Wars of the Samurai: Old Glory Cavalry

I'm back with another unit for my Pike & Shotte: Wars of the Samurai armies. This will be the first of three cavalry units I'll be fielding on the table.

As mentioned in my last post, I was able to buy a large quantity of secondhand Old Glory miniatures at a convention flea market. The cavalry was in pretty rough shape, with the figures partially assembled using globs of hot glue and epoxy, and many of the riders suffering from badly bent and broken weapons. After a day of disassembly, cleaning, rebuilding, and rebasing, I was able to assemble three 12-man units. 

While the sculpting quality of both the riders and horses is reasonable, especially considering the price, there is a significant issues with how the separate riders fit onto the horses.  The open shape under the saddle/rider's legs is much wider that the horse's back, resulting in huge gaps between the two. Even squeezing the rider's legs against the horse doesn't completely eliminate the issue. 

As such, the only way to get the figures to look ok is to fill the gaps with large amounts of Green Stuff or putty and try to blend it in with shaping and paint.

My figures came with six horse poses, so you can get a good variety for 12-man units. I used the excellent images on the Kriget Kommer blog when selecting horse colorations. 

The riders come in a variety of armor styles, which is nice, but some styles seem a bit archaic for my mid 16th Century setting based on the Osprey books I have.  However, I'm not an expert and worst case, perhaps some samurai still like the older styles.  The faces and bodies of the riders are not as realistically proportioned as the Perry figures, but do have a lot of character and remind me of exaggerated woodblock prints. 

The armor and lacing color selections were based on the Osprey books, the catalog of Osaka Castle's armament collection, and various woodblock prints. I tried to go for a mix of elaborate and subdued lacing, both for variety and to preserve my own sanity while painting.

This particular unit will be Mōri clan allies for my Ikkō-Ikki army. I've gone with a red standard, as I've seen this color associated a lot with the Mōri. In the future, I'll order some Mōri clan mon decals for the standard.

While these figures will never hold a candle to the newer samurai miniatures on the market, I think they are still a viable option if you're on a budget and and have the ability to work around their shortcomings.
 

Wars of the Samurai: Ikkō-Ikki

I'm back with another resurrected Warhammer Ancient Battles project.  Originally abandoned when Warhammer Historical dissolved and the Divine Wind supplement was cancelled, I completed some of the figures about 13 years ago for Osprey's Ronin game. But the majority have sat unpainted in the pile of shame at the bottom of the hobby closet. With Warlord Games releasing their Wars of the Samurai supplement for Pike and Shotte, I figured it was time to get this project out of mothballs.

As no other players around here are into Samurai, I'm going to build two smaller forces:  the Ikkō-Ikki Buddhist rebels and forces loyal to Oda Nobunaga in the late 16th Century.

First up are the sohei monks.  I painted these a while back, but basing materials have improved since I last worked on them, so I've refurbished them to a more modern standard, similar to my old Hail Caesar armies found elsewhere on the blog.

The figures are Old Glory and The Assault Group (TAG), with a Perry miniature thrown in as well. There were no sohei bannermen available at the time, so I tried to create one from an Old Glory samurai using greenstuff.

I had a few of the peasant figures painted back in the day, but the majority came from the unpainted lead pile.  These are a mix of Old Glory peasant infantry, TAG peasants and followers, Perry's dedicated Ikko-Ikki, and a few wako pirates from the old Cavalcade line.  The sculpting styles vary widely between the lines. The TAG are thick and a bit characterized, the Perry are thinner with realistic faces, and the Old Glory are somewhere in between the two in size and style. The Cavalcade are the smallest and weakest of the sculpts  and my least favorite out of the mix. If I were to start over today, I'd likley go a different route, but at the time TAG and Cavalcade were available at the local shop and I was able to get the budget friendly Old Gory figures at a convention flea market for pennies on the dollar. 

These eight stands will form the backbone of the force, but I am looking to supplement them with some teppo (matchlock) and yumi (bow) ranged units and samurai from the allied Mōri clan.

Into the Wasteland: Final Warbands and Scatter Terrain

The building and painting phase of my 32mm Fallout/This Is not a Test project has finally wrapped up with my last warbands and scatter terrain.

While you don't see really see large groups of Vault Dwellers on the surface in Fallout, I really felt something would be missing from my games if I only had the two Vermilion figures I previously painted as guns for hire.  I found offical Modiphius Vault Dweller figures fairly underwhelming and the other Vermilion proxies were lacking in the weaponry to be a viable warband. Luckily I found a seller in Canada with a line of 32mm Bunker Security Agents under the Nuke World banner that fit the bill perfectly.  You can buy them with Vault themed bases, but I opted to use extra post-apocalyptic bases I already had.

Science Officer and Overseer

Security Captain and Riot Trooper

Riot Troopers with firearms

Additional Security Officers

Here is a quick comparison between an official Fallout miniature, a Nuke World miniature, and a Vermilion miniature.  While there is some difference in the base heights, I would say the Fallout and Nuke World figures are almost identical in size (Nuke World may be a fraction taller) and the Vermilion miniatures are a little smaller.  However, they are within standard human differences and stylistically I think they all look fine mixed together. 

