Ronin: Skirmish Wargames in the Age of the Samurai (Osprey Wargames, 4)

OverviewRonin is a set of skirmish rules for miniature battles in 16th century feudal Japan. Models represent individuals that move and fight independently; there is no unit/squad structure as in some ‘skirmish’ games like Saga. Each player controls a force, or Buntai, of between 4 and 20 figures. Ronin is historically accurate, with a few cinematic elements from classics like the Seven Samurai. It stops short of the over-the-top action from movies like 13 Assassins, but it would be easy enough to add some of those elements to the game with house rules.The starter sets from North Star are 200 points and consist of 8-10 figures. A small 100 pt battle can be fought to completion in 30 minutes on a 2′ x 2′. The recommended size for a standard 200pt game is 3′ x 3′ and should not take more than an hour.FormatThe rules are available in both pdf and softback. Production values are great for the price – the softback is $13 on Amazon. I am not a big fan of the cover, but there is a decent selection of Osprey art on the interior. My one real complaint is with the layout. New army lists start an inch from the bottom of pages, and new rule sections begin without any real breaks or delineation. With the wide selection of art available to Osprey, it seems like they could have structured things a little better.Force ListsArmy lists are provided for a wide variety of forces. Bushi, Bandits, Warrior-Monks, Martial-Arts schools, and even Peasants. Each of these can add extra figures from the Swords-for-Hire section like Ronin or Ninjas. The types of models available to each list are drastically different. A Bushi list can choose to have nothing but Samurai, each of whom are at least as skilled as the commander of a Bandit list! The lists detail the troop types available as well as options for their equipments and abilities. The forces have unique special rules, morale levels, and methods of earning/losing victory points.The composition rules could be a little clearer. For some lists, they felt like logic problems: the number of rank 1 and rank 2 figures must be greater than the number of rank 3 or higher figures, if any rank 1 or 2 figures are included. (I’m pretty sure that is a quote from one of the six bullet points on Bushi forces.)The inclusion of lists for other time periods was a nice touch. If you want to fight battles with Mongols, Koreans, or later Westernized Japanese forces you have everything you need. Rules are given for special training and equipment available in those periods.GameplayThe sequence of play is divided into five phases: Priority, Movement, Combat, Action, and End.Priority Phase – Initiative is determined, and morale checks are taken when necessary.Movement Phase – Players alternate moving or shooting with each of their models.Combat Phase – Each melee is resolved. Players alternate choosing which battles to fight.Action Phase – Models are allowed to shoot again and take other miscellaneous actions like reloading, looting, and resting.End Phase – Models check to see if they recover from being stunned.Movement, morale, and shooting are similar to most games.Alternating one figure at a time instead of one player doing all of their moves and attacks before the other makes for good interaction.Non-killing wounds are possible on the lowliest peasant, but even the mightiest samurai can be struck down by one lucky strike.Melee is a back and forth strike, parry, counterstrike between the engaged models. (see below)The most unique aspect of Ronin is the use of attack and defense chits to resolve melee. Models get between one and seven combat chits based on their skill level and special abilities. These can be used to increase the chance to strike first, make attacks, or parry. Deciding which chits to use is a neat twist. When the combatants are both very low level it often boils down to each making a single attack like in other games, but skilled fighters can decide between playing it safe or attempting to make multiple attacks.Other StuffIn addition to the rules and army lists, the book contains a selection of scenarios, basic campaign mechanics, and recommendations for tournament games. The scenarios are pretty basic, but have good flavor. My favorite pits one force against a band of Ninja assasins whose sole aim is to kill their commander. The campaign section isn’t very robust, but is a decent starting place. I expect to see homebrew ideas springing up online.RecapThis is not a set of rules that would be worth picking up for background material or historical information. The book is very bare bones. If you are interested in that aspect, pick up one of Osprey’s traditional books on the period.Overall, the rules are concise and well written. You can be ready to play in just a few minutes, and it is very easy to teach to new players. I don’t think Ronin is a game that will inspire many people to buy and paint minis, but if you have some old lead laying around I’d highly recommend grabbing a copy. The small cost in money and time is well worth it to have an excuse to blow the dust off your samurai and get them on the table a few times.

