Jeff Kuhn
United States
Garner
North Carolina
-
Turn 1
Nobunaga impulse: Oda negotiates with a soldier unwisely left by Anti-Oda without Azai watching over him. He manages to barricade himself into Odani while the other two loyal soldiers beat on the doors in vain! What a start!! Oda pulls his usual withdraw from Kanagasaki.
Anti-Oda impulse: Ashikaga fails to recruit any oda soldiers, so Miyoshi moves against Ibaraki. Araki goes into siege there.
Azai/Asakura impulse: Azai is, strangely enough, OOC due to the quirk of the betrayal. Ashikage moves against the remnants of Oda's force in Kanagasaki. The Asakura force drives them into the castle to set up a siege situations there.
Ikko-Ikki impulse: the monks join the siege in Ibaraki. Araki loses his soldier unit, but survives for now.
Turn End.
Turn 2
Nobunaga impulse: Oda moves through Kyo with a large force to relieve the siege at Ibaraki. The Anti-Oda forces retreat in the face of the huge Oda stack, but not before they take quite a bit of damage.
Ikko-Ikki impulse: Saika moves against Mt. Shigi, and Matsunaga and Tsutsui's combined forces decide to meet them on the field of battle. Bad decision as it turns out, because they are wiped out and clan Matsunaga falls to Saika.
Turn End.
Turn 3
Oda impulse: Oda moves against the Ikko-Ikki in Arioka and also the huge stack adjacent to Noda Fukushima lays siege to Miyoshi there. Not all the Miyoshi clan will fit in the castle so 3 units are left to be slaughtered in the field. Unfortunately, the Oda forces are too much and Sanninshu himself falls (but is only injured).
Nobunaga impulse: Will it ever end? More troops are moved in to assail Arioka, and Tokugawa moves against the increasingly hapless Azai. He attempts to retreat to Odani (which is still under siege), but is wiped out in the process. That's what you get for being too cautious in this game! Most daring of all, Oda's large force from neighboring Noda Fukushima moves against Ishiyama. Has Oda over-reached?
Ikko-Ikki impulse: not a good time for this! The monks move to Yamato in a bid to cut Oda's communication lines. There are enough monks in the area to cause some serious trouble for him if they succeed. Luck is with them, as they roll very well and the lightly defended Yamato falls to siege. The Tsutsui fall to Saika! he is tearing through Japan like a whirlwind (and amassing forces, too).
Azai/Asakura impulse: Yoshikage finally wins back Kanagsaki from Oda's forces there. But the Azai fail to relieve their desperate situation, Odani remains under siege and Azai remains OOC.
Turn End.
Turn 4
Nobunaga impulse: Tokugawa finally arrives on the scene at Odani. He had been making his way there for the past several turns while Azai was otherwise occupied, doing great damage along the way, and now the fate of Azai is finally decided at Odani as it falls to Tokugawa. Oda withdraws from Ishiyama to attempt to relieve the siege at Yamato and crush the pesky Saika once and for all, but he manages to escape without incident. Perhaps Ishiyama was merely a feint.
Oda impulse: back to back impulses YET AGAIN let you know how Oda is doing so far. With either first to go and/or back to back impulses for the 4th turn in a row, to say things are going his way at this point is an understatement. However, fate is so very fickle... Tokugawa continues his advance, hoping to wipe out Yoshikage and secure the northern flank once and for all. He decimates the Asakura there and Yoshikage is wounded. Clan Asakura is teetering on the brink. Niwa leads a force against Nagashima, but satisfies himself with driving the monks into the castle.
Anti-Oda minors impulse: The Anti-Oda Faction is in complete disarray from the pounding it has gotten. So far, 6 of the 11 impulses of the game have gone to Oda. Ashikaga converts to Daimyo and unsuccessfully attempts some negotiations. All he can do at this point is gather some of his forces at Noda Fukushima, which is recaptured but empty of Oda forces.
Turn End.
Turn 5
Oda impulse: Chit pulling trend continues, Oda moves against the marshaling forces of Ashikaga at Ibaraki, sending Sakuma there. Ashikaga himself is caught in the net and is badly wounded in the siege. He goes to Tomo to be a pain to Oda for the rest of the game. More forces are poured into the siege at Nagashima. Niwa finds out first hand what a meat grinder this place is as he fails to do any damage but takes heavy losses. Takigawa is sent to lay siege to Rokkaku at Mitsukuri. Oda ends his impulse with a "Ninja in camp" to get the Akechi betrayal card. Oh well, at least I guess he is fairly safe.
Ikko-Ikki impulse: Saika moves back to Ishiyama to help relieve the siege there. The monks sortie and Sakuma is driven off (and wounded in the process).
Asakura impulse: Clan Asakura can do nothing but bemoan their impending doom.
Turn End.
