The Oyoshima Campaign, Game 1: The Peasants are Revolting!

For this summer, I've planned to run a multiplayer, open-plan campaign pitting various forces against each other. An introductory post will, paradoxically, come later, once I have a bit more material pinned down, but with a pause in gaming time coming up due to a small trip (a reminder to me that I never rounded out the Kyushu photos from 2024), I thought it'd be best to write up the first battle report first, and then do the general introduction at a suitable juncture.

The overall setting of the campaign is a fictional island, albeit heavily inspired by real-world geography, in the Seto Inland Sea. Normally ruled by a branch lineage of the Ōtomo clan, the lord has taken his troops out to fight on Kyūshū, leaving it vulnerable to revolt and invasion. Multiple factions now vie for control of the island. To start with, I am taking control of the Ōtomo clan, centred on an Onna-Bugeisha force; opposing them is Gareth, controlling a band of warrior monks who will be the first challengers to clan authority.

To begin with, I offered Gareth three options for how to proceed, and he chose to try to foment open rebellion. That meant playing through the Control scenario, with the monks trying to take control of a village and convince the locals to join their cause, while the Ōtomo try to (re)assert their own authority. For this game, the objectives are simple: five positions are marked on the table, placed no less than 6" apart. Control of an objective requires that only your own warriors are within 3" of it. If a player takes all five at any point, they win immediately; otherwise whoever controls the most by Turn 5 wins.

While we made very few alterations to the broader rules as written, the fact that I have a rather dizzying quantity of skill and quest cards to deal with meant that there was some need to make it all a bit more manageable. Thus, rather than taking half of the generic cards (of which I have 47) and combining one half with the 24 Mysticism cards for Gareth, and the other half with the 9 Protect and Sacrifice for me, I instead said that we could each take as much as we wanted from each pack, as long as it was enough for a full hand of 10. In the event, the skill decks would not make the most enormous difference this game...

The initial setup. Each of us had 3 Characters and 4 Followers, though Gareth had taken more individuals while I went for more groups.

First blood: Gareth's hero got a run of activations and cut down my mounted noblewoman.

An interesting moment to try to use this skill, but I missed! Well then, there goes that one.

Nevertheless, with Gareth's hero out of actions, I was able to get a fatal hit in myself, evening out the playing field a bit.

End of Turn 1: slow development of both sides' positions, outside of the rather dramatic character action on the flank.

End of Turn 2: the Onna-Bugeisha forces slowly creep up. The warrior monks already have two objectives comfortably controlled by their missile troops, and just need to push the Ōtomo off a third. Can they do it?

End of Turn 3: the monks forge ahead on their right, scoring one kill and a further wound on an Onna-Bugeisha group, but not yet enough to clear the area.

Turn 4 would see the monks stall out on both flanks. On the right, a charge against an Onna-Bugeisha companion by a monk follower ended in a lethal counter-charge.

Then, one of the monks' companion characters was cut down outside the elder's house on the left.

End of Turn 4: The Onna-Bugeisha lost a swordswoman in the middle and another naginata-wielder on their left, but still control those objectives. The question for the next turn would be whether they could clear the remaining monk off the objective on the right.

As it turns out, no! The club-armed monk companion managed to hold the Onna-Bugeisha at bay, while on the monks' left, a succession of flubbed damage rolls meant that the temple guardsman on that side still contested the objective. With two objectives each, the game had ended in a draw.

While not a game of outright annihilation, the results had still been fairly bloody, especially for the character rosters. Two in each force would come away with a temporary penalty in the next game, and only one with a bonus.

Narratively, the indecisive result at the village has produced mixed results for the monks. On the one hand, they have declared their intent to challenge Ōtomo power openly, but on the other, clan leadership has shown it still has plenty of fight in it. Tune in to see how things will develop from here...