Historical Background
In addition to laying the siege against Arita Castle, Takeda Motoshige sent another 600 men led by Kumagai Motonao to pillage Tajihi, a region under Mouri control. The burden of defending the Takeda invasion fell on the shoulders of Koumatsumaru's uncle, Mouri Motonari, who had been serving as a regent for the clan at the time. Still 20 years old and inexperienced, Mouri Motonari managed to lead 150 cavalrymen and confronted the Takeda forces. Several villages in Tajihi fell to the Takeda. Although outnumbered, Motonari with clever maneuvering eventually launched a successful counterattack that repelled the Takeda forces at least temporarily. Seizing the opportunity, Motonari called for reinforcements from his home castle Kooriyama and from his ally the Kikkawa clan. They advanced towards Arita to alleviate the siege. They would soon confront Kumagai Motonao again as they attacked Takeda’s main forces.
The stage is set, the battle lines are drawn, and you are in command. Can you change history?
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| 2 | 7 |
Takeda Army
4 Command Cards
1 Dragon Card
2 H&F Tokens
Move First
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| 7 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
Mouri Army
6 Command Cards
3 Dragon Cards
5 H&F Tokens
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| 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
Victory
6 Banners
►If a Takeda unit occupies a village hex at the beginning of the Takeda turn, the Takeda player removes the hex and collects 1 Victory Banner.
►The Takeda player must eliminate both villages to win. Having 6 Victory Banners alone is not sufficient.
►Eliminating the Mouri Peasant Levy Units does not grant any Victory Banners.
Special Rules
►Efficient Command: As long as Mouri Motonari remains on the board, the Mouri player may order 2 additional units from any section when playing a command card. The two additional units may move but not battle, and may not perform any actions described on the command card or dragon card played this turn and cannot be affected by them in any way.
Source:
https://sengokubattles.blogspot.com/2021/08/battle-of-arita-nakaide-1517-part-1.html
Yuki's Post-Battle Notes and Trivia
• Yes. This is a remake of the official scenarios depicting the Battles of Arita Castle.
• This particular scenario took place before the first Arita scenario in the official scenario book so this one itself is technically not a remake. The following two scenarios will correspond with official scenarios 2 and 3 which are the two Arita scenarios.
• As you can see Kumagai Monotao did not die in his first encounter with Mouri Motonari. But he probably will in the next one.
• This is a good time to sort out the spelling of the names. Yes, it indeed is Mouri Motonari spelled with the U. This has to do with the issues of the controversial romanization conventions in Japanese. Tn order to actually type the family name Mouri (1411) on the computer, you will need to actually type the letter U. The name "Mori" (as seen in most translations) actually refers to a different last name (0). Famous people from the Mori family include the famous Mori Yoshinari, Mori Nagayoshi and Mori Nagasada (Ranmaru). These historical figures served Oda Nobunaga and had very close ties with him. The other true "Mori" family has the name written as most noted for Mori Tomonobu (Tahee), a retainer of the Kuroda family.
• The reason this is important is that the legendary Mouri Motonari had nothing to do with these other two families, and their times of activity are decades apart. As you can tell by the year this battle took place, Mouri Motonari was a LOT older than most of the well-known sengoku figures. Having the Mouri/Mori mix-up can create tons of unnecessary misunderstandings for English speakers who do not know how the names are written in Japanese. This is why we should forsake the outdated colonial-era romanization traditions that make no sense and simply romanize the language "as the way they are typed" . But this is mostly a legacy issue as most of the English signs found in Japan are already invested in the traditional way of writing things so we probably won' t see any changes for the next millennium.
• To add more to the confusion, the "Takeda" on the other side of the map that Motonari is fighting is also not the same Takeda that people usually think of. But this one is a lot better because it is not a language issue. The Takeda of Aki (this one) was actually a familial branch from the other Takeda of Kai (the one with Shingen). The Aki branch was established around 1221 and Takeda Motoshige was a descendant of the Aki branch. This Takeda family was geographically distant from the one Shingen was in and for simplicity' s sake, by the time Motoshige became the leader it is best that we treat them as two unrelated factions.