Turn 6
Asakura impulse: Are you kidding with this? Where weer these at the start of the game when I needed them? They can and will do nothing.
Oda impulse: Takigawa finishes off the Rokkaku clan for Oda. Tokugawa continues his relentless march, crushing Ichijo-dani. Clan Asakura falls to Tokugawa! Sakuma regroups and comes at Ishiyama again. Saika is there, and bravely leads a small force to the field of honor to meet Sakuma while the bulk of the force retreats inside the iron-clad fortress that is Ishiyama. Much to his dismay, Saika meets "Massed Gunnery" in the field, fights well but is badly wounded. However, Sakuma finds the doors of Ishiyama tightly shut. The monks did not take the bait which was dangled before them. Anti-Oda plays "Master of Tactics" and gets the "Gunnery" card to boot!
Nobunaga impulse: 9 of 18 impulses? Can you beat these odds? Oda himself regroups and heads off for Ishiyama. Niwa again breaks upon the rock that is Nagashima and is again repulsed after heavy losses, while doing no damage at all.
Turn End.
Turn 7
Will Takeda's appearance change the momentum in this game?
Takeda impulse: Shingen arrays his forces against Hamamatsu. Tokugawa has been active in the north, and has left few behind to watch his tenuous LOC, so Shingen has decided to put all his effort into bringing that castle down.
Turn End.
Turn 8
Turn End. It is hard to tell who this screws more. Takeda is looking at a lightly defended Hamamatsu, but every turn end means that Tokugawa gets to strengthen it. And worse yet, Ieyasu himself is now back at Hamamatsu after disbanding a turn earlier. One impulse this turn would have meant that wasn't possible. Now we are looking at the defenders hitting on a 2+ instead of a 4+, which will make all the difference in the world...
Turn 9
Oda impulse: With time running out, Oda will put all his effort into siege battles at victory locations. Against all odds, the two E-J monks at Mt. Hiei stand against 10 Oda soldiers! (note: the movement of Mori's and Uesugi's entrance is irrelevant at this point). Niwa finally makes some progress at Nagashima, killing half of the defenders, but the castle still stands.
Turn End. (rapid turn end chit pulls here are really affecting the game, but as I said earlier, fate IS fickle...)
Turn 10
Do or die for Oda. He is close, but things are starting to slip through his fingers. He needs his now customary two impulses this turn to win.
Takeda impulse: With Hamamatsu looking not quite as ripe, Shingen has no choice but to follow through. However, he makes very little progress on the siege. Things are looking a little tight for Anti-Oda now. One impulse will probably be all it takes for the last to victory locations to fall. What will the next chit be?...
Turn End!
Game End.
What a tense game!! There were quite a few notable items in this game. First, Azai was very susceptible to betrayal from Oda. It is definitely unwise to leave vital spaces in the hands of soldiers who are easily swayed. Better to have their leader looking over their shoulder! Next, even though Oda drew more than half (!) of the games impulses, he still came up a little short. It is REALLY tough to get to that magical 6VPs. On retrospect, perhaps he could have thrown less of his resources at Ishiyama, face it that place is not going to fall. With 6 inhabitants hitting at 2 or better, it would take many turns of sustained activity to bring that place down.
However, by concentrating on Ikko-Ikki's backyard, he really kept the only big threat (outside of Takeda) from being a factor in the game. If the monks get out of hand, they can make life hell for Oda!
Finally, you may be tempted to say that the Turn End chit screwed Oda. I would counter that it was an example of luck balancing out against all those back to back chit draws. You've gotta pay the piper! Plus, it screwed Takeda equally. Given Tokugawa's deep foray into the green spaces, Hamamatsu should have been an easy target for Shingen. Without the turn end chit coming up, he could have laid siege and brought that space down, reducing Oda to 5VP again, even if he had gotten both Hieie and Nagashima to fall (which presumably would have happened, had the turns not ended so early). So we are back to the 5VP that Oda can usually get. Bear in mind that with the Daruma rule, that would have been an Oda victory.
That may be my only complaint about the short game, which is immensely fun due to the tension. There is a HUGE difference between 5VP and 6, so how do you change that balance? It will either be very difficult for Oda or Anti-Oda, depending on whether you say 5VP or 6VP is the mark. There is no good "fine-tuning" sort of tweak since there are so very few victory locations. No other two strength space is close enough to be realistically playable in the short game. So that still leaves me looking for a good play balance tweak, as I think the game is skewed (we have several more plays as of this writing). However, it still seems as if our games are very close, strangely enough. Maybe we still simply have not learned effective Oda strategy, but there are some good nuggets in this AAR if you want to be effective as Oda. I think my opponent is on the right track! Great game!!
-
Was George Orwell an Optimist?
Spain
Corvallis
Oregon
-
Excellent AAR, Jeff. I really do have to get this to the table one of these days.
-
|
|
Posted Fri Mar 12, 2010 4:35 pm
