"How to best historically represent Ninjas?" Topic

It seems almost common knowledge that ninjas are probably never what fiction depicts them as, but I must ask how is the best way to represent real ninjas model wise?

Find a hooded, robed figure. Paint it black.

Place it on a high shelf, behind some books.

Forget it's there.

Like this?

Dressed as travelers, peasants, monks? Watch the film Kagemusha. The spies from Tokugawa Ieyasu are likely Ninjas hired for such lowly work. I myself would keep a few of the Ninjas in traditional garb for assasinations and so forth, even if this owes more to later Japanese art and cinema. They just look too cool not to find their way onto the table.
If you are using them in open battle, as is alleged to have sometimes happened, they would dress in armor, etc. I suppose they might look like Ronin or rural Samurai. Lighter than the Daimyo's warriors.

I'd use an event deck for activation. I'd model the ninja as a tuft of black polly-fuzz. In fact I'd place dummy tufts on the table along with the real one/ones.

Flintloque for the win!

Of course, in actual tabletop games, you can use miniatures, if desired, and you have them. Let them creep about, and set up some rules for them to be detected by any people/guards in the area.

Perhaps a fatigue rule for the middle of the early morning (while it is still dark), or low chance for the guards to spot them, since nothing ever happens while on guard duty.

Using black chits/disks would work, if you want to keep the guards honest, since they really shouldn't know where to look for the ninjas. I suggest a 3:1 ratio of dummy counters to real ninjas, and they only get to turn the chits over, if they pass the low chance die roll for spotting.

Spotting gets easier, the closer the chits/ninjas get, especially to the front. To the sides of the guard, the spotting chance is very low, and near impossible to spot, excepting at very close range, to the rear (due to sounds made by a ninja – of course we all know this should never happen, but surely even ninjas make mistakes).

Another way to do the above would be with playing cards, and having them depict where and when the ninjas suddenly appear. By drawing randomly, this also puts some burden on the ninja player(s) too, since they may not be able to position themselves in the optimal spot on the board, or in a house, in order to make an attack.

As for the armor issue, apparently, some ninjas wore their armor beneath their clothing, to further add to their aura of invincibility, and to surprise their foes.

Both rvandusen and Ogdenlulimus have good ideas. Since they weren't really used in open battle, you really don't need figures unless you're doing skirmish level or rpg type games. Then they will occasionally end up fighting somebody or other's retainers. Unless specifically breaking into someone's compound, they will be dressed in everyday clothes of some sort, possibly a disguise if on a mission but probably just their ordinary peasant garb.

I realize I'm not helping… but for my Hott 'Clan Fugume' I represent Shinobi using the well doscumented 'Inverse Rule of Ninja Deadliness'.

My Master Ninja 'hero' is represented by a stand with an idyllic cherry tree, a shrub, a rock and two dead samurai. No figure depicting said hero is on the base.

-TV

Special event cards or dicing would work best, depending upon rules.

Or you could give ninja side a bonus for scouting points or some such (since they would have been used as intelligence gathering assets).

Or at some point in the battle, an assasination attempt on a general (dice roll-off).

Rob

I would argue you want to employ two different ninja mechanics.
Prebattle mechanic The defender assigns a level of protection to each of the likely targets. How this is done probably depends on the game system, but could be as simple as randomly assigning each one a card from a standard deck, or the defender could have a number of points in cards and distribute them as he wishes..

Attacker assigns ninja to targets, using a similar card point system. This represents the ninjas skills. reveal cards, high card wins.

In game, I would handle it with the ninja assigned to a target. Each round the ninja is stalking, roll a D6 add one for each round after the first. When you get a 6, the ninja appears on the board close enough to attack the target. He could have been marching with the targets Ashigaru, or hiding in the bosh.. or whatever.

Don't put them on the table…

There are two different 'ninja' types.

First is the dangerous guerrilla fighter of the Koga and Iga clans. They didn't fight according to the typical Samurai codes because they were outnumbered something like 100:1. So they 'cheated'. They fought from ambush and did lots of hit&run attacks. If your rules have mechanics for ambushes and raids, allow one side or the other to spend some points on ambushers.

Then there's the spies. You wouldn't see them on the battlefield, but you could represent their actions with random-event cards. "Spreading rumors that a leading samurai in the opposing faction is actually a rebel, plotting the demise of the Daimyo. Kill one named leader and break up his command."

Or you could just ignore them, because they are semi-mythical and their historical impact is probably blown all out of proportion.
-Kle.

Or, go the other way, depending upon your scenario, and place ninja minis everywhere to represent people's overblown fears of them.

Only a few on the table are real, and the others are illusory.

Their opponents won't be able to determine that until the last minute, with the spotting rules, as suggested above. If they are lucky, they'll get to figure it out before they are snuffed, so they have a fighting chance. Many, I suspect, will not.

That way, you get to field lots of ninja minis on the table.

Randomly remove a character model/stand from the army after deployment. The ninjas did all their work the night before…

Or you could just ignore them, because they are semi-mythical and their historical impact is probably blown all out of proportion.

No, the Koga and Iga guerrillas' successes are pretty well recorded (including the frustration of their opponents for 'not fighting fair').

It's the spies that are near-mythical, which is why I suggested some kind of 'Fog of War' card effect.

Use any figure, or none …

I always wonder why ninja are shown wearing black? If you want to be hidden in the dark, dark blue or dark red is far more efective. Black leaves an outline. Red and Blue, for some reason to do with how light works, blend in better with darkness. I got this from a paper on modern special forces. Samurai certainly knew red and blue as cloth colours. Their effect is a matter of record, but their role was always infiltration/assassins not battle. The bickering about ninjutsu bloodlines and training methods continues to 2012. Perhaps they're best used in a small skirmish game.

Kaze: there are no contemporary depictions of ninja wearing black. The idea and myth of ninja took off from theater plays much later, especially in kabuki. To distinguish the ninjas in plays and drawings as invisible, they took on the dress of puppet play actors. These actors were dressed completely in black with black hoods against a dark backdrop, so that the audience only saw the puppets. Thus, the black-dressed ninja is just as "invisible", even when clearly drawn or acting on a stage.

@Kaze: setsuko has it right, except that in plays all the stagehands wore black. If the play called for someone to be killed by a ninja, one of the stagehands would draw a weapon and make the 'attack'.

Add some gullible Westerners…