The banner pole is worn where Hatamoto Taro grips it, polished smooth by nearly 13 years of battle. He has carried it so long, it now feels like an extension of his arm. Of his very self.

Gazing out at the battlefield from his perch on the hill, he watches a scene he can still scarcely believe is real. A mass of insectoid warriors charges down to meet the enemy, their carapaces flashing emerald in the sun. They crash into a host of twisted cyborgs, emaciated amalgamations of flesh and metal capped by grinning, fleshless skulls. In the sky above, undead revenants swoop and wheel on tattered wings, diving down to wreak havoc amid Taro’s troops.

Sometimes, Taro thinks he has died and gone to hell—how else to explain the pandemonium of Valhalla? But no hell he’s ever heard of has demons the likes of these.

The crack and boom of arquebus fire snaps him back to attention. A pack of the undead Kyrie dives into the ashigaru arquebusiers on the right flank, rending through their ranks. Swiftly, he orders the samurai he has kept in reserve to counterattack. They drive the ghouls back, giving the gunners time to escape. But more revenants swoop down to join the fight, threatening to overwhelm the samurai with their ferocity.

“Hold!” Taro yells, gripping the standard of his lord Einar as the revenants rain blows upon his hand-picked warriors. Drawing his ancestral katana with his free hand, he wades into the fray himself. Slowly, methodically, the samurai begin to turn the tide, fighting with disciplined fury. Some fall, but as they do others seamlessly take their place in the wall of flashing steel. At last, the revenants break, and flee to the skies once more.

Taro wipes his blade and returns it to its scabbard. The battle is far from over, but the banner of Einar will not fall this day. Taro will not allow it.

Hatamoto Taro is available in the Einar High Command Remastered army expansion. Pre-order now for a May 2027 release!