Helion?
It seems to be getting quite good reviews and this week Helion have a special 'Shogun' sale on and it is reduced in price - so I am thinking of making a purchase.

Thanks
Mark