As I was already on the blue side of the board, I took Shinguto first against nephew Tom's Shishido. I was able to attack on both flanks. On the left it was an archery duel. I brought up my mounted samurai bowmen, but Tom did the same, making it three Shishido against two Shinguto. Hmm... But I really didn't want to march my spearmen slowly forward against the bows.
On the right, the Shinguto forces massed against the ford just right of centre. My samurai foot spearmen led the charge, forcing Tom's defending ashigaru (down to a single block) to retreat and seizing a bridgehead. Tom hit them with his samurai foot spearmen, supported by the samurai archers from the centre and the Samurai bow cavalry that were in reserve. Bye bye my samurai spearmen (and that's 0:1 to Tom) as the ford was occupied by the Shishido samurai.
Bad news on the left flank, too, as my mounted archers took 4 hits to the 2 I inflicted on their opposite numbers. That's 0:2.
With a lead in victory banners, Tom then played his masterstroke. With plenty of Honor and Fortune chips built up, he played the "Turncoat" Dragon card. For the fourth time in six battles. However, this time I managed to roll some 'Honor and Fortune' and the Turncoat failed. Phew!
My ashigaru and mounted bowmen pressed the attack on the ford, eliminating the Shishido samurai (1:2) and again getting across the river. Tom threw everything he had on that flank (including the one-block ashigaru) into a counter-attack. A lucky die roll removed my mounted archers and I lost an ashigaru unit as well, while I took out that damaged unit and Tom's foot samurai. (3:4)
The Shishido mounted bowmen stormed across the ford to chase down my ashigaru, eliminating one unit, whose leader took the honourable course of seppuku (I didn't have enough Honor and Fortune chips to pay for a retreat!). On top of this, Tom's archers took out my bowmen on the left. That's 3:6, which is when we spotted that he only needed five victory banners to win. Oops!
We re-set the scenario and played the other sides, which went pretty quickly. We both started with lots of left section cards and Tom charged his left flank forces up to the river. With no cards to do anything on my right, I just had to stand there and take it. My archers were engaging his archers on my left (to little effect) and I had some archers in the centre just in range to support my right. Tom powered through my defenders, destroying two units and getting his first one across the river. (0:3)
I got one back, taking out an ashigaru spearmen unit (1:3) but Tom had moved another unit over the river (1:4). Finally, he brought two more units across the ford and eliminated a third ashigaru unit to take the score to 1:5. Those extra units across the river mean it would have been 1:7 on his next turn. Sigh.
(This report is also on my BGG blog, with photos:
boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/123222
)