15mm Samurai Army Completed

Before I get stuck back into some 28mm French Napoleonics I thought I'd gather the recently completed 15mm Samurai Army together for a quick parade:

In this case I am using the word "completed" advisedly as I have done enough for essentially all the options in the DBMM army list and really can't see myself having to paint any more. First up a couple of pictures of the Samurai foot:

The Samurai Bow:

And the Samurai general:

Under DBMM the Samurai cavalry is supposed to be double-based with their Ashigaru foot followers. Rather than doing this on a permanent basis I decided to simply create magnetic sabot bases so I can easily separate them for use with other rule sets:

There is also quite a large amount of Ashigaru pike and bow:

With a couple of elements of arquebus-armed Ashigaru:

The figures are all Eureka except for a few Museum Miniatures pavises and some Ashigaru figures which I included in the camp elements:

The Sohei monks were a welcome change of pace and are the only troop type rated as regular in the army:

As I mentioned in a previous post the total figure count is 976, with 909 foot figures and 67 horses. I have already used the army twice with one loss and one win, although it must be said the win was against an arguably much weaker foe:

I'm just putting the finishing touches on some 28mm French chasseurs at the moment, so hope to have a few pictures of them posted before too long.

15mm Sohei Monks

The Samurai army has now been completed with the completion of a contingent of Sohei monks. The bulk of this force is comprised of nineteen elements of warrior monks armed with naginata:

The Sohei monks were an influential order of Buddhist monks who were involved in many of the Samurai conflicts of the medieval and early renaissance period as allies of various clans. They apparently had saffron-coloured garments with white scarves, which is the theme I employed for these figures:

They are essentially an ally within the DBMM Samurai army list with their own ally-general. Unfortunately Eureka do not have a figure specifically for this purpose but I had a spare Samurai general who will make the command stand easy to distinguish:

The army list also allows for four elements of Sohei bow. Again, Eureka do not have a specific bow-armed monk figure, but I thought their early Ashigaru bow would suffice especially painted up in the same theme:

And that is the Samurai army finally completed. It ended up (as usual) being far larger than I had anticipated, with 976 individual figures completed in all, comprised of 909 foot figures and 67 horses.

Next up will be some more Napoleonic French cavalry. These have been primed but collecting dust for the past six months, so it will be good to get stuck back into them.

15mm Samurai Camp and Baggage

 After having painted so many ashigaru I was very much looking forward to getting stuck into a camp and seven baggage elements. Of course, most of the figures are ashigaru porters and attendants, but at least there was only a handful of them and there was some nice variety in the poses:

The camp and most of the figures are from Eureka Miniatures, with the drum and drummers, baggage and the ashigaru holding the umbrella from Museum Miniatures. There is no doubt the latter are larger and more rounded than the more slightly-built Eureka figures, but I don't think the difference is too noticeable here:

I found the samurai feudal symbols online and have used the circle with the three spokes on a few banners, so decided to use it for the camp as well. I hope in retrospect that it hasn't ended up looking too much like a Mercedes Benz trade display at a motor show:

The baggage elements are exclusively Museum Miniatures. They are great figures to paint and certainly a lot more robust than I was expecting them to be. First up is a trio of ashigaru having a drink and something to eat:

Next some baggage mules:

Some ashigaru porters, in two different poses:

And finally two ashigaru carrying a palanquin, which looks rather uncomfortable for the occupant:

That's the samurai baggage elements completed, with only twenty-one elements of sohei monks now left to finish. With any luck I'll be back into some 28mm French Napoleonic cavalry within a week.

15mm Ashigaru with Bow

These sixteen elements of bow-armed figures represent the last of the ashigaru. I enjoyed painting these much more than the previous kneeling and running ashigaru armed with yari and naginata, mainly because these poses are more straightforward and all parts of the figures were easily accessible:

The DBMM rules allow an upgrade to four elements protected by pavises which were also fun to paint:

The figures are again Eureka, and are supplied in a standing and kneeling pose:

I purchased the pavises separately from Museum Miniatures. Quite a straightforward rendition of a pavise which were sometimes decorated but apparently often left unpainted when used by ashigaru:

I also completed the maximum allowable two elements of arquebus-armed ashigaru:

Another 71 figures achieved toward this project then, with completion now in sight:

Next off the production line will be some baggage and camp figures. These contain a fair bit of variety so should be even more fun to paint.

15mm Ashigaru with Naginata

 The first batch of figures completed for 2022 is twenty-four elements comprised of 72 figures of Ashigaru armed with the shorter naginata pole weapon. These figures really should be double-based with the samurai cavalry in DBMM as followers. I wanted to keep them separate to give myself flexibility for other rule sets however and have made separate sabot bases to combine them for DBMM purposes:

The figures are again from Eureka Miniatures and the poses are the same as the already completed yari-armed ashigaru, with standing, running and kneeling figures:

With essentially 234 of these figures across the three poses I again did a few in black armour, just to break things up a bit:

As to my final 2021 figure tally, this came out as 910 foot and mounted riders with 355 horses, so 1265 figures in all, so not a bad effort. There were 292 28mm French Napoleonic cavalry horses plus 169 riders completed in this lot, so on a points basis that equates to a total of 3913 points.

Not a bad effort considering I had also crammed some extra study in to complete my law degree to the point I now only have four subjects left to go, and we had our brush with COVID between Christmas and New Year. 

With regard to the latter, the two children still at home tested positive first, followed by my wife a few days later. I then started waking up in the mornings feeling exhausted, followed by a general lack of motivation where even the smallest of household jobs seemed insurmountable. I essentially spent the week on the couch watching the Ashes cricket test, so my other half was not impressed when my PCR test result eventually came back negative. 

Next up the last of the ashigaru, this time armed with bows.