Slitherine

Who make proper 15mm Samurai figures in 15mm? I know 2 dragons and Peter Pig make figures for the Senjiko peroid and Old Glory makes a line now broken up by "Early" and "Late".

Using a Senjiko Samurai is about as close as using a Condotta Knight ans a early Crusader knight.

Sure they were both knights but the armor my 11 year old could tell they did not match. And the differences go way beyond the sashimos on the backs.

Irondog

Essex , Eureka and Minifigs all purport to be 'early'

which company does everyone recommend for the 15mm scale for samurais?

irondog068 wrote:Who make proper 15mm Samurai figures in 15mm? I know 2 dragons and Peter Pig make figures for the Senjiko peroid and Old Glory makes a line now broken up by "Early" and "Late".

Using a Senjiko Samurai is about as close as using a Condotta Knight ans a early Crusader knight.

Sure they were both knights but the armor my 11 year old could tell they did not match. And the differences go way beyond the sashimos on the backs.

Irondog

That's the funny thing Irondog... whilst I know you're right, I'm not bothered by it.

I have a thing about Sashimono and Winged Hussars - maybe I have a thing about weird things hanging off the back of cavalrymen!

Either which way - for some unknown reason (to me) I'd only ever build a Samurai army to include troops with Sashimono, which you and I both know weren't used until (at the very earliest) the late 15th century!

I'm starting to not care about anything at all to be honest. So long as they represent what they are supposed to represent and I don't have to look too hard to work it out - I couldn't care less.

It's better if they are accurately portrayed, but not essential in my opinion.

I remember seeing a guy who used 'Italians' for 'Japanese' in Flames of War because the Japanese list hasn't been created. I also thought (in DBM) of using an early Roman list (I can't remember which one) to represent the Early Etruscans because I thought it better represented what I knew of the Etruscans. So, I'd go to a comp with my 'Roman' army and consider it an Etruscan army - painted up with Etruscan figures etc etc. As it turned out I never got the project off the ground, but I'd also not be upset by someone doing similar in FoG.

If someone thinks that the Anglo Danes better represent the Vikings than the Viking list - fine. Call it Anglo Danes and talk about your army being the army of Ragnar. I don't care. So long as everyone knows what you're doing and you're not cheating... no harm done. Hell, maybe I should use the Arab Conquest types for my Vikings?

Ian

I've got to agree with Dai Sho

I had the same kind of problem with DBA. The essex minis are quite nice and you can make up most of the army to and keep it right. But as long as your not using the difference to affect the rules just go with it

So you guys would not have a problem if I used Gerdarmes for my 1st crusader army because I like the look of a fully armored in plate armor horse and rider than a knight in surcoat, chainmail and a unarmored horse.

If that is the case we can use what ever figure we want for whatever peroid we want. as long as it is within 100 or so years and it is the same troop type.


Irondog

irondog068 wrote:So you guys would not have a problem if I used Gerdarmes for my 1st crusader army because I like the look of a fully armored in plate armor horse and rider than a knight in surcoat, chainmail and a unarmored horse.

If that is the case we can use what ever figure we want for whatever peroid we want. as long as it is within 100 or so years and it is the same troop type.


Irondog

I think there can be risks involved where you put (for example) a Heavily Armoured Knight in place of an Armoured Knight, but only from the perspective of the opponent thinking that they are Heavily Armoured when indeed they are only Armoured. If you are going to use 'out of period' troopers then I think you have to be very specific about what your troops are.

To go to an extreme, according to your limitations a person with a Dominate Roman army who has 'armoured' and 'protected' troopers had better have the figures to depict some with armour and some with shield only.

What about in the case of most cavalry? For example, I use Frankish and Breton allies from time to time. The cavalry can be Armoured and Protected. I can have up to 16 bases of Frankish allies with my Vikings. Do you expect that I will have 32 bases to cover all options in case I want to run the full options of Protected or Armoured? Or would it be ok to say 'the guys with the red banner are Armoured'?

At what point do you draw the line?

In a perfect world it would be wonderful to have all the figures, but I doubt you're going to get many players who don't have some troops different from how they are depicted. So long as it's made clear I don't really see a problem.

Ian

As Ian has stated to stop the problem of you opponent getting confused as to the type of troops armour etc, "the red banner are Elite blue banner are Average" tends to work quite nicely.
I try and have this noted down on my army list too. This tends to keep them happy and allows them to check and feel comfortable.

Cheers
Jonathan

That is kind of my point with the samurai. If you are building a Gempi or even a Onin war army and you ger a bunch of Samurai and Ashigaru from the Senjko peroid you are putting figures that are 200 years out of date. Not only the Shashimos but the style of armor is out of date.

If it good for the east to put figures hundreds of years out of date then it is fine for the west IMHO. Otherwise you are totally right we should just be using red and blue conters. Just look at one of Trumbles books and look at the changes in Japanese armor and you will see what I mean.

Or who knows, if I ever show up at a tourney and see a Senkjo army fighting as a Gempi I may have to make my Condotta a 3 crusader army.

Irondog

IMO what is deemed acceptable by the majority of the gaming community is driven by the level of knowledge about the armies, and also availability of correct figures.

So, to generalise, using the examples above most gamers have a fairly vague idea about the specifics of the changes in armour style, etc. of the Japanese and so are OK with figures that "look like Samurai", but the differences in European armour styles is much more widely known, probably because of the Euro-centric nature of most gamers, and so less leeway is deemed acceptable.

In an ideal world it would not be so, however, it ain't an ideal world.

