Shogun Saturday

I've had a mild Shogun jones in the back of my head for quite some time. Seeing Tony's copy at one of the games days kind of brought it to the fore. I'd been toying with the idea of trying to get some guys together to play when I got an invite from Chris to come play at his place. It appeared that he had been grabbed by the nostalgia ninja also.

After an impressive array of e-mails and e-vites (Chris is pretty good at taking the reins organizing these things) the idea coalesced into a group of nine players meeting at Chris's house for an afternoon of MB Gamemastery. We convened around eleven, and split into a four player and a five player.

I ended up getting to crack the old copy of Shogun that I traded from CL several years ago. I was at the four player table, with Gare, Kurt, and Bart (sp?-honestly, I hadn't met him before, and I'm not sure I'm remembering his name correctly...). It was a good group of gamers, and I was feeling optimistic about the session ahead (about the social/fun aspect anyway - I wasn't too confident about the game, as I know Gare and Kurt are formidable opponents, and Bart looked pretty serious).

Our setup was decent, with fairly well defined areas of control for each of us, if we only would solidify them... Kurt was on one side of the board, and Gare on the other (in the islands), with Bart in the middle on Kurt's side, and me in the middle on Gare's side. It looked to me like Bart and I were in trouble, so we kind of circumstantially aggreed to avoid attacking each other at the beginning, so that we wouldn't have to fight a two front war. We mostly spent the first turn consolidating territory. One odd thing was that everyone built a castle on the first turn, except me. Even odder was that Gare chose to put his on the mainland, at the rear of the area that looked like what I needed to work to control. This meant that I had to put a lot of work into taking the fortress on my first turn, if I wanted to solidify things, which, of course, I did. A few turns later Gare, who had never played before, lamented that he should have put the fortress on his island.

The second turn things started to get interesting, with Kurt and Bart really going at it on their front. I was still really trying to consolidate some territory, after spending resources on taking Gare's fortress on the first turn. Things really got going in the middle, with Bart losing two armies and Kurt losing one. On my side, Gare moved an army up into the middle of my territory, and another up into the western (southern?) part. I eliminated the latter army.

The third turn, I think, Bart lost his last army in an attack on one of Kurt's. I'm not sure, but I think he might have decided his chances were slim, and he'd rather get off the table. Either that, or he thought he could only win with a big gamble right there. Anyway, that changed the game. Gare and I made an agreement to shift our focus toward Kurt, who had inherited all of Bart's territories and units. I took one army north, to attack from the sea, another south, to do the same thing on the other side, and left the other in place in the middle, as it was behind Gare's. Gare moved his army forward, through my territory and into Kurt's.

The next turn, Kurt took the first sword and ninja, and eliminated the army Gare had moved toward his territory. At this point, Gare seemed to have a change of heart about ganging up on Kurt, and decided to attack my rear rather than taking his army around by sea. I was in a position to hustle most of my armies back, though, and shifted my focus to wiping out Gare's last army. I moved all three of mine to positions that would allow me to pin his in place. Gare tried to assassinate one of the Daimyos, but failed. My revenge attempt failed as well.

The next turn, realising the opportunity to end the game was in front of me, I spent three to take the first sword, bought some units and hired some ronin. Kurt outbid me on the ninja, though, so I had to split the ronin up between the two armies that would definitely attack Gare's this round. As expected, Kurt used the ninja to assassinate the Daimyo, and succeeded. That left it to the other army, and it's ronin, versus Gare's army and it's fortress. A pretty even fight, I think. I rolled terribly with first round ranged, not hitting once in six chances. I had better luck with my ground troups, though, hitting with six out of eight. We kept at it for a couple rounds, until it ws just his Daimyo vs. my Daimyo and a swordsman, and my Daimyo cut his down. Inheriting his territories gave me about 43, I think, and we called the game.

Overall, it was a great day. Excellent hosting by Chris and Edie including tasty cheese sanwiches. Kurt brought Japanese beer to add flavor. I've never had Sapporo before, and I really liked it. We had a nice table of friendly, thoughtful gamers to play with, and the tense conclusion really added something, especially for me, of course, pulling out the win. Like any game with elimination, I felt a little bad for the guys that got taken out of the game(s) early. In the end, though, I think I agree with the idea that, although these long, elimination wargames aren't for every night, they provide an exciting and engagin alternative experience that can be enjoyed on a semi-regular basis. Now, I'm really encouraged to redouble my efforts to get Warrior Knights on the table...

GG, GL