While I am not a fan of OSPREY Wargames, as they have sold the industry for decades that they are a resource and not competition... this is a quality game. The book does have some miniature photos from Northstar, and is not recycled Osprey art. However do not expect much in the way of history.Along the lines of Mordheim and Zombie-A-Go-Go, it is a true skirmish game in the sense that each character is a unique individual. They are not part of units or groupings, however, each army list does apply some of the traditional "You need X amount of grunts before you can have an officer". So very much like a streamlined sense of Mordheim there, with even a similar feeling roster for your group.In the game itself is a hybrid of traditional games like Mordheim, and more action oriented games like Starship Troopers and Zombie-A-Go-Go. You have a Combat Pool for each character that you reveal as Attack or Defense buffs when it is your turn. This is one of the things that makes the game interesting, though it can be bizzare as you can shoot at a second point in the game, and the actions only split apart like this in the combat phase.This is not a game you will buy and run out to purchase miniatures for - ideally it is one to re-purpose your existing historical Samurai and fantasy Clan War figures. If you do need miniatures, Wargames Factory has cheap Samurai by the box of 25, or Northstar has them in 200 point bands of 6 to 12 figures.While a 200 point force is small and takes an hour, and runs on a 3x3 board that scales by point level. If you take all Samurai you can get about 6 figures, however if you work in Ashigaru, you can field around 8 figures including about 3 Samurai for a more balanced force. While the focuse is on the middle period of Samurai, the end of the book includes charts to adapt for early Samurai and even the later "Last Samurai" Edo period.It is also good for a multiplayer game. I plan to use this as a Convention game where I place a Dragon or Oni on the board and allow several players to engage the enemy I control that takes wounds equivalent to their combine force. This is a good way for cooperative play or to cycle in and out players. A fantasy supplement is talked about for next year, and it is easy enough in the meantime to replace fireballs with Matchlocks and so forth.Several people I know refer to this as "Clan Wars LITE". We feel that it can successfully handle 20-30 figures a side for larger battles to replace Clan War. Many people in my club got into that, but were never able to afford proper sized armies before the game went away. So this is a way to use those incomplete armies as little warbands, where a blister of 4 Clan Wars figures of a certain unit type now become a little fighting group, and so forth. Obviously this will is about an 800 point game, but looks very satisfying as the rules are simple and streamlined enough to keep the personal feel that Knight/Samurai games should have.I have certainly felt inspired to paint up my Samurai and make a few buildings, even though the original book never made it in the mail and I had to get a copy from another source.

Ronin: Skrimish Wargames in the Age of Japan is the first Osprey Wargaming ruleset I purchased and it captivated me!The ruleset covers the age of Samurai in the Sengoku Jidai period. There's brief mention of the Edo period, as well as the Satsuma Rebellion at the edge of the book. Don't let that deceive you. The main focus is all about Samurai, not the end of their way of life and practices. Ronin delivers a fast-paced game-play with an unique approach to personally customizing your own buntai (team or squad) with the benefits or losses of different weapons, armor, and optional features. Not only that, the ruleset offers you six factions with specialized units, and seven types of basic scenarios to start you and your friends with. It also includes a concise but small section explaining progression of your buntai in a campaign a la Necromunda. When I mentioned Necromunda, it was about the basis of "gaining experience points and then investing them into your gangers"; except the experience points are invested into the buntai's rank progression system, further improving and strengthening the selected samurai in the buntai roster. Lastly, if you are looking for an excellent resource pool to gather the Buntai roster list, counters, and a campaign supplement called the Kenshin Ryu Scrolls, you are in great luck: https://ospreypublishing.com/gaming-resources/Huzzah for Osprey Publishing!To sum it up, this book got me intrigued. I plan on browsing Wargames Factory and Perry Miniatures to find me two different factions with one buntai and start playing! On a unrelated note, you should check out YouTube where there's some coverage of Ronin by players to show how fast-paced and brutal the game can be.

Ronin is descirbed as a skirmish wargame, but the complexity of the combat really limits the number of combatants. Anything more than a dozen figures would take far too long to resolve, meaning this game is best used for small duels.Like the other Osprey blue book wargames this is beautifully presented, with nice clear text and plenty of illustrations to set the mood. There is a brief introduction to the setting and some of the weapons, which seems a bit wasted as its far too complicated to explain in a few pages. Although set in 16th century Japan, allowing for early firearms, the rules could easily be adapted to a later or earlier period.The key to this rules system is a bidding mechanic of attack and defence. Depending on how skilled your units are you have a larger pool to use to bid for more attack or more defence dice. This makes for some interesting tactical choices, but having to resolve this mechanic for every fight makes combat very slow to resolve.I've seen some sample videos of gameplay on You Tube which suggests to me that this is one of those games which benefits those who are prepared to put the most into it. If you are willing to spend the time researching the setting and designing story led scenarios it could be a lot of fun. However if you are hoping to pick up and play with little effort put in you may be disappointed.

These are a very good set of skirmish rules for the late Sengoku Jidai, with advice to allow you to take it back to the Kamakura period and forward to the Late Edo (both Boshin War and Satsuma Rebellion). It is reasonably detailed without being overly anal about it. My only complaint about the rules is that they should have had a better proof-reader - the typesetter appears to have relied on a computer spell/grammar checker. Some rules refer you to other parts of the text for explanation without a cross reference page or to a section that does not have it's own heading.Have had one practice game already. The combats are fairly fast, but can get bloody very quickly!

Had so much fun playing this. Bought wargames factory Samurais especially and then used their persions bodies for peasents, looked great! Killed the enemy diamyo with my bow...kicked my openents butt, I never win but this game actually accounted for tactics which is refreshing compared to GW etc with their fairy magic nonsense I can never get a grip of

It's ok. While the genre is one of my absolute favourites, and the book has some interesting information about the period, the rules are just a bit meh...they are ok, nothing spectacular, and I know of at least two superior skirmish rules for the same period so I'll not be using these again.

a fast and easy set of rules you can get into without having to paint a shedload of figs