My last warband is another set of raiders from Vermilion, the Rust Reavers.  I was unable to figure out if an official Fallout raider group inspired them, but I am going to use them as a cannibal warband.  

The two suits of power armor seemed to be cobbled together from different models with additional bits of scrap welded to them. Fallout 76 introduced excavator power armor for civilian usage, so I decided to paint these as two work suits that were repurposed for combat by my raiders. 

Shotgun wielding Raiders.  The Etsy images of the figures had clips attached to all of the guns, but these were not present on the weapons I received for some reason. 

Raiders with ranged weapons, including a Junk Jet that can fire scavenged debris (as seen in the first season of the TV series).

Melee raiders

I also finished off my remaining scatter terrain. These are 3D printed bits for raider camps, including a Great Khan scarecrow, and some boobytraps made from cymbal monkey toys and dynamite (a freebie from one of my Esty sellers).

Piles of human remains and a spiked body. Perfect for cannibals. 

Some resin mattresses from TT Combat. Not the most appealing for a good night's rest.

I bought a 5 piece set of brick wall bits off Etsy, but unfortunately didn't realize it was a single design just being shown from different angles. I've painted each one slightly differently, but will have to be selective on how I scatter them about.     

Another set of 3D printed walls, and luckily this time 5 of 6 the pieces were unique. Unfortunately the print lines were pronounced, but I was too lazy to try and sand everything.

However, I think they still look ok and are big enough to block line of sight for larger figures.

With that, I think I am now ready to play This is Not A Test.  I'll get some solo test plays in to learn the rules and then see if I can convince someone to give it a go with me.  Fingers crossed!

Into the Wasteland: The Brotherhood of Steel

I'm back with one of the fan favorite forces from Fallout, the Brotherhood of Steel. As with most of my warbands for This Is Not A Test, these are 3D print proxies designed by Vermilion Miniatures.  The knights follow the designs from the early games in the series, while the soldiers seem to be inspired by later games. This made planning a paint scheme a bit harder, as the armor colors and such changed over time. Since most people will know the later bare metal armor rather than the earlier olive green, I opted to go that route across the board. Not all the figures are appropriate for my Fallout New Vegas setting, but I'm not one to let universe canon get in the way of a good time.

The commander of the unit appears to be wearing underarmor from the Fallout 4 game with some added torso armor.  The underarmor appears in a few color combinations, with officers usually in black, but I've gone with the grey/olive version.  The armor on the soldiers most closely resembles that used by knights in Fallout 4. I wasn't 100% sure from the game screen captures if the brown coloring seen on the armor was intended to be worn paint or corrosion, but I chose the later to match the rest of the BoS force and help keep the color palate different from my NCR warband (It's also how Modiphius paints the offical figures). Weapons seem to be laser pistols and a laser rifle from Fallout 1 and 2.

The next two solders have armor that appears to be inspired by the Fallout 76 recon armor.  The armor has a bluish tint in-game, so I mixed gunmetal and dark sea blue for the base and used bare steel for the worn areas. They also have the Fallout 1 and 2 laser rifles.

Three knights in power armor. While BoS knights are usually shown wearing T-60 armor in the later games and the TV series, These knights are depicted in the earlier armor that came to be known as T-51b armor. As mentioned above, these were painted olive green in Fallout 1, but I've gone with the more modern bare metal.  Weapons are a minigun, plasma pistol and super sledge from Fallout 1.

The last knights are wearing Midwestern Advanced inspired power armor from the Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel game. This armor is no longer considered canon in Fallout, but was supposed to have been designed by BoS remnants who survived an airship crash in Chicago. It looks similar to Enclave X-01 power armor, and fans have debated on if and how they are related. I've again gone with bare metal over olive green for the paint scheme. The commander originally came with the minigun seen above, but I swapped it out with the more advanced plasma rifle. 

 The amount of heavy armor and weapons the Brotherhood of Steel has compared to my other warbands is on another level, so I am worried about game balance at this stage.  I'll just have to see how it plays out in my first games.

Into the Wasteland: Caravanners and Freelancers

 

Everyone needs to find supplies in the wasteland, and if you're away from the settlements, caravanner merchants are who you need to find.  This warband was created with figures from a mix of Vermillion Miniatures 3D prints. I'm not sure how viable they will be compared to the other warband types, but I'm hoping the two brahmin will prove useful in close combat.   

I also have several figures that don't really work with any of my current warbands, so I'll be using them as the Wasteland Weirdos Freelancers and Guns for Hire that can be recruited by other warbands.

First up are a few ghoul gunslingers, a mechanic for gun and relic repairs, and a doctor.

Bringing justice to the far flung regions of the wasteland are Ranger Moore, his partner Silverheels, and their cyberdog Scout. 

A couple of surface-adapted Vault Dwellers with a Garden of Eden Creation Kit (G.E.C.K.) to help kickstart civilization.

Goris, the albino Deathclaw from Fallout 2. Intelligent and able to communicate, he left Vault 13 and spends his time studying human culture.