Tarawa - Geen Beach WWII 15mm

   Got a chance to play a good Tarawa scenario with the group at Mark's house for a Thursday night fight.  The focus was on the Marine landing at Green beach and their success.  Lots of surprises from the Japanese in bunkers and concealed positions.
   The Marines had amphibious landing craft that really kept them protected.  They also had some armor and close air support.  The air support turned out to be decisive.  Anything in the open was doomed. 
   The Japanese were able to pop from concealed positions and had machine guns, some anti tank guns, as well as snipers.  They were able to hold the initial Marine advances but could not reinforce any successes and eventually fought to the last.

Japanese underground at this point.

The start of the Marine landings. 

Marines coming ashore.



Early Japanese fire.

A real fight develops just inside the sea wall.

Lots of fire starting to come from the Japanese positions. 

Armor on the beach.

Watch out for strafing runs.  Took a real pounding from these.

Japanese sniper in the trees

Marines with support slugging it out for every inch of ground.

Japanese anti tank guns are the last line of defense.

 

First 3mm Samurai Skirmish

   I had a chance to lay out some troops for a little skirmish in a mountain pass.  It was a good chance to see what everything looked like altogether and test some of the special rules I want to use. 

  I'm thinking of adding some real punch to the Samurai stands.  Not only keeping them strong and with elite morale, but adding some additional penalties if engaging and losing to them in melee.

  I like the look of the huts.  I still have to work on some terrain features like fields and rice paddies. 

Village in a mountain pass with a Monastery on the hill top

Clan defends the village and pass

Invading clan approaches

Waiting for battle

 

First casualties and fall backs

3mm Samurai updates: Warrior Monks, Peasants, latest Daimyo

   I've completed about 40 stands of 3mm Samurai.  I wanted to post what I've done lately and some pics of my first play test. With this latest Daimyo and some odds and ends like peasants and warrior monks, I think I'm done for awhile, although I still have some lead left I will keep it to be able to react to future inspiration.

  First up were some Warrior Monks.  These are actually based on a couple different orders I found online.  One was very colorful and the other wore black with a sort of white cowl.  Hard to pick up in 3mm but historically based none the less.

Warrior Monks

   I also added some basic peasants to be used to augment any clan or just to be cannon fodder.


Peasants

   I finally finished my second Daimyo stand for one of my favorite clans.

   A new clan.  Based on a Takeda follower.

3mm Naps - French Imperial Guard

I finally started to add the Old Guard to my French contingent.  What better place to start with than the "Les Gros Freres", the Horse Grenadiers of the French Imperial Guard.  Painted them much as they looked at Waterloo.

Russian WWII 15mm

   Started playing 15mm WWII so I had to bust out the Russian figs and vehicles.

Russian T-34, Infantry, and SU-100

    I experimented with the Plastic Soldier Company for my Heavy Weapons.  Basically you get 4 identical sprues in a pack.  Each sprue has 3 mortars of various sizes, a Maxim machine gun, and a couple anti tank rifle teams.  The value was great and the figs are good, if a little on the skinny side.  The only thing I took issue with was gluing on so many arms and heads in odd positions.  I don't have the patience for that anymore.

Heavy Weapons from Plastic Soldier Company

Back to 3mm Naps

I've been working on some ongoing projects and starting some new ones to take a break while putting the finishing touches on my Samurai armies. I got everything together for a Prussian Corps and tested out a Brigade of infantry.


Prussian Brigade

You can see one Line Regt in front with two Landwehr Regt's in the rear.  

Prussian Line Regt

Command

Landwehr

Japanese huts for 3mm Samurai

I picked up some Pico Terrain Wooden Huts (pkgs of 6 pcs) made by Oddzial Osmy Terrain from Pico Armor to go with some of the terrain I'm prepping for my first scenario.  These are nice and I'll probably use them with some of the Viet Nam stuff too.

Latest clan off the painting table

I finished up my fourth clan and am pretty pleased with this one.  I might even add a few more stands to it.  I bought some huts from Pico Armor and am working on them to get a game going soon.  I have about 30 painted stands made up of four separate clans. 

I want to make some single mounted Samurai units and bodyguards and a few Yari in different color schemes I like to represent really small clans and use up the figures I have.  Them I plan on just gaming with that for awhile and check this period off my bucket list.

The newest clan completed

I've been looking for rules on personal combat and have lots of ideas but haven't landed on what I like.  I found some reference to them in the Chrysanthemum Throne rules set.  According to some research that had pretty much died out by the late 16th century anyway but I really want it to add some flavor to the game.  I'm trying to search for some ancients rules that might have it covered.  Maybe I'll pull out the old DBA book and see what's in there.

I'm also upgrading my phone so I can start getting some decent pictures of this 3mm stuff.

Teppo Ashigaru with mounted and foot Samurai

Yari Ashigaru

 

Daimyo

Fourth clan on the painting desk

I was ready to do one more big clan before taking a break but as I was picking out my remaining clans and color schemes I decided to prime a few more stands and split the remaining figs into at least two more clans.

This is my "Buckeye" clan.  Grey with Red trim and Gen metal helmets,  I did one prototype stand and love these guys. 

Clan "Buckeye"

Clan of daimyo Oda Nobunaga completed

Finished my third and largest clan. This is the clan of Oda Nobunaga 1534 – 1582, a powerful daimyō in the late 16th century.

This clan has three Yari Ashigaru stands, one Yari Samurai stand, one mounted Samurai stand, two Teppo Ashigaru and one Yumi Ashigaru stand.  This clan also has a General stand which has the field curtains around the General.  That was fun to put together. 

I also ordered some huts from Pico Armor so I can add some little Japanese villages to my terrain.  I'm hoping to play test this in the coming weeks before I finish painting what's left.  I'm still struggling with the effectiveness of mounted Samurai as I've read quite a few people who claim only small mountain ponies were available for the most part. I need to decide how to treat the Yari.  Pike like or more spear like. Or even as glaves.  I also want to add personal combat rules.

The new clan

Yumi Ashigaru in front of Teppo and Yari.

Yari Ashigaru 

The General in the field.

Third clan on the painting desk - Clan of daimyo Oda Nobunaga

My third and largest clan is taking shape and just about complete.  I have one more large clan to complete which should give me about 15 stands per side to start gaming with.

This is the clan of Oda Nobunaga 1534 – 1582, a powerful daimyō in the late 16th century who attempted to unify Japan during the late Sengoku period.  He successfully gained control over most of Honshu. Nobunaga is regarded as one of three unifiers of Japan along with his retainers Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Ashiagru stand of Ona Nobunaga's clan

The rest of the clan in progress

 

Finished The Red Devils of li Naomasa Daimyo

Finished my second clan.  Both are small.  The next two will be larger. These represent the Red Devils of li Naomasa. There are two stands or Samurai spear and one Ashigaru.  I mixed the bow and arquebusers in one stand and will have to go figure out how I'm doing the fire factors on that.


"Red Devils" of li Naomasa

Combined bow and Arquebus

The Daimyo