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Like the GW has reference I mean it seems pretty self explanatory, we nerds like 40k, we nerds also tend to like samurais.. I'm gonna assume those two things cross over alot (and the plethora of Samurai Custom Space Marines on the net confirms this), so is their a Chapter that GW has written about that is based off the Samurai Culture, since we have Knights, Vikings, Mongols, Greeks etc.

I thought maybe the Red Scorpions but upon further inspection I think I am wrong.

No Not that I know of.

Still great idea for a home-brew chapter.

Isn't there some guy with a P&M blog right now of a samurai space marine chapter? Or is that monks? I can't remember his name and I don't think it has been posted to in a while but I do remember following it.

Also no there is no official chapter that I know of either.

 Nafarious wrote:
Isn't there some guy with a P&M blog right now of a samurai space marine chapter? Or is that monks? I can't remember his name and I don't think it has been posted to in a while but I do remember following it.

Also no there is no official chapter that I know of either.

There is a guy with a Buddhist Space Marine Chapter might be him?

I just can't understand why GW never would have jumped on the bandwagon, are Japanese related things not as ingrained in the nerd culture of England as it is the states?

I'm not sure about any official chapter but there are these samurai-esque marines

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/544676.page

The Emperor's Shadows are the official samurai chapter

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor's_Shadows

2x210 wrote:
I just can't understand why GW never would have jumped on the bandwagon, are Japanese related things not as ingrained in the nerd culture of England as it is the states?

Tau, I guess? They even have the Seven Samurai reference with Farsight.

Though their fighting styles aren't very samurai-ish, unless you count Ethereals.

jareddm wrote:
The Emperor's Shadows are the official samurai chapter

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor's_Shadows

This.

make an all honorguard/vanguard with lots of scouts as the fodder, or go full elites there you go.

2x210 wrote:

 Nafarious wrote:
Isn't there some guy with a P&M blog right now of a samurai space marine chapter? Or is that monks? I can't remember his name and I don't think it has been posted to in a while but I do remember following it.

Also no there is no official chapter that I know of either.

There is a guy with a Buddhist Space Marine Chapter might be him?

I just can't understand why GW never would have jumped on the bandwagon, are Japanese related things not as ingrained in the nerd culture of England as it is the states?

That's me, they are more ancient warrior monks inspired, but i have a few samurai's in my kitty army BEHOLD!

Not going to a Samurais like we know didn't existed discussion.

Just to add some data if the OP decide for a homebrew.

The whole concept of honor in combat and discipline in life was born after the decline of the class in a peaceful united japan. The Real samurais were ambushers and more likely to seize the advantage were it lies, in that regard more akin to Ravenguard. Must add the they also preferred the use of spear and bows over swords.

The source of this information comes from the Portuguese traders that established a port in Japan until 1633 when all foreign were expelled and modern Japanese researchers.

Of course you can do the whole mythical thing if you liked. Also never heard of the Emperor's Shadows before.
FIXED SOME TYPOS

well since samurai are just japanese versions of knights, only with crappier weapons and armour, and space marines are essentially knights...in spess, surely all chapters are?

As far as a homebrew chapter that is Samurai era themed you should check out Mark Dewis' Jade Warriors.

http://www.area52.com.au/galleries/ttg/wh40k/chapter_founding.htm
http://www.area52.com.au/galleries/ttg/army_focus/mark_dewis_jade_warriors.html

Even has Ninja themed scouts.

xruslanx wrote:
well since samurai are just japanese versions of knights, only with crappier weapons and armour

not sure it is crappier. It is designed for a different purpose. The large reed mats are very effective at stopping arrows, something that was very effective in medevil asia. You make armor to defend against what is common.

Japanese swords were obviously sharper, faster, and better than european varieties of the time.

strange, most the books on samurai I have read talk of them as warriors, the ninja clans seem to be more of what you are describing. Samurai were basically land holders to a lord, the bushido code came about long before the decline, but it was not always around.

about samurais having "crappy weapons and armor" you sir have no idea what you are talking about, the samurais blade was stronger and sharper than ANY blade made by the European knights, their armor, while not quite as protective as knights, was much easier to move/run in.

as a race tau are basically the samurai, for a chapter? raven guard are the ninja, and I am at an actual loss for which chapter best describes samurai.

 raiden wrote:

as a race tau are basically the samurai, for a chapter? raven guard are the ninja, and I am at an actual loss for which chapter best describes samurai.

