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Sengoku … Now with Colour

Well I used the last of my white spray paint to get these undercoated…

The coloured ones are my test pieces that came with my Aztecs ages ago. I did however manage some painting this evening. I decided to start on the easy ones and went for the peasants.

Getting there…

Still a fair old way to go, but at least I managed to make a start.

I also found someone who does STL’s for Japanese terrain, so I spent a bit of cash and got a few sets.. mainly rural farm stuff. Hopefully I can get some of it test printed tomorrow .

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Sengoku…I hate Sashimonos!

Ooh I forgot why my huge two Dragon Samurai army never got their back banners… tonight I remembered!

Their helmet rims stopped them running up the back so instead I had to angle them into bits of the body where they could have some form of connection (rather than a couple of mm where it touched the helmet). I put 22 on and it took for evvvvvvver! There is more glue on me than there is on the miniatures. But never mind, these are done (guess who forgot to get any more from Tin Soldier! So it looks like it will be pins and paper for all of the foot Samurai and Ashigaru.

Some how I believed that the amount I got would be enough. Yeah right… 30 is just about enough for the cavalry, the 15 Ashigaru are going to have to wait for theirs.

The other thing I did was to add various weapons to the peasants. As with most things the weapons wouldn’t go in the gap for their hands… superglue saw to that… eventually!

My original plan to get these glued and sprayed today fell short. I will get them sprayed tomorrow and see how I get on from there.

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Sengoku… So it Begins

Tonight I decided to get all of the Samurai I had put onto their bases. And … because I am me, I have just ordered some more! Well there weren’t enough foot Samurai or mounted monks or…. yeah I think you get the picture!

This lot is DBA army list 127. But because I am me everything goes on 30×40 for cavalry and all infantry on 20×40 apart from the horde who use the cavalry bases. Makes buying bases in bulk a doddle 😂.

Start of the Samurai Forces

On the left we have five bases of Ashigaru archers, with a base of Ashigaru and monks in front of them. Next big block are the peasants led by a monk (well I had one figure spare). In front of them is a champion and General. Next up a set of three bases of cavalry and then three of mounted archers with a unit of Ninja next (well you just have to don’t you 😱).

I have still to add the Sashimono to everything as well as put the various improvised weapons into the hands of the peasants.

The army is from Tin Soldier. I do like the style of these. They are a little cartoony for some people but they do work for me… the Ninja are Battle Valour Games. Luckily the UK supplier is a mate of mine and he had some in stock to buy (handy when he lives on Shetland). They fit in quite well scale wise.

The other thing I did today was to print some of the funky trees. These were done at 75% and 50% of the full size. They are shown next to the unfinished full sized one from yesterday.

I am printing a full sized one again just now. It will finish after midnight which is a bit of a pain. The 75% one took just under 3 hours and the smaller one just under an hour and a half to print. I did add a raft to help get them off the bed so they would have been quicker without.

Tomorrow I will use the remainder of my white spray to get the Samurai undercoated.

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A Night Off…

I decided to leave the paint brushes where they were tonight and took a night off. I had a meeting with my Line manager in school today. I thought it would be an hour… it was two and a half. He is a great guy, sadly he is off South next month. I really hope I get a good replacement. Even though he is a nice, supportive guy, it was still a little stressful as I have only been in post 8 weeks.

I left work at 17.30 only to find my wife needed rescuing from Lerwick (we still only have one car – better than last week when we had no car… we picked up a cheap one to keep us going until insurance is sorted out on mine and My wife’s one escapes from the garage).

Anyway enough of my life history!

I got a package!!!

Yep my Tin Soldier package arrived safe and sound.

It was filled to the brim with Samurai goodness 😁

A nice little DBA army… but this is where it gets interesting…

I couldn’t remember whether the army pack came with Sashimono or not. So I put a little note in saying I had ordered three packs of them, but if the army pack came with them just add some more minis to the price of the back banners.

I was a bit surprised to find three packs of back banners and…

Yep… a pack of mounted archers and a pack of Ashigaru archers too!

But there is even more….

Please note the number of figures and the amount for the army pack. The only thing I can think of is that the infantry come in 8’s it is easier to split them in half than have the odd figures lying around.

Either way Tin Soldier are most definitely on my top five traders list. The two extra packs are a very kind gesture. Each pack would have cost me £2.75. However what it means is that when the car shenanigans are over I will definitely purchase another DBA Samurai army at the very least.

For those that are interested, this is the list

The figures themselves are lovely and I can’t wait to get some paint on them… looks like my orctober is potentially going to be Samuraiober instead.

So a big thank you to them, oh and also to the people who have managed to make it to the end of my rambling post.

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Random Stuff… Samurai (plus Textured Contrast Paint)

I have pretty much finished the Samurai, apart from all of the white I have noticed in the photo. I also repainted some white in on the lizards.

To be honest these were a joy to paint, a whole lot longer to do than the Aztecs or Conquistadors but still really easy to do especially with the Contrast Paint. As with the two other armies I am going for speed over excellence. That is not to say that I am not trying, but there is no shading or highlighting as I want to see how I get on without all of the extra bits – lazy…possibly but I am getting armies done in weeks rather than months or potentially years – possibly not at all.

Take the Aztecs, I bought them in February and never touched them I gave them a go with Contrast paint and that was them done, I purchased more and got the new lot done in just over a week.

