Sohei Buntai and a new start for Ronin (by Osprey)

Fight for the Temple

The long wait to get back into "Samurai-gaming" was finally over. Throughout the fall of 2017 we had been chatting about getting a small Ronin campaign going with my mates Joonas and Juha (a 4th player needed!). Joonas had the responsibility to get us organized, but our good doctor seemed too busy... Finally in our club's Christmas party (held in January) I managed to corner him and we agreed this date our calendars! 

Preparations

As I only have some 300 Sengoku-period Japanese painted, I naturally needed to paint up

some new Sohei aka Warrior Monk minis for the coming game!

So I went through my stash and selected a bunch of minis needing some fine tuning...

and a few unpainted ones, including a new Grand Master, for my buntai

Soon they were getting painted...

And were finalized last night, just in time for the game:

Grand Master Daisuke

His loyal, almost fanatic Soheis

Sohei with a Yumi and Initiates

 Some civilians / initiates

I also made these character cards, because they're both cool and convenient; in Ronin all kinds 

of tokens, counters and dice are used to indicate different things like initiative and suffered wounds. As we don't really like having other stuff next to our beautiful minis and terrain, one can place all that stuff on the cards instead. I copied this idea from a gaming mate William, I met in Hamburger Tactica few years back. All the member are named etc. Jonas had used my template to make cards for his Koryo Buntai as well.

Fight for the Temple - REPORT is WIP

Character cards had been laminated and special Nippon dice from Warlord Games

were at hand - all set for the battle!

You can ready the scenario here

My Buntai included: 1 Senior Sohei (Rank 4), 3 Soheis (1 with Yumi), 1 initiate with Teppo and 2 Temple attendants with Yaris

Round 1.

All seemed peaceful in our small village with a renowned but small Shintoism-temple...

But then an alarm was raised with the mighty religious drum...

...enemy sighted!

Band of Samurai's - or were they actually Ronin? - entered the village, heading straight towards the temple...

But Sohei Warrior Monks and few villagers with sharp bamboo stick 

responded promptly to the call!

Round 2.

Daisuke lead the bulk of his men towards the temple, but he had wisely

posted one warrior with a ranged weapon on both flanks; inititate Hanako 

blasted away with his Teppo and as the smoke cleared one low level enemy lay dead on the ground 

- first blood!

Them "brave" Samurais hid behind the Temple in their night gowns (they had no armour)!

On the left flank my Sohei with Yumi (bow), Ayako, had softened up the enemy and then Sohei Koichi charged in with an attendant supporting him, first Samurai went down in a sweep from Koichi's Naginata! Now my warriors were committed... enemy high ranking warriors were now dangerously close...

Third round

Luckily I won the priority and sent a temple attendant (R1) to engage one of the Koryo tough guys. This gave me an easy opportunity to take out an enemy thug, these fights were very unbalanced and swift...

On the left flank a similar scenario repeated: my Rank 1 attendant charged a superior enemy to by me time to take out one enemy in a 1 on 1 combat and by shooting from my Sohei with Yumi

Unsurprisingly this lead to my Rank 1 attendants being taken out, but luckily enemies fell as well.

The above one on one match didn't go my Soheis way and he was left wounded...

Round 4.

Melees continued and my Senior Sohei faced the enemy Rank 5 hero...
Dice didn't go my way and  even if I won the initiative, I didn't manage to wound or take the enemy out in a one on one fight. Enemy's larger combat pool was my doom and heroic Daisuke fell...

End Game

I practically had only my shooters left and all enemies left were light wounded.

Here I faced a dilemma - whether to shoot at full capacity or to move in towards the Temple.

I opted to shoot...

But it was too much to hope for. Koryo had a total of 12 Ranks touching the temple and I had none...

Clear victory for Joonas' Koryo Buntai!

Conclusions: I got a good start dropping them enemies with my shooting, but when it got close and personal, Koryo's better combat pools and better dice rolling rapidly decimated my changes. In a small game like this losing few of your better fighters means that you're practically done.