"Best scale for Samurai battles?" Topic

What scale would probably be best for the larger Samurai battles of the 16th century. I've ruled out 25/28mm and larger because of cost. So Im left with 15, 10 or 6mm to choose from or maybe plastic at 1/72 which i think is approx 20mm. Any opinions on scale preferred and figures available would be welcome. Thanks Kindly J.

6mm lets you do mass battles with figures you can paint in a reasonable amount of time.

I have 10mm, 15mm and 28mm. 28mm for skrimish level, which has become small unit actions of over 200 figures, dragons magic users, ninjas etc. 10mm for mass battles look, lots of N-scale buildings. 15mm you can at least see the figures.

In 15mm I have Essex, Dixons/Two Dragons, Peter Pig and Museum Miniatures. A word of warning, Museum Miniatures are 18mm. I like them because the weapons are much more sturdier. I like Peter Pig's stuff because the sashimono are molded on the figures.

I'm very tempted by what's available in the 20mm plastics at the moment. Very tempted….must fight the urge to press the but it now button.

I found painting 10mm more a chore, I generally don't mind painting.

Wargames Factory has 28mm plastics, someone recently posted a review, and did a very good paint job on them.

I don't think I'd go any smaller than 15mm scale for these battles.

In that scale, in large numbers, they do look impressive.

As mentioned, some of the 25mm/28mm plastics are pretty reasonable, and are worth considering too.

For battles I would go with 6mm or 10mm. I love my Baccus 6mm ancients so when I hit samurai next yearish I am considering Peye's samurai. Mura miniatures makes fantastic buildings for these guys. But 10mm is a serious contender as well and I will end up ordering samples before deciding.

I have had aborted efforts in 6mm and 10mm. I liked the scales, the ability to represent the mass battles and formations on diorama-style bases appeals to me. In larger scales, the idea of painting the lace on the armor does not appeal to me…

15mm. Check out Outpost Miniatures

25/28 would take a LONG time to paint nicely. 10s or 15s could be done in a reasonable amount of time. To me, 6s are just too small for a topic like this.

Zvezda's 1:72 plastics are worth a look

Zvezda plastic isn't really that soft these days ..

(I'm tempted, anyway …)…

Peter Pig has a nice range in 15mm and some well thought of rules …
link

Phil

My collection is 15s made up of mainly Two Dragons with additional pieces by Peter Pig, Old Glory, Minifig and Essex. The 15s offer lots of nice figures and I found it reasonably easy to scratch build some interesting pieces of siege equipment as well. While my Village Green castle is no longer available, Oshiro Model Terrain makes castle pieces that are very nice looking and Hovels makes buildings for a 15mm Japanese village. When I was putting my collection together I was not aware of Oshiro and used only Hovels for my village. Today I'm sure I'd try some of the Oshiro, but I like my Hovels a lot. You can see my collection in diorama layout form at warin15mm.com/page04.html

15mm, still looks impressive en mass – you can see the mon on the sahimono but it still gives you some room to manouver.

28mm for skirmishing, 15mm for massed battles.

The Aim 10mm produced by Minifigs US where fantastic, and are great for battles. But who has the masters I dont know and wish some one would pick up the range.
William

At $0.80 USD per figure I think Wargames Factory has got quite the bargain going especially for 28mm figures. You could build an army of 200 foot soldiers for about $160.00 USD ( less, about $136.00 USD or about $0.68 USD per figure if you take advantage of their discount for bulk or other retailer's discounts ) . I hear that Wargames Factory also has Mounted Samurai coming out soon ( rumor is late June ) as well as a Samurai Lord with Retinue in the works. If their Mounted Samurai run the same costs as the rest of their mounted troops ( 12-figures for $19.95 USD ) that's about $1.67 USD each or, if you buy in bulk, you could get 84-Mounted Samurai for $1.42 USD per figure; way better than anything else out there at the same scale ( and most times better than the smaller scales ) . Here's a link to their pictures:

link

link

link

The photos on Facebook are pretty impressive.

Sorry I couldn't get the links to work.

Sam: you need to put a / in front of the second URL in each link

It's a tough choice, but for large armies, I've gone for 6mm. 15mm is fun to paint, but you simply don't get the feel of large armies. Compare a small unit of four bases for Killer Katanas. In 15mm it would be 12 miniatures. Cool, but not a "unit" in my eyes. With my 6mm bases? That's roughly 60 miniatures.

I have tons of 28mm, which I love to paint, but hate to transport. 1/72 (20mm) is also tempting, since it is so cheap. I've seen people do amazing things with 10mm samurai as well. I'm going to get some 15mm samurai for at least a DBA army sooner or later. All these scales have their merits, and you can end up with an impressive collection no matter which you choose. But to recreate large battles? 6mm.

setsuko,

Are these Baccus miniatures at 6mm? Fantastic.

Jonnathon

Jonnathon: Thank you, and yes, they are Baccus 6mm.

Wargames Factory 28mm Samurai.

The ashigaru sets have made large battle 28mm affordable, and are an improvement over the earlier samurai set. Wargames Factory will be releasing Cavalry as well as a Daimyo set in the near future, so a gamer will have all the required troop types to do the large battles.

@Dr. Matthias: very nice! Where'd you get the sakura?

My own opinion on this is that this is a hobby of aesthetics. 28mm models are wonderful for skirmishing, where each model can have character. 6/10mm are wonderful for battles, where the numbers provide the desired effect.

Where'd you get the sakura?

The trees are scratchbuilt using the "twisted wire method" and the blossoms are white craft glitter that has been spread out and spray painted satin pink. The branches are dabbed with small blobs of pink puffy paint and the glitter is poured over that. It's as big a pain as it sounds, but is probably worth the effort :)

I plan on making a tutorial at some point, it will be at least a month though. I'll send you a note when I post it.

Thanks.

I'm working on an Infinity board that I want to set in Japan, and nothing says "Samurai" like a cherry-blossom blizzard.

While I am focused on 15mm (Old Glory, Peter Pig, Two Dragons, and Essex. HOWEVER I want to do Korean (Three Kigdoms, etc) and only the Perry Brothers have anything close. I will one of these days do a Korean Army and will have to have a Samurai 25/28mm force to confront them.
VR
James Mattes

Dr Mathias: those look superb! You say that the cavalry set will be released "in the near future", do you know anything more specific? Like, are we talking one month or five?

Excellent work, Dr Mathias! Will look forward to your tutorial.

Re: "cherry-blossom blizzard". One can have the cherry blossoms falling on the corpse of a slain samurai, highlighting the transient nature of youth, beauty, strength, glory, and life in the poignant fashion so beloved by the Japanese people. Oh, and have a single shakuhachi* playing in the background.

Life is a feather, duty a mountain.

* Traditional Japanese end-blown wooden flute.

Wow! Dr Mathias, those pictures are nice! Do you have a blog or something?