Heyhey. Last week I realized that cpt.shandy never played Ronin, which I consider a very, very strong rules set, if only for the combat mechanism. THEN I realized that I hadn't played in just over 10 years. Wow. Time flies.
Anyway, back when Ronin was released I picked it up (my first Osprey 'blue book' rules set), because Samurai are cool, and feudal Japan is super interesting and everything looks pretty. As always with these warband-level skirmish games I very swiftly had a bunch of figures together and with a friend travelled to another friend who had us over for 2 days and among other things we played Ronin on his magnificently pretty table. Battle report and rules review can be found here:
https://tabletopstories.net/language/en/2019/10/ronin-review-2/
https://tabletopstories.net/language/en/2019/11/ronin-first-game/That table was a bit of a collaborative effort. I brought the large building and the bamboo patches (remember when these first appeared?), virago supplied the trees, constable the rest.
Here's some of the figures I painted at the time (or a bit later in the case of the second picture):
Later the same year I did another game with my own collection, demo'ing the rules to my brother. For that game I made a little demon statue for an objective:
Despite not playing the game since then, I kept on adding a little terrain and civilians here and there. It's funny (and you couldn't tell from my collection, because it's rudimentary), but feudal Japan might be the only period for which I find civilian life and scenery more interesting than the military aspect. I even bought a video game to research Feudal Japanese scenery, the excellent Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. That's pretty perfect, because each level is a diorama. Also great for looking at feudal japanese terrain: Sekiro.
Yeah, big Buddha statue. You gotta. And more bamboo grove bases, because Far East, right?
During the pandemic I got some Sarissa MDF stuff, to which I added more attractive roofs. And I did some serious sanding (eurch) and milliputtin' on that Torii gate.
..aaaand of course I got a bunch of bits and bobs by Oshiro Modelterrain, becasue you gotta.
Around christmas 2021 I also finished some more Perrys civilians and more MDF, by Zen Terrain or Zen Models or something.
One or two Grey for Now figures among them too, I think. Oh well. Since then I had my Feudal Japanese figures with me at wargames shows for display stuff.
Anyway, so this Thursday I got another game coming up. Re-reading the rules right now. I also drew up two warbands (Buntai). Very regular Bushi stuff. I assume I'll go with the "defend the civilians" scenario from the rulebook with a mixed Ashigaru-Samurai warband attacking and a band of six (ehem) Samurai defend the sword school.
For that I set up a gaming table tonight (instead of doing things I'm supposed to do):
Looks nicer in real life; I got space, I got a good amount of terrain for various periods (not quite yet satisfactory for this one), but my lighting situation is shameful. So yeah, I realized I don't have a thread with my ronin stuff on here yet (at least I'm fairly certain I don't), I thought I'd put all the stuff on here now, so we're up to date.
Earlier today I looked up Japanese fences. I assume that bamboo fences would make sense, given how there's a bunch of bamboo growing on that table. So I might have to make some of that (if so - what sort? I'm very much open to suggestions). Hope you like the stuff so far!
April 07, 2014, 12:08:18 PM
