Once again, Brian produced one of his heretofore unseen armies... this time one for Samurai warfare. Just as his Seven Years War armies were neatly painted and based, so were these Japanese contingents. We did note that the figures, purportedly 25mm in size, were of the "old" 25mm type... they were smaller than the current run of 25mm figures. Again, Brian and I faced Jeff Wiltrout and Fred Haub, and again, although the outcome was close, we came out second best. This encounter employed what I call one of Brian's "chip" game systems. The sequence for the entire bound was: a. Side A moves and fires its units, and selects "chips" b. Side B reacts by playing "chips" previously chosen c. Melee d. Side B moves and fires its units, and selects "chips" e. Side A reacts by playing "chips" previously chosen f. Melee In this sequence, note that each side reacts to the opposition by playing chips it has previously chosen in the preceding half-bound. The chips were, in essence, order tokens... there were chips for "fire", and "move, and "rally" etc., with each order having its own color chip. Since the chips were selected the half-bound prior to the one on which they were played, this forced the sides to anticipate their desired unit reactions ahead of time. My commander, I think his name was Yashuko, was permitted to hold 4 chips. Other commanders on the field could hold as many as 7 or 8 chips... hence their reaction, as compared to that of Yashuko's, was more diverse. Yashuko, with his 4 chips, could only react with 4 of his units. Cavalry units, 2-stands of 2-men each, were quite 'brittle', since a unit was destroyed when it took a number of hits equal to the number of men it contained. In contrast, there were several infantry units of 15 men each, requiring 15 hits before they were removed. I have to admit the troops all looked alike to me... although the other players present said there were warrior monks and ashigarus and wanka-wankas and nanni-nannis (and other strange-sounding troops) and, of course, peasants and Samurai. During the game, one of my spear-carrying units charged downhill into a unit of Fred Haub's. I thought my spear-carriers were Samurai, all ready for at least a "+1" in melee. Not so... the other table-side experts all took turns squinting at my men... "Can Samurai carry spears?" was the question of the day. Alas!, my boys were downgraded on the spot to ordinary spear-chuckers. And, of course, having been so insulted, my men lost the melee. Most of the time, when pre-selecting Yashuko's chips, I chose two red chips (for 'fire'), a green chip (for 'move'), and one blue chip. The blue chip, when played in melee, gave a unit a "+1" in the combat. The problem was that whenever I played a blue chip, my opponent would counter with one, sometimes two, of his own blue chips... remember that Yashuko was severely disadvantaged with his 4-chip limitation, whereas the other commanders could each hold 7 or 8 chips in the kitty. Whenever a unit won a melee, the commander won a black chip, which were special purpose tokens. A player with a black chip could essentially interrupt the sequence when desired, and play the black, plus any one of others, for instantaneous implementation. Thus he could announce, in the middle of the opposing side's movement phase, "I'm playing a black and a red chip", which enabled one of his archer units to fire instantaneously. Battle the First: Seven Years War Battle the Second: English Civil War Battle the Third: Samurai War Back to PW Review December 1997 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com