Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Adventures in the Far East => Topic started by: meninobesta on October 15, 2009, 12:12:50 AM
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Hello!
I know this is not probably the most appropriate forum to post a warhammer army... but it is so unconventional that I want to share it with you, and after all it's mostly lead... and will most certainly make a good addition to future oriental adventures! :)
To make a long story short, let me just tell you about the wargaming reality in Portugal, in some brief items:
- There is no GW here besides being sold in a couple of stores
- Warhammer, FOW and 15mm antiquity (DBM and FOG) are the most played games around the country
- Warhammer is the most popular among the younger wargamers
- In order to have some events to keep the overall players in touch and present wargames to a new generation, the players must organize some tournaments (in this case it was organized by a group of very nice chaps who call themselves the White Crows)
- The Food is great in our country
- Everyone counts in these events in order to support the fees and have as much people as possible, so that the casual gamers don't think that they are alone in this hobby
- There are a couple of teams so that we can taunt each other about the amount of 6's that one team can roll
- Normally these tournaments are very fun because we end up talking about lead, painting, tactics, games and odd warstories that we like to share with each other!
So that's why I end up every year playing warhammer! usually I pick up some fantasy miniatures that I have and go play with them. I also belong to a team named "Suricatas de Alpercatas", which stands for "Meerkats in sandals". We had to have a team with an Animal name and with something that rhymes :)
This team is composed by myself and 3 other long date good friends of mine, one of them is torradas (which is also here in the LAF) and the other two are Zé and Jorge (which are brothers) And we all share interests in painting and not so common games!
Every week we meet each other by lunch (see above item about food) to talk about lead, games and overall insane ideas! and during June in one of these lunches we were talking about preparing the miniatures ready for this upcoming tournament and Torradas asked Jorge (which is the one who knows how to make the army lists)
about making a specific list because he was painting french fusiliers and could use them in a warhammer army and later could use them back into napoleonic games. After a couple of exchanged mails Torradas looked at the Dark Elf army list and said this would be very fun to do with Samurais!
And we all though "Why don't we all go to the tournament with Samurai themed Armies! after all the game is about fantasy we should use our imagination!" and after the tournament we could use most of the miniatures to play some games in the Sengoku-jidai period
And that's how I end up doing nothing more than painting during the summer! ;D
I must admit that It was one of the most funniest projects that I have made, and in the end was very pleased with the result, almost every day we exchanged ideas about what we were doing asking for advice and criticism about the work done. We also had to wander in the net and in stores searching for Japanese miniatures and bits and had to make some research about the overall feeling of the several armies!
First of all we couldn't go for GW miniatures they are just too expensive to make a group of about 60 to 70 figures.
And second we really wanted to go for something really different. Usually in most warhammer related forums and blogs there are amazing armies with lots of conversions and excellent paint jobs, but most of them are always based on GW miniatures even if completely covered in green stuff...
I chose an High Elf army made with TAG oriental monks! I must admit that I've been flirting these miniatures for some while but never had an excuse to buy them, and they are really something! On the positive side, monks dress themselves in white which is a colour that people tend to connect with high elves!
I also needed an oriental dragon and a magic user, so I went to Black hat (I also had a crush on them :D ) and with some modelling touches I was able to transform the Chinese miniatures into something more Japanese!
For the war machines, first I though about ordering some perry cannons, but I needed 3 of them and I didn't want to spend that much money for some items that I wouldn't use later (3 cannons in medieval Japan skirmish is something of an overkill). So I went for scotia grendel which have war machines for almost all tastes (but they a little bit bulkier than average) and prices and converted a couple of TAG peasants in order to make the several crewmen.
