Someone's in trouble - the Sohei, or Buddhist warrior monks are armed and making their way down from the temple! These are AW Miniatures, led by Masahiro from the Warlord Games "Masked Men" box set for Test Of Honour.
A Bakemono (goblin) warband led by a large Dai-Bakemono on a village raid - could these be the reason the Sohei are on the march? The Bakemono are by Dixon Miniatures and I believe the leader is on old Oni from Citadel Miniatures (please correct me if I'm wrong).
Before anyone says "Bakemono aren't green", this warband has been put together to try and tempt an opponent into a game - he's previously only played Warhammer, so I thought greenskins would help win him over!
It's been a very busy week non-hobby wise but I've managed to acquire a new van, transfer the "mod cons" (carpet, bed, sink and cooker) and sell on the old van to its new owner! The process took about three weeks last time, so I'm well chuffed!!
Many thanks once again for visiting, the samurai bias is set to continue for a while yet, but I'm feeling the urge to visit one of the other projects by way of a short break / diversion so if "Nippon" isn't your thing just hang in there!
Your comments, criticism or questions are most welcome - especially if you can help me identify the leader of the bakemono gang. I really should have looked at the bottom of his base before gluing him to that circle of mdf and painting him!!!
That is some impressive work
ReplyDeleteYou're being too kind Fred, though I appreciate the encouragement ;-)
DeleteThe bakemono were very much an experiment using colour washes over base colour - VERY fast way of knocking out "rank & file" troops to a basic tabletop standard :-)
Super duper stuff, Wargame Addict. I especially like the ghosts and the samurai bias yet to come!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Simon - the ghosts were a very lazy paint job, an off-white base coat followed by an Army Painter blue tone wash. Hair and THAT tongue to finish ;-)
DeleteGreat work Greg, don't know the leader model so can't help there.
ReplyDeleteGreat news on your van, and how quick you turned it around
Cheers Dave - getting the transport sorted was obviously the best "result" of the week, and having enjoyed travelling to two gigs in it already in it I'm already reaping the rewards :-)
DeleteThey all look very impressive. I'm loving yours and Andy's Oriental posts.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bryan, I was pretty sure there'd be something here to suit your tastes - especially taking into account your love of the original Bushido rpg :-)
DeleteThe monks and spiritn igures look great but the goblins are difficult (for me anyway) to make out, even in the enlarged pic versions, but well done getting anything hobby-wise with all the interference from real-life.
ReplyDeleteCheers Joe - I have to admit, these aren't my "best work" as far as blog photo's go, and the bakemono are the worst of the bunch ;-)
DeleteHowever, I KNOW what I did wrong while taking them, so hopefully can avoid the same mistake in the future. Glad you passed comment because now I can't use the "no one will notice" excuse in the future :-)
Nice bit of verity in the models Greg which always helps when it comes to painting imo :)
ReplyDeleteCheers Frank, and so very true - nothing worse than slogging through ranks of uniformed minis when it comes to testing the old painting mojo ;-)
DeleteBrilliant work dude, I managed to make a massive purchase of ToH this week as Warlord Games flogs off stock before another company begin work on ToH 2. I wasn’t going to get into another system but you just had to keep putting up these kinds of posts, didn’t you? Lol
ReplyDeleteCheers Andy - the ToH sale at Warlord had some AMAZING prices!!! :-)
DeleteThe game is now in the hands of its developers and I've heard nothing but good things about the upcoming version 2, along with promises that everything in the original release will be compatible :-)
Really looking forward to hearing how you get on with the game buddy!
Great looking models Greg! Those Chinese ghosts look perfect for a pulpy Ghostbusters game I've been trying to get to for ages now 🙂
ReplyDeleteThanks Ivor - now you've mentioned "pulp", there's quite a few minis I've acquired recently for the feudal Japanese era, that actually wouldn't look out of place in a more modern "China Town" setting ;-)
DeleteI think the green skin idea is rather fun, and a great way to entice a `non believer` to the game. I like how you`ve done your "Masked Men". I took a slightly different approach (as I did pretty much throughout the entire assembly and panting of my own Test of Honour). I didn't paint them the traditional suggested colours, but instead made up my own clans and clan names, to create a bit more of a Water Margin feel and tone (I know Water Margin is Chinese but strangely it was actually made for a Japanese audience, so it crossed cultures a lot with Xena-esque regularity).
ReplyDeleteThanks Steve, and yes I do remember seeing your early ToH posts (which were one of the reasons I bought into the game), and the Water Margin approach is perfect for the game - too many people seem to think that ToH is supposed to be a "historical" set of rules, but the authors clearly state in their design notes that the game style is 'Chanbara', the samurai equivalent of western Swashbuckling or Cowboy movies :-)
DeletePS I personlly lean heavily on my (very) old Bushido role playing game, and a little on the (less) old Legend Of The Five Rings worlds for my own ToH background ;-)
DeleteYessss you are so right. ToH is exactly that: a Chanbara quasi facsimile of historical only, as the authors state :-)
DeletePS {{{ I personally lean heavily on my (very) old Bushido role playing game, and a little on the (less) old Legend Of The Five Rings worlds }}}
ReplyDeleteThere`s something about Bushido (and Five Rings) that just keeps pulling me back and back. Its that whole eastern orient romanticism thing isn`t it: you know, I`m sure it all started with Water Margin and Shogun, perhaps in part even Kung Fu - classic old TV at its best.
ToH is great and I`m torn a bit. I like the rules of ToH so much, and yet I also see massive potential for using other things (like Bushido) to play an equally great game - perhaps better, that's the problem? Thankfully I haven`t quite yet gotten round to picking this up at a full on project, so there`s time to ponder and decide.
Oh have you come across "Scarlet Heroes" its a masterly system, fully functional in its own right as a solo rpg game, but works best, I think, when used in conjunction with early ODD Dungeons and Dragons (back before the days of THACO even).
Its perhaps one of the best solo rpg`s out there. But I am drawn to the idea of 4 Against Darkness and have been for a while now.
I'm not so sure about the new game from CMON, but the old FGU books are a goldmine for a fantasy oriented campaign.
DeleteI also forgot to mention "Sengoku: Chanbara Roleplaying in Feudal Japan" by Gold Rush Games and available as a PDF from Drive Thru RPG. Another great source of material, and it comes packed with conversion notes for other game systems (which I find interesting reading, even for 'other' systems and genres!)
Many thanks for the pointer towards Scarlet Heroes, I'll check it out asap :-)
I'll be posting some more Four Against Darkness (along with my thoughts on the system) in the VERY near future ;-)
I`d actually be VERY interested to read more of what you have to say about 4AD in future articles.
ReplyDeleteFor me I am so taken by Scarlet Heroes, and your blog is directly responsible for reviving my interest in Japanese (ToH): so today I went and ordered myself a solid print hardcover copy of the book from Drivethrurpg (about time as I only had the PDF copy up to now). If you would like a PDF of it too, just let me have your email addy and I`ll send it over to you to check out.