I would also say that Eldar and DE have a lot of asian themes going around, being faster and more lightly armored. There was a time way back then when CWE eldar were japanese and DE were Chinese.

For chapters, I would say SW allied with guard. Medevil Japanese armies used tons of peasant foot soldiers(the guard) and then you would have a lot of stylized marines fitting the either close combat or shooting. TWC would be mounted samurai(although perhaps bikes would be better, as mounted samurai fought at range) and the extra HQ choices and lone wolves would be nice.
No TDA, not very Samurai to have huge armor plates and a powerfist.

I'm thinking of running them as Space Wolves allied with guard, the duel HQ would be neat and then I can run Lone Wolves as "Ronin". Use the guard as peasent fodder.

jareddm wrote:
The Emperor's Shadows are the official samurai chapter

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Emperor's_Shadows

40kwiki is a bad site in general. Lexicanum is far superior.

Only official material with Emperor's Shadows is the How to Paint Space Marines book, and it has no fluff or anything.

This is all that Lexicanum has on them. Literally just a picture. http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Emperor%27s_Shadows#.UkW_VJxH6EE


That 40kwiki entry is likely just a fan-article that someone made because they thought that color scheme was cool and built fluff around it.

people bash the 40wiki a lot, for all GW cares its cannon because after all, the fluff canon is all just propaganda from sides. yadda yadda.

No, GW's view is that everything put out by anyone with a license to is canon.

FFG, GW, Forge World, BL, etc... That is all canon.


Little Timmy's chapter that's actually the 2nd Legion and still has its Primarch isn't canon, no matter how many Articles he writes about it on 40kwiki.

40kwiki is a fanfic site that also puts official fluff in its articles, but makes no effort to separate them.

Lexicanum is where you go if you want to know what the official published material says, or at least where it says it.


Nothing is wrong with a fanfic site, but you can't quote their articles as being canon because they are tainted by the fanfic. Even if the material is from official GW source we can't be sure.

Quoting 40kwiki is like quoting a 1d4-chan article as canon.

I don't know of any official ones (Emperor's Shadows are a possible example), but there is nothing to stop you from creating your own Samurai Chapter, in fact go to town on it, have some fun building it up!

 raiden wrote:
about samurais having "crappy weapons and armor" you sir have no idea what you are talking about, the samurais blade was stronger and sharper than ANY blade made by the European knights, their armor, while not quite as protective as knights, was much easier to move/run in.

What, the plate harness that you can run around in, perform acrobatics in, such as forward rolls, handstands, cartwheels etc? Sounds -really- hard to move around in. Here's a good video to watch that will dispel misconceptions about European plate armour;


Fast forward to 34m19s. See how Tobias Capwell moves so easily in his armour? Check also 40:03, to see how well articulated a plate boot is - can your training shoe flex that easily & well? Actually the whole video is worth watching as it is rather interesting & the lecture is well delivered.

As for the swords - European blades are stronger than Japanese blades. Don't fall for the popular media hype surrounding the katana - Japan rather successfully exported it's culture and America, along with popular media, lapped it up like mad. The katana is a mediocre sword; good for cutting against unguarded flesh but otherwise useless. c15/c16 katana were often mass produced weapons with fat, heavy blades, poor balance points and issued as a basic hand weapon for troops. In Europe those sorts of weapons were called 'munition arms'. You'd never get a katana to break apart a half-decent quality maille hauberk or haubergeon.

European weapons were light, well-forged and made from good quality resources, that were in great abundance*, shaped and altered by the weapons, armour & martial arts they faced. Such is the larger scale of Europe there were a great many different cultures, each with their own forms of weapons and armour, tactics & martial arts. This massive melting pot led to the incredible well made weapons of the 15th & 16th centuries. These weapons were the culmination of thousands of years of conflict, of hundreds of years of quench-hardening iron, of smiths honing their techniques as they passed them down to their apprentices and so on. If there is one downside to them, though, they're not as pretty as pattern-welded blades of c7-c10. Now those are -gorgeous- weapons.

As a literal demonstration of the strength of a langes schwert compared to a katana;



The katana was good in the context where it was employed, as a secondary weapon & as a cutting weapon against unguarded flesh.

