Ronin - First Foray into Wargaming (Now w/ the Undead!)

[Charlemagne]

Hi everyone! While in quarantine here in the US I have found a lot of extra time for hobbying (silver lining!) and have managed to paint enough miniatures and gather enough terrain for my first fully painted wargame! I was able to get a couple of games in using Osprey's sengoku-era skirmish rules (Ronin) the other weekend with my wonderful and similarly hobby-minded dad (a lead adventure veteran, Metternich), and we both enjoyed ourselves immensely! Getting to play a game with the works has really stoked my passion for expanding on my ronin collection and hopefully eventually having enough together to run a persistent campaign. I can definitely see putting up a few battle reports if that would be of interest here, but in the meantime here are some glamour shots of my two warbands: Bandits (or Wako pirates!) and Sohei.

The Sohei are all Northstar games' sohei warband, while the Bandits/Pirates are all Perry miniatures (with some minor conversions to make them feel a little less like Ikko-Ikki and a little more like bandits!) with the exception of the senior ronin with forked Yari, who is a test of honour miniature. Also threw in a bonus shot of some probably incomplete parts of a bushi warband (still working on the red and might go back over the armor) and an unfinished unarmored ronin/sword school member.

Any suggestions for additions to my terrain collection, especially things I can make myself on the cheap? Beyond what I have shown I have some bamboo from ebay that just needs some painting and another 4ground peasant's house and Koryu Dojo, but I'd love to hear everyone's ideas to flesh everything out more! Thanks for looking!

Full Album:
https://myalbum.com/album/7572kvS8UWDw

Both Together:



Bandit/Wako Buntai:







Sohei Buntai:






WIP Bushi Buntai and Bonus Unarmored Samurai:


Terrain:

[Blackwolf]

Tried to get it to work...Try myalbum.com
Nice work by the way

[Charlemagne]

Thanks Blackwolf, I just added an album in bold at the top on myalbum.com, it looks a lot better I think!

[Blackwolf]

Here you go

[Charlemagne]

Just figured it out, thanks again Blackwolf!

[Bloggard]

oh my - wonderful.

[Maniac]

Lovely work.  Ronin is a great set of rules, and I am happy to see others trying it out.

[Romark]

 

[Metternich]

We had a great time with the two games we played last weekend, and hope to have many more (perhaps a continuing campaign - I took the dastardly Bandits and Charlemagne took the forces of Enlightment, in the shape of a Sohei band).  I was amazed at the quality of Charlemagne's painting (full disclosure:  I am his dad); I never painted this well on my best day.  I greatly appreciated him coming over to keep the old man company.  Playing with such beautifully painted miniatures just adds to the enjoyment.

[joekano]

Great job on the figures!

[Charlemagne]

We had a great time with the two games we played last weekend, and hope to have many more (perhaps a continuing campaign - I took the dastardly Bandits and Charlemagne took the forces of Enlightment, in the shape of a Sohei band).  I was amazed at the quality of Charlemagne's painting (full disclosure:  I am his dad); I never painted this well on my best day.  I greatly appreciated him coming over to keep the old man company.  Playing with such beautifully painted miniatures just adds to the enjoyment.

They were a great couple of games, and terribly violent, nail-biting ones too! Next on the table to paint are 8 Perry/Grey For Now Games villagers/peasants so we can try out the village defense scenario, then I'll have to decide between painting more bandits and Sohei to have a decent pool available for a campaign or painting up a bushi buntai!

[Charlemagne]

Some progress on the new objectives...erherm... I mean lovely townsfolk! One town elder painted and ready for finishing touches on basing (likely the unfortunate owner of the village elder's house which has been the centerpiece of a few battles now), at least 7 more to go to support a full 200 point "protect the village" scenario. I'll have to figure out some more clothing prints that will work well in this scale, I'm sure to run out eventually!

[nandrin]

Veeery nice! Keep going!
Ronin is a wonderful set of skirmish rules.

[Maniac]

The villagers do make a nice addition to games.  They can add speed bumps, objectives, chaos, or have one secretly be a ninja in disguise....

[Charlemagne]

@Nandrin: thanks much! I've thoroughly enjoyed my 3 games of Ronin, and I definitely haven't seen everything it has to offer yet!

@Maniac: Very true, I'll have to think of some flavorful scenarios for them for sure!

Progress continues apace, I decided the white circle pattern on the elder was a bit flat, so I broke it up a bit by bisecting all of the circles. I may need to neaten the lines a bit more but I think it was a decent effect for very little additional effort. Also pushed out another villager, although I'm still deciding on whether she needs a pattern on her kimono as well, thoughts?

These villagers are going a fair bit faster than the rest of the miniatures I've painted thus far, I'll chalk that up to their relatively simple clothing and abundance of large flat surfaces.