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

3mm Samurai Second Clan in progress

I really wanted to do the red devils of li Naomasa next.  Here is the prototype Ashigaru stand in progress.

3mm Pico Samurai on the paint desk

I was browsing the Pico Armor web site a few weeks ago and came across a new line of figs.  3mm Samurai.  I've always thought I'd get to this period someday but the lure of checking out this line and doing some new research pulled me in.  I found enough information online to figure out what to order.  I'm planning on building 4 initial clans and then adding smaller ones later.  Pico is perfect for this. 

The Sengoku period is fascinating and offers about a hundred years of variety during the "warring states" period.  Multiple personalities and warring clans "daimyo" create a ton of possible scenarios. 

The troop types of this period offer some real interesting possibilities.  The Samurai are still present but the bulk of the fighting falls to large surf armies of Ashigaru armed with spears and arquebus introduced by the Portuguese.   

Pico offer Samurai and Samurai on horseback as well as three types of Ashigaru armed with spear, bow, and arquebus.  They round that out with command packs that have two types of banners included.

There are some good rules out there, but I'm using a slightly modified set of homegrown Pike and Shot rules.

After an introduction to the tactics I opted to base the units as Samurai horse, Samurai on foot, Ashigaru with spear, bow and arquebus on separate stands. I also added a combination stand of bow and arquebus and intend to make some special rules for them.  The tactics involved adding bow sections to keep up the rate of missle fire while the arquebuers were reloading.   I made one General command stand per side and built curtains around three side of the base.  Each clan has a daimyo stand.  I want to include personal combat by the leaders that can determine morale effects on their troops. 


I recommend the Samurai Archive for just about everything including awesome heraldry.  
http://www.samurai-archives.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1638&sid=b9bc94c080aa81cc83855ef65db1a2dc