The missing part was a giant eagle, I had the idea of using some flying eagle from some manufacturer, but then torradas was also thinking about what kind of fliers he could use to make the harpies for his dark elves, and someone spoke about a ninja in a delta wing! I happened to have a perry ninja around the lead mountain, so there you go! only need to make a delta wing from toothpicks and paper! The first version was very crude (It could fit nicely into an orc army) and nobody liked it, so I went back to the drawing board. There was something that was missing in the overall model it needed a specific oriental touch, and I didn't want to take to much trouble building something because I'm not that patient when it comes to scratch building! "So why don't I make an Origami eagle!" I though to myself, and went to the internet finding some instructions and found a video of a guy making one! I copied that, but the eagle lacked mass, so I've used only the head to give a more eagle touch to the miniature!
In the end I also made a bonsai tree, a Tori Portal (got the idea from an old Rackham magazine -> those French guys are really pro when it comes to painting and modelling) and bought a small Buddha from a Chinese shop in order to make a stone statue. These items were only made to give some more oriental touch to displaying the army!
The choice of colours was fairly simple -> read an Osprey about Warrior monks and chose the white robes and yellow tunics like the pictures in the book (tuned it down to yellow ochre in order to give a more organic feel) and painted most of the bits in dark brown and some special items in red for the characters and champions!
I normaly paint my miniatures in the usual foundry the colour technique, but I use very dark colours as base (a little bit like Capt. Blood does, but not with the same jaw dropping effect) because after all I'm painting miniatures to be used and looked at in the table top
So there you go ... a not so brief history about this army... let's look at the pictures:
The overall army still with some unfinished items
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_oObns3UosHo/StI_9_uYWKI/AAAAAAAABrY/8Lk6_H1IZgA/s800/IMG_1145.jpg)
And some more detailed photos of some models:
(http://lh4.ggpht.com/_oObns3UosHo/StJQ-P7ZpzI/AAAAAAAABr4/U9Hm-xs_Oac/s800/IMG_1331.jpg)
(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oObns3UosHo/StJQ-BMIzCI/AAAAAAAABr8/vBQQZiBV_8I/s800/IMG_1334.jpg)
(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oObns3UosHo/StJQ-BNAPcI/AAAAAAAABsA/H5N-pXEuam8/s800/IMG_1336.jpg)
(http://lh5.ggpht.com/_oObns3UosHo/StJQ-WyVXUI/AAAAAAAABsE/32fxlvTcRQU/s800/IMG_1337.jpg)
(http://lh4.ggpht.com/_oObns3UosHo/StJQ-VMc8nI/AAAAAAAABsI/kppobmZ7X2Y/s800/IMG_1339.jpg)
(http://lh4.ggpht.com/_oObns3UosHo/StJRLbo4INI/AAAAAAAABsM/rKPD-eXAizU/s800/IMG_1341.jpg)
(http://lh5.ggpht.com/_oObns3UosHo/StJRLtScN4I/AAAAAAAABsQ/zors0-oxlLM/s800/IMG_1343.jpg)
(http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oObns3UosHo/StJRLm327SI/AAAAAAAABsU/ZMQ4LzJSTNY/s800/IMG_1346.jpg)
these are the links from photos, from our teams armies taken during the tournament:
http://www.pbase.com/squig_hopper/corvos_2009_pg
http://www.pbase.com/squig_hopper/corvos_2009_ze_jorge_martins
http://www.pbase.com/squig_hopper/corvos_2009_torradas
Torradas fielded a dark Elf Army, Zé a daemon Army and Jorge a Lizardmen army! all made with samurais, lots of insanity and not a single GW miniature! :D
The warhammer players liked the idea and hopefully this will give them some ideias in building new and stranger armies themselves!
I even won the prize for best painted army! :) (which was voted among all players)
To finish this, just 2 more thoughts:
- Cheers to TAG, Black Hat and Scotia Grendel for Excelent service and wonderful miniatures
- If torradas doesn't add a reply about his army (you should go and check it in the link), I'll add later more info on our other armies and some wip pictures!
thanks for reading! (hope my British writing accent is not that bad) :)
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I love it. This is just fine for a place to post these kind of themed armies that may not fit in with GW's standard ideas... heck, if you look around a bit, I put together a Pygmy Army, using the Wood Elf list, but replacing dryads with gorillas and other easy substitutions.
Beautiful paintwork as well. Many kudos!
