Making progress

Friday is battle-night, and we had our 3th Bushido game.
Luckily it went a little better and I actually had fun playing the game.
Getting butchered isn't really good for my morale and despite what everyone says about playing a game: 'it isn't fun'.

The photos were taken by Bram, and it was funny to see how the battle went from his perspective :).

We rolled out a scenario and ended up with 'the idols'.
It was a fun game, even though the outcome all came down to 2 die rolls.
The final result was a draw (1VP vs 1VP).
But the miniature of the match was no doubt my Gaki, who is able to cross the terrain quickly end get right where I needed him, his forg protecting him a few times or making sure he can do a surprise attack.

I won the Tactical roll for deployment and decided Bram should go first, so I could place my Wraith as far away from Miduro as possible.
The first turn saw a lot of movement and the first dice roll which determined the game, as Miduro shot Kato down with a single shot. Suddenly it was 38 vs 50 rice, this was going to be hard.

 

Before the end of turn 2, my Wraith was in combat with Hiro, it failed to dispose of him but also denied the Prefecture the idol with its large base.
My Gaki scored the first VP as I had turned the idol in the middle of the field, which was on top of the hill and hard to reach without light footed as the hills were considered difficult terrain.
The left side of the field was in big trouble, with only an armoured kairai and Shichiro to hold the position against Miduro, Hanzo and Akio.

Luckily my armoured kairai did hold out (going on full defense) for a long time against Akio, even Hanzo had to help Akio out to dispose of him :).
At the right side, my Wraith, Wrath and the Gaki stormed Matsu and Jin, with Hiro falling after a scuccesful strike of the Wraith.
When turn four ended, both Matsu and Jin had fallen too under the combined strikes of the trio and Taka turned the idol, neither of us scoring a VP as we both had turned a single remaining idol to friendly.
It was then the second determining die roll came. We both had turned an idol, and one should be removed. So we decided to roll it out. Bram won and picked of course the uncontested idol at the right side of the field. Leaving only the idol controlled by him on the left. We both knew the game was actually over as there was no way I could get there by the end of turn four and turn the idol.

This proved a right assumption when Miduro shot Shichiro in turn five and Akio positioning himself for a charge against the Wraith. My 'instill Wrath' failed two times in a row against Hanzo, so things were going wrong very fast.
In turn 6, when everything was lost anyway, I charged Akio with my Wraith to see how that would turn out. But despite strong, charge and sharp I only managed to cause a single wound and got struck down in return.

 

 

In the aftermath we discussed the game and I was perplexed by the fact Miduro only costs 5 rice.
I would have given him at least 6 or 7.
If I compare him to what I got for 5 rice this seems very, very cheap. Especially seeing how he shot down more than a triple (actually almost a quadruple) of his own rice with ease.
I had little choice but to cross that open field with Kato and poor Shichiro was even in cover when he was shot down. It was only the fog which denied him a 3th kill.
Reminds me on how I fared against Space Marines back in our WH40k days, they always seemed to have more options and be fairly cheap for what they got, like the second edition 'Graviton Gun' for example :).

Overall I think my warband handled itself well. Many of them had some kind of way to ignore difficult terrain, though Shichiro had to cut himself for it very single time, giving me an unexpected level of mobility.
Shichiro was more of an annoying factor with his knives being mostly ineffective, but still didn't do too badly in turning the left idol ;) and then making it onto the overgrown hill again.

The Wraith and Wrath tag team sure can hold itself and performed above my expectations.
If only my dice rolls would improve, ... 5 being the average roll for damage isn't funny after a while.
I'm still wondering if 'instill Wrath' is actually worth the ki or if Taka should just camp on it to release Wrath again when needed.
Perhaps I should have used the 'Breath of Yurei' at the start of the first round. It would have saved Kato but also made a lot of my force slow (together with the Prefecture).
Resulting in the fact I wouldn't have scored in the second round at all and created an entirely different game, depending on how long the Breath would have lasted.

We did some things wrong though, as light footed isn't helping against impassable terrain (it wouldn't have matter much though) and the kami don't count when outnumbering an opponent.
I also realize Jin could simply have walked away from the Wraith without problem (as he has no ZoC) and strike him from a distance with Matsu when she wasn't engaged yet.

Thank you for reading!