Sengoku Jidai Home page

Sengoku Jidai is a wargaming campaign currently being played at the Nunawading Wargames Association in Melbourne Australia.

Each player represents a notable clan of the Sengoku Jidai (trans.Age of the country at war). A period of intense conflict and clan rivalry which finally concluded with the unification of Japan under the Shogunate of the Tokugawa clan in 1615AD. Each player strives to eliminate its opponents and claim the title of Shogun! The battles are played using wargaming miniatures and the very popular rule set De Bellis Antiquitatis with some slight modifications to bring it into the renaissance period ie. post 1542 AD.

If you are interested in running this campaign at your local club, please contact me. I can provide updated rules, advice and better quality images for use in the campaign (bigger maps!). neil_hughes@optusnet.com.au

Here are the updated rules (updated as I iron out the bugs) rules.htm Updated 14th June 2005!

Neil (Takeda) campaign moderator a.k.a. "The supreme being" , Tom (Imagawa), Jon (Hojo), Richard (Uesugi), Julian (Shimazu) & Nick (Mori)

The stage is set for the dramatic climax of the Sengoku Jidai campaign. Two armies of the Northern Alliance, one Hojo, one Takeda stand on the field of battle in Yamashiro province in the shadow of the nation's capital Kyoto waiting for the forces of the Shimazu.

With three Shimazu armies bearing down on their position, with possible support from Imagawa forces and little chance of allied armies breaking through the wall of fortresses built by the Imagawa surrounding the capital, their position looks grim.

In the last turn of the campaign the Shimazu player has rolled the dice of fame and fortune. If he wins then Japan is his. However should he be defeated the loss of prestige will lead to a Takeda campaign victory by the narrowest of margins.

The final resolution of the Sengoku Jidai campaign. This campaign which has lasted throughout the year came to a close with the final clash between the two powerhouse alliances of Japan. The powerful Shimazu - Imagawa allaince with Daimyo Julian at the helm ably assisted by Tom the Daimyo of the Imagawa were poised to claim the shogunate and unite all of Japan under one leader. Facing their huge armies were the forces of the Takeda and Hojo out numbered but still determined to frustrate the Shimazu and possible claim an unlikely points victory in the campaign. The night began with furious manuevering as the Shimazu/imagawa moved into Kyoto province to attack the two Takeda and Hojo armies, while the remaining Hojo and Takeda forces sort to engage other Shimazu and Imagawa armies to prevent them reinforcing the looming battle in Kyoto. In the end the Takeda and Hojo forces faced off against 3 Shimazu armies and 1 Imagawa force.

Julian commanded the centre with two Shimazu armies. Richard from the Uesugi had managed to conduct a perilous journey from his besieged castle to command the Shimazu left wing while Tom commanded the right wing with his Imagawa forces.

The Takeda Daiymo Neil was forced to command both his own forces and the Hojo as Jon the Hojo Daimyo had consumed copious amounts of saki the night before and was too ill to fight. The Takeda/Hojo deployed in the centre of the field around a small copse of trees resting the left flank on some rough ground and waited for the onslaught.

The Takeda's fate looked sealed but the Takeda had one plan and the benefit of choosing the site of the battle. The battle field was strewn with rough ground on both sides of the field. Rough ground had been throughout the campaign the bane of the Takeda Knights and would seem to play to the advantage of the Shimazu shot heavy armies. The Takeda had but one chance, to strike at the Shimazu General , demoralise his army and claim an unlikely victory. To achieve this the Takeda had secretly engaged the services of the Ninja which had hidden themselves in ambush among the rough ground on the field. Unfortunately some fool in the Takeda forces had spoken of the plan with his concubine who had turned out to be a Shimazu spy so the knowledge of the presence of Ninja was known to Julian before battle commenced.

Julian the Shimazu Daimyo in the centre launches his attack assisted by the Imagawa (Tom on the left) and the Usesugi (Richard on the right).

The Drums beat and the massive forced of the Shimazu marched forward. The Takeda did nothing but waited watching their movements. The Shimazu general marched past some rough ground when suddenly the ninja sprang from concealed pits in the ground and launched themselves at the Daimyo body guard forcing them to turn and defend their leader with the Daimyo himself in the fray. Caught by surprise and in a position where retreat would have killed them, the Shimazu general fought for his life. It all came down to one dice roll if the Ninja succeeded then the Shimazu general would be killed and his army totally demoralised would have been defeated giving a campaign victory on points to the Takeda, if he survived then he could continue with his battle plan to annihilate the Takeda and Hojo.

The die was cast and the result................ A Shimazu victory. Dead ninja lay all around him along with some of his bodygaurd who had sold themselves dearly for their leader.

