That Samurai Game–Play Test Summary

Aim: To evaluate some of the essential mechanics of the game.

Situation: A RED force comprised of three contingents, with limited cavalry and ashigaru. A BLUE force, with three contingents, with a stronger cavalry emphasis but also with teppo armed ashigaru. The field was an 8 x 8 square grid, with a river cutting across approximately centrally and ahill to one side.

Events: As a test game, the main purpose here was not to simulate an historical event, but to provide a forum for testing some of the main game mechanisms. including but not limited to:

• the movement rules: Were the movement point values roughly right? Did the mechanism for dealing with obstacles and terrain make sense? was it easy to implement?
• the combat rules: Are the attack values currently used on the blocks reasonable? Did the CRT produce reasonable results? Was the general mechanic easy and smooth to implement? Did the break and cohesion mechanics work well? 
• the use of the action cards: Was it fairly straightforward to select action cards from the draw deck each turn? Was a draw deck size of approximately 50 points suitable? Were there enough of each card type available when building the draw deck? 
• the process of countering: Was it straightforward? Did it encourage weighing the benefits of countering versus the cost of sacrificing an order card?

Summary of Results: The BLUE force took an early advantage when the cavalry contingent on the right flank moved swiftly to engage a smaller and less well-trained RED force ashigaru contingent. The only hiccup was an ‘Unexpected Terrain’ stratagem played by RED to disrupt the cavalry movement. BLUE also began to advance the cavalry contingent on its left flank, but this was very quickly stalled when RED played one of his two Gambits, ‘Treacherous General’. Given the significance of this gambit, both sides played high value cards in the ensuing Counter, with RED wining and taking control of the treacherous BLUE contingent. This forced BLUE to commit his centre contingent to engaging the traitors and gave RED time to counter BLUE’s initial cavalry charge and to begin an advance of his own. Interestingly, the battle swung back towards BLUE because of tighter card management. RED, suffering from a bit of hand planning disarray, ended up with very few useful orders and cards of low value, and BLUE was able to support some of his units more effectively in melee. So, all in all, it ended with BLUE once more in the ascendency.                                                                                    

   

Evaluation:

• Movement worked quite well. No real changes necessary at this stage. Obstacles have the effect of disrupting units, which reflects disturbing their formation and coherence. It feels about right–only a small amount of damage–and is very easy to implement. 
• Combat was, in the main, fine, with a few exceptions. The range of attack values is probably too large. The numbers reflect quality, but a range of 1 to 10 is probably a bit of a stretch and it had the effect of making shifts for unit type on the CRT less significant. Quality should produce about the same magnitude as the most significant difference in units types, which means a range of 1 to 5 at the most. The CRT itself worked reasonably well, but units were reduced and broke very quickly, which indicates that the cohesion rating on the units are a little small. They could probably be doubled. Breaking was simple without being too simplistic. The effect of a breaking unit on other adjacent units wasn’t really tested, but this will need to be tweaked to reflect any change in the cohesion rating. Otherwise, combat was very straightforward, requiring reference to only three tables in total.
• The action cards need some cleaning up. They don’t reflect the evolution of the rules since they were produced, and they are too wordy. In addition, several of the stratagems don’t really work, including “A Leader’s Prayer”, which is too powerful and should probably just cause a shift on the CRT. Several stratagems are now gambits. Choosing cards at the end of each turn wasn’t hard at all once the game got into swing. However, selecting cards for both their orders and stratagems wasn’t as easy as just selecting for orders, and I found myself purely selecting orders and maybe one targetted stratagem. Consolidation of orders should be done. For example, HALT is unnecessary: It simply costs an action to remove a MOVE from a unit, signified by discarding one card held in the hand; ENGAGE and FIRE could be combined; If a unit is moved into an enemy unit’s square, the player moving the unit should probably be allowed to immediately halt the unit; I also haven’t really considered what happens when a contingent under a standing order has another order given to a unit within that contingent. One issue with the cards is what to do when a player reaches the end of his deck. Do both player’s reshuffle, or only one? Maybe it depends on the particular goal of a player.
• I really like countering. It is simple, it introduces a degree of uncertainty and guesswork, and it forces a player to make choices about whether or not to preserve his hand. More trials are needed, but at the moment countering seems like a very elegant way to introduce dynamics into a game that has no randomness.