Ronin - Rise of the new Shogun

[AWOL]

Greetings Lead-adventure!

I haven't posted overly much on this site, but a friend of mine who goes by the name of CaptainHaddonCollider here, has been posting battlereports (Links:1, 2, 3) from some of our Lion Rampant games in an ongoing, if currently paused, campaign, and I felt that a log here about my newest project might work both to let us keep track of it and maybe even shamelessly pilfer inspiration from the other members of the board.
CHC has a peculiar ability to get me to start projects, and he's gotten me into a number of games over the years. LR turned out to be tremendous fun, not least because he'd done an absolutely amazing job with the terrain and setting, and over the summer I decided to see if there wasn't a way to return that. Then, after we'd played our last LR game, Ronin reared it's head. Small armies, fairly cheap to get into, looks well-written and fun, plus we've got another friend who should be easy to persuade as long as he gets to play with samurai models and put on a fake accent - what's not to love?

I decided on finding a background that'd let me pit three armies against each other, since the overarching narrative of the LR campaign made that so much better, and found it in the Sengoku era. Here's the intro text I sent to CHC and the other chap, Tim:

In 1573, Ashikaga Yoshiaki, last Ashikaga-shogun, have managed to alienate his patron, the Daimyō Oda Nobunaga, by refusing to leave politics to him. After the shogun contacts Takeda Shingen, Daimyō of Kai, to aid him in destroying Nobunaga, Nobunaga promptly imprisons the shogun and makes war on Shingen, one of the most wealthy Daimyō in Japan. In the meantime, the Daimyō Uesugi Kenshin have little love for either commander, and would dearly love to see them both dead, furthering his own ambitions. A former Buddhist monk, he is partly inspired by the rise of the Ikko-Ikki to purify the land of the rising sun.
The lines are drawn, with Oda Nobunaga, Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin sending out raiding parties ahead of their main forces to control strategically placed villages and roads, burn or recover crops, and assassinate opposing commanders.

(Historically, Shingen dies in 1573 trying to storm a castle commanded by Tokugawa Ieyasu, one of Nobunagas most valued field commanders. Nobunaga, fighting the Ikko-Ikki, rejoices and puts them to the sword. After this, he utterly destroys the Takeda army under Shingens son by massed Teppo-fire, which also makes a point to the samurai on both sides - the nobility of the Kai province has been destroyed by Ashigaru, commoner infantry, with firearms.)

Of course, there's much more to the period than this, but I feel it should suffice as a setting for a few games.

With this established, I borrowed CHC's Ronin rulebook and made 3 army lists.

Defenders of the Ashikaga Shogun, Buntai of Daimyō Takeda Shingen
            
3 Samurai
            
4 Ashigaru with Yumi (bows)   
            
1 Ashigaru-Gashina with a banner    
            
1 Ashigaru-Gashira with Yari (spears)

Raiders of the Monk-Daimyō, Uesugi Kenshin
            
2 Samurai
            
1 Hatamoto
            
2 Ashigaru with Yumi
            
1 Ashigaru with a banner   
            
3 Ashigaru-Gashira with Yari

(I've actually got a second WiP list for this army that I'll use if time permits - it just requires me to paint some monks that I haven't got yet, so for now I'll be aiming for this, and if I have time I'll swap in a different list. )

Advance guard of the new Shogun, Oda Nobunaga
            
1 Bushou with Nodachi and warhorse
            
1 Hatamoto with Yari and warhorse
            
3 Samurai

I'll admit that I'm worried about the last one being either insanely overpowered or utterly feeble, but it ought to be fun, and that's the main objective.

I've bought everything needed from the Perry brothers, and their metals are - as always - a pleasure to work with.
I picked a Ashigaru with a bow from the Takeda force as my test model:



I've since realised that I need to paint some stripes on his bow, but other than that, this'll be the standard I'll aim for.

Terrain-wise I've built a few houses, the concept shamelessly stolen from Juxt's great samurai log over on warseer: Link


And for scale:


They're not the prettiest things in the universe, but I think they'll do for peasant housing. I'm hoping to complete either a manor or a small temple in the same style before we play.

If you've made it through that wall of text, congratulations! I know I went on a bit, but I felt this should be introduced proper-like. All comments and criticism is more than welcome on this!

[CaptainHaddonCollider]

Oh my, but this looks very promising! The houses are superb and the painting on the test ashigaru likewise, I can't wait to see this I'm action! What sort of playing surface does ronin need? 2x2, 3x3 or 4x4? Should we make a themed table?

[Hupp n at em]

Love the houses, simple yes but very well done and effective. 

[carlos13th]

3x3 is the recommended size for Ronin I believe.

