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I originally was gonna make a roman IG army, but decided that samurai are way cooler, and so I am now working on building a armored fist company of samurai stylized Guard.
Thing is I am still not entirely certain how I want to go about it. I mean i am pretty sure I want to use the Warlord Games Rising Sun collection, but thats about it, any thoughts?


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One problem I forsee is making the models las rifle friendly,and also that fact that I'm sure if the local groups would approve

The archer models are already posed pretty well for holding firing rifles, in the WGF Ashigaru I have at least. It will require slight chopping and reposing and a little greenstuff if you want it to look perfect, but I think the main problem might be the extremely chunky lasguns on more realistic models. I'd consider third party guns which you can pass off as autoguns which have the same stats as lasguns anyway iirc.

How about modeling on las-gun power packs in front of the matchlocks trigger guard if at all possible on the WGF Troops? Though I don't know how well they would scale to the muskets.

I was thinking of doin a bit of creative chop work on the matchlocks to make them look like las-locks or even old auto carbines.


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Maybe get the soviet weapon sprue from warlord games and attach those

There are loads of SF type weapons available from Hasslefree Miniatures and from other companies.

The thing is that you can call the matchlock a lasgun as long as all the "lasguns" in your army look the same, and look different to other weapons such as plasma guns that you might want to use.

It would certainly be easier to get standard ashigaru armed with teppo and not remodel them, especially given the number of standard infantry models you need.

Hmmmm, I guess I could keep the matchlock, though i still plan on Las(ing)them up a little


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Any ideas on where I could get a good mini to act as my commanders and commisar?


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I was also gonna design them as a kind of amphibious force, off loading from large ships in the ocean and d-daying it up the beaches and taking the field. I was thinking of customizing my chimera to be more Boat-like.
And before you say anything yes i know Chimera are amphibious already

Rather than samurai guard, how about ashigaru guard and samurai commanders? Alternately, just have the sashimono on the officers to help them stand out, maybe with some other blinged up bits. Drawn katanas with holstered pistols, more gold or other metallic colour etc.

High ranking samurai had very ornate helmets that would stand out as officers and commissars, etc.

I was gonna do some custom helmets for command, and get a bunch of the samurai cavalry from wgf, any one up for rough riders?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
High ranking samurai had very ornate helmets that would stand out as officers and commissars, etc.

This is a good point you could have your officers be Shoguns with very colorful and ornate armor and helmet, then have all the sgt's be samurai which works well since only sarges and officers have close combat weapons, and then have all of your foot soldiers be feudal Japanese archers or something of the like

I agree with the idea, have the standard rank and file be ashigaru while my nco's and command be samurai, and have the commander's guard be samurai of course, my main concern is if the weapons will be to scale


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relatednote, are DKoK the same size as modern cadian or are they a tiny bit smaller?

Adding some of these, at least to the HQ models would help with flavor as well:

http://puppetswar.eu/product.php?id_product=209

And for heads:
http://puppetswar.eu/product.php?id_product=203
http://puppetswar.eu/product.php?id_product=141

And shoulder pads
http://puppetswar.eu/product.php?id_product=207

The scale may be better for marines than Guard (I haven't tried them out myself) but ma be an option to pursue.

There are some significant challenges. I too started out with the "Matchlocks with power packs on them" idea with war-games factory Ashiguri. However, the matchlocks are about the thickness of a vox antenna, so that was right out, so I had to improvise. Lasguns were clearly waaaay too big, so I cut them down

.

The Puppet's war stuff is very big compared to WGF. It works well with space marines though:



That's a puppet's war head on a Dark Angels captain, and both models have puppets war backpacks.

In the end I went with inquisition rather than IG to allow me to use a more interesting range of models. You can see the full army in my gallery. There is a thread with Cadians with WGF ashiguri heads somewhere on Dakka also. They looked a little small to me though. DKOK would be perfect from what I've seen, but you're taking a $.50 model's bits and sticking them on a $5 model, which seems like a recipe for frustration.

Good luck though - I love multicultural guard!

