Battle of Ichi no Tani - "Fix Bayonets!" Game Day 9/18/10

Played two, yes two, back-to-back games using the Ichi no Tani scenario today at Fort Steilacoom. This was a one-day gaming event that some of the Fort's historical society members hosted. They are avid gamers as well. It was held in Quarters Number 2 which housed the Fort's commander back in the mid-1800's.

The games went very well and only a couple of minor tweaks were added. Thanks mainly to our buddy Bruce D. who chose to do some heroic, if out of the normal box, tactics. In the first game he chose to stay inside the camp and locked in combat with Minamoto attackers. No attempt to flee to the ships was made and this first game ended rather quickly after most of the Taira were killed off inside the camp.

We all decided to play another round; this time tweaking the victory points a bit to give the Taira more of an incentive to flee out to sea, rather than stay put in their camp and be overwhelmed. The players, all regular gaming buddies, switched sides for the second game. Mark and Joe W. became the defenders and Bruce D. and Ted H. were now the Minamoto in attack mode.

Here are some photos - mostly from the second game.

As may be evident in the last several photos, the defenders wisely chose to head for their boats to put out to sea. However, the Minamoto, through aggressive tactics and lucky dice rolls, ended up commandeering two of the Taira boats before the Taira could reach them. The Minamoto used these boats to attack the larger Taira ship. The game ended with the Minamoto closely beating the Taira in victory points. The Taira managed to kill off most of the mounted Minamoto samurai, as well as their allied Sohei.

I was remiss to take photos of all of the other games going on during the first and second period. I only managed to snap a couple in the first period - Wes' and Dale's. In the second period, I played a WW2 skirmish game based on Ste Mere Eglise. This was hosted by two of the historical society members  - Damond C. and Lawrence B. I played some US paratroopers and managed to hold onto the church - which was my objective.

All in all it was a nice time spent with fellow gamers and in a nice setting. We hope to do this annually. We actually tried to get Lawrence to have night time game there and maybe a ghost walk. He had told us, after some prodding, that the place is haunted and had experienced some stuff there before. I believe him.

ADDENDUM:
Photos of other games which were taken by my buddy Adrian (stolen off of the Puyallup (War)gamer's Yahoo Group:

There were several other games going on, and if photos appear of those, I'll try to post them here too.