Invasion!
An
Armies of Arcana
Battle Report
• Part 3 •


AND THEN FRUSTRATION SET IN

One of the samurai archers managed to survive the onslaught of the daemon.  However, realizing that he was too young to go and meet his ancestors, he bolted into the nearby rice paddy.

In the center, a unit of samurai entered the melee between the barbarians and peasants.  This was good (for the Samurai) because the peasants had taken some fearsome casualties, although they refused to run.

Realizing that the daemon must be stopped, the royal samurai charged the mighty and very, very angry creature, trapping him in the rice paddy.  The Titan moved up quickly, but didn't manage to make it into combat.  Instead, he started charging up his eldritch lighting bolts, and looked about for a target for their destructive power.

It was then that the daemon threw wrench into the works.  Growling the words of power, he cast the chaos spell "Confusion" on the Titan!  The beleaguered samurai wizard had insufficient power to dispel the spell, and, its eyes glazing over, the Titan began blasting the royal samurai with his lighting!

If that wasn't enough to discomfit the royal samurai, they now had to face the enraged barbarian berserkers as well.  This would turn out to be the epic engagement that would decide the battle.

On the other flank, the Barbarian commander's total inability to make any kind of assertive decision was beginning to tell in a bad way.

A large unit of samurai cavalry, late to the battlefield, was finally able to take its position on the battle line.  The ashigaru naginata-men had just retreated from their place in line, having taken heavy casualties from the barbarians' javelins, but the cavalry filled the gap quite nicely.  Meanwhile, the samurai and ashigaru archers continued to fire into the Barbarians, dropping them like the proverbial ducks in a pond.

Taking advantage in the Barbarians' confused state, the samurai cavalry charged, smashing first one unit, and then another, driving them back into the sea where the many of the Barbarians drowned attempting to swim to safety.  Having dealt with the invaders on this flank, the cavalry turned to their right and into the heaviest fighting.

The Barbarians realized that they must move forward now or lost everything.  One of the unit had snuck around through the woods to their left, coming out behind the rice paddies.  The only unit they had to contend with was the ashigaru archers who had their bows turned to toothpicks.  A fierce melee broke out as the skirmishing Barbarians attempted to overwhelm the ashigaru.

At first, the ashigaru held, but soon the superior numbers of the javelin armed Barbarians began to tell, the ashigaru fell back.

Back at the rice paddies, the royal samurai were holding their own quite well, in spite of being beset by the daemon, the berserkers, two barbarian heroes, and their own Titan!  Their ability to strike quickly, before the barbarians, was helping them stay alive, and they had even managed to reduce the daemon to a single remaining wound!  Still, with their confused Titan smashing into their backs, things did not look so good.  To add to their misery, the daemon had cast "Mark of Chaos" on himself and managed to grow some extra limbs to bash them with.

In the center, the peasant spearmen were finally wiped out to a man, as were the peasant warriors who had rejoined the fray.  The samurai in the center were inflicting serious casualties on the barbarian javelinmen causing them to break and flee back to the beach.


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