Takeda campaign

[zyxophoj]

Winter 1536


Mori has a huge stack in Wakasa. It's time for the first big battle.
I also invade Kaga with a few CA. I have no chance of winning; I intend to kill some monks and then retreat.


Reinforcements finally get to buzen. Time to hit Nagato.

In other news, a horse dojo is finished in Shinano.

Nagato
502 vs 458


They deploy sideways. Their general is the one on top of the hill. I'm trying to get my CA behind them.


My first good look at the enemy. They have turned to face me but the units are in the same relative positions... which leaves the ashigaru general a little bit exposed.


It had to happen. Massive chain rout happened while I was deciding on my next move.


This marks the first appearance of my yari cavalry on the battlefield. They did OK.



Wakasa
I have 656 vs Mori's 689.

I did not do a good job of getting screenshots here, probably because the enemy caught me with my pants down.
I sent out scouts and found an ashigaru general unit hiding in the trees. I decided to deal with him first, then go look for the rest of the army. So I sent my army over that way.


Suddenly, hundreds of enemies emerge from the trees! My scouts must be pretty blind to fail to notice 600 men camped in the forest.
My army is in complete disarray. I send my yari samurai in to try and stop the tide, and run some cavalry around the back.
My only chance now is to focus all archer fire on the enemy ashigaru general, which is stupidly out in front.


It routs.


... and the army collapses in a chain reaction spreading out from the centre.


I can't believe I got away with that.


Kaga
I have 251 vs 714. Lets see how many monks I can kill.


They have enough archers to make this annoying. Still, some monks have been seperated from the main group.


Oops. These guys are paralysed by immovable terrain. They are trying to skirmish but they can't move back. It might have been possible to save them by taking them off skirmish, but I didn't realise what the problem was until too late.
The monks wipe out the entire unit, leaving a big streak of corpses on the edge of the rock. Not a good start.


Taisho unit comes out to play. He's a rank 4 general, so it really would be nice to kill him.


That didn't quite work out the way I planned it, and the monk general is still alive.


Spring 1537


With the big garrison in Nagato taken care of, it's time to hit Mori hard. Reinforcements will soon arrive through the port.
My triumphant return to Aki is close.


Uesugi is trapped. I'm also making a very opportunistic attack in Tajima. If I win that one, I can reinforce through the port and hit Mori just about everywhere.

Iwami
I attack with 220 vs Mori's 180.


They are all archers, and all hiding in the trees. This could be tricky. My cavalry archers will not win a shooting match against all of them at once.


"Oh, hi there. Listen, I can see you guys are busy shooting at those horse dudes, so just ignore us and carry on doing what you're doing. We are totally not going to stab you in the back"


They move forward a bit... Once they're out in the open, the cavalry hits. This results in a mass rout, and I'm not really sure why. Killed 179, lost 15, pillaged 225.

Tajima
Mori grabbed Wakasa back this turn so there is no possibility of retreat. He reinforces this province with 120 men.
Can 58 CA beat 120 YS?


This battle is a benny-hill-esque chase around the map, with me shooting up the enemy taisho the whole time. Eventually, it routs, but I don't have enough arrows to do the same to the other unit.


So I hit the routers in the back. Once the taisho dies, the other unit routs. A good thing, too, as they were getting very close.


..and the cavalry chases them all down as is standard procedure. 125 koku pillaged.

Rebels retreat at Ise.

Echizen
I attack with 640 men. I am up aginst the entire Uesugi army - all 889 of them.


Enemy sighted. They are almost entirely archers. My own archers run to take up good shooting positions.


On the left side, yaris charge down on either side of this truly stupidly deployed archer unit. Cav archers also hit it in the side. (That's their side, and my front)


On the right, my cavalry sweeps round to try to hit them in the back. More YS will take care of the front.


They are routing at both sides now. I stop the cavalry from chasing the routers on the right and hit the centre.


Lord Uesugi's first battle with Takeda is also his last.


Also, 525 koku pillaged. Uesugi is gone and what's left in the castle goes rebel.


Summary
Last 2 seasons were pretty busy. Killed 2119, lost 364. Uesugi is gone and Mori is badly hurt. Oda has next to nothing left (I have Mori to thank for that)
Oh, and Satsuma just built some cavalry archers.


Let the reaping begin!

[zyxophoj]

heh, the AI and their love of ashigaru/archer armies never gets old.

Just like their love of ashigaru generals. I've been lucky to see some extreme AI stupidity recently.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Once again demonstrating how useful mastery of the cavalry archer is, well done. Have fun with kaga, those battles are always my favorite.

