Yamato Japanese on the Silk Road

 

Over the weekend of 2nd/3rd December the Ribble Rumble competition took place at Element Games in Stockport. As part of this there was a 15mm MeG competition based around armies of the Silk Road.

The competition rules only allowed a restricted number of armies and a limitation on how many times they could be chosen. I went for Yamato Era Japanese as an army I have painted up but never used in competition.

Read on to see how it performed ...

I had painted up the army on a bit of a whim, and finished it earlier this year using figures from Khurasan Miniatures. Not an army I think will ever be a world beater, but something different both in composition and look - good reasons to do it in my opinion.

The list I took was:

This has a Baekje Korean ally which adds some useful options to the Japanese troops, especially the 2 units of effective cavalry. Also, other than the Militia the troops are significantly more manoeuvrable than a lot of the Japanese as they are Formed not Tribal.

The troops are an odd mix and a bit unusual and the couple of times I have used it before they seem to have somewhat confused my opponents - which is never a bad thing. Ideally the army will defend hoping to get a few pieces of terrain for the Loose formation foot to work with, and to have the camp as Fortified thanks to it being Flexible (which means it is Fortified if defending and mobile if invading).

The first round draw matched me against Cid (Laurence Donohoe), a top player using Nikeforian Byzantine. The Nikeforians are a tricky list to get a good army from (as discussed in the MeG Podcast), but Cid has worked out a really nice list which I will steal for possible use 😁

The initial dice roll went my way and I chose to defend. The terrain phase saw quite a few pieces of terrain on the table, but around the edges and on my base edge. Nothing in the middle of the table where we would do most of the fighting. It did, however, mean that I was not going to have to worry about Cid's better and more manoeuvrable army running round my army.

I deployed the Korean ally on my right where it started slightly over-winging Cid's line, the polearm armed infantry to the left of the cavalry. My centre was a unit of spearmen with the guard archers to their right and a ordinary archer unit to their left. Behind these were the 2 units of Japanese cavalry to act as a reserve. My left wing was 2 units of archers in terrain with a unit of spearmen on their right.

Cid deployed somewhat to the left of the table as I looked at it. Mainly infantry on his right, but including the rather dangerous Varangian Guard. His cavalry were to his left and deployed somewhat back to go where needed. His katafraktoi unit was more or less in the middle of his battleline - bang on historic 😎

It looked like this:

A challenge I had was how to deal with the Varangians and the Katafraktoi. The former I decided the best I could do was occupy them with something that would hopefully die slowly - most likely a spear unit. The Katafraktoi whilst also dangerous were a shade less of a worry, but again it would be best if I could match up a spear unit against them. After that I was looking to see if the Koreans could work something against the Byzantine cavalry; these were all 4 base units, so whilst some were quite tough (Normans for example) they might be brittle.

The game started with some cagey manoeuvre as we both looked to get troops into possibly advantageous positions. To some degree we tended to cancel each other out in this and there was one move where we both passed quite quickly due to rubbish discs where we wanted them.

So after the first few moves it looked like this. As planned I am pushing with the Koreans on the right and bringing up some Japanese cavalry in support; this should free up the Korean infantry to attack a Skoutati unit. My spearmen on the left are advancing towards the horror that are the Varangians whilst further left both Cid and I have 2 units of archers moving towards each other - but as mine have Pavise and his Shield Cover & Shoot we are not expecting much to happen there 😂

Things continue to develop as expected. My spearmen get in the way of the Varangians whilst in the centre we have a bit of a stand off. Cid's catafracts and my other spearmen are staring at each other across the table, neither really wanting to get into what would be a lottery of a fight. On the right the Korean infantry get to face off against the Skoutatoi as planned and the 2 cavalry wings are also getting close to fighting.

Bit of a photo gap here for a move or so.

The Varangians and my spearmen contact and, much to my relief, it is something of a non-event with little damage done to either side. Meanwhile the archers to the left pour endless volleys of Black dice into each other, also with no result. Going to be a long day ...

In the centre the standoff continues, although I feel confident enough to advance which prompts Cid to pull the Kataftaktoi back.

The cavalry fight on my right is a mixed bag. The Korean Long Spear cavalry do well against one unit of Byzantine cavalry, but little against the Normans, meanwhile, the Nomad cavalry do badly against a 4 base Average Byzantine unit and end up having the Byzantine Prokoursatores lined up to flank charge them. I can, however, bring up the Japanese cavalry to cover the probably collapse of my right flank to some degree.

The spearmen fighting the Varangians finally start to suffer the inevitable and are close to breaking. The interminable archer exchange has resulted in just a base loss each 😆

On my right the Nomad cavaly are broken by the flank charge but the Long Spear cavalry break a Byzantine unit and surprisingly hold on against the Normans. My Japanese cavalry are now placed to charge the soon to be victorious Normans when they pursue.

The Katafraktoi continue to decline to fight my other spearmen.

Shortly after we agreed that the game would finish 8-8 as both of us would lose a couple of units but there was no chance of anything more happening in the limited time available. So to avoid a dull end to the game we wrapped it up and had a beer 😎

Despite the low-ish score it was an interesting and challenging game, and always good playing Cid.

The second game report will follow shortly.

Finally, some pictures of the armies as deployed. Cid has done a nice job on the Byzantines IMO.