"Alternate Japan Campaign " Topic

Any ideas?

RPG? Wargame?

Strategy and Tactics had an Operation Olympic (or was it Coronet?) hex and counter game. You could use that as your strategic moves and fight out the tactical level stuff with something like Spearhead or Command Decision.

Wargame. Meiji or before.

If you're doing skirmish games, then why not some sort of Mordheim-like campaign? Where I'm getting to is using Rumiko Takahashi's Inuyasha as the setting. Or something like it. Basically, a powerful magical item, the Shikon jewel (or jewel of four souls) can grant immense power in the hands of evil. Due to an unfortunate accident, the jewel is shattered and the shards scatter throughout Japan. Yokai, demons, spirits and evil humans begin gathering the shards, and even a shard can turn the weakest yokai into a powerful foe. Whoever can gather the most shards, or all, will reign supreme, for good or ill…

Going back to Mordheim, the Shikon jewel shards can be found like wyrdstone is, but they make their users more powerful. And they can be stolen by other parties, or used to corrupt good people, etc.

Jakar, perhaps starting with Ronin and mix in things like the Bushido and Kensei creatures, a few bits more for campaign rules and it would be fun.

Or Clan Wars, or whatever works.

I'm not a huge fantasy player, but this sounds interesting. I was thinking more about warfare in alternate history Japan, like if the Taira had won the Gempei War, or if the Courts had never been reconciled and the Nambokucho never ended…

If you wanted a campaign map there was the board game Shogun from 1986 – and there is a more recent one out

link

Troll back guys. just look how long a member.

Adaz, the problem is that the Clan Wars book is still out of print, hopefully it'll get a reprint or updated version when valiant gets the rest of the line out again.

Several different options here, not to mention significant changes in military tech from the Gempei war to just after the Mongol Invasions, a period of rough stasis from 1300-1540, and then another major change after 1540 when firearms were introduced.

I strongly recommend buying the Killer Katanas 2 books if you're interested in the post-firearms era, regardless of whether you play the KK2 rules or not. The research is excellent, and includes force composition %s (how many ashigaru spear-carriers, how many archers, how many firearms, and the same details for the Samurai).

My major interest is all the way back in the Gempei war (1180-1185), and I've been looking at using GW's War of the Ring rules for it (that's the mass-battle set for the Lord of the Rings minis). The individual forces were relatively small (~5000 per side seems to be the largest battle), and War of the Ring rules let characters have an affect on the table, but the characters aren't overpowering like in Warhammer.

I also really like Peter Pig's Battles in the Age of War. The pre-game step has you allocate dice to different areas, and winning in those areas gives you certain advantages on the battlefield. The rules themselves reflect the Japanese 'victory conditions': How many heads did you take, how many individual challenges did you win, etc.

I always feel GW's rules are clunky, but I love your idea of skirmish Gempei…..love to do urban combat scenarios, a Sanjo Palace variation etc……

Troll back guys. just look how long a member.

That's uncalled for, everyone's gotta start somewhere.

@Tepeyollotl: While there's nothing wrong with the Lord of the Rings SBG IMO, I'm not talking about the skirmish rules. War of the Ring is massed units.

And really, the Legends of the High Seas (Mordheim units and character development crossed with the Lord of the Rings SBG combat mechanics) works pretty well for later Sengoku or even into the Meiji.

I like the idea of the Hiraizumi Fujiwara defying Yoritomo: another war of arrows and snowdrifts and burning thatch…

Lion in stars… this guy is trying to cause trouble on TMP. Wise up. This is same guy who keeps rejoining with different names on TMP he has abused disabled people etc for example and Tannhauser88 is him again. The give away is new member. If he was really a long time gamer etc. he would have joined TMP before 2-3 days ago. Accounts keep getting locked for abuse. Now he is boring me.

Uhhh, I was a gamer for more than a decade before I discovered TMP…

But if you insist that Adaz is Tannhauser and there's a single person who keeps creating a new account every time the old one gets locked, we really need to help the Editor out with a Panopticlik Computer ID block.