Warzone is your friend they have ace samurai guard.I bought some for Christmas and they look awesome

I may have to do a bit of greenstuff work, and if all else fails i could give them auto rifles instead of lasguns It may save some frustration in the long run modding them to have Auto-Carbines instead anyways


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Now to figure out a good paint scheme,maybe silver armor and crimson cloth, to reference my original intent to build a Roman IG force

Yeah check out Warzone Mutant Chronicles.

don.mcclain wrote:
I agree with the idea, have the standard rank and file be ashigaru while my nco's and command be samurai, and have the commander's guard be samurai of course, my main concern is if the weapons will be to scale

relatednote, are DKoK the same size as modern cadian or are they a tiny bit smaller?

Good choice! DKoK are a much more realistic scale than Cadians and in most peoples opinion from what I've seen here on dakka and IRL, far superior partially because of this. Most non-GW kits tend towards this realistic scale, and the WGF samurai and Ashigaru are no exception. This is why Cadian lasguns would look chunky on the samurai and ashigaru. However the DKoK (Or Elysian) weapons would fit right in I'd say. These weapons can be bought separately, I have a few "cheap" sets of them and I like them a lot.

Sooo, anyone know where i can get the DKoK rifles for a reasonable price BESIDES from Forge World?


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Cuz I am arming a full company, not one or two models



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Also, this first company was gonna be the beginning of a full regiment,and as such was gonna be regimental command, so any ideas how to procede on that would be very helpful as well

I PMed you a site you might be interested in. That would be a decent option for sorting your weapons. Definitely can't hurt to plan out your army, ie.

- 1x Command Squad (Samurai, blinged up, dynamically posed)
- 1x Counts as Creed and Kell (Samurai blinged/posed up)
- 1x Counts as whatever other characters you want (Samurai blinged/posed up)
- 4x platoon command squads (Samurai commander and Ashigaru troops?)
- 8x squads of Ashigaru
- 3x Heavy weapon squads (9 bases) (Ashigaru)

Magnetise 8 ashigaru from squads to use special weapons.
Magnetise PCS and CCS troops for special weapon options, banners etc.
Convert some ashigaru or samurai for tank commanders/gunners for your armour.

8 squads of Ashigaru would require 16 sets of those weapons I linked you, which would be $112 which is pretty steep I guess, but would look pretty damn awesome and you'd have a lot of spare special weapons for other projects.

Why do I need to use magnets?

You don't need to, but a lot of people choose to for special weapons. That way the same trooper can be whatever weapon you need them to be. Less painting, money, storage and transport space required. If you make your PCS have flamethrowers, you'll be kicking yourself when the next codex lands and they would be better as snipers or plasmas for example.

I am a little frustrated that I can't just buy a ton of DKoK rifles but instead have to buy lots of unessential 'eavy weapons.

Here's how I did this theme...
Used the WGF Samurai and Ashigaru heads, bodies, and banners along with the Cadian Legs and arms.
The hardest part was the WGF stuff is true scale while the GW stuff is heroic...so I had to bulk out every model with GS to make the arms fit.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/487058.page

don.mcclain wrote:
I am a little frustrated that I can't just buy a ton of DKoK rifles but instead have to buy lots of unessential 'eavy weapons.

Many people cherry pick the special weapons out of this range and try to sell off the rifles. You could have some luck checking ebay, or posting a WTB thread on Dakka or your local wargaming forum.

I am honestly thinking that I will start with my company command squad, as well as maybe the first two PCS's, and a veteran squad, there by using an entire samurai box from wargames factory


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Does anyone know if the Mad Robot Miniatures would even possibly work on the samurai from Wargames factory

dkellyj, I don't really like cadians... at all.... in fact I could say that I despise them, partially because they are over used, and the rest because they don't really look all that amazing, so If I can I plan on avoiding using any cadian bits, except MAYBE a few bitz from the one command squad of them I got

That's fine...I'm a bit stuck in the old skool mode where 50% of the model must be GW for it to be legal to play.
But for your local group, if they have no issues with using a different companies models with the GW rules then go for it.
The Wargames Factory Samurai/Ashigaru lines would also make an outstanding Warhammer Fantasy Empire army too.

Or if I could find someone who allowed it a good Nippon army

I am using the wgf Ashigaru as the backbone of my kings of war army.

I had the idea of somehow using several of these: http://us-store.warlordgames.com/collections/bolt-action/products/carden-loyd-mmg-carrier and turn them into my heavy weapons squads, have a few HB, AC, and LC as well as the original gun, just call it a heavy stubber


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Just use extra heads and bits to make them look the part
Also was thinking of using anti-tank guns if I could find the rules


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scratch the carden, if I did this it would be with a universal carrier