*You often hear how katana's have had their iron blade folded hundreds of times - that isn't a great sign of quality, it just shows how poor the iron was to start with. Each time you fold the iron it removes some of the impurities. Iron found in Europe was often of a decent purity, thus European smiths did not have to fold the iron so often.

 raiden wrote:
strange, most the books on samurai I have read talk of them as warriors, the ninja clans seem to be more of what you are describing. Samurai were basically land holders to a lord, the bushido code came about long before the decline, but it was not always around.

about samurais having "crappy weapons and armor" you sir have no idea what you are talking about, the samurais blade was stronger and sharper than ANY blade made by the European knights, their armor, while not quite as protective as knights, was much easier to move/run in.

as a race tau are basically the samurai, for a chapter? raven guard are the ninja, and I am at an actual loss for which chapter best describes samurai.

Probably black Templar for the close combat buffs. with a lot of sword units and back up archers

 raiden wrote:


about samurais having "crappy weapons and armor" you sir have no idea what you are talking about, the samurais blade was stronger and sharper than ANY blade made by the European knights, their armor, while not quite as protective as knights, was much easier to move/run in.

Armour for a knight was usually very easy to run in. It was designed to allow maximum movement while keeping the wearer as protected as possible.
There are also a lot of myths about the differences between European and Japanese swords.
As to the OP: I haven't heard of any official chapters that based on samurai but it is always popular for fan based stuff.

ehh I thought the "Official Samurai" SM Chapter was Tau:Farsight Enclave ..;o)

I never said it was impossible for a knight to run/ do whatever, only that it was, if only slightly, easier for a samurai in his armor to do these things. knights armor weighed around 100lbs or more for a full suit.

I also came across rather off on my other statement, grumpy morning, the katana was by no means a crappy weapon, he fulfilled its purpose marvelously, but in a brawl the longsword IS probably the better option. the katana, if given the equivalent ore used in Europe comes out about equal to the longsword. katana has speed, the keen and, and the ability to turn aside blows. longsword has power, thrusts, slightly more range of attacks, and the ability to receive blows.

The harness Capwell is wearing, as the lecturer says, weighs in at 50lbs. It is not heavy, plus the weight is quite well distributed across the body, with a greater weight ratio on the upper body due to the greater area to cover (torso, arms & head).

I don't get where your idea that the langes schwert is slow from. It's an incredibly fast weapon and even a short cut has incredible cutting power. Turning aside opponents attacks has nothing to do with the weapon, it's the technique of the martial art. If I can easily turn aside an opponents blade with a c17 rapier using the techniques of Ridulfo Capo Ferro, then I could do it with the techniques of a c15 langes schwert maestro.

Lastly - European blades held their edges extremely well. It gets to a point, with a sharp weapon where sharpening it further is pointless. The cutting advantage of the katana comes from its curved blade, placing all of the energy of the attack into a small part of the blade.

Sorry if I sound rather 'rawr' myself, I just dislike how European weapons & armour are unfairly maligned in preference for inferior kit developed in a mostly isolated island compared to the great melting pot of Europe.

The Katana's cutting power came from it being incredibly sharp. But that also means it loses its edge fairly quickly if used in a prolonged manner(Or against any sort of decent armor)

However, the blade itself was fairly brittle. You had to parry with the back edge or you would lose your sharpness while also deflecting the blow itself. A European sword was much thicker and stronger. A European sword would be very difficult to deflect with a Katana without it shattering(more force behind the blow)

The material available to the Japanese was also of poor quality, its actually quite a testament to their skill that they could make a sword of the quality of the Katana with what they had. The Katana is a good sword despite what its made of(poor quality iron with a steel edge). It really was the Japanese smiths making the best of a bad selection of material.

Swords in general are a poor weapon for penetrating armor, its why Knights so often carried maces, axes, hammers, or halberds instead(or a dagger to slip between the plates). Its a good weapon for scything down unarmored opponents, which makes it a status weapon. You had to make a sword very large for it to be any good against any form of plate armor(which was designed to counter swords) at which point it was the force and not its edge that was doing the real damage.

A two-handed sword was also not slow. The fighting style was similar to fighting with a staff instead of a sword, using multiple grip points even along the blade itself. It wasn't just long range swings, it was bashing the opponent with the crossguard, using the crossguard to bring him close for a headbutt, force him back with the length of the blade, or even immobilize him with the weapon and then draw a dagger for the finishing move.

