Ronin - Swords-for-Hire Update

[EnclavedMicrostate]

Thanks for the tips. We’ll keep the three stuns = light wound option in mind.

Regarding Fearless and Oni, Fearless will enable a model to enforce the results of morale and an Oni’s Terrifying will increase the likelihood of a buntai shifting to wavering or routing. Is that right?  However, a fearless model will still need to make a test against their rank as the Oni also has Formidable.

Am I following the attributes correctly?

That is correct, though remember also that if you have any models with the Commander attribute, that will counteract the morale penalty from the presence of a Terrifying model.

[Mr. White]

Painted up my Bandit Buntai





Above are Northstar and Bad Squiddo models that make up the Samurai leaders of the Buntai. These will be the Leader (probably the model with the sword raised, or maybe the lady holding the vial). The two on the ends will make great second-in-command, Gashiras.



The rest of the buntai are made up of Bandits and Peasants. All of the above are from Northstar’s Ronin line.



To be honest, this group of models may be one I struggled with more than any other models I’ve pained. It was a new skin-tone for me to attempt and I originally had too much contrast so had to do a lot of repainting. The end result looks ok, but I spent too much time looking at them, all I see are errors. I do like the overall color scheme and look of the buntai, so am looking forward to getting some distance between when I painted them and just look to have fun playing them.

[blacksoilbill]

The paint job on these looks really dramatic: I like it.

[commissarmoody]

Nice looking band of villains.

[OSHIROmodels]

They look fine to me 

[EnclavedMicrostate]

Bold colour choice but it's come out looking quite snazzy!

[Tom Dulski]

Beautiful work

[Mr. White]

Thanks, all, for the words of praise.
This lot does look a bit more unified like a "gang" or "army" as opposed to a ragtag group of bandits is mismatched clothing, but I'm ok with that.

They're going to get their first few raids in this weekend where they'll lock up against my buddy's Sohei. They'll probably strike during a religious ceremony, perhaps hunt some kappa shells, maybe have a few duels against rivals... general banditry in the surrounding hills of Kyoto.

[Metternich]

Interesting looking band of rapscallions.  I usually play the Bandit Buntai (see Charlemagne's thread:  Ronin - First Foray into Wargaming).  Charlemagne painted his bandits with blue and red to tie them together (but different elements on each in those colors).  We found that going by the "approved" list is very limiting for the Bandits.  We allow a Senior Ronin (generally the chap with the raised nodachi) to help even it up (and use the revised nodachi rules Osprey published in their errata).  The naginata arming many of the Sohei is a "super weapon," and the Sohei have generally higher-ranked models than the bandits. The Bandit leader, though in heavy armor, isn't much of a better fighter than ordinary Sohei.

[EnclavedMicrostate]

I wonder also if there's benefit to letting Bandits hire a Ninja, given that the Kenshin Ryu campaign supplement has them doing exactly that.

A subtle and I suspect unintended feature of Bandits is that their Rank 2 models have Rank 3 stats, which contributes to their having a relatively high points-to-Rank ratio. I don't know how that shakes out in practice against 'heavier' factions like Bushi or Ikkō, but against Koryu it does mean the latter cannot afford remotely the same proportion of losses.s

[Mr. White]

Played my first three games of Ronin last weekend. Bandits vs Sohei. The pair split the games 1-1 at 100pts. The Sohei won the Skirmish scenario, but the bandits were able to slaughter all four villagers in Defend the Village. Well… more like Defend the Mythical as we used kappa around a home pond as villagers. Didn’t have any villager models painted yet. :/

Sohei routed the bandits at 200pts. The Sohei Grandmaster was just too much. As our first games, we didn’t do any tweaks to the game besides three stuns equal a light wound.

I did put together some “player kits” for the occasion.

Fun games and looking forward to more!

[EnclavedMicrostate]

Great stuff! What were the three different colours of stones for?

[Mr. White]

Here's what as in the kit:

* color marbled d6s to roll for actions
* black and white d6s for the combat pool. we just used d6s instead of chits/tokens so you could just add the black or white die to your others when you wanted to enhance.
* frosted stones in three colors to track wounds: white = stun, black = light wound, red = grievous wound, model lying on the ground = critical
* bag to hold all these grubbins
* bottles of Kirin to assist with tactics

[EnclavedMicrostate]

Ahh, I see. The dice were a clever way of doing it that I hadn't considered! I have black and white stones that I use as attack/defence counters, hence my (mistaken) assumption you were doing the same and thus wondering about the red.

[Metternich]

Glad you enjoyed the game - Ronin is a fun set of rules.  As you noted, a Sohei Grandmaster is a difficult nut for a Bandit Buntai to crack.  In your next game, try letting the Bandits hire a Senior Ronin (which is not on the "official" Osprey list for a Bandit Buntai) instead of a Ronin.  That evens things up.