"Samurai Cavalry Basing/tactics" Topic

I'm re-basing some cavalry. The Sengoku rules that I'm looking at(Battles in the Age of War) calls for 2 cavalry and one infantry unit per square base.

What is this supposed to represent? 2 mounted samurai and a support ashigaru? Was this common? What is the point?

It seems to antithetical to what I'd expect cavalry to do in a European setting – move fast, and exploit a potential breakthrough.

It's accurate in the sense that Samurai were commonly followed by un-mounted retainers, charged with keeping other Ashigaru off their master's back, carrying spare swords (especially late in the Sengoku period), taking off the heads of 'kills', etc, etc.

It's widely thought that mounted Samurai didn't charge in the European sense; the impetus of a charging horse was used over a quite short distance, and not to cover (say) half the field to slam a wall of armour and horse-flesh into the enemy.

Samurai tended to favour half-trained, aggressive stallions, for their ferocity in battle. As you can guess, such horses don't lend themselves too kindly to full cavalry tactics.

The Takeda were considered unusual for their tactic of forming up mounted Bushi into formations and using them as 'shock' units, in the Western sense. The fact these formations were feared enough for Oda to go to the trouble of building the palisades at Nagashino give some insight to how unusual and feared they were.

As the gun became more and more dominant in Japan, formations of Ashigaru became more formalised and under central control; their value as massed firepower troops was better realised.

Aside from the head-scratcher about basing, what do you think of the rules? I'm looking for a new set for my Samurai to play with.

Keep in mind that Japanese horses were tiny! We often think of large proud warhorses when we think of cavalry, but if you compare them to Japanese native horse breeds, you start to see why long fast devastating charges weren't the role of mounted samurai at the time.

For example, the height of Napoleonic shock cavalry horses would be around 150-160 cm. Japanese native horse breeds, with today's modern care and feeding, are still pony sized. Some of the bigger remaining breeds are around a height of 130 cm or so, but some breeds are as small as 100-120 cm.

That's practically a really large dog. Or in horse terms, one of those carnival ponies giving rides for children. Now put a dude in armour on it, and imagine how hard it would be for that rider to work up the momentum to crush through a wall of bodies and spears. So it would be far from impossible for lighter infantry to keep up with the mounted samurai, who would not try to gallop around the battlefield.

Right, but the dude's only 5'2"…

link

Some of my favorite Samurai ever :)

So yes – followers etc. were usual

Setsuko is correct, miniature manufacturers don't really get Japanese horses. There is a story of a famous samurai carrying his horse up a hill instead of the usual way around ….

John

Great link jwebster.

While it's shaky at best as a serious source, check out the manga Shana o Yoshitsune (English translation: link There's a "huge" horse there that is all of 14 hands tall.

Around here, we can scare the crap out of Japanese exchange students with American-sized horses. 16+ hands tall, and there's someone out here with an 18+ hand monster riding horses.

A few years ago EValerio made and posted his interpretation of the Takeda Screen:

TMP link

Yes the PP horses are modelled correctly as we did our research. Notice that we made our horses just for that range (1 piece castings). Not just horses from any old range used.
Thanks for noticing!

@Martin: I just wish you made some early armor for fighting the Gempei war… (It's my favorite period of Japanese history)

Yeah, the Takeda Screen pictures really help show the layout of individual samurai units. I'm honestly tempted to put my samurai together following that example, but as a bathtubbed version: single squads of troops just to show unit type and mix, instead of the larger formations.

Hell Lion
Never say never!

Love BAW rules! I have played Taiko, Killer Katanas 1 and 2, Road to Osaka, and Battles in the Age of War and BAW is by far my favorite set for large battles. It's one of those rule sets that manages to be at heart easy to play and learn but still keeps players long term interest because of the depth and possibility in different strategies in play.

It's also a rule set that is very complete, just about all you might want is already there, points system, scenarios, prename strategies, and really gives a period flavor to the game. I also love that the armies LOOK like ARMYS! Yes you are going to do some painting but heck isn't that why you're playing with "miniatures"?

The extra infantry figure on the Cav base while looking "good" is not a requirement as far as game play but for aesthetics. I did not put them on my Cavalry bases (I may in the future) since I was trying to build TWO armies. My armies are largly Two Dragon figures (Peter Pig was not around when these armies began) but also contain a increasing number of Peter Pig castings as well as a few others. The PP and TD figures work beautifully together!!!

Yes many of the banners are hand made including the double Sashimono on the Ii cav.

A couple of questions I have of my own;

Looking for a second set of rules to lend to folks while teaching the game….hard to find nowadays.

Is there a PDF version?

Love a scenario book or does anyone know of scenarios online?