15mm Wargaming for Fun and Sanity: OAAH Oni Wars part 1 The Mountain tribes vs the Plain

Some of you may have noticed the odd Japanese fantasy figure & game dotted around these hallowed pages?

Ahah! Of Armies And Hordes is a fantasy set of rules! To date I've stuck to 1 side fantasy and the other fairly historical. Lettuce drop that. I've just got Philip Mann's excellent figures from his kickstarter. Now relax, this may be a shock if you're used to plastic/resin larger scales.

Deep breath, you'll be fine-. The figures are available from the fantastic Battle Valour. Hopefully they will be available through their UK agent somewhen.

Here is my starter listing. There are several manufacturers here:

Peter Pig's true 15mm Samurai masquerading as Bakemono.

Sengoku range from Alternative Armies ever-growing range. Bakemono, and Oni - which tend to be slightly smaller and thinner, but have armoured. They look like "late teens" so match well IMO.

Dixons Legends of Nippon Bakemono, Oni & Dai Oni. The biggest of these have been seconded as gods for OGAM.

Bakemono These should make up 50% of the army as the "normal" end.

Rabble 4 2 4 Rabble, Horde.

Medium infantry 4 2 5

Heavy infantry 4 2 6

Archers 4 1 4 Shoot1

Oni All in the "L, R and/or P" classifications, cutting their numbers.

Infantry 4 3 6 Resilient

Berserkers 3 3 6 Berserk, Tough, Trample.

Dual wield 4 3 6 Savage, Resilient.

Extra's

Dogs 4 2 4 Fast, Scouts

General 3 4 6 General, Tough, Extra lives4, Trample.

Dragon Mage. 3 3 8 Flying, Fast, Extra lives2, Chaos, Curse, Windstorm.

Dai Oni, 3 4 7 Giant L3, Tough, Extra lives3

Big oni Berserk, 3 3 6 Giant L2, Berserk, Tough, Trample.

All Gods Are Bastards 3 4 6 General, Giant L4, Tough, Extra lives4

I've had this idea for a few years. At the time of the Mongol invasion, a captured Korean commander and a part of his fleet tell the locals about an island (think Papua New Ginea) inhabited by 2 warring non-human species.

Here is one of them. Lovely Mr Mann even provided 3 slightly different equipped types. Which fits in well as I want Mountain, Foothills & Plain. Any similarity with Sengoku Monster Hunter rukles is, of course, coincidental.

Mountain. 1,997. Loose family groups of hunters. Some skilled wood & stone craftsoni. Clad in bearskin kirtles.

Bakemono 16 Rabble, 16 Archers, 8 Heavy.

Oni General, 5 infantry, 4 Dog scouts, 3 big oni Berserkers, Dragon mage.

Foothills. 1,975 More tribal, more trade, metalsmiths. Clad in cloth or rawhide kirtles.

Bakemono 16 Rabble, 16 Medium, 10 Heavy.

Oni General, 5 infantry, 3 big oni Berserkers, Dai Oni.

Plain. 2,004. Most sophisticated, large clans living in large communities, wearing trousers.

Bakemono 8 Rabble, 16 Archers, 16 Heavy.

Oni General all Gods are Bastards, 7 infantry, 6 Dual wield.

First off, yes there are unfinished figures. Get over it.

Terrain. There's no hard & fast rules. Book suggests that each army has its favourite terrain selection. Here I've given the Mountain 6 pieces of rugged terrain. I place 3 and diced for rest. You could use a sliding scale of the scouting role. Bigger the difference, more placed rather than dice. I'll ponder this in the wee small hours.

The Game. I took the Mountain. We used the scouting rules. I gained +2 for scout unit & flying unit. Plus, I can put me scouts anywhere bar the other deployment zone. I hide them behind a hill. So much for advantage, 2 moves then the initiative switched.

Banzai heavy infantry.

I do better with reactions-.

Who's gonna take on a dragon mage uphill in rough ground?

Aw shit-

Dragon goes down in a flurry of scales. Super.

Scouts get jumped by Oni infantry. At least they put up a good fight.

But that leaves a dirty great gap in Tony's deployment!

My archers and heavy infantry move up.

All Gods Are Bastards is a lead from the front type of general.

My Berserks take the plunge. I'm not sure if I should use these individually.

Expected this to be a suicide charge by my archers. They shoot and actually kill one! They fight. They need 6's and even those have a 50% chance of success-. But they do it. Only lose 4. Crom.

Dual wielders crash into my Berserkers on reaction, but they get shoved back.

That was the reaction, the action sends them into All Gods Are Bastards.

I love these rules. The General kills one, but on his 3 "General" dice rolls 5. That means he's dead. We roll on the table and he's wounded and captured.

Before Tony rolls for morale-

After.

Berserkers drag the downed foe backwards, protected by my general.

Clash of heavy infantry. Tony's Banzai lost one (yes, one) to the dragon so I've a 1D edge.

For once it pays off.

My Oni crash into the other heavy Bakemono infantry and come off worse. Drat!

This was make or break, Each needed 4's (2 attack vs 6 armour) but they don't do it.

Considering we had a late start and didn't rush, that took about 90 minutes. Good game though!

Game 2 So we quickly swapped sides, decided to leave scenery as-is. 2 good games in 3 hours!
Note A4 sheet, contains everything needed for both sides.

Tony won the scouting, also hid scout behind hill.

He did well, advancing steadily.

Terrain caused a bottleneck.

Where to start?

Heavy infantry vs doggy scouts.

That's better!

My Oni prepare to charge- but the Berserks get a reaction and slam into the flank. Any other rules this will happen?

Crunch! Mine just survived. Forced to use action to regain cohesion.

General goes in - mine do spectacularly badly. He mashes them and jumps on the squidgy bits.

His Oni attacks my Banzai heavy infantry, crushing them.

All Gods Are Bastards is rather exposed-.

My other heavies pile in to get rewenge, but are beaten back.

2 units depleted and they're still there!

All Gods Are Bastards moves in and trounces the 2 survivors. Tony launches a desperate gamble, flinging his horde against him!

Being a size 4 nasty and a general gives him 7 dice. As they are rabble (and no 1's) he kills 14 out of 16. Deep breath. They roll 4 6's, reroll - all fail! All lives gone! Dead!

My turn to get mullered (or it it trumped?) by morale.

Can I reverse the fortune?

Archers attack the Oni (the weak oppressing the strong!) They kill 3 but suffer.

On the other flank the archers start to mop up my heavies.

That worked very well! Next I'll try Berserkers as individuals. Archers performed better than normal. Dragon mage never got 2 actions so proved useless!

More next week!

As you can see, each side coves about an A4.