"Good Skirmish Rules for Ninjas vs. Samurai?" Topic

Obviously, the ninjas if caught on the battlefield, would probably be slaughtered outright.

However, here, I'm looking for some good rules for running a castle assault, probably at night, by a small, or large unit of ninjas, seeking to kidnap, or assassinate a leader.

Ideally, they'd have colorful, effective, and dynamic rules for man-to-man combat, or with several ninjas vs. a samurai. Need rules too, for sneaking about, climbing castle walls (detailed or abstracted), darkness, hidden movement, random guard patrol encounters, etc., etc.. Perhaps some simple, abstract rules for combat too, on some occasions, to keep things moving along. It would be nice if there were also different stats and rules for the various weapons the ninjas can employ: smoke bombs, pepper bombs, blowguns, arrows, shuriken, sai, swords, poison-tipped weapons, etc., etc..

I fondly recall the old videogame I used to play on this subject, so thinking about doing it with minis.

Is there anything like that available for miniatures?

Ronin from Osprey?

There was a set of modified Muskets & Tomahawks called "Tenchu" which appeared in WSS #67 which sounds like it has some of the ideas you're after.

Ronin would certainly provide the detailed combat you want. For the stealth and random aspects I would suggest using those mechanisms from Black Ops (the Osprey Special Forces rules). Regards Alan

Decades ago I ran several Samurai vs Ninja miniatures games at conventions & for my gaming group; I used the 1981 three booklet set of rules "Bushido" written by Paul Hume & Bob Charrette which is basically Samurai D&D. Social Classes, skills, sorcery, monsters & nonhumans & weapons are all well covered. We had some great games with these rules.

There's a review of some rules called "Bushi No Yume" here:

link

might be worth a look…

Bushido was later published as an all in one book in 2013 by Fantasy Games Unlimited.

Thanks for the replies, links, and tips. I will check those out.