The Feudal Japanese Project - part 5. Samurai Cavalry.

 

A growing thunder sounded from the woodlands and the lined up Ashigaru looked nervously around. The dark woods to the flank bordered the road they were marching down but we're said to be haunted by Kami or worse Oni, the lazily spiralling mist concealed much visibility which only made their nerves worse.

Some grumbles started amongst the men, and their leaders were forces to turn back to threaten them to stay the line.

With a great cry, the Samurai cavalry burst from the treeline, the colourful tack of the horses flowing with their ground eating gallop.

Atop the horses sat fully armoured warriors, lacquered plates of armour beating against each other with the can't of their mounts, the brightly coloured silk cords straining with the pressure.

With a crash, the thunderous charge hit the Ashigaru and men fell in droves. Bowled over by the horses and cut down by the wickedly sharp Katana which were expertly wielded to cause maximum damage.

Blood arched through the air and screams rang out. The drum beat of the cavalry added to the din as they pushed further into the flank of the enemy. The archers stood no chance and soon men were fleeing for their lives, even as other Ashigaru attempted to form up and provide resistance to this attack.

The leader of the archers stood his ground with his Katana drawn as the cavalry commander spotted him through the press of men and turned his mount to charge. With a brief nod of acknowledgement, they engaged in combat, swords arcing through the air and sparking off one another, the horse turned attempting to kick out.

As the Samurai avoided the horse he dropped his guard and with a flash, a katana ripped though his neck and severed his head with a welter of blood. The cavalry commander signalled his drummer who changed his beating and sounded the retreat, horsemen wheeled and galloped off back into the mists, leaving blood, the dead and dying in their wake, as a fresh unit of Ashigaru with spears moved up the road.

*****

Work continues on the Feudal Japanese Project, and I am very happy to say that I now have an entire* cavalry unit finished for the first section of the project.

The full unit, in all it's glory:

Firstly, this has to be the most colourful I've ever painted. Historically, Samurai didn't have a uniform armour colour, they just brought whatever they owned, heirloom, fashionable, etc. The Sashimono, or back banners, were the identifying marks to tell friend from foe on the battlefield. Both these statements certainly make the army eye catching.

Secondly, just like with the Sohei, there are very few paints on these which are not Contrast paints. I love the way the paints settle around the different panels and ridges of the armour.

Contrast paints also allow me to not have to paint all the silk cording which kept the armour plates in position, I'm just working patterns onto the armour facings instead.

As these are to be somewhat speed painted, it's a cheat I feel is worth it.

The original four horsemen which I finished about a week ago:

These were an experiment/attempt to see how the first figures would look when fully completed, and whether I liked the more historical look with the various colours, or if i wanted to default back to the "video game" look with units in a uniform colour schemes.

I do love the varied look to the unit, and decided to stick with the armour plates being majority Grey or Black contrast, as they, along with browns were the majority colour.

I did try something a little different with the chap on the right having yellow lacquered armour. I'm a little dubious about it, but he fits in with the unit, one amongst many won't make much difference:

The command element, featuring the "Chūi" (Lieutenant) in the center, he has a sort of cloth wrap over a shoulder and covering his armour, so I decided to do that up in yellow***, over his grey and blue armour, and then gave him some red shinto prayer beads.

There is a closer look at the drummer in the inset bottom photo:

Kyoushuneko do a special command section, which includes a different head crest to the rest, in this case I decided to make them gold to stand out as the unit leaders.

I couldn't get the unit standard bearer to print properly, so I eventually gave up**.

The ragged battle line looks I was going for raises it's head again :

I am really loving the look of these units all ranged out in battle lines, the visual impact of the armies will be amazing (hopefully).

Another look at the unit, you can see how things line up on the big bases in this photo:

Rather then pack them on, I spread the command section out a little more on their base, I have enough cavalrymen to do a second unit of twelve men, so three bases of four models.

As mentioned before, the Sashimono were the main way of identifying units on the medieval battlefield in Japan. This side on photo of the unit leader gives an indication of how this unit is identified. Every unit in this particular clans army will have the three red symbols on their Sashimono, but the underlying pattern (a horizontal black band in this case) can be varied, my foot Samurai are getting a blue section on their banners:

This adds another ten *models to the painting total for the year.

For the AHPC, these are 28mm mounted models and provide ten points per model, so a cool.One Hundred points added with just this unit.

And we'll add a photo of the painting queue on the tray, a Foot Samurai unit, Ashigaru Archer unit, Sohei Command and Oni bases, and then some varied character miniatures at the moment:

Now a note on Japanese horse breeds:

Whilst researching horse colourings for Japan, I came across a note that a lot of the native breeds are either extinct or in severe danger of becoming extinct. This is due to the Japanese military's policy around 1890-1945 of gelding all stallions and breeding with larger foreign stock to give them larger horses for their cavalry or logistics corps.

Most native Japanese horses would be classed in modern terms as ponies, as they don't measure up to the minimum height to be classed as a horse. Misaki horses stand only 132cm tall to the withers, the tallest point between the animals shoulders.

The above photo are some Misaki Horses grazing away, this breed are classed as critically maintained as there are roughly 100 of them living protected in the wild at the southern tip of the main Japanese island of Honshu.

A more populous breed is the Dosanko, or Hokkaido pony:

There are roughly 2000 of these small horses which live along the northern Pacific cost of the far northern island of Hokkaido. They are still classed as endangered and conservation efforts are in place by several Japanese universities to manage their population.

I hope you've enjoyed this post and the start of the Wargaming army, I'm really looking forward to seeing the larger blocks of units on the table.

The aim is to start gaming with the forces after the kids school holidays over the summer, when we can properly get back to gaming after the break, that also gives me PLENTY of time (famous last words) to get stuff completed, hopefully.

Until next time, have nice day...

*I say entire, but right before I was about to varnish the miniatures, one of them fell from the tray and shattered into various pieces (legs, tail, ears, rider, riders arms, Sashimono) and was hastily replaced with the rider who has a Horo Cloak instead of Sashimono.

I do have a spare horseman, so he'll be getting painted up quickly, but I was on the "finished unit" enthusiasm so posted these.

**Fortunately his body will become the base of the next cavalryman to the worked up to join the Squadron.

In place of the banner, I'm going to add a spare katana and have the Gunso (sergeant) dual wielding like a badass!

***There are multiple period artwork pieces of Samurai wearing tiger skin fur cloaks and such, obviously acquired through trade with China.

I am not about to go back in and add tiger stripes to the cloth, so the yellow will suffice.