Battle of Okehazama, 1560

     This game is played using different resources from different websites. This game is a samurai battle, the battle of Okehazama; the scenario is from the website ccsamuraibattles.net. The rules used are "The Cry of the Samurai" by Renaud Verlaque, which are based on "Battle Cry" rules. The rules can be found at thewargamer.com/battlecry/resources.html.

    The background is the Daimyo Imagawa Yoshimoto and his army is approaching the imperial capital. The Daimyo Oda Nobunaga, who has lost much land to Imagawa, launches a surprise attack on Imagawa's army.

The battle at the beginning. the army of Imgawa is red, the army of Oda is purple. The figures are from the Milton Bradley game "Shogun".

Imgawa's Ashigaru gunners  hit a unit of Ashigaru spearmen.

Imgawa has fallen back from his original position  and two Ashigaru spearmen units move to his defense.

In the rear of Imgawa's line are two units, one of Samurai archers and one Ashigaru spearmen.

These two units move forward to hit Oda's right flank.

Oda wisely falls back as a unit of Imgawa  Samurai hits a unit of his archers.

However, the archers wipe out the attacking Samurai. The spearmen push back Imgawa gunners.

On Oda's right his Samurai hit one unit of archers and wipes them out. The Ashigaru spearmen inflect heavy losses on a spear unit.

Imgawa's gunners on his right defeat the pesky spearmen.

Imgawa's spearmen defeat a unit of spearmen, but a unit of Oda's gunners have seized the hill before Imgawa. A unit of Ashigaru spearmen put themselves between the gunners and their master.

Oda's army loses heavily on the right.

The gunners are inflecting heavy losses on the spear unit, but they hold fast. (I don't remember how the red gunner on the left of the picture was lost!)

The Samurai and archers are slowly pushing Imgawa's army back on his left flank.

Imgawa's luck stays bad. Oda wins the initiative roll.The Samurai on the right pushes back the archers 3 spaces. I believe the Imgawa gunner on the left of the picture was killed by the Oda archer that was left, although he is not in the picture.

Another shot of Oda's Samurai pushing forward.

The situation at the end of the battle. Imgawa's army is badly mauled and scattered. He calls for a retreat. In the actual actual battle Imgawa's camp was overrun and he was beheaded.

A few notes on the game. The field is not exactly as shown in the scenario. The field is larger than in the rules. Once again I was rushing and didn't lay out the field as shown in the scenario. Also, the scenario showed where the units were positioned, but were using the "Art of Battle" units so I had to guess at what units to use from the "Cry of the Samurai" rules. As for  movement, both sides got 5 "Action Points" were units could move or fire.  If they still had one move and entered a hex next to an enemy unit, they could engage in hand to hand combat.  More thought has to be put into the rules  before the game starts when using different game systems. I set up a new table next to a window, which, even though it was a rainy day, still gave me better lighting than other posting.

Sources of Scenarios

      Once back from vacation I wanted to test to see how long it would take to paint my Heroscape terrain. I actually ended up spray painting in one evening. While spray painting the pieces, the idea of spray painting war-game figures the main color of the uniforms entered my mind. It might be an easy way to use figures without the long delay of detail painting.

  Also, most of the command & Color games have websites that give maps and scenarios that could provide an endless supply of games. Battle Cry scenarios , Command & Colors Napoleonics , Command & Colors Samurai battles , Memoir44 .With the Memoir44 if you click onto the Memoir44 icon and go to military archives there are endless scenarios.

Future Plans

       My plan for future plans for this blog fell by the wayside while on vacation.  We didn't have any contact to the outside world as even our cell phones didn't work at the campsite we were at. However, I finally read David Green's "Blenheim" over the vacation and last night I dug out my Peter Laing WSS figures.

