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

 

 

 

3mm Pico Modern Armor on the paint desk

This is my second wave of Pico 3mm Moderns.  Adding Marine vehicles and a variety of Soviet equipment in Arab service.   My third wave is going to be lots of  T-55's and T-62's and some of the first American vehicles used by the Israelis.  I've dug into "Sands of War" and "Arab Israeli Wars" and a 500 page RAND Corp. PDF on the Gulf War to try and gather more information on TOEs.  It's really hard to nail down some of the exact formations but there's enough info to put together some generic brigades etc.

More Abrams and some Arab Village pieces.  Pico does a really nice TUSK version.

Camo on the T-72's.  Egyptians maybe?

Marine AAV's

BMP  BTR  BDRM  GAZ  ZSU-23

Variety of Soviet stuff.  120mm mortar crews with trucks in there too. 

Ready for flocking.  A couple M113's on the left.

LAV's

Crazy detail on the M2A2 Bradleys.  

Pico Armor 3mm Moderns ready for deployment

After the holidays I was finishing up some WW2 micro armor and my thoughts turned toward extending into the modern era and doing something new.  We game a lot with a mix of Heroics and Ros and GHQ.  I decided my first step would be creating a Stryker Brigade and I thought maybe my moderns could be 3mm instead of  6mm.  After checking out the Pico selection I ordered a mess of Strykers and support units. When I got them I was blown away.  I haven't been this excited by a miniatures line since I saw my first Old Glory ACW package. 

The detail on these Strykers is like nothing I've ever seen.  Actually, I can't see it any more without magnification, but it was a blast to paint.  The M1's were even more impressive.  They have stowage on them that I don't want to paint yet, but could see popping out in all different types of colored gear everywhere.

The US Infantry actually have night vision goggles attached to their helmets.  Wow.  I've been a big fan of Pico Napoleonics and ACW so this seems like a natural progression for me.  The selection and price point can't be beat.  I also got my first air support and helos which are really neat.  I'm pretty sure I'll be doing Viet Nam in this range soon.

You couldn't ask for a better group than the John's at Pico to work with.  They take care of your order in a polite, timely manner and are always helpful with questions and notices.  I feel like I get personal treatment with them which is rare anymore.  It's especially nice when you want to branch out into a whole new line and period.

I'm starting with scenarios for the 2003 Iraq War and working backwards.  I'm building up a variety of T72's that should get me started for any Arab & Israeli actions too.

Stryker Brigade with Command and support units.  Including a couple Abrams and a Bradley

Stryker ICV Company with Infantry

XO and Sniper Team

Engineers and Weapons Team

Medical 

MGS Mobile Gun System

MBT

Out of focus A10 Warthog and Apache

First Republican Guard units