 Sparks_Havelock wrote:


As for the swords - European blades are stronger than Japanese blades. Don't fall for the popular media hype surrounding the katana - Japan rather successfully exported it's culture and America, along with popular media, lapped it up like mad. The katana is a mediocre sword; good for cutting against unguarded flesh but otherwise useless. c15/c16 katana were often mass produced weapons with fat, heavy blades, poor balance points and issued as a basic hand weapon for troops. In Europe those sorts of weapons were called 'munition arms'. You'd never get a katana to break apart a half-decent quality maille hauberk or haubergeon.

European weapons were light, well-forged and made from good quality resources, that were in great abundance*, shaped and altered by the weapons, armour & martial arts they faced. Such is the larger scale of Europe there were a great many different cultures, each with their own forms of weapons and armour, tactics & martial arts. This massive melting pot led to the incredible well made weapons of the 15th & 16th centuries. These weapons were the culmination of thousands of years of conflict, of hundreds of years of quench-hardening iron, of smiths honing their techniques as they passed them down to their apprentices and so on. If there is one downside to them, though, they're not as pretty as pattern-welded blades of c7-c10. Now those are -gorgeous- weapons.

As a literal demonstration of the strength of a langes schwert compared to a katana;



The katana was good in the context where it was employed, as a secondary weapon & as a cutting weapon against unguarded flesh.

Looking at the video, gotta say it is crap. The tomato cutting scene you can clearly see more juice/water coming out from the broad sword indicating the cut is not as clean and the blade not as sharp.

As for the breaking and bending, the static sword is fixed to a static backing. If it wasnt fixed it is very likely both would bounce and bend violently but not in that way. It also really depends on where there sword strikes.

In any event the broadsword is heavier so we should expect it to win. Being heavier it will be slower.

In any event I do agree that Japanese arms and armor are excessively stylized and hyped. The emphasis on cutting led to short decisive battle that while romantic isn't tactically the most effective.

Japan and Korea has effective archers, so armor was primarily to keep yourself from getting shot to death. England for a while had effective archers as well, and they proved to be effective against the French knights. The rest of europe did not have enough effective archers. They had plenty of ineffective archers, but very few effective ones. An effective archer required a dozen years of training and once killed could not easily be replaced. A samurai is basically an archer killer, light enough to quickly close the distance, armored enough to stand some chance against the archer, and with a deadly enough cutting weapon to kill all of the archers when/if he closes the distance. Knights on the other hand were poor at this task, either not having enough armor to stop arrows or being to heavy to give proper chase. Their weapons, while better at breaking heavy armor and defending themselves would not allow you to kill archers as fast as a samurai.

Of note, China did not have many effective archers either. In china, there were curved swords that resembled samurai swords, but they were for lower class peasant warriors and cavalry. A skilled warrior used a heavy straight blade, as with that he could parry, and more effectively break through the armor of his opponent.

Finally 15-16th century the age of knights in Europe was ending. Pikemen with integrated sword/halberd and missile troops were winning the day.
Asia never utilized the stirrup to truely take advantage of mounted warfare to break massed infantry.
You really cannot compare the Japan and Germany directly.

Sharpness can actually be a bad thing. A sharper blade tends to be a thinner blade, meaning its weaker. It also loses cutting power as it dulls(which it will very quickly)

A duller sword with more weight is actually better because it won't lose killing power after a single cut through armor.


Also, Longbows weren't all that effective at penetrating armor, but they did well through insane volume of fire. As well as killing the horses out from under their riders. You fire enough arrows at something you will eventually hit the weak spots. Crossbows were far better at penetrating armor individually, but took longer to reload and had a shorter range.

Crossbows were the primary ranged force of any army because of ease of training. A few hours practice would make you adequate enough for battle.

@Sparks_Havelock: Hate to break it to you but that video does not feature a real katana. Most likely it is an attempt at a replica, but not even a very good one IMO. The cutting edge of a katana is hardened to a very high degree, which means the scoring and denting of the blade shown during the test would not happen. The spine of a katana is designed to bend , or at least give a little so that the entire blade does not simply snap due to its hardness. The cutting edge itself however, would break or chip, not deform as we saw in the video.

Second, the folding of the metal during the forging of a katana was not to remove impurities. It was to ensure even distribution of both the carbon in the steel as well as the remaining impurities. At the time the temperature required to create the purity levels of steel we see today could not be reliably achieved, so impurities were a given. By contrast, European blades were made of relatively uneven steel in which the carbon and impurities would form in clumps, creating weakpoints in the blade.

I agree with you that the katana was never a primary weapon and that it was designed for unarmored opponents, but it truly is a masterpiece of design and forging techniques.