HotT Battle Report: The Oni v The Samurai or Last Night An Ashigaru Saved My Life

Tuesday night is, usually, wargames' club night. Last night I made it to the club via public transport with only one staggering drunk to contend with. So far everything's coming up Cake Tin. I arrived at the club without further incident and we set to getting the game on. After dicing for Defender (Me, Samurai) and Attacker (John S, Oni) we set the board up plus terrain. John's die rolls allowed him to load one half of the board with terrain features whilst the other remained as flat, good-going.

The Battlefield

The armies square off

Oni furthest from viewer

Samurai nearest viewer

Oni charge forward

Samurai stand around discussing rice prices

Oni hurtle forward some more

Samurai still seem unconcerned

But what's this? 

The Samurai right flank has wheeled through 90°

 The Oni charge smashes home.....

...And carries away the Samurai Knights and one of the Spears!

The second Samurai Spears is recoiled. The line holds but only just.

The Samurai Blades General slashes his way through a pair of double-ranked Oni Warbands near the BUA.

The remnants of the Samurai left wing managed to close up.

The Samurai right wing trundles forward across the Bad Going.

The Oni, stunned by the failure of their charge regroup.

Poor PIP rolls stymied the Samurai advance.

The Oni meanwhile set about destroying the Samurai left flank units.

The Samurai General managed to hack his way out of the melee, 

destroying another two Oni Warbands in the process.

Unfortunately the Samurai Spears (The Ashigaru of the title) 

were left behind to certain death.......

.....Well, no, actually. The Spears managed to fight off attack after attack. 

This heroic resistance allowed the Samurai line to reform
and then begin its own counter-attack.

The Oni prepared for one more smashing charge.
Surely this time?!

Losses at this stage: Oni 5 x Wb, Samurai 1 x Kn, 1 x Sp

Oni Behemoths attacking up and down the line.

Ashigaru Spears clinging on.

Samurai Blades, Hero & Shooters (top of pic) take the battle to the Oni.

Those Ashigaru Spears simply WILL NOT die!

Finally the resistance of The Spears is broken and they are recoiled into the main Samurai line.

The Samurai Blades & Hero work together to destroy an Oni Behemoth and end the game.

Samurai Victory!

Final Score: Oni 1 x Bh, 5 x Wb. Samurai 1 x Kn, 1 x Sp

BANZAI!

A very thrilling game that could have gone either way at several points during the contest. Both sides had poor PIP rolls at times when they really needed good ones. The Samurai Dragon and Lurkers were never deployed. The Dragon because I rolled only one 6PIP score the whole game and that when my infantry were very heavily engaged. The Lurkers because the Oni never broke through the line to threaten the Stronghold which lay in the Bad Going.Without doubt the Ashigaru Spears' dogged resistance bought the Samurai General time to regroup his army and re-new the attack which led to victory.

Updates as they happen!

PS Welcome to new blog members Brian English and JGelder1. Thanks for following, chaps!