      I am leaning towards starting a new blog which I would try to catalog Peter Laing figures, as the original goal of this blog was to do that. As I am also interested in 1st generation 15mm Minifigs  the blog might expand to early 15mm figures. Wargame Hermit seems to have become showing my war-games more than anything. I do try to use my Peter Laings for the games to show them in action. As Peter Laing figures are hard to come by, I think the rules used where a good representation of an army with minimal figures shows that fun games can be played whiteout needing hundreds of figures on the board. For now I will continue with this blog.

I challenged my wife to play Robin Hood vs Friar Tuck stave fight. She declined.

We don't know if the tree grew in the split, or the tree split the rock. The rock itself was about 12 foot long and 7 foot high; a very large rock.

We had torrential downpours and severe thunderstorms (including  a tornado warning) for the first couple of days. I also had a leech attach himself to my foot when I went swimming (a first!), but near the end of the week the weather cleared and we finally had ideal weather as the storms broke the humidity.

Off for a Week Camping

      My wife and I have traditionally celebrated our anniversary by going camping for a week and we are preparing to head out to New Hampshire.  This will give me time to go over my gaming plans. I am bringing along a couple of books that I've been meaning to read. For our anniversary we bought ourself a nice used pop up camper. Unfortunately, we just got it yesterday and didn't have time to register it, plus my truck needs some work to be able to tow it.

      With my recent posting, I found that since I started my blog I had been  spelling Bob Cordery's name wrong; an inexcusable mistake on my part. I went through correcting my mistakes and while doing so found that my blog seems to be one big broken record;  the games seem to be replayed and the same figures used. This is some food for thought on this trip. I am thinking of trying to start focusing in the Peter Laing figures themselves with pictures of them and trying to identify them by the catalog. Of course I think I say this every time I go on vacation. I have started trying to get from my collection one copy of every Peter Laing figure that can be used as masters for casting and for this project. After all, the main reason I started this blog was to try to get more photographs of Peter Laing figures online.

    I am thinking of making a larger playing board with my Heroscape terrain. I finally got most of it into a large tote. I am thinking of painting most of the pieces green instead of having all the different colors.

My Heroscape pieces finally in one place.

Our new camper with Molly. I'm sure Molly is thinking "Now you have plenty of room to take me with you!"  Hopefully we will be able to take her camping with us in the future.

Fantasy Battle Cry

   While looking  at Battle Cry variants, I came across Fantasy Battle Cry rules by Tom Scutt. They seemed like they could be fun, although the rules haven't been play tested. I decided to do a quick game to see the potential. Caesars fantasy figures were used for the game. For armies I used dwarves and skeletons.

     The forces of evil needs command of iron producing mines for their weapons. This means they need to take on the tough dwarves of the mountains.

Dwarves are at the top of the page, guarding their mine, the skeletons on the bottom moving to capture the mine.

The dwarf berserkers start piling up bones.

The skeletons quickly pay back the dwarves in kind.

The skeletons force back one unit of dwarves.

Although the dwarves have higher attack points, the skeletons are pushing the dwarves back towards their mine.

The dwarf thunder sticks cause large losses on one unit; another unit inflects 50% losses on a spectre unit.

The dwarves continue to fall back....

Except the rightmost unit, who continue to hold back several skeleton units.

One dwarf holds back three units of skeleton.

The skeletons just keep pushing forward.

The dwarves have been pushed back to the mine entrance.

The dwarf thunder sticks eliminates one skeleton unit.

And still one courageous dwarf holds off 10 skeletons!

The thunder stick unit trys to come to his aid, but too late. He is finally cut down and the dwarves retreat to their mine.


This dwarf was put aside to be marked for his courageous fight. 

Brookshire Campaign against Bandits

         With the ongoing war between Shiak and Brookshire, Shiak has been encouraging bands of bandits to join their fight against Brookshire.  With the promise of loot, the bandits form "Free Companies" and wage a private war against the Brookshire forces. Shiak keeps an "advisor" whose job it is to make sure the free companies only go after Brookshire forces.

