STW War Story VI

One of the Horde

Dear noble lords of Hojo. I am Miyoshi Tadayoshi, reporting the progress of our campaign in year 1541.

Spring 1541

Wakasa Hojo 1034 Miyoshi Tadayoshi (R4)
Oda 830 Kitabatake Hidehisa (R0)

The first battle of the season is to attack Wakasa, led by myself! We are fully aware of that Oda Nobuhide might be there waiting for us, but we will need to face him sooner or later. The flat ground of Wakasa gives both sides quite equal advantage on the battlefield, so it will go down to the level of tactics. Hmm... Oh! Our spy reported that Oda Nobuhide has left Wakasa to Omi. Perfect chance!
Without Oda Nobuhide, the men of Oda is now stretched in a long, single line formation with their large number of archers. A frontal assault will surely cause heavy loss on us. So how about we approach the enemy from their left (our right?)
The enemy stayed still until we were very close their left flank. Our archers are ready to shoot and distract the attention of the rest of the enemy, and our yari samurai and yari ashigaru are ready for the flanking action!
Here it goes! With swift action of our yari ashigaru, the plan goes well and the enemy's thin left flank has little resistance facing the Hojo horde. Now we should pursue to the center!
Oda's left flank has fallen into chaos! Immediately I assigned one unit of yari ashigaru to pursue - while the others keep marching to the center. The enemy's line was stretched too long and cannot react in time.
Soon the enemy taisho was isolated, surrounded and killed!
The rest of Oda's men were handled with ease. Our yari ashigaru had a great time of hunting down the fleeing Oda's samurai!
A great victory it was. Wakasa is ours now!

Summer 1541

So our next target goes down to Omi, defended by Oda Nobuhide himself. The invasion is of course commanded by the best general in the clan, Hojo Ujiyasu, the heir of Hojo!
Omi Hojo 1025 Hojo Ujiyasu (R5)
Oda 994 Oda Nobuhide (R3)
The Oda again adapts a long line formation, a mix with its archers, yari samurai, yari ashigaru, and yari cavalry. Just to play  it safe, Hojo Ujiyasu stretched out his men in two lines, first line with samurai archers, and the second line a mixture of yari samurai and yari ashigaru.
Oda Nobuhide marched his men to the mountain on the right! But our fine archers should be able to shoot him down! Hojo Ujiyasu turned the formation 45 degree to the right, and the archers marching forward, starting to pour arrows on the enemy. The yari troops march forward in the coverage of their comrades!
The two army engaged! Our formation was stretched out even wider than Oda, and was able to have local numerical advantage of 2 unit versus 1 on the two flanks because Oda Nobuhide has concentrated most of his men on the center, doing nothing. Realizing his big mistake, Lord Oda charged down the mountain and directly run into our archers. Hojo Ujiyasu immediately ordered the archers to surround Lord Oda at all cost, while the yari ashigaru should be back taking care of Lord Oda!
Surrounded by 200+ men of Hojo, lord Oda's men depleted and himself got killed. The entire Oda army has fallen into chaos!
It was another great victory of Hojo! Oda Nobuhide is dead, and his brother, Oda Nobuhiro takes over the clan!

Autumn 1541

Omi is ours, and now we can see Iga is not heavily garrisoned by Oda. We should grab this good chance to take its large castle!

So Hojo Ujiyasu, the competent heir of Hojo was assigned of this action again.

The siege of Omi castle is then taken over by Lord Hojo himself.
Iga Hojo 416 Hojo Ujiyasu (R5)
Oda 308 Akechi Sadayoshi (R0)

The assault of Iga was not a large-scaled one. Hojo Ujiyasu only brought with him 2 groups of archers, one yari samurai and one yari ashigaru.

The enemy was found to be hidden in the forest on the top of the central hill.

Making his way to the enemy's right, Hojo Ujiyasu now suffers less height disadvantage and can now surround the enemy from three different directions!
After some intense fight in the forest, the enemy archers were soon repelled out of the high ground woods.

Hojo's men chased after!

The enemy directly retreated out of the battlefield, and ended up in the large castle of Iga-Ueno.

Iga is ours, too!
My lord! The peasants were doing a poor job this year and we only had half as much of harvest as expected!

We will need to stop the building upgrades and put more budge for army recruit this year...

 

The winter has passed. Oda Nobuhiro has arrived in Tamba, maybe ready for the revenge. I, Miyoshi Tadayoshi, shall defend the Wakasa province against any invasion from Oda.

Omi castle is going to fall soon, while Iga castle might take much longer. A castle assault might be needed soon... But Yamato is a tempting target for an assault...

The first level of farm upgrades have been done! We are expecting a much better harvest in the coming year.

So that concludes year 1541. Two great victories have allowed us to push Oda back to the western Kinki area. The ronin forces in Ise and Yamashiro have been keeping a peaceful relationship with Oda, so we will need to crush them eventually. But should we aim for Oda first?