Test of Honour - duel at the bridge

 

Although lockdown has generally meant an end to gaming with my usual group of friends, it has prompted my son and I to dig out some figures and set a smallish game.  The dining table isn't really big enough for a larger game but can easily accommodate a skirmish level game.  As there has been a bit of a Japanese theme in our house lately (the boardgame Tokaido, my son's latest PlayStation game, Ghosts of Tsushima, and some odd oriental teas) we decided to keep this going and have a game of Test of Honour.

Digging back through the blog I discovered that I last played this over 2 years ago!  I had bought the starter set (then published by Warlord Games and now in a 2nd edition by Grey for Now Games) at a show (Salute?), mainly for the good deal on the figures that came with it, but the game itself is pretty good although we found it can be a bit dependent on chance.

We chose the opening scenario in the game: there are a series of typical scenarios (an encounter, a raid, an escort mission etc) but these can be linked into a campaign.  The 1st game pits 2 forces against each in an encounter.  Although this has pre-set forces in the scenario booklet, we decided to build our own forces.  You have to include a Samurai Hero (of course) and a third of your force has to be made up of commoners.  There is the option to deploy spear and missile Ashigaru as single figures or groups of 3 and we ended up with 2 very different forces.  I opted for my Noble, along with a 2nd Samurai and 2 groups of 3 figures.  These all activate on a single order but have to stay together as a group, meaning I wouldn't have many activations each turn.  My son opted for a single Samurai and lots of individual figures... individually weaker but with more flexibility.

Figures are activated by drawing a counter from a cup and Samurai get multiple activations per turn while the common rabble only go once.  Combat tends to be quite bloody... figures either take light wounds which impair them or are cut down.  Samurai are able to cope with multiple wounds and also have the chance to avoid a wound but take an injury card instead which may persist through a campaign.  Samurai can also behave dishonourably and gain an extra dice to attack but this comes at a morale penalty as your commoners don't approve of that sort of thing.  I'm pleased to say neither of us stooped to using this shabby tactic and risking dishonouring our houses.

So, on with the scenario...

Our 2 nobles have arrived at opposite sides of a village where a bridge is the only way across the river without getting your feet wet. Both have demanded the right to cross first and, of course, neither wants to give way to the other.  There's only one way to resolve this....

The village with some peasants happily going about their business

My forces arrive at one end of the village.  The cards in the background are for dishonour, wounds, skills etc.  One issue with the game is there is quite a bit of 'clutter' which needs to be available on the table... tokens, cards etc.  I know some people don't really like this sort of thing.

And Callum's troops arrive at the other end of the road...

Callum's Samurai Noble makes his way to the river to do a spot of taunting

And, of course I fall for this and charge my Samurai retainer across the river and into hand to hand combat.  This didn't go well... his Lord wounded my Samurai and then a cowardly archer struck him down while he was recoiling from the combat

My spear and bow Ashigaru move up to the bridge.  Missile troops are very useful as, even if they don't cause a wound they can force units to use up their activation for a turn as they defend against the bow or musket fire, effectively pinning down their opponents.

My spearmen crossed the river and there was a bloody battle at the end of the bridge which eventually went my way.  The 2 Samurai Heroes now clashed in a flurry of katanas.  

My son was managing to defy the odds and consistently roll fumbles which meant I was causing wounds on his troops even when they were attacking me (to be fair some of my spearmen managed to trip themselves up and fall in a heap at the foot of the bridge!) and his Noble was picking up growing numbers of light wounds and being driven back.  Eventually these wounds grew too much and my noble cut him down and then turned on the remaining enemy Ashigaru.  The single enemy musketman had positioned himself on a rooftop and took a few unsuccessful pot shots before he realised that his lord and most of his comrades were dead and he abandoned the battle, leaving the field to my noble

The game was enjoyable but we did find a lot the dice can have a big effect on the combats, from criticals to fumbles, which can really affect the result of the game.  Good fun but we may give Ronin by Osprey Games a go for a comparison.  It's even longer since I've played those and it would be good to see how they compare.