Ronin: Icchi Nakas and the Inn of the Shady Geisha

The bandit chief Icchi Nakas has been fencing his stolen goods through the Geisha Imafuku (a figure completely scratch built by me.  There is a paper clip frame under her milliput!)  The local Warlord has sent the Hatamoto Saiko Dai to sort this out by bringing Icchi's head back to the big fort.

I`m trying out Ronin, and discovering although its the predecessor to En Garde (a game I have played a lot) its quite subtly different.  

The Inn, also scratch built.  These are mostly 20mm Zvezda with some conversions from other manufacturers.

Icchi and his lads with the Geisha and her servant.  let's hope she doesn`t sing!

Saiko and the Warlords troops

Quite a few "missile troops" among the Warlords clan troops here.

The two mounted Samurai charge ahead, whilst the foot toil behind.  

Icchi mans the barricades, or in reality lines the fence

Run by horse attacks defended well by my yari armed bandit.

In a bold move Icchi leaps the fence and attacks directly, 

neatly avoiding the shooting that has already killed one bandit.  

He rolls a 4+5 plus his fight score of 3 (12)  

He is proficient with that katana and gets a further +1 (13)

The Arquebus armed Ashigaru rolls 2, adds his fight score of 2 (4) 

Icchi's score is over 6 more and the Ashiagru is killed outright.

The second Ashigaru arqubusier tries an attack, 

and Iccho has no defence counters haven taken 3 attack.  

The 4+1 plus a fight score of 2 is (7)

Icchi defends with a 5 plus his fight score of 3, (8) 

he is unharmed... but in the follow up he rolls two fives to the Ashigarus single 5 and kills him outright too, having removed the Arquebus men single handedly.

The Mounted Samurai sweeps past the Yari armed bandit and beheads him before jumping the fence. 

Into combat with Icchi, who wins the initiative and
uses a mighty blow to kill the mounted Samurai.

Midway through this fight I noticed the broken sword of one of my converted bandits. 
Still they carve up the last of the Warlord's swordsmen

Icchi takes on Saiko Dai, as a yari Samurai horseman attacks his rear.

But again Icchi is on form and its a bad day for Saiko,
who doesn't even have time to compose a last haiku.

Wounded by Saiko, Icchi turns on the Samurai horseman, and kills him, capturing the horse!  The bandits will probably eat it.

The last of the Warlord's Ashigaru runs for his life as the
bandits regroup.  Its a complete win for Icchi...

So the question is, how did I get on with Ronin.  I still prefer En Garde but this game has some mileage.  Turns out I have a lot of 20mm Samurai to paint up!  Actually when I did a rough count I realised that there are a couple of hundred unpainted figures here.  I may be better with "the Samurai who would be Shogun" variant than the much smaller Ronin  games.  Still I feel that I need to find a strong narrative to tie these Samurai games together.  A work in progress.