Defend the Mountain Pass

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Sally
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Defend the Mountain Pass

Post by Sally »

We created this game scenario to be played at Fiasco, Leeds, as a ‘drop-in’ participation game in which visiting players came and went throughout the day.

The snow topped mountains to either side of the river valley funnelled the advancing Samurai army into the narrowing pass where the awaiting Korean defenders waited. The point value of the Samurai army was approximately 350, a very sizeable force, while the Korean force was just under 250, quite a considerable difference. However, the Koreans did have certain terrain advantages afforded by the meandering river with single bridge, woodland and mountain slopes, plus some useful artillery units which could be positioned favourably on the sloping ground.

During the course of the day two games were completed using the Hordes & heroes hex based system. Below is a brief description of both games and some photos – thanks to all who took part during the morning and afternoon games.
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Morning game.
The Samurai army deployed 4 hexes from their table edge while the Korean defenders started from 8 hexes in, which gave them an opportunity to take up a strong position. The Koreans, in their first tactical movement phase chose to advance in the centre of the table and position missile troops on the hill adjacent to the small river. This slowed the advance of the ashigaru and foot samurai who also came under fire from the large Korean field guns on the mountain slopes.
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With the central advance halted by missile fire, the samurai were forced to advance on either side of the table, taking time to move units across the fordable river, their numerous cavalry divided into two groups located on the wings. It took a short while to organise both wings ready for an all-out assault but when the mounted samurai charges came they dealt a pretty decisive blow to both sides of the Korean defensive line. This forced the Korean units in the centre to pull back and try and reinforce the line, which in turn enabled the hard pressed ashigaru and foot samurai in the centre to advance at last.
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Now that the whole of the Korean defensive line was engaged the greater numbers and overall quality of the samurai force started to have a major impact. The Korean artillery units were captured and soon afterwards the whole Korean line started to fall-apart as large numbers of units started to flee towards their table edge. After a fairly slow build-up the end came very quickly for the Korean force.

Afternoon game
The second game saw the Korean commanders draw on the experience of the first – instead of advancing to meet the samurai, they kept a strong, tight defensive line at the narrowest part of the valley. They were then quite content to disrupt the samurai advance with artillery fire and avoid the temptation to ‘sally-forth’ and attack the leading samurai units.
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On the extreme right of the Korean line were the peasant militia units with woodland and hill slopes to aid their defence. Against them advanced a large number of foot samurai and ashigaru units which despite the terrain advantage was not a winnable contest for the Korean militia. This samurai attack went in before the rest and the Korean commanders had little choice but to move the precious heavy cavalry to aid the militia. Only then did the main assault on the Korean line go in on the left and centre.
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What followed was a truly epic struggle. The relatively narrow gap between the snow topped mountains meant that the samurai could not bring all their numbers into the hand-to-hand struggle. Each and every di roll became crucial as the battle of attrition wore down both forces. The Korean line held, but only just, and by committing all commanders into the fray. I gave the double D6’s to a young man to roll the ‘must win’ throw of the game as his father looked-on hopefully. We had a +2 advantage before the crucial dice roll, but unfortunately things went pear shaped as we were decisively beaten. Our commander and his unit turned to flee disrupting the two units behind, and this left us with no commanders undisrupted, and therefore no command or control to order fresh units in to fill the hole. We fought on for a couple more game turns to keep the players entertained, but in reality, the Korean army was being steadily demolished with each roll of the dice. Great fun, but the second defeat of the day for the Korean defenders.
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Paul K
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Re: Defend the Mountain Pass

Post by Paul K »

Many thanks to the chap at Vapnartak who jogged my memory about the Leeds game write-up. I tapped out the battle report shortly after arriving back from the show, having said I would to some of the players on the day. In the rush of tasks over the next few days I simply forgot to post it! Anyway, having received a gental nudge, here it is! Two very close and quite quick to play games. Thank you to all that came along and rolled some dice!
Kind regards
Paul

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