Honour and Death

The Collections, Part II:

1550-1615 Japan:


This collection arose, I can only assume, from a severe desire to punish myself with painting. The collection stands at about 70 or so 25mm figures, 6 mounted samurai, 18 or so foot samurai, 40 ish ashigaru, and then some odds and ends, ronin and ninja in the main. I've got the forces split into a handful of clans, two main large ones and a handful of small ones. I've got two rule sets for these models, firstly Naginata for larger scale skirmishes, and Osprey's Ronin rules, which work best for a handful of models apiece. The Naginata rules are streamlined and fun, allowing for larger scale outings but to my mind lacking flavour, particularly when elite samurai clash. The Ronin rules provide the flavour and make the actual combat that much more active for the players (choosing when to play your defense and attack chits and the like), but I would hate to try and play a game with more than 10 or so figures against each other as the game would last an eternity. One thing I have considered is using the Ronin combat system for clashes between samurai in an otherwise Naginata game, but there are various niggles that would need working out before that would be possible.

Samurai stalk through a village seeking the enemy.

This collection has had a couple of outings, once at a local wargames club as a Saga force (using the Norman battleboard) where they anachronistically fought the Vikings a couple of times. My cunning strategy of overloading my force with elite samurai backed up with a handful of missile units paid off once, with the massed arquebus fire weakening the Viking thralls enough to open a path to their warlord that two mounted samurai units could exploit, in a fine example of the courage expected of the samurai, my warlord cut down the enemy leader's bodyguard in one turn, then took the warlord's head the next. The second game resulted in a far different result, as bezerkers intercepted my warlord and cut him down.

Their other main outing has been at the boardgames night at work, where we played out a scenario of my own devising. An aging samurai lord had passed away and one of his sons had seized his father's favourite wife and will, declaring that the lord had left leadership of the clan to him. Another son, a half brother of the first, who felt he had been unfairly cheated gathered up a group of his loyal retainers and set off to ambush his brother while he was off celebrating his rise to power by hunting in a remote location, Unbeknownst to either side, a cousin had sent a small team of ninja (played by me) to eliminate both brothers, as the cousin viewed himself as the most logical next step in the succession.

The action took place around a small village with a group of buildings and fields just north of a walled off compound containing a mansion, with a wood running up the west edge of the board, from which the ambushers emerged, the sea to the north and an area of fields and broken ground to the south. The hunting party was entering from the east. The battle devolved into two actions as neither side was willing to clash inside the village. On the seaward flank, the ambushed force threw forward their cavalry under a barrage of arrows, the assault hitting a holding force of the ambushers who were rapidly pushed back, losing several ashigaru in the process. The cavalry charge eventually ended (when chucking out time came) with the three cavalry surrounded by low grade foot troops, holding their own, but liable to be annihilated at any moment.

In the centre, between the village buildings and the walled off compound, the main forces of both sides clashed, with samurai charging back and forth to get close to the lords (both sides' victory conditions being that the enemy lord should die and their own survive). In the background, the ninja were moving along the eastern edge of the compound walls, aiming to get in close enough to take out their targets. In the final turn, the lord leading the hunting party found himself pinned against the compound wall facing a mounted samurai, with the ninja launching an attack, cutting down two of his bodyguards in one turn. The lord faced off against the mounted man, was hit and pushed back, into the impassable obstacle of the wall, resulting in him being sqewered by a yari. Sadly, we didn't have enough time to see if the ninja would be able to complete their mission.

The final section of this collection is a small force of naga, half serpent half samurai mythical creatures. I've put together a small clan of them, with a chieftan, two shamans and a bunch of warriors. I based their snake skin colours on several venemous snakes, then modelled the armour colours after the chieftan's skin colours. I felt the "human" part of the naga shouldn't be too human, so I painted them with solid black eyeballs and pale blue skin, carrying weapons made of obsidian with bone handles (smelting metals being hard under the sea I suspect). Their gaming debut, including a rather spiffing Chinese/Japanese dragon as their overlord, went well, with a suitable level of shock on the part of the players. The set up was that an up and coming clan was invading the lands of its more prosperous neighbour. Both sides forces were approaching a village when both received reports the village was being destroyed, the attackers assuming the defenders were burning the much needed food supplies held there, the defenders assuming the attackers had got the jump on them and forced the nearby river.

Mortal forces, unaware in spite of the giant hand looming above them of the mystical events about to unleash themselves, clash around a small village.

Both sides bundled up and promptly got stuck in, with fighting swinging too and fro around the village and the open ground, while both sides avoided the various bits of rough terrain. After an appropriate number of turns, the mortals were rather put out by the arrival of the Naga and the dragon, who promptly fried a hut and the nearest three samurai. Unbeknownst to the players, some ninja (who had been picking off anyone who came too close to revealing their position) who served a local temple of a deity opposed to the Naga, had been skulking around waiting for the dragon, so rushed out to engage. Unfortunately they couldn't roll a dice to save their lives, whiffed their attacks and were rapidly smeared across the landscape. The players were just realising the full potential of the Naga warriors when chucking out time brought action to a halt. Although it may have been a close run thing in the end, the loss of the dragon hunting ninja would have made a mortal victory unlikely, though a few thoroughly traumitised survivors may have escaped.

The samurai mostly come from Dixons Miniatures, although the command units, banner bearers and casualty markers come from Perry. Dixons also do a Legends of Nippon range which is where the Naga are from. 

To further round out this collection, I have a large number of Choson Koreans awaiting painting, allowing for the portrayal of the Samurai invasions of Korea. More of that in the Projects posts.