Xmas special: Sekigahara (1600)

And now for something completely different (as they say) ...

Mark continued his fine tradition of running a Christmas special for us. As always, the setting was a surprise, not unveiled until we turned up to play. And a real surprise it was this time: whereas I think all the previous ones have been 19th-century battles with 6mm figures, this time we found ourselves transported to feudal Japan and a table covered with chunky 28s.

Although Mark did not tell us the actual historical battle until afterwards, the game was based on a famous one for a change: Sekigahara (1600), an epic battle involving >150,000 men, which ushered in two and a half centuries of the Tokugawa Shogunate. This worked out perfectly for Mark to script it for seven of us players.

There were three of us in the Eastern Alliance. I was its leader, Tokugawa Ieyasu, commanding our right wing. On my left was the stolid but dependable Fukushima Masanori (Dave W). Guarding our line of communications and supporting us was the somewhat tardy Asano Yoshinaga (Phil).

The Western Alliance had four players: their leader, Ishida Mitsunari (Crispin) - a politician rather than a general - facing me; the unpredictable Ukita Hideie (Nick O) opposite Dave; Mori Hideie (Dave T) and Kobayakawa Hideaki (Bruce), neither of whose forces were on-table initially.

15 photos and captions below tell the story. Then there are some reflections at the end.

My contingent, the right wing of our army, with me (Ieyasu) in the middle. Potent mounted samurai are flanked by columns of samurai on foot, followed by ashigaru soldiery with arquebuses or bows. I believe these are Dixon 28mm figures, painted by Mark nearly 40 years ago and not used for over 30.

A couple of turns in and I have deployed my infantry with the missile troops screening the samurai. At top of picture, Mitsunari has likewise advanced and deployed, erecting obstacles to protect his cowardly self from my assault. Left of pic is the town of Sekigahara itself (labelled anonymously as "Post Town" for the game), an objective for the Eastern Alliance to secure victory, but now seized by Mitsunari. My personal objectives (everyone had secret personal objectives) included conducting an assault, destroying an enemy unit, and one of my units having advanced beyond the Post Town by game end.

To my left, Masanori loyally pushes forward, trying to envelop and take the Post Town nestled among its paddy fields. However, Ukita's force can be seen top of pic, descending from Mt Tenma to confront him.

The table was deep rather than wide. Here we see the half behind our Eastern Alliance front line. Asano's infantry guard the village and bridge objectives, while his cavalry scout the heights of Mt Nangu. As well that they should do so ...

... as Mori's force appears there, threatening to descend on our line of communications. Note also Mori's small cavalry contingent (bottom right) about to be a nuisance to me. Top right: some Christmas cracker debris. As usual, Mark used cracker pulls to resolve some particular events during the game.

Battle is joined! The first of my multiple attempts to break Mitsunari's line. Lower right, Ieyasu himself fights in the front line. This was an option Mark added to the rules. A general who fought added +1 to his side's dice and had the chance to gain honour ( = earn a Victory Point) but, of course, risked death.

Dave (Masanori) likewise launched assaults. Unfortunately, his attacks on the defended town would prove costly and unsuccessful and leave his left wing outnumbered by Ukita's men.

My cavalry reserve (top right) fails to respond to Dave T's sneaky patrol in my rear. My cavalry would be plagued by dismal movement rolls all evening and failed to see any combat. Perhaps they were wiser than their leader.

Aha! At last my horsemen turn and head for the enemy cavalry - who will evade, of course.

On my wing, the battle consists of repeated inconclusive charges and countercharges over several turns.

It can't last. Here both Ieyasu and Mitsunari attempt to inspire their troops by example. Ieyasu is slain; the following turn, he is avenged when Mitsunari perishes as well.

My cavalry scare off their opposite numbers on Mt Nangu. I considered piling into Mori's infantry, but chose to turn round to support my own and seek to achieve the elusive breakthrough that would let my troops advance beyond the Post Town. That didn't happen.

The turning point of the battle. Hard to tell who's who, but the gist is this. On our left, Masanori (Dave) (light blue labels) was facing Ukita (Nick) and having the worst of it. Things looked dire when Kobayakawa (Bruce) (darker blue labels) arrived from top left to back up Nick. However, Bruce's main victory condition was to end up clearly committed to whichever side won. He decided the best way to do this was to turn coat, abandon the Western Alliance, join our Eastern Alliance and stab Nick in the back. Half Nick's force was swiftly wiped out. This effectively ended the battle.

Game end on my side. My infantry had ground forward, but not far enough. My cavalry loiter at bottom of pic with their swords unbloodied. I (Ieyasu) have died honourably in battle - but I still died.

Betrayed and defeated, Nick (Ukita) asked if he could commit seppuku. Mark had anticipated just such an eventuality and had a rule for it. Here we see Ukita has rolled 4, enough to do so honourably. His loyal retainers attend him.

Final scores I think were:

Eastern Alliance:

    Dave W - 4

    Phil - 4

    Me - 2

Western Alliance:

    Crispin - 4

    Nick - 4

    Dave T - 2

Hence scores were tied, but Bruce's treachery threw his VPs into the scales to make it a win for the Eastern Alliance and (I believe) Bruce the individual winner with a maximum possible score of 5.




Reflections

The rules worked. Mark used our standard "Bloody Big BATTLES!" rules for 19th-century battles. Shunting BBB back another 200 years didn't seem to be a problem at all. Mark mostly just applied existing Attributes to create the appropriate troop types. Apart from the rule for generals in combat, the only significant change was some tweaking of ranges and shifts for the missile weapons.

The big figures on big bases worked. Mark's 28s are on wider bases than BBB's standard 1"x1": 40mm, I guess.  By making unit frontages wider, I felt this actually helped to make the battle suitably more linear, with less of the fluid maneuver and outflanking that we get in more typical BBB games. And of course, 28s just look good (and as Dave T said, "we can actually see them!").

Wargaming meets role-playing. In normal BBB games, there aren't many unknowns and there's very little fog of war. In these Xmas specials, though, we don't know how long the battle will last, or how many enemy we are up against, or where they all are or what exactly they're trying to do, or even what our own comrades are really up to. That takes more effort to create, and only works as a one-off, but I suppose makes it a truer simulation than the average wargame, as well as a richer experience. And, naturally, it gave us (OK, mostly me) the opportunity for bad accents and plenty of cultural references.

Good sportsmanship. I can only applaud the equanimity with which Nick greeted Bruce's treachery. He fought gamely on for the one turn or so until his defeat was clear, then took the honourable way out, having uttered hardly any swearwords. His good sportsmanship was rewarded when he was joint individual winner on the Western Alliance side.