Irish Warband from West Wind

The Irish have been my preferred SAGA warband lately for reasons of both game style and familial lineage. While most of my figures have been from Crusader Miniatures, I picked up an army pack of twenty from West Wind on a sale a few weeks age.

West Wind's Irish warband is, judging from the rest of their offerings, aimed at the early Dark Ages or Age of Arthur. Nonetheless, it is not too much of a stretch to use these for the era of Viking invasions in Ireland, especially in the ninth century.

Below, a group shot of all twenty.  For a paint scheme, I stuck with a limited palette. The shields were all red and white and I worked on plenty of variations of Celtic crosses, some historical and some improvised in that style.

The rank troops are for spear or javelin (unsupplied) and come in four different poses. Hands will need to be drilled out in order to fit the weapon.  Heads are separately cast, and there are 10 variations.  Shields are separate as well (except for the musician).  

There are also four unique figures in the set.  Two are warriors with short swords, which are cast-on and not separate.  For a SAGA warband, these can serve as your Curaidh.  

The other two unique figures are a command character with a banner and a musician.  The rough and improvised banner is the detail that most distinctly places these figures in the pre-Viking age.  Using a separate staff and Viking-era banner is easy, but the metal-cast banner is nicely sculpted and unique among my collection.  I went with it. 

These are good figures but do require a bit of prep work.  Drilling the spear holes is a plus for long term stability, but it is an extra task.  Casting quality is good, but some cleanup of jagged areas is necessary.  The neck pocket will also need to be opened up a bit on most of the figures in order to get the head to glue in properly. That is a small price to pay for having some customizeable options.   

For SAGA, these twenty figures give you two points of warriors, a half a point of Hearthguard (Curaidhs) and a Warlord.  One would need at least 12-20 more figures to get a complete six point warband out of this box, so this could best serve as an expansion to an existing army in that game.  

Characters and Monks for Ronin

It has been a while since I posted, and the big Ronin game never happened.  A sad, but not unexpected family loss took precedence last week.  This never has been a blog where I discuss personal matters, but insofar as it relates to the hobby - any hobby - recreation and creativity are great ways to work through sadness and loss.  However, family and responsibilities always come first.  Now, some minis...

Hopefully I can run this game in the future, but here is a look at some of the characters and terrain I had planned for that game. Most of my figures are from the early Samurai period (11-13th century). This era also saw the rise of militant Buddhist monks, in which rival temples fought over relics, property and imperial favor.  In this four person scenario, a sacred scroll currently possessed by one temple of monks has been awarded to another - but the owner's won't give it up peacefully.  The owners of the scroll, along with nearby villagers who have a vested interest, are fighting to keep the scroll and the pilgrimage income it generates nearby.  Two players would then control the monks and villagers respectively.  On the attack are the monks seeking the scroll, along with a small group of warriors who wish to see the imperial orders carried out.  Each set of allies has to work cooperatively to win, but victory points are awarded based on number of enemy killed and who has possession of the scroll at the end of 7 turns.

These two characters are from West Wind and would have been the leaders of the peasant faction.

Added to my previous sets of monks, was this unit of Sohei in red, to match their temple. 

Here is the temple that housed the sacred scroll.  It is from lasercut MDF by Renaissance Miniatures. It was from their second Kickstarter and it assembled very quickly.  

The roof is removable, but a bit fussy to snap in place. It is in three sections, which is better than a single section, but it can be difficult to get all three to snap into place.  With any MDF kit, the larger the pieces or span of assembly, the more likely that small gaps will develop that can prevent an exact fit. The gaps can be from using too little glue and not clamping it long enough so that the parts drift as they dry, or alternatively using too much glue, which spreads into spaces meant to be left open.  

The interior is large enough for a combat scenario, or to add some small furnishings. 

A statue of a Buddha from a home store ($3 on markdown) makes an appropriately sized massive idol. The small building is also from Renaissance Miniatures.  

