Battle of Kawagoe: Hojo Ujiyasu's gamble - AAR part1

  The battle of Kawagoe was fought in 1546 around Kawagoe castle, a stronghold of strategic importance located about 40km northwest of Tokyo. That castle of Hojo clan was besieged by a large army of the anti-Hojo alliance. To relieve it, Hojo Ujiyasu北条氏康, the head of Hojo clan, launched a surprise attack on the besieging army which was about 10 times larger than Ujiyasu's. Until then the alliance army had been sure that the castle would soon surrender, and they had not expected an attack by a relieving force. Ujiyasu, also known as Lion of Sagami (present-day Kanagawa prefecture, a region southwest of Tokyo), attacked furiously and the entire besieging army got panicked. Seeing this from the castle, Hojo Tsunashige, the commander of the garrison force, rushed out shouting "Katta! Katta! (We won! We won!)" to charge into the panicked crowds. The allied army was totally defeated.

 The game "Battle of Kawagoe: Hojo Ujiyasu's gamble" is included in the Japanese wargame magazine Command Magazine Japan, Nr 104. The rules are easy to learn - a chit-pull system with a flavour of Panzergruppe Guderian (sticky ZOC, overrun and untried units). The game lasts for just 6 turns, so it doesn't take much time to play it.

 You can download the rulebook and the vassal module from the official website of the publisher (see the bottom of this article). They are for free! ... at least until the moment I'm writing this blog entry now.  Anyway, many thanks to the designer, Command Magazine Japan and the person who created the vassal module.

 The picture above shows the initial deployments. Kawagoe castle is besieged by the anti-Hojo alliance, which consists of three clans: Ougigayatsu扇谷 (purple units) on the west, Yamanouchi 山内(blue) on the south, and Kogakubou古河公方 (grey), also known as Ashikaga足利, on the east.

 The 12 relieving units led by Ujiyasu are not deployed but at the first activation of Hojo appear from the map end, like the German Panzers of PGG. They can enter the map from the west, south or east by the player's choice. 

 This battle is quality vs. quantity. The number of Hojo units is much smaller than that of the alliance, but they boast of higher strength. In addition, unlike the alliance, Hojo units can stack themselves. And all of Ujiyasu's relieving units have 3 steps, while most of the alliance ones have only one step. 

 Hojo also has an advantage regarding activation. It can activate all of its units two times per turn; the alliance units have to be activated by the clan, not all units at once, and their activation occurs basically once per turn. 

 To win, Hojo should break the siege (which annihilates 15VP of the opponent), and preferably keep a road from a map end to the castle free of the enemy (which gives Hojo 15VP).  Hojo also gets VPs by eliminating enemy units (VPs depend on the rank of eliminated units), while the alliance receives 2VPs for each step loss of Hojo. Anyway, now Ujiyasu's gamble begins.

-Turn1

 Ujiyasu decided to attack from the south. The powerful attacks by the relieving force broke the defensive line and they surrounded Nagano Narimasa長野 業正, the best of 4 commanders of the Yamanouchi clan. Attacked by surprise, the Yamanouchi could not respond (actually, Yamauchi's chit was pulled before Hojo's) but the armies of Koga and Ougigayatsu hurried to the south. In the meantime an intensive attack of 8 Hojo units eliminated Nagano.

 Each clan of the anti-Hojo allied force has one overall commander and 4 commanders. Unlike untried units, which have only one step, the commanders have three steps, and they are not easy to destroy by a frontal attack. Hojo player's tactics were to attack weak units first to make them retreat, then surround a commander and attack it with high odds.

-Turn2

　Ujiyasu's fierce attacks went on. Making the most of overruns (attacks during movements) against untried units, Hojo army surrounded another commander, Nagao Norinaga長尾憲長, and eliminated it. As a result, a gap in the defence line of the allied force appeared.

 Koga's grey units came down to rescue Yamanouchi, dispatching a contingent led by one of the commanders to the further south with an intention to close the gap Ujiyasu created. On the left, Ougigayatsu's army hurried down to stop Ujiyasu.

 The axis of Ujiyashu's offensive seemed to be tilted to the right, but seeing that Yamanouchi's blue units were defending along a stream on the right, Ujiyasu took his main units to the left and attacked the purple army of Ougigayatsu which had just come out of woods. 

 Yamanouchi tried to chase Ujiyasu and surrounded a stack of Hojo which couldn't move because of the enemy ZoC, but considering the low probability of favourable odds (the average combat points of untried units of the alliance is less than three, while a Hojo stack has 12 points), they didn't attack that stack but just kept it trapped.  

Ujiyasu's gamble goes on ...

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You can download the rulebook and the vassal module:

-Rulebook

https://commandmagazine.jp/com/104/

Search it with the words " 『河越合戦 北条氏康の賭け』ルール"

The rules are in Japanese but you can let Google or Deep-L do their job.

-Vassal module

https://commandmagazine.jp/vassal/index.html

Search it with the word "河越合戦"