Gleaming Katanas

This weeks game along at Colins was set somewhere in Japan in the 16th century and involved two factions of Samurai led by Colin and myself against a joint force of Samurai and Portuguese led by Bill Gilchrist and Mr Ray. All the 28mm figures and terrain were supplied by Colin and the rules used were Gleaming Katanas which are supposed to be a variant of Blackpowder. Personally I'm not into Samurai or Blackpowder but I have to admit the game looked good and the rules worked OK, except for the result and I found it a bit strange that Samurai weren't much better than Ashigaru unless they were mounted.

The above photo shows the initial clash of forces with my red hatted clan advancing towards Bill's blue clan, on the top right Colin's mounted samurai dash to disaster and the infantry in the field never moved any further for the rest of the game despite the fact that he was usually only facing 2-3 Portuguese units at any time.

This photo is taken from Colins flank and shows the defenders in the field, his cavalry have now gone and one unit of Ashigaru have rashly advanced unsupported. On the other flank my troops have now gotten into combat and are forcing Bill's troops back all along the line and at this point everything was looking so good.

Ray's Portuguese advancing, the artillery never got a chance to fire in anger, not that they really needed it. Ray had some great dice rolling for causing casualties but some dreadful dice for issuing commands.

This was the stand off with Ray's troops unable to move and Colins refusing to move. Meanwhile on my flank just as I was starting to break Bills infantry all it did was give space for his cavalry to run amok and within two moves he had completely changed the look of the battle.

This is the end of the battle, with my cavalry now destroyed by Bill's white hooded unit my infantry were now isolated with shaken enemy infantry in front of them, formed infantry and cavalry on their flank and the white hoods about to sweep around the rear. Colin's troops were still stuck in their field but as they were now all shaken or disordered no help was coming from that direction.