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That’s a really cool looking army. Nice work
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Beautiful work with an excellent clear theme. The banners are particularly nice too!
Can we see the army list with a breakdown of what equals what? Any links to pictures of the other Samurai-themed armies done by your friends?
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Oooh that's a lovely one - splendid - love the flier in fact. :o :o 8) 8) 8)
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So good it made me stop being a lurker and actually sign up to the boards.
I love the army and it really struck a chord with me as I've been thinking of doing the same thing for months.
What I hadn't thought of doing was using non-human army rules though, I was going to just use Empire which would have ment a LOT of models.
Being from Scotland there are a number of GW stores about, which unfortunatly, in my area at least seems to have resulted in there being very little in the way of fantasy/scifi wargaming gaming groups. Now naturally I wouldn't be allowed to use the army in a GW store, but with many friends who still play GW games, myself only recently having stepped out of GW gaming (prices and company attitude finally breaking the camels back as it were) into the big wide real world of wargaming.
I was also thinking outside of GW rules about including other japanese mythological creatures such as Oni and Tengu which I think would fit in brilliantly alongside your Black Hat dragon.
Utterly amazing army, and you've pretty much created the fantasy world samurai army I've had in my head for a long time perfectly.
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:-*
Those are awesome!
One heck'va nice army.
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Love the whole lot :-* :-* :-*
Great job on the conversions and the painting.
Really like the idea for the eagle/flying ninja.
Thanks
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Hello!
thanks for the kind comments! :)
regarding my friends armies, they are in these links:
http://www.pbase.com/squig_hopper/corvos_2009_ze_jorge_martins
http://www.pbase.com/squig_hopper/corvos_2009_torradas
The list was composed by:
Elf Hero on Dragon
Elf Battle standard bearer on horse
Elf Mage
2 units of 10 archers
3 units of 7 swordmasters with unit champion
1 unit of 9 Drangon princes with full comand group
3 repeater bolt throwers
1 giant eagle
I think it is easy to make the conversion, when you look at the miniatures :) the only thing that the other players found more strange were the repeating canons, and they imediately though that it was an empire army.
I didn't scratch built bolt throwers because canons have a more japanese feel
I must also add that I've lost most of the games :D but it didn't matter... I had lots of fun painting and assembling the army!
a final note: this army cost me less than half the price than if I bought the miniatures from GW! I cannot use it to participate in GW oficial events, but on the bright side I can play fantasy and other historical games with it, something I could not do with elf miniatures
another overall picture of the army with the scenery bits finished!
(http://i.pbase.com/o2/44/536144/1/118248406.jiggz8Z2.DSC04597.JPG)
Once again, thanks! :)
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Great stuff, and I don't think you need to be so apologetic about Warhammer when you've done something so inventive. Lovely army, fizzing with ideas.
Also very much like the rhinos in the other army - superb!
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Well,
also being a "guilty party" in this project I´ll speak a little about my own list.
After deciding on the Samurai theme I immediately went for Perries. Perry Samurai is an old fetish of mine and this was an excellent "excuse" to load up on their goodies.
After some searching and brainstorming sessions with the rest of the Meerkats, I had a Dark Elf list and what I would use in it´s samurai equivalent:
Lvl4 Wizard (General) - Seated Daimyo
Focus Familiar for the General - a Japanese kid from the Perry villagers pack
3x Lvl2 Wizards - Japanese ladies, from the civilians packs
3x Assassins - 3x Ikko Ikki with Firearms (they were all shooty assassins)
2 units of 5x Dark Riders - Samurai horsemen with Yari
2 units of 10x Repeating crossbowmen - 20 Ashigaru with firearm (teppô) from various packs (not one position repeated throughout the army)
3 units of 5x shades - this was a no brainer :) Perry Ninjas
2 Hydras - had to go outside Perry here and I was looking for a wingless Oriental looking dragon. I settled on Grenadiers Golden Dragon II. For the handlers I used Perry Ashigaru banner carriers.
Now for some photos of the end result.
