Ronin: Ikko-Ikki done!

It's been a while, but I haven't been idle! In fact, I've been productive enough that every time I wanted to update with a new model, I've postponed it because there's always been another model nearly done.

However, with the completion of the Ikko-Ikki part of the Ronin warbands, it has to be time to update.

I'll be honest, I've sorta lost track of what I've posted before and what I haven't, and it seemed easier and just as good to just photo everything, so that's what I've done.

Here they are, all 15 of them.

I snapped some of smaller groups too, since I've yet to figure out how to take proper pics of large groups. I think I might need a larger photo tent at some point.

These guys are, probably obviously, the elite. The front guy with the orange headscarf is a Sohei, a warrior monk who'll be the spiritual leader of the warband. The guy on the right is a Samurai, and the guy with the dark blue shirt is a Hanshou. Background-wise, they're sent by Uesugi Kenshin to make sure the religious fanatics he's decided to fund/exploit as catspaws are pointed the right direction, and give them a bit of punch.

These 5 are the Monto, members of the religious militia. There's not much to say about them, they're simply light infantry with slightly more erratic equipment modelling-wise than the Ashigaru from the Bushi list. 2 with spears, yari, 2 with katanas, and a banner-carrier to keep the peasants from running away.

Finally, 7 smelly peasants, fired up by the thought of purging the wrong-thinkers from their holy homeland. They're basically cannonfodder, but even cannonfodder gets lucky, and at 4 points a piece there's a lot of them. I'd have liked to double this number in the list actually, to make a proper horde army, but I'm concerned it might have been too much balance wise. Plus, I'd have to paint them.

I've even picked at the civvies as well, and gotten 3 done, plus some houses.

I love the sculpt of the woman with the child. It's probably too difficult to see here, but he's crying his eyes out and she looks unbelievably tired of him. I love that kind of character in a sculpt, and the Perry's really deliver in that regard. I'll admit that there's been a bit of casting errors on them, and sometimes the detail isn't the greatest, but they've actually been FUN to paint, and that matters more.



I'll be testing the rules tomorrow with a friend, so hopefully I can grab some pics of the two completed warbands facing off against each other there.

Ronin-wise, I'm getting close to the end now. There's only 5 models in the last warband, although 2 of them are cavalry, and 3 civilians left unpainted. I'd like to do another building too. It's not actually that unlikely that I can be done in a week or two, and I'm looking forward to it. Firstly, there's a bit of detailing I'd like to do on these guys, but I'm also looking forward to getting back to Infinity.


As always, C&C is much appreciated! 

More Ronin!

I'm slowly plugging ahead with the Ronin stuff. Lately I've gotten 3 more peasants and the leader of the warband, a sohei monk (with the orange head-wrap) done.

I actually enjoyed painting these. I've been in a bit of a painting rut lately, but these went ok.

Just to show I haven't forgotten about the sci-fi Japanese, I got a Keisotsu Butai done. 

I'm less and less happy with the choice of white for their armour, but I'm sorta stuck with it now. Takes a fair while to get done, which is keeping me back a bit. Changed the gun scheme as well, to get some more contrast in there.

Update time again

This is turning into more of a monthly update schedule than a weekly one I'm afraid, I really should do more.
I've been playing a bit however, so the time I haven't spent painting have at least been spent well.

There's been some slight progress on the first models in the second Ronin warband, the Ikko-Ikki; nutty religious extremists trying to rid Japan of foreign influence. Compared to the previous warband, these'll be much more numerous and less skilled.

The list I'm working with consists of 7 peasants, 4 Monto, 2 with spears, one with a banner and the last one with a katana, 3 Samurai and a Sohei warrior monk. 15 models all told, which is fairly large for Ronin I think.

I've gotten the first 4 of these done, 3 ill-equipped peasants and a Monto with a katana. As far as I've been able to ascertain, the Monto are religious foot soldiers but I've had a hard time digging up info on some of the specifics.

I find I'm settling for a slightly lower painting standard on these compared to the others, but perhaps that's to be expected. 

Mikkel, the guy who've been pushing me into Lion Rampant, did some absolutely fantastic terrain for those games, including civvies for some atmosphere. After playing those games I had to include some for Ronin as well, as they really added to the experience, and besides the Perrys do some lovely Japanese civilians. First one's done, a guy I imagine is a minor noble or local bigwig, due to his rather fancy clothing and the katana.

There's also a well there I did to test out painting the houses I did ages ago. 

Originally we were supposed to start playing in November, but that's been postponed due to external reasons - one of the guys have moved to Poland for work in a 2 month period.
Knowing my painting speed, that's probably a good thing.