Friday 7 February 2014

Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese (Preparations for Ronin Samurai skirmishing)

With Osprey's release of the Ronin, Samurai skirmish rules I now have a set of relatively quick- play rules that capture the flavour of the period and allow games to be fought to conclusion in a couple of hours without requiring endless cross referencing of wound types and weapon capabilites etc.

My initial trial of these rules using a couple of figures a side on my dining room table quickly made me appreciate what a cracking set of rules they are. A follow-up game with my mate, Geoff, only served to increase my admiration and fire my enthusiasm. The use of combat tokens and the ability to enhance your initaitive, attack and defence rolls by the careful expenditure of these tokens is very clever and once you have the hang of it works like a treat. I hope to have some Samurai skirmish battle reports to post in the not too distant future.

I have been working on and off on some Wargames Factory 28mm plastic Samurai for quite some time now however my interest in Wargaming and modelling has gone through a bit of a dormant period and they been shelved away on the must-finish shelf for longer than I care to remember. Really I think I was hoping for a decent set of rules to get the project off the ground.

My Samurai collection is primarily Wargames Factory but I am slowly adding some of the excellent Perry metals to the mix. As one who has spent countless hours converting and adapting 1/72nd scale soft plastic figures I find the Wargames Factory figs a doddle to assemble and the endless possible variations of poses that can be created from the basic figures is astounding.

I thought I'd share a few simple figure conversions and some examples of my finished models.

The first are some casualty markers I have prepped ready for painting.

Ashigaru

Ashigaru

Samurai

Samurai
The next figure is straight forward assembly whch highlights the somewhat grisly nature of Samurai warfare.


Some more straight forward conversions / assemblies.



Some painted examples



Perry Samurai from the Sepuka set.













My first Samurai figures







7 comments:

  1. Very nice job Gav, you've made good use of geometric designs and symbols, and the banner bearer with all the script work is very eye catching.

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    1. I consider that high praise indeed from such as yourself. Many thanks.

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  2. Excellent - another convert! I too am currently engrossed in a samurai project.

    Your figures look great. Very crisp and clean painting.

    I've got the RONIN rules, but haven't tried them out as yet. I thought at first read they looked a bit finnicky. But everyone is giving them good reviews, so I guess I'll hold off with my opinion I've actually had a chance to try them out.

    Sayonara ... Roly

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    1. Hi Roly,
      Actually your blog has been inspirational. Your links to various Samurai related websites has kept me enthralled for ages. Very impressed with your work. If you're ever down this way I'd be delighted to put on a Ronin game. Definately recommend trying out the rules with a few figs to get the hang of them. The rules work very well for solo gaming as well. And this from a self confessed rule-ophobic whose eyes glaze over and dribble collects at the corner of my mouth when reading rules.

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  3. Nice - I don't have any Warlord, but they do look good - particularly with your brushwork. The mounted guys are certainly a bargain! Dean

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  4. Yes Dean, I agree that the wargames Factory figs represent great value for money. A box each of Samurai and Ashigaru would give you all the figures and infinite variations of poses for two large RONIN Buntai. Thanks for positive feed-back.

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