AAR: Yume no Bushi

I fell off the blog wagon again...

I've recently had a hankering for some medieval Japanese, skirmish-level gaming. For years, I've owned a light set of rules titled Song of Katana and Ninja by a fellow named Rich Jones. It is based out of Ganesha Games's Song of system, but had too many holes to be a viable platform.

Enter Yume no Bushi. This is the full-blown rules by Mr. Jones based on the aforementioned Song of system. It is a much more complete set of rules and allows you to play with both historical and fantastic Japanese units. It was produced in 2010 by Surf Shack Productions.

Mr. Jones has another system of rules for this period with the same name, but for 42mm miniatures.  While I have a copy of the rules, I haven't played them.

The AAR is actually two weeks worth of gaming. The first session featured my friend, Donnie, and me hashing out the rules and learning the system.  The second session included Terry, Jen, and myself.

Both sessions featured the same plot. Ninja have been hired to assassinate a local monk. The local lord has sent a small contingent of samurai to guard said monk at his temple compound.

Session 1 - July 11th

The first session was an even match in force sizes (60 points). I used ninja. Donnie was the samurai and monk.  These rules utilize some neat special abilities to capture the feel of different units. Samurai are harder to kill and can be very deadly. Ninja can be elusive and can confound their opponents with what we jokingly call "Handwavium"...basically mesmerizing their opponent with seemingly mystical hand movements.

The game table

Another angle

The temple

Ninjas close for the kill

The samurai converge

Long story short: The ninja were successful in slaying the monk, but at a cost of 2/3 of their forces. I was able to keep Donnie's force moving by using Ukemi, the ninja art of moving away from combat with acrobatic flair. There were several cinematic moments by both sides and we had a fun evening.

Session 2 - July 18th

This time, there were two clans of ninjas vying for the honor of killing the monk (poor guy). I played the samurai, while Terry and Jen both played ninja. I was doubled on points, although the monk did cut into that total. Having forgot my green table mat, this session occurred in the snowy Japanese winter.

I like this look better!

They're coming over the walls!

"I'll stop them!" (he didn't)

Target acquired...

Yeah, we can do that!

Long story short: This time around, the game became more of a slog. I was able to hold off both ninja factions for an extended time. The monk's plight was still "up in the air" when we called it for the night. Jen made effective use of both her shuriken and "Handwavium" skills, while Terry's poor dice rolls kept him from making too much of an impact. Again, there were some cool moments and the superior samurai armor made its presence felt a couple of times (to the ninjas' dismay)

Overall impressions of this rule set is that they are very serviceable for the time period, but you really have to utilize the special skills or risk becoming mired in the typical Song of slog. I'll be using these again with some of the more fantastic elements in my collection.