As for textured paint –

Now, as you all probably know, Contrast Paint is a high pigment thin paint. Tonight I achieved the next iteration of the range. I am calling it Contrast Plus. It is textured contrast paint…

the reason being this…

My daughter very kindly gave me some of her home economics baking. It was indeed very nice, sadly a piece fell off straight into my pot of yellow paint. I think I pretty much fished it all out…only time will tell.

Today I spent two hours filling in a form to tell the Scottish Government that I had 4 pupils in my school’s nursery class. One of the questions wanted me to give an age of a pupil that wasn’t accurate based on the date of birth. The child was three plus seven months, however according to the dates they gave on the form she was actually meant to be four. By the end I was doubting my own ability to add up.

So I phoned up the support person who said that I really should fill it in based on the dates they gave, if I had done then it would have been inaccurate. In the end I filled it in my way, poor bloke, I must have phoned him up a half dozen times, luckily he was an ex colleague who knows I wasn’t just being an arse. The rest of the day was sorting out a school Website as we don’t have one…. ahh the dizzy heights of school management!

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Random Stuff… Samurai

A bit pooped tonight, so not much done.

I did however manage to get some paint onto the Samurai.

These are going to be as colourful as the Aztecs I reckon.

I was having a look at the HOTT lists and indeed, they have a Japanese Epic list. These are based on a legendary history, not to mention the films of Kurosawa.

Not exactly the most exciting list 😂….

Blades (Samurai)

Riders (mounted Samurai)

Shooters (err shooty Japanese types)

Hordes (Ashigsru or peasants) Personally I would have the Ashigaru as spears

Sneakers (Ninja – what else)

Lurkers (Ronin or Bandits)

I could fantasy-ise it by adding things like a Gashadokuro… basically a giant Skeleton who is made up of the bones of people who died of starvation or were unburied after a battle… not a nice chap, he bites the head of lone travellers and drinks their blood…

I could go for a unit if Oni = trolls or ogres (possibly demons), normally shown as being red.

Luckily Alternative Armies has a whole range of Japanese monsters in their Sengoku monster hunter range.

Thinking about it, and on a totally different note, I really should start printing and painting tanks for the Games Day in October!

I will make a start on them this weekend.

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Random Stuff…Day 2

As expected I only managed a smidge tonight due to Birthday shenanigans and a meeting with the parents at the school.

But at least I managed to get some painting done…

I pretty much finished the pack donkeys as well as throwing a bit more paint on the Samurai.

I really do enjoy painting the Tin Soldier miniatures… pretty much more than any other 15’s I have painted. I do like the style of them too. Once next month comes then I reckon an order will go in for the Samurai army. Still unsure whether to go early or late or get some extra bits to allow flexibility. Problem is I really like the warrior monks which kind of cements it into a time frame if I go historical. If however I go down the HOTT route then I can pretty much do what I like 😉

This was the thing that got me into Samurai gaming

I pretty much had all of these ‘ Standard Games’ wargames apart from the Dark Swords fantasy one. This one came out in 1984 so showing my age a bit 😂.

Then of course the Computer age came along and with it came Shogun – Total War. I played as every clan and became Daimyo in each case. I still have it… I wonder if it will work on my laptop🤔.

Weather has blown up again tonight, but there was a nice rainbow on the way to work this morning…

The land on the other side of the sea is where I am heading… unfortunately I have to drive about six miles to get to where can be seen.

Tomorrow I will crack on with painting some more things. But before I do I might look to see if I still have Samurai blades.. I know I have the Viking and Outremer ones… but the Samurai one would be cool to dust off and have a little play.

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Random stuff… Day 1

I decided to push on with the miniatures in the box with the Conquistadors…

To the left we have the Tin Soldier Samurai, next are the GW lizard swarm, the donkeys are Tin Soldier and finally we have the Fat Dragon 3D printed Lizardmen.

They all still have a fair old way to go, but at least they are started.

I will try and get some more done tomorrow, I have a meeting in the school at 7 tomorrow night as well as being my middle daughter’s 11th Birthday. So if I get anything done it will likely be minimal.

Lerwick had some visitors today, when I was in Tesco getting the shopping!!!

I blagged this off Facebook and left in the photographers name as it is only fair. By all accounts it was Orca 3 – Seals 0 (or perhaps that was yesterday… sadly for the one above it was a definite 1:0)

just bloody typical…again.

Never mind I will get to see them again sometime.

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Conquistadors… Day 10

That is them just about done…. they would have been done, but some knacker forgot the shields. I will sort them out tomorrow.

The whole force, ready to bring down the Aztec Empire…

I will need to do another couple of flags. One for the cavalry and one for the foot command… he has now been named Pizarro. I will have to see what, if any, his flag was.

As can be seen on the top photo, I have painted a couple of lizards, I will get the rest and the Lizardmen painted tomorrow.

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Conquistadors… Day 9

Well I made a start on the next lot if Conquistadors

these have taken forever due to all of the straps and other tack on the saddles. To be honest though the cavalry are mostly in plate so I should get them done pretty quickly.

I reckon I should get them finished by the end of the weekend. The lizards, although sprayed white, still need a bit of a clean up. The white spray showed it up a lot better than on the Black PLA.

On a totally different note. I just realised that I passed 3000 visitors yesterday… which is a bit mind blowing to me. When I first set this blog up I thought the only people who would come and visit it would be friends and family, ironically they are the ones who I never get visiting. So I just wanted to say a great big thank you to everyone who has popped by for a visit.