Battle of Kawagoe: Hojo Ujiyasu's gamble - AAR part2

 -Turn3

 Ujiyasu pushed westward and made Ougigayatsu's purple line collapse. On the southern front, Ujiyasu sent a stack to help the units trapped by Yamanouchi's blue ones. But Yamanouchi responded quickly and encircled the two Hojo stacks, the one that had been just relieved and the other that came to relieve the friendly troops.

 Ujiyasu sent another stack to rescue the two stacks trapped by Yamanouchi. Though it didn't go without bleeding, the three Hojo stacks cut into the blue mass of Yamanouchi army. At the same time, taking half of his army, Ujiyasu launched an intensive attack against a commander of Ougigayatsu, which was reduced to the last one step. But the strength of the alliance army lies in its number. With the units that came down from the northern front, Ougigayatsu encircled Ujiyasu and his units. 

-Turn4

 Hojo's reinforcements arrived. They attacked from the south and reduced a commander of Yamanouchi. Ujiyasu pushed northward, eliminating the commander of Ougigayatsu with some purple units.

 Now that two of three clans of the allied army suffered a huge loss, Hojo Tsunashige, the garrison commander, decided to make a sortie. Together with Fukushima Benchiyo, Tsunashige burst out of the castle, crying "Katta, katta! (We won, we won!)"

 Actually, a special chit "Katta, katta" was drawn. This chit can be used only once per game, and basically it's the same as the normal Hojo chits, except for a special effect on the two garrison units of Hojo Tsunashige and Fukukshima Benchiyo: both the movement points and the combat points of those units are doubled during the activation. 

 The stack of Tsunashige and Benchiyo attacked Koga army with 4 overruns, which cut through the grey mass. Koga's army had remained intact until the sally of Tsunashige, but now lost a quarter of its troops. 

 The allied force struggled to maintain the siege. They constructed defence lines along streams with woods, Ougigayatsu on the left and Koga and Yamanouchi on the right. Further down a contingent of grey Koga was moving westward to fill the gap there.  

 So far Hojo army inflicted powerful blows on the allied force, but Ujiyasu's troops were not undamaged. Although they were still formidable if they remained stacked, they were bleeding by performing overruns and attacks.

 

-Turn5

 Hojo had attacked to the east, south and west, but suddenly Ujiyasu changed the direction of his offensive. Taking advantage of their high mobility, Ujiyasu's troops rushed to the north and broke the purple thin line of Ougigayatsu. 

 Some of Koga's army chased Ujiyasu and the others encircled the rest of the enemy units.

-Turn6

 Now Ujiyasu managed to make an opening on the northwest front. The desperate alliance started a battle of attrition, attacking no matter how low the odds were.

 But it was too late. Hojo did suffer some losses, but it was not enough for the anti-Hojo. With the support of the garrison force Ujiyasu fended off the counterattacks and secured the route between the castle and the northwest corner of the map. And finally, the game ended.

 Hojo's acquired VPs were 23 more than those of the anti-Hojo alliance, which means Hojo's victory. Ujiyasu won a bet and Kawagoe castle is relieved. Now the Hojo clan is rising ...

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If you are interested in the battle of Kawagoe, thankfully, Wikipedia has a lot of information in English:

Battle of Kawagoe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Kawagoe_Castle

Hojo Ujiyasu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dj%C5%8D_Ujiyasu

Hojo clan (also called as Later Hojo clan)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Later_H%C5%8Dj%C5%8D_clan

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"