"Most versatile use of Samurai clans?" Topic

I've been thinking of getting into Samurai gaming lately, but I've been wondering how to make the most of any figures, given that Samurai are a bit tricky to paint.

I imagine if you give your ashigaru fairly dark armour, leave off mons and make them pretty generic looking, they can be used for a number of different clans, perhaps swapping out standard-bearers and commanders. Samurai might be a bit trickier, but if you made the sashimono detachable it might be possible to change them around and get different clans from a limited number of figures? More specific things like particular commanders would be done accurately, but could be used to head the same figures as any given scenario demanded it. These ideas would probably work best with individually based 28mm figures.

Failing that, what would you say are the most useful clans to have? Some like the Takeda are attractive, but die out before the end of the period. Others like the Ikko iki are a bit more specific to troubling particular daimyo. Who would you say are the best at hanging in there, and provide the most versatility (in terms of and participation) from 1550 to say 1615? Plus if they go to Korea they get bonus points for opening the gaming possibilities further.

Tough decision….

Solution 1.: paint what you need and focus on the topic and paint samurais untill you have enough formeverything in the historical dress… In my game scale and for sekigahara would than ca. 400 figures needed. Maybe plus for ealier battles against the mongols…

Solution 2.: colour code them like akira korosawa did for his movie RAN.
YouTube link

Not historical but done by the master of japanese movies therefore OK.

I took solution 1 for my 25mm samurai and solution 2 for my 15mm samurai.

Tough question…

Greetings and have fun
PS: detechable sachimono is BS as they so not survive very lomg and you have to manage the inventory and quantities needed and you have most of the time samurais with a hole in they back…. And masses of unused sachimonos… Dont do it.. Wrong way.. Just paint the right figur in the same time.

One of my friends just did command stands with Sashimonos.

It appears that only the samurai expected to get into close combat wore sashimono. The senior ashigaru or samurai in charge of individual squads (tai) usually did NOT wear sashimono. A rare few ashigaru would wear sashimono, but that's when they were assigned to a samurai's personal unit instead of a company/group (gumi), or were assisting samurai in a samurai spear company.

The samurai in charge of a gumi not only wore a sashimono, but also had a 'company standard,' so only giving command stands sashimono isn't totally wrong.

EValerio has inspired me to make diorama bases for my 15mm samurai. TMP link

I would honestly paint all the ashigaru up with dark armor and light robes of various colors. Uesugi Kenshin was famous for supplying all his ashigaru with armor, but I wouldn't even give the ashigaru a mon on the armor.

Samurai spearmen on foot would have one ashigaru per samurai, and the ashigaru would wear the unit sashimono. The commander of this unit would have a 'commander' sashimono, not a personal one. As long as you make each unit sashimono unique, you could get away with having a common pool of ashigaru and even lower-ranking samurai (with two or three different 'commander' figures or a single figure with 2-3 magnetized sashimono).

It's not until you get to mounted samurai that you have individual sashimono, and mounted samurai each have a groom, spear-carrier, and 3 more ashigaru. Lots of 'light feet' that were expected to keep up with the samurai on horseback.

Clibinarium, all of the above are pretty wise answers.

My own solution was to go with small generic clans, something like what Rudi suggested. I wanted the look of crowded sashimono, though as Lion has pointed out, they were not so common as in the films.
I chose three colors for the samurai clans: red w/yellow for the Hotaru (firefly clan), blue with yellow for the Tombo (dragonfly clan), and green with yellow for the Tsubame (swallow clan).
My sohei from the Koorogi (Cricket) Monastery fight under a white banner wearing yellow and orange robes. The Ikko Ikki carry mostly black banners with one personal banner depicting a tsuru (crane) mon.
I found this very satisfying. All of the simple geometric designs are based on historical ones, and ample opportunity existed for painting up some striking looking kanji, and even a few invented mon.
I was definitely trying for the same look that Kurusawa achieved in his epic movie, "Ran," and I'm content with the result.

Personally, I choose to make both my 6mm and 28mm roughly based on the two sides of the Sekigahara campaign, where most clans that survived until the end of the 16th century were present. So I make several units using different clan heraldry. If I were to play a scenario with different clans I'd probably just use markers to designate which clan is which: "The Togugawa forces are Tokugawa, but those Shimazu troops are stand-ins for the Takeda today".

If you want to do armies that are both mostly historical correct and interchangable, I would paint up very generic sashimono (just colours and occational stripes over them), and then paint up separate command groups. In 28mm with individual bases you could simply paint up a bunch of standard bearers for each clan, and plop them down in your units. In smaller scale you could drill a hole in a unit base and make detachable unit markers. An example of this can be found on Phil Broeder's blog, where he did it for his 6 mm samurai:

I just trying out to do changeable sashimono. I cut a bras tube with a inside diameter of only 0,6mm in 3-4mm long parts, then closing one end with green stuff. I glue them at the backside of some Samurai / Ashigaru. With this diameter Perry Sashimono can be placed within if you cut away the L formed end. It looks okay for me and seems to be working but the figures are only in a painting mode yet and therefore I have not proved if it is functionable in a (miniatures) battle.

I hope you can understand what I have done. it is a little bit complicated for me to explain it in english which is not my native language.

No, that's quite clear, Elb-dono. And that certainly beats trying to magnetize the sashimono!

One of the things that struck me while reading a lot of the Killer Katanas supplements is the use of extra banners for deception purposes. If you're using a rule-set that has some kind of hidden movement or 'blinds' system, I think it'd be perfect to use command stands for the blinds.

Lots of great ideas. I've decided to settle for the Kurosawa techniques for now. But I do want to go the Sekugahara route mentioned above as well.
Big ups to everyone!