In my defence, I had this one purchased a long time ago. But it was sadly left in dark boxes until, yet again, the rules "Lion Rampant" come to the rescue to save yet another of my collections from neglect.
Kingsford Miniatures is a local wargamer who produces a very nice range of 28mm Samurai of the popular 1550-1615 period. I did not appreciate the nice sculpting and quality casting - lack of heavy mold lines or flash - until I started painting them..... I am trying to find my old form to give them credit. Unfortunately I am up to 3.0 Readers now.
I guess my interest in the period is due to early watchings of 'Ran' and 'Shogun'. Originally I thought to use DBA but no one around here games with these rules, so I bought enough for both sides. At the time "Mr. Kingsford" had me paint up some cavalry so he could photo them for his website. When returned they sat in the box and every few months I would think to do the rest of the army, but.....
With my enthusiasm for LR, I re-examined my collection, and discovered that I had enough to do two "retinues". Excellent!! Not only could I form two "armies" , but my original purchasing is pleasantly perfect for the LR organization. For example, I bought both the ashigaru 'at ease' and 'fighting, and some 'fighting' samurai. I can throw in a couple of the extra samurai into the ashigaru unit to bulk up the numbers and to add yet more diversity and enough for one retinue. For the other, the 'at ease' boys were a bit static - not much wrong with that with such a position of course - but rather bland for a skirmishy game. However, LR does have the "mixed-arm" classification which allows for both missile and combat types in the same unit, which allows me to add some archers to diversify the look to a large degree and, perhaps, is even better historically in terms of tactical deployment. Thus I have two rather different but even dispositions. And just enough poses for all. Very convenient. Do you get as spiritual when things come together this well?
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| My clan/retinue so far. I will probably switch to white sashimono (the small flags) for the other units. |
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| The archers let loose while the spearmen wait. |
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| The lone archer denotes the leader - should I need him - but also gives me the option of giving these mounted samurai bow fire should I want to. |