The Kenshin Ryu Campaign, Scenario 1: Ambush

Having dithered and dawdled for a while, I decided to finally get going on the Kenshin Ryu mini-campaign that Craig Woodfield wrote up for Ronin, but with a twist: the basic problem with doing it in Ronin is that when fighting against Koryu, Bandits get enormously more mileage out of archers (firing twice per turn) compared to musketeers (firing every other turn), and the number of bandit archer figures out there is, er... limited to say the least. So, instead I converted the Ronin army lists over to En Garde, which is pretty simple as a process: just subtract 1 each from Initiative, Fight, and Shoot, and then run the unit profile through En Garde's points system. The end result is that troops are generally a bit cheaper in En Garde, but I've got just enough figures to make it work. So, with that all sorted out, the usual Tuesday evening game with Gareth would be Scenario 1: Ambush, with me taking the dastardly bandits.

Gareth, whose force comprised one Senpai, four Kouhai, and six Initiates set up with his main body of men bunched together, with some picquets out to force me to deploy further apart; my own men, with three Gashira (including one archer), seven Bandits (with two gunners), and three Peasants, were thus quite scattered. My plan was to accept that I might take heavy losses if I fought him head-on, so I would simply try to wear down his force at range. This turned out to be perhaps more effective of an approach than either of us had expected...

Initial deployment: Koryu by the pond, Bandits closing in. Table for Scenario 2 (which we decided to leave for next time) in the background.

Having not played in a while, Gareth had rather forgotten the importance of using Defence counters, and quickly lost a Kouhai figure in the first melée clash, along with the more expected losses that came from the Bandits' fire.

Despite initially pushing past the first line of Koryu figures, the piecemeal attack by the Bandits quickly ran into trouble once they got stuck in with the more elite core of the enemy.

For a moment it seemed like the result would be a near-draw in terms of casualties while the Koryu escaped with the scrolls, but suddenly, disaster struck. With his second shot of the game, the Bandit musketeer in the corner landed a fatal hit on the Senpai, the only Commander in the Koryu force. Instead of being able to group-move his troops off the table, Gareth was now stuck getting men off one at a time.

After some further shooting attrition, only a single Koryu Kouhai made it off the left side of the table with the scrolls. The only other survivor was an Initiate out on the Koryu right flank, who managed to cut down a Bandit and then flee in the other direction, where no Bandit forces awaited...

The end result was a clear win for the Bandits in terms of the immediate scenario, but in the long run, the Koryu had maintained control of the scrolls. If Gareth can manage to keep his Sensei alive in Scenario 2 next time, the Koryu will have locked down one of the overall campaign objectives, which just about compensates for their losses this time round even if the next game's casualties are about even.

Bandit losses...

As compared against Koryu

Both forces were originally capped at 150 points. Gareth's Koryu originally totalled 149 points, of which he lost a rather terrifying 123, while my Bandits started out with 150 exactly, and lost 56. For now, that means a difference in losses of 67 favouring the Bandits, which translates to 2 campaign victory points.

Next time, we'll play through Scenario 2 and possibly see if we can also fit Scenario 3 in.