[AWOL]

Thanks guys.
Carlos, cheers - I'll be plotting out terrain for a 3x3 table then.

Hupp, thanks!

CHC, we should! I'm thinking we'll play at Rogue Trader, so the playing surface is taken care of. I'm not entirely sure how much terrain is suitable, but I'll be making a couple more houses and some other thematic stuff. The generic terrain they have at the club should fit in nicely too, deciduous trees and rocks/hills mainly. We should be good, I think.

It's been busy, but I figured I'd share what limited progress there's been. I've been distracted by Infinity, but that's easing up a bit. No more terrain for this update, but the first buntai is taking shape.



This is, of course, the ashigaru archers of Takeda Shingen and a single samurai of the same buntai. The ashigaru are all keeping to the same recipe for the red and black, but I'm hoping to introduce a bit more variety on the samurai by using different reds, whites and blacks. Everyone in the buntai will be in the warm, reddish colours though, to keep them visually coherent and distinct from the others.
I'm also hoping there'll be time to go back over them before playing and adding more details, like markings on their helmets and some freehand on the banners, but I'll be keeping it simple until I've got all the models up to a basic standard that'll let us play a game. We've been talking about a game sometime in November, so there isn't THAT much time.

The last members of the buntai are prepped and I'll be working a bit on them today:



The ashigaru should be fairly quick to paint, leaving me a bit of time to work on the banner and the samurai. I might also be resuming work on the terrain, after having seen the buildings Funkybrush have done in his thread.

[affun]

This looks great! Also good to see some interest in Ronin and Samurai in general in Denmark, since I just happen to have acquired (No clue how that happened  ) both rules and some miniatures myself.
Looking forward to seeing more of this project unfold. Seems like it'll be great for inspiration.

[AWOL]

Cheers Affun!

Yeah, projects tend to do that. I was just sitting quietly at the PC, lost concentration and an order confirmation from the Perry's showed up in my inbox. You're in Jutland, right?

[rokurota]

Great work! Do you like the Boshin War?

[olyreed]

Lovely work  .

[affun]

Cheers Affun!

Yeah, projects tend to do that. I was just sitting quietly at the PC, lost concentration and an order confirmation from the Perry's showed up in my inbox. You're in Jutland, right?

Indeed, currently reciding in Aarhus. I do stop by Copenhagen at least monthly, so at some point, we might even be able to figure a game out. At the very least, I plan to stop by Rogue Trader at some point soon-ish.

I ended up falling for the Black Hat Samurai - looks to be some great sculpts, and am awaiting them with anxiety. And at that price, I couldn't not buy them  At least, thats what I tell myself.

[AWOL]

Affun, we should do that. Would be fun to air these guys and get a feel for the system. I think there's a little bit of interest in RT as well, besides me.

Black hat looks fantastic too, and like you say, cheap! Why, compared to other options, they're almost saving you money, so it'd almost be irresponsible NOT to buy them. 
Luckily they're 25 mm and I'm using 28, so I can just about control myself.

Olyreed, cheers man!

Rokurota, thanks and thanks for the link too, you've got some very nice sculpts, especially the officers. Sadly I think I'm too invested in medieval wargaming or WWII to make the plunge right now, but I'll keep them in mind - it's a fascinating period. 

This'll probably be the last update in a little while, as I need to finish some Infinity stuff before I can really continue. Plus, one of the guys I'm planning on running the campaign with has dropped out for the next 2 months due to work, so I'll be focusing on getting the Uesugi Kenshin force ready. I've ordered a bit more from the Perrys to change the list into an Ikko-Ikki one, as everything I've read about Uesugi Kenshin points me towards him being rather religious. I figure it shouldn't be TOO unlikely that some of the more religious parts of his forces would scrape up some poorly equipped fanatics on the way to the battle and field them, but I'm not too knowledgeable on Japanese culture and the way things were done, so feel free to correct me if there's anything entirely unlikely here. Heraldry can be re-painted, after all.

Anyhow, as you can probably figure, the first buntai is done.
Here's the newbies:


From left to right: An anonymous samurai, another anonymous samurai that'll be the leader of the warband and thus eventually get a name, an Ashigaru with the banner and an Ashigaru with a Yari.

The entire buntai looks like this:


I'm fairly pleased with them. I'll go back over and add some more details if I have the time, but there's plenty to paint and build yet, after all. Also, an annoying detail - I had originally gone with the round mon on this buntai, but I found out that was the wrong mon for the Takeda forces. The actual mon is the 4 diamond seen on the helmet of the ashigaru with the spear, so I had to repaint the archers.

[Metternich]

Very nice warband.

[rokurota]

Very nice!

[olyreed]

  i like the mix of black and reds, they look great

[pws]

Very very nice