"samurai historically accurate skirmish rules ?" Topic

I'm looking for a set of historical samurai skirmish rules for 20-60 men per side for the Sengoku Period. I'd like them as historically accurate as possible so no mythical creatures, ninja running around the battle field, etc. Ruling out Ronin for a variety of reasons. Any other good ones out there?

I'm a novice to samurai warfare; what would make the rules specific to samurai?
Would some sort of pike and shot rules work?

I'd also be interested in said samurai skirmish rules ideas :)

Road to Osaka?

Me too. I bought Ronin but I have way more figures than it requires but not enough for giant line battles. LotR conversion?

What would make Samurai warfare different to most others would be the challenges and relative rarity of mass combat/volley fire.

Formations are looser, so any ruleset that pairs off minis in close combat would be pretty good. Lord of the Rings SBG and/or War of the Ring from GW aren't bad.

Legends of the High Seas would work, too, with rules for firearms. Assuming you're talking 1540s to 1860s.

What IS it with all the skirmish emphasis in Sengoku games on this site? They fielded some of the biggest armies of the time, and battles were huge and determined. The Seven Samurai are no more a guide to what was happening in the Momoyama period than the Magnificent Seven are to the ACW.

Skirmish=I don't have to paint 1000 figures…

There's Bushi no Yumi by Rich Jones.

David
kingsfordminiatures.org

I second Sturmpioneer's suggestion. Whilst I haven't played them, I own and have read the 'Bushi no Yumi' rules. They are written by someone who is clearly passionate about the period and who knows his stuff. From my read-through, they look quite fun, too.

@sobieski
Sengoku tends to be one of the more well known and "heroic" narrative points with both a cool appearance for the minis and several video games that focus on it.

I always use GW's Lord of the rings for all my skirmish needs. there are even fan made samurai army lists on the lotr variants yahoo group. everyone always has a blast playing.

IMO, Edo period is best for skirmishing. Gempei war you're still talking about several thousand troops per side, Sengoku is the age of war with tens of thousands of troops per clan.

Early Edo (up to the 1640s or so), you have all the ronin bands that were cut loose from their lords with the victory of the Tokugawa, and those guys don't have any other way to eat than to be bandits. That's actually when the Seven Samurai is set, IIRC.

very late Edo (1850s up to 1870s), there was quite a bit of gang fighting in Kyoto during the Meiji Rebellion/Restoration, and the cleanup from there.

He's asking for rules with still a decent number of figures (up to 60,) so perhaps the skirmish could represent a portion of one of the large Sengoku battles? Maybe something earlier in history (samurai characters on horse with bow, and a few footmen) would suit the request?

I actually have figures myself for skirmishing the Edo period (street gangs, kabukimono, yakko and such.) All kinds of fun skirmish action there (I use Two Hour Wargames rules -- either Chain Reaction Swordplay or Red Sand Black Moon for much smaller forces.)

I guess another question for Hiromitsu: Do you want to skirmish with armored troops, as in battle, or with unarmored troops more akin to Seven Samurai-type action?

Only 1 rule to make a historical representative skirmish rule is available at the moment. Believe me, all the rest is next to unusuable. TAIKO. These rules have 2 parts. 1 for the big battles and 1 for skirmish (same basing). Forget all the other surrogats, because that is just what they are. I would appreciate there were more, but there ain't. Bushi has nothing to do with Sengoku, this just to be clear on the subject.
Japanese (and other Asian powers) had a total different view on everything. It is a total different world of architecture, beliefs, social organisation, mentality (still to this day),warfare, etc…. Therefore our Western ideas do not compute in all these non-specific Sengoku – wars/life….Probably one could do better than TAIKO , but nobody has yet. Do think of all the rules out there about Ancients, Nap's, ACW, and so forth…. All made for our Western world wich whe are so (obviously)aquainted with. For SAMURAI you really have to forget all that. I strongly recommend some extensive reading about the subject before plunging in.
If you just want to push Japanese looking figures around on your table, then you can of course use any rules you fancy…

You are dramatically overstating the case, BelgianRay. Since I DID do the extensive reading about the subject for my BA and MA, I can say with some assurance that while they had a different world than 20th Century wargamers do, they weren't aliens, and it doesn't take extensive reading to play samurai skirmish. Folks are folks. Read enough to know the period, and the players, and don't WORRY about the abtruse variance in beliefs and mentality. Believe me, there are more than 1 rule set that will serve to make a historical skirmish battle.

I guess this goes back to one of my original questions: What makes a set of rules specifically "Japanese" besides flavor?

