"Are there any rulesets that work at "contingent" level?" Topic

Hi All,

The more I read about Sengoku Jidai warfare the more I see it is a mixed unit affair with the lower level troops attached to their feudal master. So a Hojo retainer in the 1570s, for example, might command something like 500-800 troops. These troops fought for him, in close proximity to him.

It was not until later that infantry organization changed in Japan and teppo ashigaru were "pooled" with other teppo ashigaru from other lords to fight in an organized teppo "unit", for example.

So what I am interested in is ANY rules that reflect this; it does not necessarily need to be Sengoku rules that you recommend. I have heard people on this forum describe Feudal Japanese warfare as similar to War of the Roses style warfare, but I also wonder are there more examples of this "mixed" style of warfare?

Basically, I am interested in any rule treatment that somehow incorporates this information instead of just turning all "ancient" / "feudal" warfare into pristine roman unit warfare. Hopefully that last statement won't be misinterpreted; I am at a loss of words to describe this "mixed" unit syle of warfare.

I realize that Killer Katanas 2 could cover this period, but to do some of these larger battles you would require a large table. Are there any rulesets that work for people interested in basing mixed units: foot samurai, mounted samurai, and ashigaru with all their different weapons on one base (think of diorama style bases)?

A diorama style base woulds suit games like Sword & Spear or Impetus. I don't know if either currently have lists. However, they also have standard-sized units, and I wonder if that is what you need, or whether you want different sizes to reflect different contingents.

I agree that it sounds like you're looking for something like Impetus. If you go for a smaller scale, like 6mm or 10mm, it's easy to mix and match different types on the same base.

I based my troops for DBA and FoG, on just 40mm wide bases, but I could still cram in a few infantrymen on my cavalry bases:

That way, even though you count the base as "cavalry" or "archers", you can represent them as more mixed, historical units.

If you go with a ruleset with even larger bases, you can do more impressive stuff, like these:

Jim Louttit based these on 3 inch square bases, and you can find more examples here:

link

The free set "A Coat of Steel" from Perfect Captain are mixed contingent rules for the Wars of the Roses which I always thought would be very appropriate for adaption to samurai warfare (including pre Sengoku periods). It uses some novel mechanics to prevent it becoming a boring scrum.

link

I was thinking of converting ACOS myself for Sengoku samurai, but I was put off by the amount of work involved with changing the cards and other playing aids. But it's the best existing template that I'm aware of.

At the moment we're trying out a conversion of the Great Battles in History board game 'Ran,' using squares instead of hexes. Alternatively, you could use tape measurements, I guess. In Ran, the 'counters' are still single troop types, but a contingent can be made up of 8-10 bases, so there's more of a feel of a contingent being made up of small units of samurai, ashigaru, guns and cavalry. The problem with Ran is that it's a bit costly and hard to get hold of.

I also thought it may be possible to modify Peter Pig's 'Battles in the Age of War' rules. They already allow you to mix ashigaru spears, bows and guns in the same unit, but all samurai are grouped separately, and have their own morale class.

I think it would be possible to mix samurai and ashigaru together and use the appropriate morale class depending on the percentage of samurai remaining in the unit. AFAIK mixing samurai and ashigaru like this wouldn't impact the melee rules.

Taiko! will do what you want. Figures are nominally based individually, and the armies are built around sub-commanders. You'd just need to tweak the lists where you want.

link

Try these if you can get a hold of them:
link

Contact Chipco2@aol.com for Chrysanthemum Throne pdf.

I believe they are sold in a bundle with Age of Gunpowder and Le Petit Empereur for $15.00 USD usd.

I agree totally with Extra Crispy : go for Taiko. No way around it.

Hi All,

Thanks for all the responses. I already own Taiko!, Killer Katanas, Impetus, and Sword and Spear. I have 6mm figures: Irregular as well as Baccus (I do not usually mix them). I once attempted to buy Chrysanthemum Throne, but that company closed their internet presence a week before I went to buy them ahah. I think I may email Chipco, based on gamedad25's post above; thanks. I would love to buy BAW, but I would really enjoy a cheaper price or a pdf version since I am not sure it is what I am looking for.

All of the rules mentioned above I am not sure will suffice for me. I have researched so much Japanese feudal warfare over the past year or so that I have decided to write my own. That was why I was looking for other examples of "contingent" warfare.

