Battle of Nagakute 1584 Game Report

Over the past few weeks, I have been making some dice trays and mountainous-looking terrain, with the aim of getting my Samurai armies onto the tabletop for a game. I have decided to try a slightly modified version of the Arrowstorm rules, part of the "You Command" Series of rules by Daniel Mersey and on Wargames Vault.

The rules being used with some house rules for managing Sonae as units.

I have used the Arrowstorm rules before for some Hundred Years War games, and I have always thought they could work quite well for Samurai battles. There were a couple of things in particular that made them appealing for this use.

The first is the limited number of actions available to units. This naturally encourages units to operate in groups, which fits quite nicely with Sendoku period combined-arms formations (Sonae). For my house rules, a Sonae is treated as a single group consisting of Arquebusiers, Ashigaru and Samurai, with the three elements remaining together throughout the game.

The second is the tactics chart and limited number of orders. These provide some interesting choices during a turn, while also allowing units to be ordered more than once. I like this combination of limited choices and the ability to give units additional orders, as it provides more player decisions especially when all your units (Sonae) are essentially the same.

I made my own tactics chart so my Samurai messengers (Tsukai-ban) could fit and used as tokens.

I did make one house rule change to the combat rule. In the original rules, I found combat to be a little too advantageous for the attacker, as the attacking unit rolls for hits first and removes casualties before the defender gets a chance to respond. Instead any Ashigaru in the defending Sonae roll first, with casualties being removed from the attacking unit before the attacking Samurai and Ashigaru get to roll for their hits. Finally, any remaining Samurai defenders roll for their hits. This seems to even things up a bit.

This house rule is intended to reflect the role of the Ashigaru, particularly those armed with spears and longer weapons, in absorbing and holding off the initial attack before the Samurai became involved in the fighting.

A game underway using a mix of miniatures I have collected over the years. Most of the models are from Minifig S-Range, but there are some Dixon models, 25mm Minifig Samurai, and even some plastic 1:72 scale (which work best with the S-Range).

For the first game, I wanted something relatively simple, so I had a look through "The Samurai: A Military History" by S.R. Turnbull, and I found a useful diagram of the Battle of Nagakute, 1584. 

The battle was part of the Komaki Campaign, where a series of battles were fought between the forces of Hashiba Hideyoshi and those of Oda Nobukatsu and Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Battle of Nagakute ended in a convincing victory for Ieyasu.

A battle map from "The Samurai: A Military History".

Battle Setup

The game uses a hex grid with each Sonae consists of seven bases: two Missile bases, two Ashigaru bases, two Samurai bases and a commander base. 

Dice trays containing 3 dice are used to track the strength of each Sonae. Black dice represent the Arquebus and bow troops and start with 2 pips, white dice represent the Ashigaru with 3 pips, and red dice represent the Samurai with 5 pips. When the overall army commander is attached to a Sonae, the Samurai receive an additional pip, giving them a starting strength of 6.

These starting strengths are based on the equivalent unit strengths used in Arrowstorm for bows, spears and men-at-arms units.

The tabletop can end up looking a bit messy when two units move into the same hex as an enemy unit so they can engage in combat. The combined 14 bases do not fit in a hex. Fortunately, this does not matter, provided the commander's base and the dice tray are in the correct hex. Any remaining bases are simply positioned around or near the hex as neatly as possible.

For the game, initiative was diced for, with Ikeda winning the initiative. On the tabletop, Ieyasu's forces are represented by the red army, while Ikeda's forces are represented by the blue army.

The battle setup on the tabletop.

Battle Report

The battle opened with Ikeda's right wing advancing and engaging Li Naomasa. Ikeda's forces gradually gained the upper hand as additional Sonae from both forces were fed into the battle. Oda Nobuo moved up from Ieyasu's left reserve, while one of Ikeda's Sonae joined from the centre reserve.

The battle begins on Ikeda's right wing.

More Sonae move up to engage as Ikeda's forces gain the upper hand. (I should have painted the backs of the mountains!)

As more Sonae moved up to join the battle, the fighting gradually shifted towards the centre. Ikeda's right and centre continued to hold the advantage, while Ieyasu with his Sonae on the right flank eventually joined the fighting in the centre hoping his presence would help to turn the tide. Despite these reinforcements, the momentum still remained firmly with Ikeda's army. 

Ieyasu and his Sonae join the fighting in the centre.

Things are looking pretty bleak for Ieyasu.

In a final attempt to change the course of the battle, Ieyasu committed his last remaining Sonae to the fight. By this stage, his forces were heavily outnumbered, but they fought on bravely against the odds. In the end, however, numbers told. Ieyasu's Sonae was finally routed, and Ieyasu himself narrowly escaped being killed in the fighting.

All Ieyasu's Sonae are committed to battle.

The sound of musket shots,

Echo beneath the mountain tops.

The brave stand and banners fall,

While dice and fate decides it all.

Wrap up

A convincing win for Ikeda and a complete reversal of history!

The Arrowstorm rules create some interesting decisions throughout the game, particularly when picking the four orders on the tactics chart and having to trade-off between movement and combat. On more than one occasion one side or the other wasted a battle order as there were no units to battle.

When a Sonae has lost its Arquebus strength, it needs to close quickly with the enemy. Else, it risks having its remaining strength gradually whittled away by enemy shooting. 

The special tactics also add to the decision-making, as some tactics improve movement, combat or shooting, and they need to be used at the right moment to maximise their effect.

One of the things I particularly liked was being able to treat the Sonae as combined-arms units, with Arquebusiers, Ashigaru and Samurai all operating together. This seemed to work well on the tabletop and is the way I want my Samurai armies to operate.

The house rules all seemed to work well, with the changes to combat reducing the alpha strike effect and making it important to retain some of a Sonae's Ashigaru strength to help against combat attacks.

I now plan to carry on using these modified rules in a few One-Hour Wargames scenarios and see how they play out.