From ScottM: Historical Drama - Ashigaru & Rocket Bikes (160 pts)

My last post for this year's challenge is a two-parter. First up is my last studio location.

Historical Drama - With thoughts of Akira Kurosawa rolling around in my head, for this location I went with a couple more bases for my ongoing Samurai armies project. These are two bases of Ashigaru with yari. These are 28mm metal figs from Kingsford Miniatures.

I had run out of the larger decals for my sashimono and had to use the smaller ones, so they look a little odd unfortunately.

Scoring: 16 - 28mm foot figs + location bonus = 100 points

And for my last set of figures I painted up a trio of rocket bikes. These 28mm resin figs are from Bombshell Miniatures.

Scoring: 3 - 28mm vehicles = 60 points

Scoring Total: 160 points

That ends this year's challenge for me. See you all next year!

Friday minion: Hey again Scott, great to see you back with one last post. Those Ashigaru look lovely indeed, the basing is really effective. and the Bombshell miniatures bikes are great pulpy silliness, great choice of colours. My favourite is the red one because it clearly goes fastest.

I believe this puts you over your 500 points target, congratulations! Great to have you with us this challenge, may your brushes ever move swiftly. 

From ScottM: Noel's Comet - Samurai Characters (40 pts)

Been a bit of a slow month for me, but I'll hopefully get a few more figs done before the end. As I venture further into the system, I end up at Noel's Comet. I didn't really have a wide selection of figs in my unpainted pile that actually fit into this category, so my choice might be a bit off. For this stop I went with a pack of Samurai Heroes. These are 28mm metal figs from Kingsford Miniatures.

For the actual location I've got a Not-Lone Wolf and Cub. I've embarrassingly never actually read the stories, but if it's about some lone samurai roving around with a kid in a cart, it should involve some sort of friendship.

There's two other characters in the pack: Not-Yojimbo and Not-Zatoichi.

And now for the story. My friend and I have known each other since high school (we're 50/51 now). A few decades ago there was a bar in town (it's still there - the old Boston Pizza lounge), that we would frequent. Well, there was a stretch where we would go every night. We'd end up spending all evening there till almost closing time. We went there so often, that we knew all the staff, they knew us and when they'd see us drive up, by the time we got in the door and sat down, our drinks (Big Rock Grasshopper for me, Rickard's Red for him) would be sitting there waiting. We'd usually just spend the evening watching the TV and having a few pints. We wouldn't say much to each other, just sit, enjoy our drinks and each others' company. The end of the evening would roll around and we'd get ready to head home (usually it was me driving), so I'd head off to take care of an excess liquid problem and ask him to grab the tab. And it would never fail that I'd come back and sure enough he's ordered another round to go with the bill. Argh! Good times, although my bank account wasn't having a good time.

We're still great friends, he lives a couple blocks away and we hang out regularly (for some reason his wife is able to tolerate me). Might even end up there tonight for some beverages.

So that should be:

• 4 - 28mm figs = 20 points
• 1 location (Noel's Comet) = 20 points

Total = 40 points

And now the mad scramble as the end nears!

From Millsy:

That's a great story Scott. I have a mate who I've known for a similar amount of time (I'm 52) so I totally get the amount of history there, especially the ability to just sit in companionable silence.

I really like your colour choices for these dudes, that blue-grey is really eye catching and goes really well with the hair and leggings. Nice work all round.

From ScottM: Altar of the Snowlord - Samurai (105 pts)

Our brave adventurer finally reaches the last room of the Chambers of Challenges: the Altar of the Snowlord. Our hero steps into the room and looks over his shoulder and yes, his help has arrived. Into the room stream a contingent of samurai and their ashigaru retainers.

These figures are all 28mm metal. The samurai base and teppo base are all from Kingsford Miniatures. The command base is from Steel Fist Miniatures. I've based these figures up for Impetus. First up is the samurai base.

Next up is the base of Teppo.

And finally is the command base. This figure is Ishida Mitsunari, the loser of the Battle of Skegihara (with his head still attached).

So that should be:

15 - 28mm foot figures = 75 points

1 - 28mm cavalry figure = 10 points

Total = 85 + 20 (Chamber bonus) = 105 points

From ScottM: Ashigaru Archers (30 points)

Merry Christmas all! For my first submission of this years paint challenge I went with 2 skirmish bases of 28mm Ashigaru Archers. These metal figs are from Kingsford Miniatures. They're based up for Impetus.

One of my painting resolutions for 2020 was to get done 3 bases of samurai/ashigaru. These bases, coupled with work done in last year's challenge will finish that resolution, so the year isn't a total bust.

So that should be 6 - 28mm foot figs = 30 points.

From DavidL - 28mm Ikko-Ikki (72 Points)

As promised, here are the foes for my samurai buntai for Ronin, as posted here: the Ikko-Ikki, the sect/movement/uprising that so bedeviled samurai lords of the Sengoku era.

Figures are a mix of Perry and Kingsford. Since this is primarily a band of rabble, there were quite a few more to paint than with the bushi, and even more fabric involved...which meant lots of patterns to hand paint. Nothing for it but to power through, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't relieved to put this project to rest finally.

As with my previous buntai, I mounted the leader figure on a larger base for easy identification. My wife actually designed the list for this buntai, and she made the leader a ronin armed with an arquebus, which gave me the perfect excuse to use this wonderful little Perry tableau of a flunky handing his master a freshly-loaded teppo. I added a pavise screen as well because, hey, it looks cool.

Just as the Matsudaira faction boasted warrior-monk allies, so too do the Ikko-Ikki; in this case, a monk from the Jōgū-ji temple. Japanese monks seemed to have favored two different color palettes with their outfits, so to differentiate this one I painted him in the "not orange" outfit.

I picked up this banner bearer from Kingsford, but ended up doing a scratch-built banner and pole - the original's banner was cast from metal and made the figure too top-heavy, plus the pole bent too easily.

I painted the bearer in the livery of Matsudaira's retainers, thinking he's perhaps a defector. Also, this makes him nicely interchangeable between factions, since, after his victory over the Ikko-Ikki, Matsudaira took this very banner as one of his personal standards! The text is a prayer favored by the Ikko-Ikki: "Renounce this defiled world and attain the Pure Land" (or such is my understanding, not actually knowing any Japanese...).

Next up is a trio of Ikko-Ikki from Kingsford. I love their looted armor, particularly the fancy (and old-fashioned) samurai helmet one of them is sporting. Clearly these guys know how to pick over a battlefield! They put me in mind of Tahei and Matashichi from Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress.

Finally, the peasant mob.

Although I gave them screen-printed fabric designs, I kept things relatively low-key: a rustic palette and simple, repeated designs. I expect these fellows to die with grim regularity, but at least they'll look good doing it.

And that's that! A total of 12 figures gives me a base of 60 points, and my Ronin project is put to rest (for now).

From Curt:As your previous work in this genre these are absolutely fabulous. As you mention in your blog, undertaking the task of painting Samurai figures is equivalent to doing Napoleonics, if not more so. I'm particularly impressed with the various fabric patterns that you've created for this group. They're all very beautiful and look be right out of a period film.  I also like the pavise and the banner bearer and his banner are just brilliant. I'm giving another dozen points for the details and as a congratulations for concluding this project. Well done David!