Here are some responses to the above posts:

advocate – I have already played some samurai battles using lists I created for Sword and Spear. What can I say I love Sword and Spear, but it does segregate figures into "units". By the way I highly respect Impetus as well but I find S&S more enjoyable; but they are both top notch.

setsuko – your work on yr 6mm Baccus is amazing. I have always admired them and have seen them before in prior posts. = ) in fact your images are why I decided to buy Baccus. and I have seen Jim L's work before too. Simply amazing. In fact, his diorama bases are what led me to developing my own "contingent" based approach; that and playing my new Nobunaga's Ambition game I got off Steam. I found out that Japanese game/sim creators routinely represent these battles using this "contingent" based approach.

MikeO & Rabelais – thanks so much for the idea to recommend ACOS. I am reading thru it now. = ) Very good stuff so far. Lots of ideas.

Extra Crispy – I do enjoy Taiko! rules and am very happy to have them in my collection. Ihave said before and will say it again they are definitely worth the purchase. Not too expensive, pdf download and instant gratification.

Like I said, thanks for all the informative and interesting responses, all. Now I am off to read some ACOS and maybe to work on my rules. Best wishes.

I was under the impression that even a low-ranking commander would divide his troops into single-weapon squads of Spearmen, Archers, and Teppo.

The Ashigaru teppo squads appear to be mixed with ~3-5 teppo and 2-4 bows, with the archers shooting to protect the gunners while they reloaded.

EValerio has some great illustrations that he based on the Takeda Screens, thread is here on TMP: TMP link

I guess the real question is, what figure compression are you running? If you're modeling at something like 1:30, then I'd use a squad stand to represent a company. But if you're using 6mm figures, you could go nuts and model things 1:1 for a not-unreasonable cost.

Lion,

I am familiar with EValerio's work. It is top notch.

I believe he has stated before that the Kawanakajima Kassen Byobu screens were influential in his illustrations:

I believe these types of formations are referred to as sonae. They are usually 300-800 men. As you can see there are mounted troops and foot troops as well as archers and gunners.

The issue in my opinion is when you play a game, take impetus for example, its bases represent 300-1200 men depending on the circumstances/troop type. So this seems incompatible with Evalerio's illustrations. If I were to wish to represent his illustration, which I actually do, then one of his illustrations is say 500 men +/-. If 50% of those are ashigaru wielding infantry weapons like nagae yari or whatever, and 20% are an ahshigaru mixture of missile troops (teppo/yumi – these ratios evolved throughout the sengoku toward more heavy on the gunners). That's about 70% ashigaru. That leaves about 30% of what people refer to as the samurai (I realize this line between samurai/ashigaru definitely became increasingly blurred as the sengoku went on) – some are mounted some on foot.

To give a real world example I bought some 6mm Irregular samurai range (I have lots of Baccus as well =-) ). I played it with Sword and Spear rules (which I have high respect for). As some of you may know the figures came in strips and therefore I could not cut apart as you can with Baccus. So I ended up with a base of samurai on foot charging a base of yumi ashigaru for example. If each base were like 300 men it makes this seem odd and not how I now picture samurai warfare.

So I am saying maybe make a game where we use EValerio's nice illustrations as a template and maybe represent them on the tabletop as Jim Louttit's bases that setsuko has shown above. I dunno to me that'd seem like a sweet game. Maybe I am wrong.

So thanks for the reply, Lion. To answer your question about figure compression…. I dunno my thoughts above maybe give a rough draft of that… hopefully. To be honest I have not based my Baccus 6mm yet and I want to make sure I do it right so I am leaning toward Jim Louttit style basing and I need rules to accommodate that. Tall order I know. hahah. take care.

Thinking of it, you could look at games that are even more "zoomed out", like Blücher. A lot of the time when I read about campaigns in the period, the commanders focus much more on the issues that Blücher deals with (getting your divisions to the right place, marching orders, scouting, surprise attacks, choosing a favourable battlefield) than "this unit of spearmen charges into this unit of spearmen".

We're planning to try out Blücher at the club once we've painted up enough 6mm napoleonics, and maybe after that I know more about how easy it would be to convert to 16th century Japan. And basing and unit composition would be far less important when you're "units" represents a corps.