Julian breathed a huge sigh of relief and continued onwards. Neil the Takeda leader knew his one chance had failed.

The Shimazu force marched into open fields across the valley between the two armies. The Takeda Knights formed for a charge in the centre. Seeing this and wary of the power the Takeda cavalry has weilded in past battles their armies paused as they consolidated the knights of two Shimazu armies and the Imagawa to meet the Takeda head on. The resulting clash was a one sided affair with the once proud horse of the Takeda crushed. The Daimyo general was finally cut off from his army and despite a body of Takeda shot coming to his assistance was eventually cut down. The takeda army fled the field after seeing their leader fall and the Hojo realising the pointlessness of their position retired as well leaving the Shimazu victors and Julian Shogun of Japan!

The surprise arrival outside the Imperial city of Kyoto of the Takeda and Hojo armies was only a temporary set back. By the end of May 1562, Kyoto was encircled by a ring of fortresses and friendly armies and the Shimazu were ready to finish the war. Shimazu spies reliably informed their Daimyo of what plans the enemy had and thatthe Takeda Shingen was employing Ninja.

While diversionary attacks were made against Takeda territory, an unprecedented four armies (three Shimazu, one Imagawa) marched on the capitol. The presence of the Imagawa allied army was unexpected, but welcome. Facing this overwhelming might were one Takeda army and one Hojo. For the first time in the campaign the Takeda began a battle outnumbered in heavy cavalry, although the Shimazu and Imagawa horse began too spread out to take advantage of their numbers.

The initial advance seemd to be going well enough when a body of troops rushed down from a scrubby hill towards the Daimyou of the Shimazu. It was initially thought that these must be local volunteers come to reinforce the new Shogun, but when fighting broke out between these troops and the Shimazu's bodyguard it was apparent that these men must be Ninja hired by Takeda Shingen. Rallying his cavalry the Shimazu Daimyo lead a charge that crushed the Ninja before they could retire to the broken ground where they had attacked from.

Following the almost disasterous attack on their Commander in Chief, the Shimazu forces began to reorganise. The 3rd army shielded the Hojo forces on the left, the Imagawa began to outflank the Takeda on the right while the 1st and 5th armies amassed their cavalry in the centre to meet Takeda Shingen's veteran heavy cavalry. Supported by musketeers, Takeda opened the fighting by riding down a unit of Imagawa matchlockmen and then following up into more Imagawa foot. Takeda Shingen himself charged into the Shimazu and Imagawa heavy cavalry and while he and his bodyguard drove back the Shimazu horse to their front, the units to his left and right were overhwhelmed by superior numbers and destroyed. A charge by the 3rd Army's cavalry (who had dashed across the field) mowed down the supporting Takeda musketeers leaving Takeda Shingen cut-off from his now demoralised army. Fighting to the bitter end, the Takeda Shingen was finally cut down by Shimazu Heavy cavaly.

With the head their ambitious ally impaled on a stake and paraded before his troops, the Hojo commander had terms dictated to him for the surrender of his now hopelessly outnumbered army. The leaderless Takeda territories would be divided up amongst the Imagawa and Uesugi; The Hojo (now reduced to two armies) was have to return all occupied Uesugi and Takeda land to the Uesugi, return to their pre-civil war borders and divorce his Imperial Wife."

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And so it was all over for 2005. Japan had been united. The campaign had proved a great success and it was something I , as moderator had had a great time running. The other players had secretly organised a little award as a thankyou for the campaign which was a terrific gesture and the award now sits proudly on my desk at home. I hope the trophy I have planned for Julian will be as good.

Julian (Shimazu) CAMPAIGN REVIEW
The Sengouk Jidai campaign is very well balanced without having a bland "all players begin equal" uniformity. Hojo and Mori begin with the dual advantages of only facing 2 oponents each and being on the mainland, while Shimazu must risk naval crossings in order to get on the mainland. At the other end of the scale, Imagawa begins in contact with all but the Hojo and could be overwhelmed quite easily at the beginning of the game if he lacks diplomatic skills. Swapping 2 Imagawa provinces with 2 Mori would result in Imagawa and Mori on the same footing as Takeda and Uesugi.

At the tactical level, there are more problems. The Shot elements are too powerful in the rough going due to their quick-kill abilities against heavy foot while not being affected themselves; In this respect the Shimazu player with 4 shot elements enjoys an advantage. The Knight elements, however, are too powerful in good going as they quick-kill everything on the battlefield except other knights; as the Takeda has twice as many kinghts as the other armies he can ride down all oposition so long as he chooses the terrain. On occasion, some battles felt as though there were was too much reliance on dice rolls - more so than with normal DBA.

