Yoshimoto’s Very Bad Day – Daimyō Army List

I’m working on a variant of Tilly’s Very Bad Day called Yoshimoto’s Very Bad Day. I don’t have any figures so an obvious question is, what do I have to buy? And that leads us straight to … what is the army list? This post outlines the generic Japanese army list for the draft rules.

The word daimyō means “great name”, and originally denoted a large landowner. During the Sengoku Jidai (the Warring States period, 1467–1615) it came to mean something sharper: an independent regional warlord. Earlier provincial governors had held their authority as servants of the central shogun; the Sengoku daimyō held his by force. He raised armies, levied taxes, and fought near-constant wars to defend and enlarge his domain — and his legitimacy rested on nothing more distant than that. It came from the sword: from his power to conquer, hold his borders, and keep order within his own provinces.

Daimyō Army List

For large battles, c.1560–1615. The daimyō army is built on ashigaru, with samurai supplying the stiffening rather than the mass. Its backbone is Yari+Teppō (Pike+Shot); around that core the list allows specialist Teppō (Shot), Yari (Pike), and Taihō (Cannon). Superior all-samurai units are available too, but they remain the exception, not the rule.

Choose an army size of 10 to 36 units depending on the historical context and game size. Both sides get the same Number of Units. The Game Size is either small or big. A Small Game will have about 10-18 units a side on a small table. A Big Game will have about 19-40 units a side on a big table. Agree the specific size of each army in number of units.

There is one Daimyō Army List, although there are eastern and western variations. An army:

• Must have one Sō-taishō (C-in-C) or Honjin (Headquarters)
• Must have one Taishō (Commander) for each Te (command) in the army (wing or battle)
• Can have up to two Taihō (Cannon)
• Can have up to four Zōhyō (Rabble)
• Can have up to six Teppō (Shot)¹ (can be Inferior, Ordinary and/or Superior²)
• Must have at least two and can have up to four Superior² Kiba Yari (Lancer Cavalry) (only eastern armies³)
• Can have up to two Superior² Kiba Teppō (Shot Cavalry) (only western armies³)
• Can have up to two Superior² Kachiba (Dragoons) (only western armies³)
• Must have Yari+Teppō (Pike+Shot) and/or Yari (Pike) to fill up the numbers (either can be Inferior, Ordinary and/or Superior²)

Notes:
(1) The Yari (Pike) rule applies: In armies of this period men with Yari outnumbered shooters the Teppō and/or Yumi. So if specialist Teppō units are taken, there must be at least the same number of specialist Yari units.

(2) The Samurai rule applies: For every Superior unit present in the army, there must be three Inferior units. This represents concentrating precious Samurai into high-impact units by deliberately diluting the quality of others. Remember, Samurai are not an “arm”, they are a quality modifier:

• Inferior: Entirely Ashigaru units
• Ordinary: Mixed unit with about 65-80% Ashigaru and the rest Samurai
• Superior: Units made up entirely of Samurai and their retainers

(3) When Sengoku sources and modern historians refer to “eastern” and “western” Japan, they are not describing the archipelago’s islands but two contrasting military worlds on Honshū, shaped by political gravity, economic density, command culture, and the main routes of war. The east, centred on the Kantō sphere and provinces such as Kai and Echigo, tended to favour mobility, shock action, mounted samurai traditions, and smaller, tightly controlled power bases. The west and centre, focused on the Kinai and Chūbu regions around Kyoto and Osaka, developed armies built on mass infantry, organisation, logistics, and increasingly firearms, drawing on greater population density and administrative resources. These were tendencies rather than rigid rules, but they produced recognisably different styles of warfare that make “eastern” and “western” armies a useful and historically defensible distinction for the tabletop.

Buying an Army with Koku

Koku are introduced to allow greater balance between opposing armies even when the component units differ in number and quality. In these rules, koku represent military value and domain capacity, not literal rice stipends. An army is purchased with 40 to 160 koku, corresponding to the 10 to 40 units of the basic rules. Use the same army list whether using number of units or koku.

Agree the domain assessment for each army in koku. Assign each side:

• 40–72 koku for a small game
• 73–160 koku for a big game

Unit costs are:

• Raw units cost 2 koku including all Zōhyō (Rabble) and Taihō (Cannon)
• Inferior units cost 3 koku
• Ordinary units cost 4 koku including Sō-taishō (C-in-C), Honjin (Headquarters) and Taishō (Commander)
• Superior units cost 5 koku