Terrifying Teutons get Geishas

A Headless Body Production

Venue: Undisclosed Basements around the Tri-State-Area
Event: Round 3 of the The Great Semi-Annual-Mini-Tournament-Of-2020/1
Players: Phil Gardocki running Samurai
               Al Kaplan running Teutonic Knights
Game System: L'Art de la Guerre, 15mm, 120 points per side.

Dennis Shorthouse, Proprietor of On Military Matters book service., has organized an impromptu tournament using a battle grid system of his devising. All figures are place on a grid so players can play over a telephone without a video component.

The board is 15 by 20 UD's.  The rows are labeled H - A.  Each side has their own H-B, and the A row is divided in half.  The columns are numbered 1-20.  Terrain sizes are 2x3.

The Forces:
Samurai (list 210)
The Samurai are commanded by Rarry and Darryr, both Competent.
6 Samurai, Medium Swordsmen, Bow, Elite
4 Yari, Medium Spearmen, Mediocre
2 Mounted Samurai, Heavy Cavalry, Bow, Elite
Breakpoint of 12

Teutonic Knights (list 209)
2 Commanders, one Competent, the other Ordinary.
6 Knights, 3 Impetuous, 3 Impact Elite
2 Medium Spear, Mediocre
1 Crossbow
3 Heavy Spearmen, 2 Mediocre
2 Light Horse, one Javelin, one Crossbow
Breakpoint of 14

Special rules for 120 points: 

(2) generals
Min and Max divide by two and round up

Normal initiative calculations, command points spent divide by two rounded down, plus
1-2 LH +1 initiative die roll
3+ LH +2 initiative die roll
Strategist +1 initiative die roll

6 zones
Zones 1,3 an 4,6 are 7UD wide
Zones 2 and 5 are 6UD wide

1-3 terrain pieces plus compulsory
Take 1...(2) adjustments
Take 2...(1) adjustments
Take 3...(0) adjustments

Conventions:

When you see a word bubble "Ouch!",  or "痛い!", this implies a disorder from missiles. Letters in parenthesis represent some value change for the specific unit. For commanders it is s for strategist, b for Brilliant, c for Competent and o for Ordinary, u for unreliable. For troops it is e for Elite, and m for Mediocre. Other abbreviations, Hvy Heavy, XB Crossbow, LB, Longbow, Jav Javelin, 2HW 2 Handed Weapons, B Bow, Kn Knight, HKn Heavy Knight, HC Heavy Cavalry, Md Medium, Sgt Sergeants, LC Light Cavalry, Chr Chariot, Cat Cataphract, Pa Pavise, LI, Light Infantry, HG Hand Gun, FKn Foot Knight, Hvy Spear, Heavy Spearmen.

"XX" implies a unit killed in that location on that turn.

Haikus are an attempt for a commander (Japanese) to rally the troops.

The Board:

The Samurai win the initiative and elect to defend in the mountains.  Unfortunately, the Teutonic Knights stole the march from them and secured most of the useful terrain. 

Apologies to Arlo Guthrie for stealing his lyrics from "Alice's Restaurant", one of the funniest songs of the 70's.

The Teut left has their uninspired foot troops.

Facing the left are poorly motivated peasants armed with bamboo poles.

The Samurai right has all the Samurai.

Turn 1:

As motivated as the knights are, the foot forces are not.

As the wall of steel advances, Darryr sends forth just two of his units to meet them.

While Rarry avoids the knights and advances at a brisk pace. 

Turn 2:

The Impetuous advances to arrow range.  The professionals respond to the Samurai advance by trying to attack their flanks, but they are too slow, and a Yari is in their way.

The Teut foot troops remain secured to their deployment lines.

The code of Bushido brooks no retreat.  The Samurai horse advance and volley more arrows.

Their foot Samurai advance to charge range and loose arrows.

Turn 3:

Off panel, the professional knights charge the single Yari, who rolls a 6, and survives with only 2 hits.  This piece of luck is matched again by the Samurai heavy horse.

This should have been a slam dunk for the knights.  But the dice say otherwise.

So what are the odds here?

The Knights should win 78% of the time.  83% if the Heavy Cavalry was not elite.

The Yari Spearmen standing against supported Impact Knights have ZERO chance.  It is the first time my simulator begat a 1000 - 0 odds of winning.  The Knights destroy the Spearmen in an average of 1.29 combats.

That is a piece of luck I did not deserve.

Bringing the score to 5 of 14 to 1 of 12.

Pursuit of the broken knights is not permitted, so the Samurai horse conform onto the Lights harassing on their flanks.

Luck only gets you so far when you are Mediocre Spear against Armored, Elite Knights.

Rarry orders a full frontal assault on the right. 

Bringing the score to 10 to 2

Turn 4:

Once again, the Samurai horse face knightly steel.  Barely surviving the encounter.

The view from the Fuji blimp.

One Knight arrives in time to witness the slaughter.  Only half of the Teut foot remain. 

The Teutonic Knights are one away from demoralization.

In their haste to run down more Yari Spearmen, the Knights ignored their flanks, and are charged front and side for the winning point.

Or just bragging rights.  The Samurai foot have destroyed 5 of 6 defenders.  Bringing the score to 16 to 4.

But the MVP of the game was the single Samurai Horsemen on the left flank.  

Once again, the Samurai horse face knightly steel.  Barely surviving the encounter.

Even though he was eventually destroyed, he had reaped honor for generations to come.  He disordered 2 knights with arrows, destroying one on impact, destroying a light horse, for a total of 5 points and yielding 2.  Strategically, he was a win as well as 3 knights and two light horse were dedicated to his destruction for 42 build points against 13, yielding a 30 point edge elsewhere on the board.

It is so rare that a plan works.  This plan was to distract the knights with the Yari and destroy the Teut foot with the Samurai foot.  And it worked unbelievably well.  But I have to admit, there was a lot of luck as well.  Realistically, I expected to lose the entire Yari command for 10 points and maybe gaining 2, but luck limited the loses there to 4.  Meanwhile, the Samurai foot shut out the Teut foot 10-0.  And that should not have happened either.  Dicing off 10-15 times should have beget a couple of hits on the Samurai.  Which could have taken the entire Samurai army into demoralization.