The event cards provided an excellent period feel and seemed to work in a way that hurt the players who were on top, although they could just as easily have finished off those who were in dificulty (Mori surfs to mind). The ability of these cards to remove a player from the campaign does seem a little harsh and could easily be toned down. More options for the Spy cards (change the order of movement for example) and Ninja (help to capture fortresses instead of eliminating players from a campaign) would be good but not essential.

The diplomatic rules need to clarrify the abilities of players to exchange territory and cards and at what stage treachery may occur, otherwise the free-wheeling nature works well. It was interesting in the last campaign the way some of the alliances worked out, and I look forward to discussing with the others what their motivations were - spite, revenge, loyalty, naked ambition…

All-in-all an excellent campaign and one that I would recommend to anyone who can get together with five friends.

Richard (Uesugi)

A couple of disastrous early defeats, for which there is no one to blame but myself, put the Uesugi clan into a weakened position from which it was never able to recover militarily. In particular, losing an army early on due to being cut off from retreat meant that we were not able to hold off the relentless Hojo onslaught. Speaking of which... the despicable unprovoked attack on our territories by the Hojo, no doubt encouraged by his erstwhile ally the Takeda, pushed the Uesugi into the Southern Alliance with the Shimazu and Imagawa.

From then on, it was apparent that the Uesugi had little hope of attaining the Shogunate. Our purpose then became twofold: firstly, assisting the cause of the Shimazu in acquiring the ultimate power, and secondly, belting the Hojo back to the Stone Age!

The immediate imperative however, was clearly survival. Hopefully, our impact on the diplomatic front belay our military significance. We always acted in support of the Shimazu, and encouraged other clans to be resolute in their resistance to the Tadeka/Hojo juggernaut. Every opportunity was taken to drive a wedge between these two and split the alliance, but - to their credit - the alliance remained strong right up to their final defeat...ahem. I also learned to beware of offers of assistance from clans who proposed alliance, then left skid marks in their haste to get away from the Tadeka armies.

The luck of the Uesugi seemed to change toward the end of the campaign. It seemed that the greater the odds, the greater the victories achieved by our illustrious army. This included a defeat of an eighteen strong Tadeka/Hojo army by a ten element strong Uesugi army in defence of the Uesugi capital for the very existence of the Uesugi clan!

Several defeats such as this seemed to take the bottle out of the Hojo offensive against us. In the end peace terms were negotiated that ensured the survival of the Uesugi, including an alliance with the Hojo! In fact, the Hojo were so concerned for our safety, they maintained two armies in the field close to our capital containing our one remaining army. This alliance had the added bonus of seriously p!@#$%^ing off the Tadeka, whose cause admittedly would have been best served by the destruction of the Uesugi, thus eliminating any threat from the North.

In the end, Tadeka pressure was too much to bear, and the Hojo treacherously broke our alliance and attacked our capital yet again. I was most disappointed with the Hojo - clearly a string of defeats at our hands was insufficient fodder and a reminder was needed of why we were still in the game. This battle was not fought however due to events that had transpired outside Kyoto.

The one regret I have of the campaign is that the Uesugi army was absent from the final great battle of Kyoto. Fortunately, a Useusgi general was able to be dispatched to lead a wing of the Shimazu army to assist the Shimazu achieve final victory over the Tadeka and the treacherous Hojo. The peace terms as stated by the new Shogun have vindicated our strategy of survival and ensured our existence into the future when the Uesugi will be great again.

The campaign had worked well. as you can see from Julian's review the two areas of improvement was in the knight and shot elements and the initial allocation of provinces. I would recommend anyone planning on playing this campaign to consider making a few alterations to the clan map. As for the rules for knights and shot, I would suggest either reverting back to standard post mongol samurai DBA list and set the campaign before the arrival of gunpowder or alternatively employ the rules for lancers and shot from DBR or make up your own lists. They other thing I would suggest is decrease the number of armies each player has, probably down to two to start with and then increase the number of provinces required to get another army as we had a lot of armies in this game which did fatigue players if they had to fight a few battles in a night and also to give players who have an early run of bad luck a chance to get back in the game. As it stood the Mori and Uesugi had some bad early losses that they could never recover from as the Takeda , Hojo and Shimazu got stronger too quickly gaining extra armies so that any later victories particularly achieved by the Uesugi were only delaying their inevitable destruction.

They may be some later updates to this sight if I feel like changing the rules to reflect some of the suggestions above and I want to add a links page to some samurai resources on the web.

No wait don't go ... stay tuned for our new campaign for 2006! Friends, Romans, Countrymen! The last days of the Republic. The dictator Sulla is dead and the Senate struggles for control of Rome's vast expanding empire. A new website coming soon!

Clan	Total
Shimazu	314
Takeda	275
Hojo	233
Imagawa	171
Uesugi	81
Mori	45