Siege of Haengju Play-Test - Success!

Well even with multiple last minute player cancellations, the game still managed to go off with two players. Pat L. and fellow expat Hawaiian James (Kimo) showed up to give it a go. James is a former White Rock Gamer from Vancouver, B.C. He now lives a few miles away from me - he was an Infantry platoon leader in Vietnam and a member of the local chapter 407 of the Military Order of the Purple Heart. This was James' first time playing Hail Caesar, but got into the flow very quickly. Pat chose to run the besieging Japanese and James ran the defending Koreans. At the top of Turn 1, Pat ordered his three divisions to turn to their left with the objective of assaulting the flank of the defended position. His first division commander failed his command roll and basically bottle-necked the rest of his two divisions who had successful rolls.

Three Japanese divisions attempting to march to their left for an assault - the division on the far left failing to achieve this initial move stymieing the overall army maneuver.

The Koreans followed suit by attempting to shadow the Japanese's movements. James actually rolling a 12 for a Blunder with the first of his three division. He subsequently rolled a 1 on this D6 Blunder test and gained a casualty for one of his units in that division. This is a result from a simplified Blunder table for the game. Turn 2 had the Japanese deciding to move towards the defenders with some long range missile fire - not all of which were successful as the barricades provided covering saves.

Japanese at Turn 2 moving forward towards the defenders; having decided it wasn't worth the effort to attack the far right flank of the defenders. Pat changed his strategy a couple times in the game - from cautious to more, shall we say "Samurai-ish" as the game wore on

Turn 3 allowed the Japanese to move up closer, with not too much worries from the poor missile fire from the defending Koreans. Ming Chinese and Korean cavalry were allowed to attempt to enter the fray on the Korean's Turn 3, but failed their command roll to come on. In fact, they never were successful to enter the battle for the entire game of 6 Turns. This actually is historical as they never appeared at the actual battle.

Turn 4 with the Japanese moving ever so much closer

View from the rear of the overall Japanese army commander

By Turn 5, the some Japanese units were able to charge the outer barricades and defeat a unit of Korean defenders, thereby allowing them to move into the outer defense works. The Koreans did manage to destroy an Ashigaru unit or two in the process though. The Korean's Victory Condition was either to destroy 50% of the Japanese or keep them out of the upper level of the fortress.

A Samurai unit has entered the outer barricade area after defeating the defending unit in combat. An Ashigaru unit had been destroyed previously

Another view of the close combat going in inside of the Korean's outer defense work. This is historically accurate, as the Japanese did indeed manage to break into the outer defenses.

The top of Turn 6 had a Samurai unit enter the top tier of the defenses after wining their round of combat. The victory condition for the Japanese was to have one of their units reached the inner/topmost portion of the defensive position and retaining it at the end of Turn 6. This they did and the Japanese were declared victorious - unlike the historical battle which ended in severe casualties and defeat for them.

A unit of Samurai inside of the inner defense work at Turn 6 - retaining it until the end of the Turn and thereby achieving Victory for the Japanese.

Both James and Pat agreed it was a fun game and should work very well at the convention next month with little or no modification to the rules as is. The one thing that could've added a lot of friction would've been if the Ming and Korean cavalry were able to enter the game and cause some trouble to the attackers. It was suggested to leave them out of the game completely, but I plan to leave them, but maybe allow them to come at Turn 4 - contingent upon a successful command roll.

LATE ADDENDUM - here are copies of the rules used for this scenario, one each for the Japanese and Koreans: