Nephew Tom had a week off work at the end of May and we fitted in a couple of sessions picking up where we'd left off 14 months ago with this scenario.
My initial hand as the Ouchi allowed me to make a sustained attack in the centre, letting me punch through with my samurai and take the tent. However, this left me with two samurai units on their own in the middle of the Amako army, which was still in good order. The score's 4:0, comprising three for the Command tent and one fallen Amako unit, while my forces are intact.
My samurai made a fighting retreat from their exposed position, ashigaru spearmen coming to support them. However, I lost one samurai, one ashigaru and a leader as Tom fought back to 4:3.
We swapped ashigaru in the centre, 5:4, before I got my samurai horsemen into the fight on the left, the final banner being an Amako leader.
We re-set the board and swapped seats for the re-match. Initial manoeuvres let me get my army into a contiguous line (I had a "Serpent Command" card to move the entire force in one go). However, Tom disrupted this by attacking in the centre, heading towards the command tent. I took out two ashigaru units and pushed back the rest. So the score is 2:0 to me.
Tom then outflanked me on the right with the two mounted samurai, riding down one of my ashigaru - 2:1.
As Tom rolled up my right flank with his cavalry, I attacked with my centre and left cards. However, he had better luck than me, taking out another three units and a leader to my one. And my mounted samurai bowmen got cut off in the centre for Tom to eliminate them as the coup de grace.
The final score was 3:6, making the overall score for this scenario 9:10 to Tom.
I’ve also posted this report (with pictures!) on my BGG blog:
boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/162885/samurai-battles-in-may