But I agree, it's very hard not to feel like you're constantly trying to fit a square peg through a round hole when looking at army sized tabletop games in this period.

The precursor to the GBOH board game 'Ran,' called 'Samurai,' had 4 troop types: cavalry, infantry, bows and teppo. The latter two were treated as lighter units. For the later Sengoku period, a mechanism was introduced whereby all infantry could fire as teppo to represent the greater proportion of guns being used. There was no distinction between 'ashigaru' and 'samurai' infantry. I'm led to believe that such a distinction is rarely made in Japanese boardgames of the period either.

The rules are a free download here:

gmtgames.com/p-169-samurai.aspx

Now, I'm not sure whether it's infringing copyright, but there are scans of the playsheets on the Board Game Geek page for the game, too.

Anyway, the rules are maybe worth looking at. I still feel a conversion of ACOS would work well, particularly if you use the system of counters from the ACOP campaign game to build your contingents. But it's too much work for me at the moment. I'd love to see any progress you make with it, however.

I think I'd have to give every unit a shooting attack of some level at the stand=500men level of representation.

Just lump it all together, and assume that the clan commander will make whatever formation changes are necessary.

Then again, I'm pretty much a pure 1:1 gamer, so army level battles aren't something I do very often.

Setsuko & Rabelais thanks so much for the replies. I have been reading about Blücher lately. Yes I think the "zoomed out" approach is more what I am going for. Not that I have anything against a smaller approach; I just do not think that many rules and basing systems achieve a historically accurate experience. In other words, if you look at the Kawanakajima Kassen Byobu screens or an EValerio illustration -- I have never seen that represented on the tabletop satisfactorily. It would require quite a large tabletop to achieve that with the individual unit approach.

So Lion, a 1:1 representation would prohibit you from simulating some of the medium and larger sengoku battles. I think you're all right with that though; It is just what you prefer. But if you invited me to a game of 1:1 and it involved samurai I would definitely accept and be happy for the game =-) . And your comment about giving each unit at the stand=500men level of representation a shooting attack is something I have already done in my humble homebrew rules. I think it is a must in that case.

Rabelais, I am definitely paging thru ACOS. And if I do make any progress I will try to update. And also thanks for the samurai rules link. I downloaded them and read thru them briefly at quiet points in my day.

So again, thanks for the comments. It has been enlightening for me to get so many good recommendations and exposure to other good rulesets. Take care and best wishes.

We finally got round to trying 'Ran' on the tabletop. It worked well, all thing considered. Each 'clan' can have around 10-20 'units' so there is more of a feel of a clan being composed of small contingents than other sets.

Anyway, thoughts and report are here:
wargamesasp.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/ran

Great report there, Rabelais, lots of food for thought. I own the original "Samurai" boardgame but not "Ran" – just curious, in general terms, if there were many changes in the CRT and other charts between the two?

Well done, Rabelais. Using the rules from the "Ran" boardgame is inspired.

Hopefully there are more copies out there. I just bought the last copy of GMT's "Samurai" from Fine Games through Amazon. I think that Noble Knight Games still has a copy or two of "Ran," but its getting into collector's item prices. About $119 USD or so, I think.

However, The rules can still be downloaded for free through the GMT website, so actually purchasing the actual games might not be necessary.

For myself, I stumbled across "Irregular Wars," which provides a similar game, but without all of the markers cluttering things up. I've been very happy with being able to play battles between small clans, and the table top looks much like the one in your photos.

Irregular Wars can be perused at this link from the author, Nicholas Wright:

irregularwars.blogspot.com

Irregular Wars provide lists for the earlier Muromachi period, the Sengoku Jidai, the Ikko Ikki and Sohei, the Ming, the Manchurians, and the Joseon Koreans.

@MikeO

As far as I can tell the CRT and other tables are exactly the same. However, the combat numbers are different due to the extra number of troop types. 'Ran' is a more streamlined set of rules than 'Samurai' IMO, but you should be able to continue to play 'Samurai' and use whichever changes you like from the 'Ran' rules without too much trouble.

We played 'Samurai' first and I liked that they had one infantry class rather than splitting samurai and ashigaru (which is apparently the norm among Japanese board games). Overall I think 'Ran' is an improvement but 'Samurai' works fine too.

@Wulfgar

Thanks for that, another set to check out!