Ignorant question about 'uniforms' of Sengoku era

[jdeleonardis]

Apologies for what may come off sounding extremely ignorant and daft, but Im having problems finding a definitive answer.

But, relating to armor colors for any particular daimyo...

Would ashigaru units have the same colors, or would they have been different?  Ive read that possibly for 'richer' daimyos, its possible that most could have been the same.  Is this true?

Also, the same for samurai...ive always assumed that their colors 'in a unit' would be different.

Can you provide a little insight?

Thank you very much for looking

[OSHIROmodels]

Well the short answer is 'No uniforms', the long answer is below...

Early in the Sengoku Jidai daimyo didn't really have large standing armies and the majority of the soldiers were taken from the farming population and the local samurai would have to pay for the equipment of their farmers.

Each samurai had to provide a certain number of retainers according to his personal income and therefore the armies that were gathered were a multicoloured affair.

Occasionally the bigger daimyos would pay for sashimono to equip his men to make them more recognisable on the field.

Later in the period as the war got bigger daimyos started to have standing armies and therefore had more of a uniformed state for the units but generally the garments under the armour were the wearers own, so there was still a lot of colour to be had unless the daimyo was one of the top ones.

Obviously painting them to look similar in the same unit is appealing and it's how I do mine (I generally play the later part of the period) but I am starting to make them a bit more different.

The above was for the lowly ashigaru but the same could be said for the lower class samurai. Higher class samurai strived to be seen on the field and would therefore try and look different to their compatriots from their armour to their sashimono design.

Heraldry in the Sengoku period wasn't really the same as in Europe. There were no hard and fast rules and if a son wanted to change the colours and general design of the banners then so be it.

The only thing to stay the same was the shape of the family mon but it's colours, sizes and frequency could change at a whim.

There's a whole lot more to this and it is a really interesting subject when you start getting into it.

Hope it's a help 

cheers

James

 

[jdeleonardis]

Very very helpful.  Thank you very much for your reply, James.

[OSHIROmodels]

If you need anything, just post 

cheers

James

[Steel fist]

I  agree with what james said. Also even if you paint them all a bit different it's still suprising how cohesive you can make them look with careful painting.

[Metternich]

The Ii family (The Red Devils) did put all their men in red laquered armor.

[BlackWidowPilot]

The Ii family (The Red Devils) did put all their men in red laquered armor.

This. Right here. This is the quickest and dirtiest solution to the problem of fielding a uniformly attired samurai army. Further, the bright red armor really makes the Ii Red Devils stand out on the war-game table.

In contrast, you could do the Date samurai and ashigaru, whose armor color was IIRC uniformly black.

Also, choose figures that are wearing later, simpler styles of "bullet proof" armor with fewer lacings. This will further simplify your workload.

Hope all this helps, and welcome to the Dark Side that is Far Eastern wargaming in miniature... we have sushi!

[Arthur]

I recommend the Samurai Archives forum. Can't be beat as a one-stop shop for Japanese heraldry and general inspiration :

http://forums.samurai-archives.com/viewtopic.php?t=1638&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

[carlos13th]

I picked a few basic colours of undergarments for my ashigaru but generally paint them similarly. I'm trying to make my samurai more unique though with brighter colours and more ornate armour lacing than ashigaru.

[Metternich]

Thanks for posting that Arthur - a great resource.