[zyxophoj]

Autumn 1537

Shingen will go after Mori while the daimyo deals with Oda.
The invasion to the west continues, and it's feeling like mop-up. Mori is mostly retreating without a fight

A ninja kills my emissary! I'm surprised he lasted this long - one of the advantages of killing Imagawa off on the second turn, I suppose.



Yamashiro
I had 298 vs 154, so I thought this was going to be easy.


Oda has mostly archers.


My cavalry goes for the front. This is dumb, I should have waited to get the yaris into position.


The yari cavalry took heavy losses when they tried to fight uphill. I bring the daimyo round the back of the enemy.
Yaris arrive and give the archers a hard time.


Oda charges himself into Takeda's back. Hey, that's my trick! It's very effective: the bodyguards are almost all down and a tiny enemy force is holding off my yaris.


Eventually the yaris hack their way through to Oda.


Takeda extricates himself and Oda is mobbed. I should probably put my archers on "hold fire".
Eventually, Oda falls but there is no victory screen.


I lose on time limit. Oda denies me a victory by hiding 9 ashigaru in some trees. He wins the battle but loses the war, as he has no heir.

Tamba
Mori retreats to Kawachi. He is rapidly running out of provinces to retreat to.

Winter 1537

A ninja tries to asassinate Takeda Shingen. Guess what happened next.

This time we will take the emperor's province for sure! Sure enough, they retreat without a fight and the emperor backs the Takeda clan!



Spring 1538

Attackers pour into Kawachi. I can fit all the action into one picture now.


Kawachi


If I were smart, I'd have grabbed this first to avoid having to deal with Mori in a river province.


Yari cavalry goes across first. It is chased by the daimyo and some spears.


A second cavalry unit gets across. The first one loops back, and it is just visible in the background.


With the archers... distracted, infantry runs across the bridge. A tiny yari unit is giving me some trouble.


Mori tries to block the bridge, but his yaris rout. The cavalry behind them might have had something to do with that.


Not bad at all for a bridge attack.

Kii

60 vs 240? Sure, why not?


1 archer group, and 3 ashigaru. I shoot at the nearest ashi, hoping to rout it.


Eventually, it goes.


I let it go and take aim at the next group.


Once all 3 groups are running, I get behind them and chase.


A few of them escape off the edge of the map. there's no castle so they will disappear anyway.
All that remains is the archers... Pretty soon, they go into loose formation. I charge, they die.




Autumn 1538

Mori retreated to Sanuki. He has nowhere else to run.

[patdj]

By Masamune's Swords! You are really finishing this off before 1540!

[Sasaki Kojiro]

236:6 eh

I wonder if crippling the Shimazu actually helped you out. Ideally you would have hurt them just enough that they would have been equal strength to the mori...made for an interesting campaign though.

[zyxophoj]

By Masamune's Swords! You are really finishing this off before 1540!

It's looking that way. I took a lot of risks at the beginning and it seems to have paid off. There are two big rebel armies that could still act as major speedbumps.

[zyxophoj]

Autumn 1538


Time to finish Mori.


They deploy strangely. I go for the high ground.


Archers get a bit too close. I whack them with cavalry and then pul back.


That could have gone better. My cavalry is getting tangled up in enemy spears and a mass rout is imminent.


Come back and fight, you cowards!
My big mistake here was sending in the cavalry before my infantry was in position to support them.


My routing cavalry easily outruns the pursuing enemies. Once they are far enough away, they rally. The tides turn as the pursuers find themselves surrounded.
Mori is fighing some cavalry archers. I send yaris in after him.


What's left of Mori's army is easily mopped up.
Mori himself is proving rather resilient.


Once Mori dies, it's all over.


Etchu


Monks from Kaga invade Etchu. I have been leaving small garrisons next to Kaga in the hope of tempting them. They just took the bait.


I deploy on a ridge and wait. Soon enough, monks arrive and I start shooting them full of arrows.


This will be a lot easier if I can kill that rank 4 general.
I manage to get his unit down to one man, but then I have to move back as yaris advance.


I've lost one CA unit - it got trapped between a YS and a YA and died horribly.
But the rest of the advancing spears are routing now. I chase them down.


Chasing routers has taken my archers a long way from the monks.
As they make their way back, enemy units attack one by one. They've been watching to many Bruce Lee movies, I think.
My YS unit is doing a great job tiring the monks out.


My cavalry is exhausted and wavering but they manage one last charge.
I dodge these spears and hit the enemy general. He dies instantly, and everything else routs.


