I’m a sucker for Sengoku…

Those of you who follow this blog, or the podcast, will know that I’m a huge fan of Sengoku period Japan.

Whether it’s boardgames like Shogun, or miniatures, I just love this period of history.

I’d heard about Senji, a boardgame from Asmodee, some time ago, but I was somewhat reluctant to have a closer look at it.

However, I recently viewed the video review of this game on the Bookshelf Games website, and once I saw the production quality of the game – including the fact that the game had miniatures of Samurai and fortresses – it immediately became a must buy.

On opening the box, my initial reaction is very good – this is certainly a very well produced game, and I’m looking forward to getting it on the table sometime in the very near future, so look out for a review on the podcast.

HOTT 15mm Samurai WIP

Well, I’ve almost finished the first few units of my HOTT Samurai army – 4 units of Ashigaru (2 Spears, 2 Shooters)

However, I must admit to having mixed feelings about these models.

It’s not the models per se, but rather the scale. It seems to me that painting 15mm has all the drawbacks of painting 28mm figures (it takes a long time to paint individual figures – especially with the small detail) but with none of the benefits of the larger figures (an nice, inpressive figure when you’ve finished) or none of the benefits of the smaller scale (nice overall effect) either.

In short, I’m really not convinced that 15mm figures give the same return for the time spent on them that 28mm figures do.

OK, I’m a slow painter, but the 4 units above have taken me several hours to (almost) complete – and I still have to base them! If I was painting a 6mm army, I’d have a couple of entire units painted by now, and they would look more impressive on the batlefield.

This HOTT army could very well be my first – and last – in 15mm.
 

Back in the painting saddle

Well, after taking a couple of weeks off from painting after my Battlelore exploits, it’s time to get started again.

I’ve got a couple of very large projects coming up (and that’s not counting my 6mm French!) and so I thought that I would work on a relatively quick project, which is my 15mm HOTT Samurai army.

This army is pretty small, being only just over 40 figures. It includes the following units:

• 2 Units Samurai Blades
• 2 Units Ashigaru Spears
• 2 Units Ashigaru Shooters (Arquebuses & Bows)
• 2 Units Samurai Knights
• 1 Hero
• 1 Magician General
• 1 Ronin Lurker (Option)
• 1 Ninja Sneaker (Option)

I’ve also got a stonghold to paint, which will be the usual Samurai Commander’s camp screen, complete with various troops and other paraphernalia.

And then,  just as a couple of fantasy options, I’ve got a Magician and a Dragon, so hopefully lots to see in the next couple of weeks.

The figures came with seperate sashimono’s, which were a bit of a pain to attach as the figures did not have a hole for the banner pole – so each had to individually drilled with a pin-vice.  However, they do look a lot better when attached, and will hopefully lend extra character to the finished figures. 

As you can see, I also decided to give the figures a gray undercoat instead of my usual black - just to see how I get on…

Look for updates on painted units soon.

More Eureka Samurai

Well, my order from Fighting15s arrived last night – which completes my HOTT army, or so I thought.

A quick look through the figures, and then a check of the invoice revealed that I’d forgotten the mounted Army General – argh!

So, it was back to the website, but I couldn’t just order a single £0.80 figure, could I? So I ended up ordering the Oriental Dragon from the 10mm Eureka Fantasy range too.

So, that leaves me with 24 foot figures, 6 mounted figures plus 2 command/hero stands and the BUA to paint. Surely this can’t take very long, can it?

HOTT Samurai revisited

Well, we’ve had many problems with getting this campaign off the ground. The primary one was simply getting hold of all the figures that we needed. Although we placed a large order (over £300 worth) for Two Dragons figures with Caliver Books, we only ever received the character figures – the rank and file samurai and ashigaru simply never turned up.

With credit to Caliver, this wasn’t their fault, but rather an issue with Two Dragons. After several months we cancelled our back order with Caliver and got a refund for our outstanding order.

So, we were left with having to find a new set of figures. After some searching around, we eventually decided on using Eureka’s range of Samurai – these are slightly bigger 15mm figures, but are very nice.
The figures arrived, but by this time most of the original enthusiasm for the project had waned and so they sat in a box doing nothing.

Fast forward to a conversation in the pub last week – several people are starting to think that they are playing too much Commands & Colours Ancients of late, and want something else to concentrate on as well. The Samurai campaign is mentioned, and suddenly we are back on.

 I looked at the Eureka figures against the Two Dragons figures, and they really are in a different league – far superior in my opinion. So, I decided to replace my original Two Dragons character figures with ones from Eureka, and placed an order.
However, Eureka don’t produce everything I need (Ninja, for example) so I’ve ordered a few figures from Freikorps as well. Hopefully they will turn up in the next week or so and I can get painting