If you are into pirates or Old West, Renaissance Miniatures has a few days left on their third Kickstarter. I am still undecided about it - pirates are an era I have considered but I am not sure if its the right time to add more projects - but the company is very good at customer response, updating and delivering in a reasonable time.  Check it out if you are interested.  

Ronin

It must be spring break.  How else could I get in two wargames in a week? This time, it was Ronin, a skirmish wargame that is fast becoming my favorite ruleset.

Ronin's rules for a warrior buntai (warband) gives two options - either hierarchical with more lower ranked warriors than samurai, or strictly higher class, with all rank 3 warriors or better.

In this game, we played the two options against each other. My buntai, holding a small country retreat, is composed of  a hatamoto (rank 4), a samurai (rank 3) and 4 bushi (rank 1 or 2).

The enemy, two mounted and two foot samurai approach from the opposite corner.

The samurai and 3 attendants stride out to meet the enemy.

The two mounted samurai execute a special attack, the ride-by.  They suffer a disadvantage on their attack rolls, but if successful, finish the attack out of contact with the enemy. One of the attendants falls, while the other survives the ride-by: 

My initial plan was for my hatamoto and his attendant to defend the gates, but my sub-commander (five year old son) who was only supposed to function as observer. rashly moved the two models outside the wall.  

I made the most of the decision, and hopefully could catch the enemy from the flank. Fortune favors the bold!  His horsemen fall due to some lucky yumi strikes from my samurai and my hardy attendants. The day is mine!

My opponents final model left is the samurai in blue.  

After taking out the attendant, I have two models left, an attendant and a samurai armed with a yumi (bow).  Feeling confident and a bit honorable, I decide not to use the bow and move into melee. He was after all, already wounded.   

Unfortunately, we tied on initiative.  In this game, this means that both attacks are simultaneous, and enhancing defense rolls is not possible.  And so...

Both strike killing blows.  Not a bad run for the last samurai.  

The lone survivor

I like Ronin because it is a versatile but quick system. Weapons have statistical variations - katanas have no modifier for example, but the the two handed sword give you a +1 attack modifier along with a -1 initiative modifier.  Which is significant, because initiative is key in this game since response attacks are not automatic .  Other combat details such as mounted combat, reloading, and disarming are handled efficiently without becoming too granular.  

My models were Assault Group and West Wind and my opponents were from 1st Corp. These are some of the better ranges for early samurai.  I'll post some closeup comparison shots and reviews shortly.

Samurai for Osprey's Ronin

I now have a few points worth of Samurai to fight the Sohei monks for Ronin. Below are three early Samurai from The Assault Group. In the Gempei Wars (1181-1185 CE), mounted Samurai considered the bow, not the sword, to be the elite weapon.

 It would be very difficult to use all three of these horsemen in all but the largest Ronin games. By my reading of the rules , a samurai on a horse (Hatamoto) with a yumi will cost 42 points each and are Rank 4.  Three of them adds up to 126 points.  Additionally, the faction rules for Bushi require that for each Rank 4 model there must be at least one Rank 3 model, which will add in another 72 points.  Then, there must be at least two Rank 1/2 models for every Rank 3+ model.  That means 12 Rank 1 Ashigaru, costing 216 points.  The minimum to get three mounted Samurai into a game is 414 points, which might be good for the campaign rules in the book, but not in any match I plan to play this early in my learning curve.  The photo below is a more modest 150 point force of just six models.

Below, is a samurai from The Assault Group flanked by two bushi by West Wind. While they are not as crisply detailed as TAGs, they are also not as hefty and are more realistically proportioned.

Playing with a photo filter for some faux-Kurosawa.

In SAGA developments, I picked up Wargames Illustrated 311 in my local game store this weekend for the Steppe Tribes faction.  I already have a number of Khazars, Seljuks and Pechengs to fill out the mounted troops, and will try this week to knock out some levy archers from Wargames Factory's Persian and Numidian bits and bodies.