They have been rubbed with wasabi?

The hardest part about Samurai is the way they were mixed up. Leaders often on horse supported by foot soldiers, and even when the samurai grouped up they expected the Ashigaru to keep up as best they could. Generally an 'army' would be composed of a bunch of mini-armies that were essentially semi-autonomous combined arms forces- although you have some shrewd generals that decided it would be smart to combine arquebus into formations disregarding clan divisions for example.

Wargames tend to favor homogenous weapons in units, blocked up. For skirmish at the scale you want I'm still not sure there's a great ruleset that captures the fluid feel I imagine in samurai battles but The Lord of the Rings game would be a good place to start I think.

I have yet to see a ruleset that feels 'right' for any period of Japan (historical anyway, I like Ronin) up to 1850. I've been wanting to do some of the small fights leading up to the Shimabara rebellion so this question is of great interest.

"The hardest part about Samurai is the way they were mixed up. Leaders often on horse supported by foot soldiers, and even when the samurai grouped up they expected the Ashigaru to keep up as best they could. Generally an 'army' would be composed of a bunch of mini-armies that were essentially semi-autonomous combined arms forces…"
I think if somebody were to develop a set of rules around this concept, suitable for 20 to 70 minis it would be a success. That seems to be the sweet spot for many gamers; if you look at the success of LoTR, Saga and Bolt Action the one thing they have in common is they are neither a true skirmish game, nor a massed battles game.

I think if the forces are divided up into these "mini armies," having two of these smaller forces meeting on the field would be a perfect skirmish-type situation -- a smaller battle within the large battle.

Perhaps mass arquebus/archer corps could even be used as off-board elements much like off-board artillery in other games?

Sergeant Paper : "there are more than 1 rule set that will serve to make a historical skirmish battle." I'm sure there are but as far as I know there are none beside Ronin and Taiko for Sengoku. I am only stating that to accomodate for ex. LOTR to Sengoku skirmish ( Ninja, Yojimbo etc) is like re-inventig the wheel. The question was :"I'm looking for a set of historical samurai skirmish rules for 20-60 men per side for the Sengoku Period".

thanks to everyone for these interesting comments. As BelgianRay and Codsticker pointed out, capturing the unique favor of Japanese medieval warfare is the hardest part and where most of the published rules fall down. I have played the variant to LOtR many times and it's not bad but there is plenty of room to improve.

What is it about the Taiko rules that are unique to medieval Japan? I read the reviews and their website and found nothing except that allies can unexpectedly change sides.

BTW has anybody read "Weapons & Fighting Techniques of the Samurai Warrior 1200-1877 AD " by Thomas D. Conlan ? Does it describe samurai tactics and battle procedures (such as samurai riding into battle accompanied by ashigeru attendants)?

Hiromitsu : Battle tactics are not quite for skirmish. They were rather occasions of small bands. If you want to know how Sengoku armies deploid and how big a retainers army was expected to be (koku system)you should take a look at KILLER KATANAS II. OBS and strategic deployments (unique to Japanese and Chinese warfare)and much more….

I get a little annoyed by "The Samurai" being a label for most pre-modern Japanese warfare. The European equivalent would be lumping together everything from the fall of Rome until the Enlightenment.

From the Gempei War and Kamakura Shogunate (1185-1333) all the way up to the start of the Tokugawa shogunate (call it 1647), that WAS the age of the Samurai, and there were only TWO major shifts in tactics over that 450 year period.

The first shift was after the Mongol Invasions (1274 and 1281) introduced massed archery, so the ashigaru started getting bows and the cavalry transitioned from solo horse archers to a more western-style shock cavalry armed with various pole-arms.

The second major shift was the introduction of firearms in 1542/43, which took 30 years to go from the weapons of samurai to massed ashigaru units (battle of Anegawa in 1570 and battle of Nagashino in 1575).

The Japanese themselves don't divide the warfare and tactics up beyond that. They make their divisions based on who was nominally in charge politically. They do insist that before the Kamakura shogunate, the "samurai" didn't exist. Certainly not as political powers, anyway. Before then, they were simply "bushi", servants of the nobility and Imperial Court.

Even in the battles at the end of the Sengoku, once an attack settled into melee, troops tended to pair off and fence instead of the massed formations seen in Europe. That's the biggest reason why I think a modification of the Lord of the Rings SBG isn't bad for the size battles you're wanting.

Though I admit I'm tempted to make a heavily modified game now, incorporating off-table archery and teppo volleys (since the Japanese didn't really go for field cannons)