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So, this is my first P&M Blog. I'm going to do it to help me find the motivation to complete my goal. And my goal is to build an army of SAMURAI!

I recently moved to Yokosuka, Japan, so to celebrate I want to rebuild the empire army I sold years and years ago, but since I'm in japan I thought, why not do them up as medieval Japanese warriors? I've always been a fan of the Total War games, going all the way back to the first. So after a lot of hemming, hawwing, and waiting for all my furniture to arrive from america, i finally placed an order.

Picking which range to go through was difficult, but I ended up settling on a mix of Perry and Wargames Factory. Perry miniatures are lovely and metal, but the Wargames factory are pose able and lightweight plastic (not to mention very good value). So to start off, I plopped 90 bucks off to The War store and I've been waiting for my first shipment to arrive.

I decided to go with a pretty standard starter empire army.

1 Block of Halberds. These will be Ashigaru Spearmen (essentially peasant soldiers with pikes). They didn't carry shields so they'll make good halberders.
1 detachment of Archers. These will be Ashigaru archers.
1 detachment of Handgunners. These will be ashigaru handgunners.
1 Block Great Swords. These will be a solid unit of samurai wielding katanas.
1 Knightly order unit. These will be mounted samurai, using either katanas or spears.

The bulk of this will be wargames factory soldiers (for their value), and then I'll throw in some lovely perry miniatures as characters and to fill a unit out here and there.
First order:
1 Box Samurai Cavalry
1 box Samurai Warriors
1 Box Ashigaru Yari
1 box Ashigaru archers

I've also bought a few nice little osprey books on medieval japan, to help fill in my knowledge of the period. The first shipment arrived yesterday, to inaugurate my blog.


I know there's probably been other folks who've done the same thing, but I don't mind retreading a road other's have paved. its new to me after all. Ohayo gozaimasu!

I very much look forward to seeing this mate. Subscribed.

Progress on my Samurai is going much slower than I would like.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Are you going to style them on a particular clan or Daimyo?

 carlos13th wrote:
I very much look forward to seeing this mate. Subscribed.

Progress on my Samurai is going much slower than I would like.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Are you going to style them on a particular clan or Daimyo?

I've been thinking about doing Hojo, as they were my favorite clan (because i was a noob and spent all my time turtling up in northern japan) back in the original Total War. Also their sigil is a triforce, which is cool and would be paintable. The Mori have a really easy sigil as well, so I've been considering them as well. I've also considered doing Tokugawa, but their sigil is rather complicated, and I was hoping to be able to paint the sigils rather than buy transfers. Transfers just always look so shiny and too perfect to me, but I may go down that road. But if I use Tokugawa, I can even throw in a William Adams with one of my empire heads, and have him be my engineer for the cannons.

And naturally part of me just wants to make up my own clan. Decisions, decisions!

The only problem I'm seeing with these miniatures is that the ashigaru are too uniform. Ashigaru rarely had standarized equipment (other than their yari), generally just getting whatever their daimyo could afford or they could scrounge up. But if I buy some perry miniatures to mix in it may help break up the uniform look.


Automatically Appended Next Post:


"'Ere now, wuts dis hummie doing 'ere?"

So here's the first Yari Ashigaru for a size comparison. The provided bases are a bit on the small size, but they're flat on both sizes so they stick way better to my magnetic strips than the GW bases do. So I'm actually just going to stick with them instead of using GW bases.

The orc's club is about the size of the wargames factory human. And the human skull hanging from his banner is a bit too big. . . but otherwise I think they fit together pretty well.

I use transfers for mine. Using decal set solutions along with mat varnish spray takes away the shiny. Feel free to check my blog for a look. It's only one guy with a sashimono so far though.

If you want to do Tokugawa steel fist miniatures do decals for them. Not sure if they would fit wgf sashimono though.

I much prefer low profile bases to larger ones.

"Ok, so I got a little sidetracked. . . but its not my fault"


But anyway, i did finish putting together the first yari ashigaru unit before Star Wars Armada showed up on my doorstep with fighters that demanded to be painted.

Very nice start. I'll be popping in from time to time to check out the progress. I picked up a couple boxes of the WGF samurai while they were on special a few weeks ago. Now I just need time, energy and to find more Oni to field with them. I'm going more of a Legend of the five rings type army, probably as a crab clan, but my true scorpion clan heritage might show through .

 Theophony wrote:
Very nice start. I'll be popping in from time to time to check out the progress. I picked up a couple boxes of the WGF samurai while they were on special a few weeks ago. Now I just need time, energy and to find more Oni to field with them. I'm going more of a Legend of the five rings type army, probably as a crab clan, but my true scorpion clan heritage might show through .

If you need a lot of Oni Dixon are the best bet for the money. If you only want a few try the Savage wave from Bushido.

Thanks

Had just stoppedby to look for updates just before you posted. I will check them out.