The monks have taken massive losses.


Average harvest and very good pillaging income, mostly thanks to Mori.

[zyxophoj]

Winter 1538


With the garrison weakened, it's time to take Kaga. Forces invade from all neighbouring provinces.

On the other side of the map, Shimazu is next. Shingen will take care of him while the daimyo marches into Awa.

Iyo
I attack with 773 vs Shimazu's 877.


Such cowardice... the army just walks off the map. Half of them pile into the castle and the rest disappear.

Awa
The tiny garrison retreats without a fight.

Noto
The rebels invaded Noto with 120 archers. They are easily dealt with (killed 120, lost 1) by the large force there, but this does prevent those soldiers from attacking Kaga.

Kaga

We will go ahead without the reinforcements from Noto.


Thanks to their speed, the monks attack first.


One monk unit is running; the other will follow soon.


Some monks find their way to the back of my yaris. Ouch. foot archers are firing over their heads into the ashigaru general's unit.


At least these archers are easy to deal with. With the archers gone, the rest of the rebels have no defence against my horse archers.


The taisho routs and is run down.


The cavalry is exhausted and a bit mangled by monks which routed through them. But they got the job done.

Spring 1539

Here's what we're up against in Tosa.


There's a few more in the castle, too. I can't help but notice that the rebels shouldn't be able to build kensai without a bigger castle.


Since Shimazu was helpful enough to build a port in Iyo, everything in Iyo can attack the rebels, while reinforcements arrive by sea to continue the siege.
I attack with 1138 vs 884.


Cavalry archers begin the harassment. The main targets are those high-honour no-dachi.


They fire off their arrows and then withdraw. The rebels just stand there and take it.
But when I bring the rest of my army up, the four kensais attack!


All my Yaris are now fighting kensais. They do massive damage.


The no-dachis attack next. Those that survive the hail of arrows find themselves surrounded, and they pay the price for their horrible defence.

Hurry up and die, you ridiculous overpowered 1-man unit! This is the last kensai left.


The rebels are getting desperate now. Their reinforcements are arriving but it's mostly ashigaru. I'm starting to worry about the time limit.


The remnants of the rebels hide in the trees. My yaris are depleted and very tired, so I'm also committing my archers to the melee to finish this.
The taisho waves his giant red balloon defiantly while the rest of his army runs.


That might have gone a bit easier if I remembered that I brought reinforcements, too.

Summer 1538
In just 9 years, the Takeda clan has gained control of every province in Japan.
Rather annoyingly, even when the win condition is "Take every province of Japan", you still have to kill off all the other clans.


The garrison here is "about to fall", thanks to Shimazu's cowardice. So I click on "End turn" to win the game.


It looks like the game resolves sieges before advancing the date counter, so I get to call this a win in Summer 1539.

[Thermal]

That last post must have took the better part of the day! all of japan in less than 10 years, amazing fights too, i eagerly await another AAR, perhaps on a different total war game, your the most relentless player here i think.

[patdj]

Congratulations. Perectly done, perfectly described. You have my deep admiration.

[zyxophoj]

Congratulations. Perectly done, perfectly described. You have my deep admiration.

Thanks a lot, although I'm not sure about "perfectly done". I made several mistakes, both on the strategic map and on the battlefield. I tend to get sloppy towards the end of a campaign, because I have functionally unlimited reserves and the enemy doesn't.

all of japan in less than 10 years.

I am now convinced that it's possible to win in 9 years. (That would be 36 turns. I used 37).

I'll probably slow down a bit next time round. There are a lot of fun units that I never got to use: heavy cavalry, naginata cavalry, battlefield ninja, nodachi... because I was trying to win as fast as possible and I just didn't have time for them.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Nicely done. Kensai are always a pain, it's cool that your last battle came down to the wire though.

I know what you mean about the fun units--I'm considering playing my next campaign with the restriction of no Yari Samurai, no Samurai archers, no Monks, and no Naginata Cavalry as those are the four best units imo. Might try Oda 1550.

[Wishazu]

Nicely done If I was a Fuedal Lord in 16th century Japan I would definitely have you leading my cavalry into battle.

[ReluctantSamurai]

Aye......very well done. Especially the battles where you could've thrown in the towel when your troops began to rout, but stuck with it to eventually turn the tide.

Bravo

[Adam99]

Congratulations, a most imprssive campaign and a brilliant tuterial in how to use Samurai cavalry.

[Drisos]

Better late than never: Very impressive and fun to read.! Thanks!