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Yesterday, I played my first game of Ronin, a skirmish game published by Osprey and based around Samurai era Japan. It's a fairly straightforward set of rules, no experience tables or levelling up involved.

The rulebook is available from Amazon for about 1500 yen and contains faction lists for:
Bushi - Samurai and/or Ashigaru.
Ikko-Ikki - Religiously inspired peasants and fanatics.
Sohei - Warrior monks.
Koryu - Martial artists.
Bandits - Pirates, Ne'er-do-wells and the like.
Koreans - Warriors from the Korean army.
Ming Chinese - Warriors from the Chinese army.
Peasants - An army of peasants and Ronin.

There are also rules for adding Ninja and Ronin to some forces. On the Osprey website they have rules for Oni if that appeals and the author has released rules for a mythical faction.

The biggest difference between this game and other skirmish games is the combat system. Each model has a 'combat pool' or CP. This governs how powerful the model is in combat. Each time models are engaged in combat, players select counters for attack and defence. To make an attack, a model must give up an attack counter. (Defending is automatic).

A standard attack is:
2d6 + Attacker's Fight attribute VS. 1d6 + Defender's Fight attribute + Armour.

If a model has extra attack counters it can use them to make additional attacks OR to boost their attacks. Likewise defence counters can be used to boost the defence roll.

If both sides boost their rolls:
3d6 (discard the lowest) + Attacker's Fight attribute VS. 2d6 + Defender's Fight attribute + Armour.
Counters can also be spent to boost your initiative, allowing you to strike first. Ganging up on an enemy model allows you to combine your CP and allocate attack and defence counters as you go.

Overall, it is a nice little system and fills up an hour or two without taxing your brain with a pile of complex rules.

I plan to paint up a couple of smallish forces for the game and play when the opportunity presents itself.

As Prim probably knows, I have the Ronin rules and 4 of the factions (a really good post free deal from Northstar about the time of release..they do the same for other osprey games such as the new pirate themed game). So I hope to be playing in future. The rules sound interesting.

I've had an idea for my own samurai project for some time - I've been watching old Kurosawa movies again, I specifically want to make a Seven Samurai themed game using the Koryu set which are clearly based on the characters from the movie. Add 40 or so bandits to give them a hard time, some peasants with bamboo spears to bolster the good guys, a bit of sarissa scenery and I reckon that'll do it. I will most likely start a thread detailing progress and a bit of research when I start off (by which I mean, game relevant notes made whilst watching the movie with a beer in one hand).

Lovejoy wrote:As Prim probably knows, I have the Ronin rules and 4 of the factions (a really good post free deal from Northstar about the time of release..they do the same for other osprey games such as the new pirate themed game).

My only complaint with Northstar is that they don't offer any models except the 4 starting factions, so you can't buy extras or any of the other factions in the game. Half-hearted support for a variety of systems doesn't do anyone any favours as people will A) start shopping elsewhere or B) change to a game where all of the minis are available. Their minis look really nice and the starter deals are pretty good, but (IMHO), they could do a lot more than a quick cash-in.

The models in their starters have all been great, but it does seem like they're trying scatter gun style to blast away at the market and see what hits, rather than seriously supporting one game. No problem for Ronin though, the Perry's make great stuff too.