Our Jojishi (my Japanese mod for Gripping Beast’s wonderful SAGA ruleset) campaign kicked off with Shaun’s ultra Christian Mouri clan taking on the Esoteric, Fanatic, Buddhist monk/yamabushi horde – the Uesugi clan under the control of Steve… It was a 6 point game and we play in 15/18mm by just halving the measuring sticks … Simples!
The pseudo-historical campaign sees the ‘5 Regents’ who are overseeing the young Emperors rule vying for power and influence. No major battles insight small ‘incidental’ skirmishes (basically jockeying for position) and political skull drudgery is the order of the day – custom made for the small scale forces used in SAGA!
If you are interested in my mods or the accompanying battleboards, join the fun over at the SAGA forums in the ‘Lab’ section!
Scenario wise the game was based on the Sacred Game scenario in the core rules:
The 5 Regents had just attended the Emperor’s Cherry Blossom viewing party and all had a small retinue with them. Uesugi Kenshin received some information from his inside man in Mouri Motonari’s camp that the Christian Daimyo was about to send his first son with a small force to lay the foundation stones for a new church in a valley some 5 miles away … problem being they had to burn down the Torii gate and shrine standing there first!!!!!
Lazing in the afternoon shadow of the leafy valley the Torii gate stood proud, for the moment at least. Mouri Oki stood imagining the grandeur of the stone church his father was to build, more than anything it would be a statement of intent, the Japanese people would embrace the true belief, even if a few had to burn to prove it. Meanwhile, the anger was welling in Uesugi Kenshin’s stomach, not only did the peasant before him bring the gaijin weapons of dishonour (a small unit of Teppo – musket armed troops) he wanted to try and rid the land of their traditional beliefs. The next life would see him as a dung beetle (probably with deformed legs and a heightened sense of smell), that was for sure. Glancing up he saw, what was the last proverbial straw, a priest blessing the Mouri troops before they advanced. Drawing his katana and uttering what can only be described as very un-buddhist phrases he led his yojimbo (bodyguards) speeding towards the Torii gate, determined to prevent the dirty Christian scum from defiling it.
Seeing the speeding monks, basically running towards the towering red gate it spurred the Mouri samurai into action. One group moving up the left flank to teach the peasant, levy scum to bow down before their true God, the teppo left to hold the valley side and the main part of the force with Oki to go and burn down the heathen shrine.
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| As seen by Steve after his run to save the shrine in the first turn! |
It was no surprise to the kami (spirits) watching from the surrounding woods that the major fighting was to take place at the site of the shrine itself.
The first three turns of the eight turn game saw a mad rush to the shrine and Uesugi’s side of the valley and then some intense fighting from both sides. Bad rolling was the order of the day on both sides, only saved by some good tactical use of the battleboards (where the nuances of SAGA unfold, complementing the relatively simple game play to perfection). Both sides were claiming a fair amount of victory points for being on the terrain pieces at the end of their opponent’s turn. But the numbers were dwindling in the middle. It originally seemed that Steve’s hordes of levy followers were too brittle when confronted with Shaun’s mainly warrior class Ashigaru or Hearthguard class Samurai. But the skirmish on the flank was to provide a pointer for the future. Shaun’s samurai clashed into the levy, they managed quite a few kills but then again there were a lot of them. They also suffered a casualty (taking them to 3) and gained a fatigue marker. Now in theory the levy could not charge into the samurai (not allowed in the mod due to the fact they would be too shit scared in reality) but the battleboard of the Uesugi clan allowed them to ‘taunt’ the samurai into charging them in there turn … then they used an ability which removed their fatigue and used the samurai’s to make it easier to hit. Numbers on their side and a bit of good rolling saw the samurai effectively negated as a force and losing Shaun a Saga dice. The greater numbers eventually (with a bit of luck) played a part, and so it was to be in the middle action.
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| OK lads in you go ... watch the long sharp things now! |
Oki could see his father’s displeasure in his mind, unfortunately for him his father’s displeasure often involved a large pot of slowly heated up oil which would do more than give him a good moisturising session! With this in mind he pushed to the front, uttered some suitable insults, and led his hatamoto (bodyguards) towards Uesugi. Initially it looked as if Uesugi was to fall but enough of his followers gave their life to save him that he managed to weather the onslaught. Seeing this as a sign of the spirits egging him on he took a small band back into the turmoil. He fought his way through to Oki who suddenly regained his Japanese spirit and asked if he could commit ritual suicide (seppuka) … The gleaming swish of a katana and a Oki’s rather wide open eyes very briefly registering his upper torso being split from the rest of his body seemed to indicate that the answer was negative. Some of the Mouri samurai tried to fight to get the body but to no avail. After a period of consolidation on both sides (the Mouri moving back up their valley side, the Uesugi forces coming together at the shrine) it seemed that Kenshin’s bloodlust was still up, the Gaijin weapons of dishonour had to be destroyed. Again leading by example he and some fanatic yamabushi monks stormed the valley side. The awesome foreign weapons obviously fell foul to the damp valley eye as their two rounds of shooting as the monks stormed in were completely ineffectual … it was all over. The shrine had been saved, Mouri would be getting his son’s head delivered (with a Shinto prayer attached) at break of day!
Shaun committed himself on turn 4 and 5 – up until then it was very close in accumulated points and in casualties. Shaun saw a chance to kill the main figure in the first game as Steve had sent him ahead and got him a bit isolated. Fate was against Shaun however as a sudden surge in dice fortune saw the leader both surviving the onslaught (mainly due the use of meatshields it must be said) and then launch himself on a turn of revenge which decimated Shaun’s forces. Turn 6 and 7 saw both sides get themselves together and in the case of Steve rack up the victory points – Shaun had few dice left to play with on the battleboard. Turn seven and eight saw Steve storm the teppo in a fit of well role played religious fervour. It was a risky move as the guns could well have taken his small force out – however, they were not even to take a hit!
The end of the turn saw Steve well ahead in scenario victory points (97 to 56) but fate was to play a final part in the game as when this was translated into normal VPs which led to the players drawing campaign point cards (2-7 twice over) Steve’s five cards were fairly rubbish, all being low, only earning him 20 ON points, Shaun’s 3 cards got him 18 points!
Obviously the stories getting back to court and the Emperor portrayed the monks in a slightly bad light. Just to rub it in the winner had to pick an event card and Steve managed to pull out one of only a few bad cards – he was being fed misinformation from his spies and would suffer in the next campaign game as his opponent can pick the scenario to be played!
All in all good fun and a cracking start to the campaign …
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| It's mine ... No it's mine ... No it's ... |
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| Gaijin weapons ... get rid of them! |
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