Samurai skirmish

Another multi-player game in Norfolk, this time a Samurai skirmish hosted by Bill. Rich and I took the part of the Samurai lord attempting to reassert control over some rebellious peasants lead by a mysterious warrior monk. Our mission was to find and 'take care of' the troublesome monk.

My retinue, two Ashigaru with spears and two with bows:

A close up of my Samurai, the mightiest warrior in Japan!

There were a number of locations where the monk could be hiding and numerous peasants wandering around. I decided to investigate the Japanese Garden, largely as it looked so fantastic:

Rich lead his men to a large house. His Samurai follower embarrassingly got killed by a rogue Ashigaru while Rich administered some punishment for being disrespectful outside:

I find three more rogue Ashigaru in the Garden:

We rush into combat and one rogue Ashigaru is felled:

A second rebel is despatched:

The Garden is cleared. My archers take pot-shots at peasants while securing the gate to the Garden:

With no sign of the Monk we move out to continue the search:

This building looks nice but contains nothing:

Rich has lost a few followers but closes in with my men to the last remaining house. The remaining peasants huddle outside:

I detach one of my archers to take a look behind the building:

Spotting what seems to be a lurking peasant the archer fires and wounds him:

With nowhere else to hide the Monk rushes out and engages Rich's Samurai Lord, wounding him but then being surrounded. The wounded peasant from the rear of the building has turned run up to help the monk:

The Monk is cut down (by my Samurai from behind, not especially honourable I suspect but efficient):

Remarkably the wounded peasant then runs up to the Samurai Lord and kills him! It appears we were tricked, the 'Monk' was actually a follower in Monk's robes while the peasant my man shot behind the building was the actual Monk:

With the Samurai Lord dead and the Monk about to be overwhelmed we called it a day and a draw, the revolting peasants had managed to kill two Samurai but had lost numerous peasants and the charismatic and very effective Monk. 

Admittedly from my Samurai's point of view things had gone rather well, no losses from his men and as the only surviving Samurai he should now be in charge of a load of cowed peasants with his loyal followers to enforce further discipline if needed!

A good fun game as ever with some really nice terrain and figures which Bill provided, the Japanese Garden was especially splendid with it's cherry tree in blossom. Of course it has tempted me to buy a small Samurai force of my own......