Baffling the single minded league!

Today, we did a Samurai Skirmish, as Ian had finished his armoured Tokugawa Samurai...

The Ikko-Ikki, not having any more figures painted, would be rather overfaced by the Samurai ranged against them, so we left them defending a village to concentrate their strength...

The village the Ikko-Ikki would defend...

The Ikko-Ikki, defending the village.

Ian was in command of the Samurai, and had a 'cunning plan'. Lawrence and me had forces of unarmoured Samurai and Ashigaru, obviously not having had opportunity to visit the local castle where the armour is stored, so were sent in first, to attempt to draw off some of the Ikko-Ikki from the village so the armoured troops could assault the village with weakened defences, our light forces were not to engage in combat with the monks.
I therefore deployed my force near the front of the village.

..Lawrence did likewise on the far side.

Lawrence got the monks attention with a volley of long ranged fire...which upset the peasants facing them, who charged out to engage!

I showed a line of Ashigaru spears to them, and the peasants facing me advanced to investigate.

Ian and Phil's force approached to my right, out of sight of the village.

One of Lawrences mounted Samurai advanced and got shot at from the village, so wisely withdrew.

In the village, the main body of monks came out to investigate...

Lawrence withdrew his Ashigaru as ordered, to draw them on.

The peasants, now supported by Warrior Monks, probed the woods in front of Lawrence.

While all this was going on, I set an ambush against the curiously reticent Ikko-Ikki.

Ian and Phil were now nearly ready to attack the village.

Apart from the Ikko-Ikki commander, almost the whole monk force was pursuing Lawrence.

..who was feeling rather overfaced!

Feeling rather less than overfaced by the peasants facing me, I detatched my missile troops to join Phils firing line...

...our firing at long range though, was less than spectacular!

Opposite me, the peasants assaulted my troops bravely, but were butchered.

Phil's arquebusiers on the ridge were attacked by their targets!

But as on my side, the peasants fled!

Some arquebusiers from the village turned from pursuing Lawrence to face the massed Samurai, but were screened from shooting by their own sides routers.

The cavalry from Phil's force galloped through the village and attacked them!

Lawrences cavalry, meanwhile, had to gallop hard to avoid the attacking Ikko-Ikki!

..but their brave defence allowed the infantry to reach a defensible hill.

Seeing the Samurai cavalry struggling in the battle with the Ikko-Ikki missile troops (they were poor quality samurai), I hurried to assist them.

Lawrence reached the hill safely, and dismounted his Samurai.

My naginata men began chopping up the missile troops fighting the cavalry, so my other men moved to support Lawrence.

..who was facing the main body of warrior monks alone.

Ian's massed armoured force, meanwhile, had entered the town and were attacked by the Ikko-Ikki commander and his bodyguard.

Despite fiercely fighting, the Ikko-Ikki commander died beneath the sword of a Samurai, along with most of his men.

The missile troops in the town were finally overwhelmed.

..and fled.

The death of the Ikko-Ikki commander, and the advance of the Samurai from the village, finally persuaded the warrior monks facing Lawrence to leave the battlefield.

Victory was ours!

The game was not as bloody as most of our Samurai games, mainly because most of the warrior monks were running round the battlefield instead of fighting!
The Ikko-Ikki were being run by one of my solo systems, and as it was designed for an attacking force, was very vulnerable to players baiting the defending troops of the town out.

I think in future, I will give a defending force a perimeter to defend, where troops that cross the perimeter will immediately fall back to the village the turn after. This might make the defenders more difficult to defeat!