The Barbarians let out a blood curdling war cry and surged up off the beach and toward the ragged Samurai lines.  The samurai and ashigaru archers fired volley after volley of arrows into the oncoming warriors, and more than a few fell with colorfully fletched shafts protruding from their bodies, but the wave of enraged Barbarians kept coming.

As soon as they were within range, the led unit coming off the beach cast their javelins at the nearest unit, which turned out to be a group of peasants armed with little more than farm implements.  Several of the missiles struck home, and the farmers, in a group flashback, remembered that they had left the tea kettle on and turned for home!  A nearby samurai hero jumped into their midst and attempted to rally them, a feat he was only able to accomplish after they had fled back into the heart of the village.  This left only some peasant spearmen to hold off three times their number of Barbarians!

Meanwhile, the Barbarian advance on the left was attempting to cross the flooded rice paddies, and were only able to do so at a slow and belabored pace.  The deamon, thirsting for blood, flew over the head of the advancing berserkers and landed in the midst of the samurai archers who were valiantly holding the flank unassisted (the ashigaru archers had their bows turned into useless sticks by a spell from the daemon, and were currently milling about in confusion).  The samurai poured arrows into the charging beast, and managed to inflict three wounds on it before it began tearing into them with its giant sword and claws.

Things were looking bad on this flank for the Samurai.  They were heavily outnumbered, not counting the daemon, and reinforcements were only slowly making their way forward.  However, the Barbarians had to contend with the flooded rice paddies, leaving them only a narrow passage around the extreme flank in which to advance, and they had to break into skirmish order to do so.  This turned out to be a key element in the eventual outcome of the battle. . .

On the other flank, the Barbarians were suffering from an acute attack of indecisiveness that would end up costing them dearly.  The commander on this flank was loath to expose his troops to the deadly and accurate fire of the samurai and ashigaru archers, so he was having his men creep up slowly, taking advantage of what cover they could find.  This exposed his troops to an unending rain of missile fire that began to take its toll, as one unit and then another fell back to regroup in the face of increasing casualties.

It was then that the Barbarian commander made a gigantic, and fatal, mental leap:  He could engage the samurai in a missile duel!  This went on for a while, giving the samurai time to move up first a unit of 20 ashigaru with naginata, and then a large body of samurai cavalry to bolster this flank.  There was no way the Barbarians were breaking through on this side now.

In the center of the battlefield (upper left hand corner of this picture), the spear armed peasants had been bolstered by a hero who led them in a charge against the Barbarians.  Running through the rain of javelins, the peasants actually made it into contact with their superior foe in a kamikaze attack that would hold up the Barbarian advance in the center for a few crucial moments.

At the same time, the samurai archers had survived the first round of combat with the daemon, and had even managed to inflict another wound on the beast (Sho!)!  However, the Barbarian berserkers were coming up and would soon engage them, and the daemon was beginning to get mad. . .

The samurai wizard, unable to contribute much so far, managed to create a large, and quite pleasant pond to the right of the rice paddies, almost totally cutting off any advance on this flank!  If the Barbarians wanted to come around now, they would have to come up through the dense woods, which would take them quite some time.

The royal samurai, marching as fast as possible in their heavy and ornate armor, were itching to get into melee with the daemon, probably because they knew they were being backed by the Titan!  Boy, were they wrong. . .