Just make the most of the opportunity to lecture your hapless opponents on the inaccuracy of their Samurai - I always have a bit of fun with incorrect bow cases on eastern cavalry Just remember to do it with humour or you come over as a complete knob

There are people who think it's incorrect to use Landsknecht models for Swiss due to the shape of the sword the troops used used. I take my hat off to these people and their knowledge - the same with Samurai Armour and as long as they are point out differences in a helpful way so others can learn then that's o.k and IMO a good thing. Having models closer to the actual units the better but some comprise has to be made and each person has their own level of what they will accept. The scale of the figs makes a difference as well.

The Sashimono is an example of an obvious difference and does seem to be a dividing line between periods of troops (to me at least), which occurs somewhere in the mid/late 15th Cent. I guess we'll see in a few months what the difference is in the army lists. I would use that as a break point personally but heck as stated each to their own...

However, having stated that though, this is a game and so let's not go down the "you can't use those fig in this game as they have the incorrect colour of lining on the jackets" - which IMO is a worse case. I'd much prefer to play against well painted but slightly out of period figs than unpainted ones.

All this seems very trivial when at the end of the day you could be playing a battle in an open competition - Neo Assyrian vs Medieval German

irondog068 wrote:That is kind of my point with the samurai. If you are building a Gempi or even a Onin war army and you ger a bunch of Samurai and Ashigaru from the Senjko peroid you are putting figures that are 200 years out of date. Not only the Shashimos but the style of armor is out of date.
Or who knows, if I ever show up at a tourney and see a Senkjo army fighting as a Gempi I may have to make my Condotta a 3 crusader army.

Irondog

Well, I'm hoping that I'll build a Samurai army soon. I'm investigating 10mm Magister Militum. I'll have Sashimono's on them. If I use them as Earlier period Japanese in an open competition and you come across me, you'll just have to put up with my out of period armies. Talking of Crusaders, one of my friends has a Crusader army, and I'm pretty sure at one con he used some helenistic light horse as he didn't have the right figures. Now, I know I should have refused to play him and demand a 25-0 victory as he didn't have appropriate figures, but I guess I'm just a little more accepting of the fact that these are indeed little lead figures with paint on them, not real soldiers.

Ian

DaiSho wrote:

irondog068 wrote:That is kind of my point with the samurai. If you are building a Gempi or even a Onin war army and you ger a bunch of Samurai and Ashigaru from the Senjko peroid you are putting figures that are 200 years out of date. Not only the Shashimos but the style of armor is out of date.
Or who knows, if I ever show up at a tourney and see a Senkjo army fighting as a Gempi I may have to make my Condotta a 3 crusader army.

Irondog

Well, I'm hoping that I'll build a Samurai army soon. I'm investigating 10mm Magister Militum. I'll have Sashimono's on them. If I use them as Earlier period Japanese in an open competition and you come across me, you'll just have to put up with my out of period armies. Talking of Crusaders, one of my friends has a Crusader army, and I'm pretty sure at one con he used some helenistic light horse as he didn't have the right figures. Now, I know I should have refused to play him and demand a 25-0 victory as he didn't have appropriate figures, but I guess I'm just a little more accepting of the fact that these are indeed little lead figures with paint on them, not real soldiers.

Ian

I am with Ian
As long as the person isn't purposefully going out of their way to push some advantage by using the wrong figures and the ones subbed in are based the same i.e. using cav for cav not cav for LF. IMO its party of the hobby and be a good sportsmen an be ready to put up with the few odd times it may happen. Otherwise why bother having clubs and such except to try and put holes in each others painting and models.

So it is clear.
I can use any knight type and just take the ribbing? That's good becasue I have a army for the great Italian wars and want to build a first crusader army so all I need is peasants and more gerdarmes.

I like painted fully armored horses and can't get decals for cloth horse armor and shields.

irondog068 wrote:So it is clear.
I can use any knight type and just take the ribbing? That's good becasue I have a army for the great Italian wars and want to build a first crusader army so all I need is peasants and more gerdarmes.
.

As long as the knights Sashimono's have 1st crusade heraldry on them you should be fine

Seriously though, Gendarmes is probably a bit far from 1st Crusade knights for most, but no-one would chuck you out of a comp if you said you were painting the proper ones up but hadn't gotten them finished in time hence the Gendarmes.

I actually work on the basis that there are only 3 types of knights, unbarded with kite shields, barded with cloth and barded with metal stuff. For most of us Crusaders are Knights with kite shields and unarmoured horses. But you could use your Italian spearmen, crossbows and peasants and no-one would blink - or no-one did when I used mine for crusaders a few years ago

Tim

irondog068 wrote:So it is clear.
I can use any knight type and just take the ribbing? That's good becasue I have a army for the great Italian wars and want to build a first crusader army so all I need is peasants and more gerdarmes.

I like painted fully armored horses and can't get decals for cloth horse armor and shields.

If your building up the crusaders I can't see why not

Go Old Glory buddy. Solid figures at a great price! Peter Pig are good for extra Generals.

I think that there is a big difference between using figures you have to represent a different army; and deliberately buying and painting the wrong figures.

Saying that you are going to buy late samurai figs with sashimo etc to use as early samurai is like buying Imperial Romans with rectangular shields to make your Punic wars army, or medieval knights for Normans.

There have been nice ranges of 15mm early samurai available for thirty years, why not use them?

May as well play fantasy if you are not going to at least try and use accurate figures.

There are enough ranges on the market to at least make an effort.

It is historical miniatures wargaming after all.

D