      However, there has been a stalemate in the war, both sides pulling back to regroup. The Brookshire high command has used the lull to go after the free companies. With the increased pressure against them, most of the free companies break up with the bandits going back to their old ways.  All except a particularly well organized company that goes by the name of "Lark's Legion" after "General" Lark, who has formed his own legion and has taken over an area as his own. To defeat Lark's Legion would be the final blow to the free companies.

   General Mitchell gathers a small army together. Among his units is a company of bicycle infantry (used as cavalry), a bicycle machine gun unit, and the newly reorganized Rifles under Lt. Col. Barnaby.

Lark's Legion is on the top of the picture (General Lark's HQ is the farm house on the left hill). The Brookshire Army is on the bottom of the picture. General Mitchells HQ is in the village.

The bicycle machine gun unit moves to set up on the hill to support the advance on the army's right.

Barnaby's Rifles captures the woods on the right, with a regular company moving in support.

A company of bandits attack the grenadiers holding the woods in the center. A troop of horsemen move up in support. The machine gun fires on them but misses.

The grenadiers manage to throw back the bandits.

The volunteer company captures the woods on the left and inflects heavy losses on the bandits approaching.

The bandits counter attack on the left woods is too much on the volunteers, who break and runs.

In the center one troop of bandit cavalry attacks the machine gun unit, while a bandit infantry company, supported by cavalry captures the center woods.

A general view of the Brookshire counterattack. On the left the Volunteers, supported by a company of regular push forward towards the left woods. A troop of cavalry advances around the left of the enter woods. On the right the rifles and regulars push for the right hill.

On the right the Brookshire fire forces back the bandit infantry.

The fire from the machine gun and bicycle unit wipes out the cavalry troop.

A view of the fighting in the center.

The  attack on the left has pushed back one bandit company.

On the right the bandits counterattack and push back the infantry. The last bandit cavalry attacks the machine gun, without success. The fight around the woods is inconclusive.

On the left the bandits push back the volunteers, but the regulars hold fast.

The machine gun pushes back the  bandit cavalry. The infantry attack on the hill pushes the bandits back again.

The infantry on right hits the bandits hard and the regular cavalry attacks the bandits artillery, without success.

The bandit infantry on the right refuses to give up, and causes 50% casualties to the regulars, who once again fall back.

The bandit cannon uses canister and wipes out the regular cavalry!

The bicycle infantry moves up to protect the machine gun's flank. The machine gun misses the cavalry. In the upper right of the picture, it can be seen the rifles and regulars have finally worked together to seize the hill.

The infantry on the left has finally pushed back the bandit infantry, and now the regulars are trying to work their way to the left to protect themselves from the bandits gun.

The bandit infantry on the right hill have eliminated the regular infantry and turns on  the rifles.

The bandit cavalry loops around behind the bicycle corps to once again attack the machine gun! This they once again fail at..

The regulars on the left, hit by both the bandit infantry and artillery, suffers 3/4% losses.

Now comes a major disaster for the bandits. The machine gun and bicycle unit turns on  the cavalry and inflects 50% losses. what's more, a "retreat" dice is rolled. The cavalry has positioned themselves so they cannot fall back towards their lines, which means they are eliminated!

Meanwhile on the left, the infantry eliminate the last of the bandit infantry and force the artillery to retreat, thereby putting the farmhouse between the infantry and the artillery.The artillery would have to spend their turn trying to maneuver back to get a clear shot, which would mean the two infantry units could close in for the kill. General Lark flees the battlefield and the rest of his army scatters to save themselves. General Mitchell has succeeded in breaking the largest of the bandit gangs, and for now relative peace comes to Brookshire.


The rules used are Bob Cordery's Memoir of Battle.  Once again the Peter Laing Boers were used. I am thinking that the Boers could easily be used as Confederates. It would be easy enough to raise a Peter Laing Union Army and use them with Battle Cry scenarios. Perhaps I should have saved my money and not bought all those 1st generation minifies ACW.