G01 First Samurai Skirmish

Playing blue against nephew Tom's red, I attacked with the right-hand half of my army. In particular, launching my mounted samurai spearmen into Tom's ashigaru and killing their leader (1:0 to me). This quickly developed into a pitched battle as his mounted samurai spearmen hit my ashigaru in turn. Meanwhile a long-range archery duel centre-left saw my bowmen damaging his.

The right flank melee ended with me having lost three units - only the arquebusiers and archers left - while Tom had lost just one. Plus another leader - my cavalry leader committed seppuku rather than suffer disgrace. (3:3) Meanwhile the left half of my force had attacked, the samurai foot spearmen finishing off one unit of archers, but being badly battered in the process (the first sign that marching up to bowmen is costly). (4:3)

Tom eliminated that samurai unit to take the score to 4:4. However, he had several one- and two-block units just waiting to be finished off. My ashigaru (two of which were down to 2 blocks but still had leaders attached) pressed the attack on his one-block samurai unit and took it out for the win (5:4). This was a close battle that did its job of introducing us to the game and most of the different types of unit. It took about an hour to play. Given the two sides are essentially the same, we didn't replay this one.

(This report is also on my BGG blog, with photos: boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/123166 )