Mongols and Samurai

At the end of last year Nick procured himself a beautifully painted Samurai army.
So, not unusually, Ross was eager to kill them.
In early January we assembled at Ross' place as Nick's new Samurai took the field against Ross' hordes of Ghengis Khan. With every unit equipped with some sort of bow, the bowfire was intense and blocked out the sun- and to quote an ancient Spartan- the battle was 'fought in the shade'.
I sided with Nick while Ralph and Richard joined the horde.

The armies- Mongols to the left, Samurai to the right.

Both Nick and I decided to be advocates of the 'attach the general" school of wargaming. So the CinC and his two subordinates were attached to the charging samurai...like any good samurai commander they led from the front.

And in our rules if the unit takes hits, the generals have to roll to see if they become casualties:
2-7 is no effect.
8-10 is a wound, with the second becoming cumulative until he expires. 
And 11-12 the man is dead. 
I've been gaming with Nick for  years and he loves his five and sixes. So when his general was involved in a melee and the unit took casualties we had to roll two dice. Nick rolled double 6.
Ouch. 
One dead general- by game turn 3. 

Game turn four- a subordinate general attached to another unit also had to roll. Double 6. 

Game turn six, repeat. WTF??????????????????????

I give up. 
Nick's ability to throw double 6 is legendary- but this time it didn't help. 
In fact it lost us the game. Thanks a lot Nick.
Each command collapsed after the loss of the general. 

The Samurai cavalry on the left wing.

I'd like to be able to laud the fighting prowess of the Samurai, my thoughtful advice to Nick for deployment, Nick's much admired dice throwing ability (despite the fact that he killed off all our generals) and our outstanding generalship on the day.

Sadly, with the exception of Nick's dice throwing, which really didn't help anyway, none of the others applied and the Samurai failed to stop Ghengis' rampaging swarms. The Samurai did fight well....but it wasn't our day.....we were hoping that perhaps mother nature could step in with a tsunami??...it's happened before you know!

Nick put his lovely army back into its armoured carrier box.....and we both threatened to burn Ross' house down....BANZAI!

Lines of Samurai

Samurai cavalry

The Mongol light cavalry.

Mongol Heavies.

Mongol Heavies.

The samurai charge forward.

Exchange of bowfire.

Melee- despite their vaunted bravery, the Japanese came off second best.

Samurai cavalry charge the Chinese auxiliaries

Charge!

The swirling melee on the Japanese right.

Big cavalry melee.

The samurai being outflanked, out shot and out fought.

The samurai in trouble,

The moment after the death of the CinC.

The last melee.....it was pretty much all over by now. All the Samurai generals were dead.....and the army was disintegrating.