The complete army in a display tray:
(http://ic2.pbase.com/o2/44/536144/1/118248527.WrhqsDSa.DSC04585.JPG)
Ninjas/Shades:
(http://i.pbase.com/o2/44/536144/1/118248530.rWDzAtEd.DSC04586.JPG)
Characters of the army (Lvl4 Wizard/Daimyo + 3x lvl2 Wizards + Focus Familiar):
(http://i.pbase.com/o2/44/536144/1/118248532.cOev9Fuk.DSC04587.JPG)
One of the Repeating crossbowmen/Têppo Ashigaru:
(http://i.pbase.com/o2/44/536144/1/118248535.QF8IRZZU.DSC04589.JPG)
The second unit of Repeating crossbowmen/Têppo Ashigaru (with the hydra in the background):
(http://i.pbase.com/o2/44/536144/1/118248540.9m7C3USY.DSC04591.JPG)
Dark Riders/Yari Mounted Samurai:
(http://ic2.pbase.com/o2/44/536144/1/118248537.5huEmhB5.DSC04590.JPG)
One of the Hydras with accompanying banner carriers:
(http://i.pbase.com/o2/44/536144/1/118248544.7tfa5fg0.DSC04593.JPG)
The other Hydra (Grenadier Golden Dragon with custom built whiskers):
(http://i.pbase.com/o2/44/536144/1/118248546.tFa0qteR.DSC04594.JPG)
The 3 assassins:
(http://ic2.pbase.com/o2/44/536144/1/118248548.eLf1P6tJ.DSC04595.JPG)
The rest of the photos at:
http://www.pbase.com/squig_hopper/corvos_2009_torradas
It was a great pleasure to do this project as the Samurais (and the Perries in the particular) were an old passion for me. We are now planning to do a narrative campaign with our fours armies.
Cheers,
Torradas
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very nice
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Absolutely nice! And I see no problem posting anything about Warhammer here.
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These are brilliant. :-* Spot on jobs, and well done to both of you, gentlemen.
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Gah, just when I thought it couldn't get any better Torradas comes in with the Perry miniatures, which I really like aswell. Hoping to get at least a few myself for skirmish sized games if not a whole army of them.
Once again brilliant army and great colour scheme. Seeing those two armies facing each other either as warhammer, historical or another systems forces to get the dragons in would be a sight to behold I'm sure.
:)
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Two wonderful armies! :-*
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Both armies are very nice!! :-*
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I'll echo all the other comments - two beautiful armies. Well done, fellas!
I'd almost be tempted to play Warhammer myself, if I could use my own army against the Munchkins' "official" ones. I think I'd go for a "Malloryesque" Arthurian army using my foundry stuff - Excalibur as a magic sword, the maximum amount of characters, lots of plate-armoured k'niggets and Merlin in a pointy hat :)
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two fantastic armies
I think one should not tag the armies by the ruleset
for me, these are two samurai armies, no matter what you play them with
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At the risk of sounding like an echo, I love the idea and execution of the armies - The implementation of the flier as the giant eagle stand in was particularly inspired :-*
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Great idea! I was thinking of trying the same thing out with all the new palstic Naps comeing out and useing Empire rules to get other folks in on it. My group is obsesed with ACW, and freankly I cant stand the it.
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I also really like the flying ninja/eagle thing. would you post more photos?
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To add my little voice - fantastic, absolutely fantastic!
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Great work! Thanks for posting the pics!
Awesome armies, I'd love to see those in person.
-Alex
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I love it. I really like seeing bright warhammer armies. Especially Nipponese ones! The second army is a little too dark for my liking, too serious. However, it is very well painted and would make an excellent Warhammer ancients army.
Well done both of you! :)
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Those are gorgeous armies. Really really nice. I've been toying with the idea of getting a WFB army together when (if) I'm done my current projects but I the GW stuff has been leaving me pretty cold; this is an obvious (now) and exciting way to deal with that. So many possibilities.
So thanks for sharing this :)
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Excellent Work guys!!