"Leading the battle of Sekigahara." Topic

Steel Fist will soon offer a new set in 28mm representing the samourai who led the charge at the Battle of Sekigahara. This set will be sold £ 20.

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Amicalement
Armand

What the heck is he riding?

Looks like a horse with a dragon mask doing the can-can to me.

Thanks for posting, the horse is wearing a dragon themed horse armour, the pose looks funny due to the armour but the horse was posed by a renowned professional sculptor, the reason the front leg is like that is because the horses movement has been changed by the rider pulling it's head with the reigns, also remember that a snapshot of movement is not always the expected pose. If you don't think a horse does that I do have a photo that supports it which I may put on the blog if necessary.
Cheers

These are quite nice. Keep up the great work!

Wonderful looking sculpts. I never knew the Japanese dressed their horses to appear as dragon's…. but not surprising when one thinks about it. Surprised it wasn't a more common practice?

What other 28mm Samurai lines are the Steel Fist closest in size to? Perrys? Kingsford?

~Brian

Please do not focus solely on Sekigahara. This was more or less the last battle of the Senghoku period. We war gamers like to play campaigns (especially if we are compelled to paint an incredible multitude of figures). That way we can play more than 1 gargantuan battle. This is my sole problem with Steel Fist. I'm convinced that most of us would prefer to see the likes of Oda, Uesugi, Takeda, etc., being on the "to do" list.
This is a "niche" thing. A lot of war gamers are thrown off by the "painting samurai armies" situation, and the less popularity of Asian armies. One has to start reading quite a lot if one wants to really get to grips with it (just look at the remarks you can get from 1 of those photographs about a horse)
Please think this through. I want Steel Fist to succeed and be around for a long, long time. I have bought all Steel Fist has made so far (Except the last ones because I'm enjoying a well deserved holiday in the sun for the moment). I'm really eager to read your view on my exposure.

That horse armour is a hell of an anachronism, surely? Like a Sherman at Minden, more or less.

Last winter I was able to view a large and gorgeous exhibit of Samurai armor at the Portland Art Museum. The displays were focused on the Sengoku era. There was, indeed, some horse armor on display.

Glad you enjoyed it my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

That horse armour is a hell of an anachronism, surely? Like a Sherman at Minden, more or less.

There were still a good number of bow-armed units at Sekigahara. I'd have to dig out my Killer Katanas books to get exact numbers, but the matchlock hadn't completely replaced the bow in combat. In fact, even the nominally firearms units usually had a ~3:2 ratio of firearms to bows, because the matchlock's rate of fire sucked.

Thanks for all the comments here. First regarding samurai horse armour, if you just type that into google you will see a few examples. Interestingly japanese horse armour really came into use during the later edo period, but in my japanese armour reference book it asserts that it was in wide use during the sengoku period, and can be seen on the osaka screen. It usually takes the appearance of dragons. I decided to put Naomasa's horse in it because he was a very flamboyant character and obviously like to make a statement on the battlefield, his armour is also evident of this, also the fact he was shot by a sniper during the battle indicates he stood out.
I'm hoping to May all the daimyo in my range tell a little story, and here Naomasa is disobediently starting a charge that commenced the battle, depriving fukishima Masanori the honor that was given by Ieyasu.

Regarding why I picked sekigahara, it is because by that time armour was becoming more and more mad looking and that makes interesting figures,
plus there is many surviving armours from this time compared to earlier, for example there is no armour for takeda or many of his daimyo. In contrast to most of the sekigahara daimyo having surviving suits.

but also sekigahara was a huge campaign with other battles and could have continued with many what ifs.

It is my plan to give this time more exposure, but in due corse I would like to make all the earlier daimyo, also generic ones so you can depict al those with no armour surviving as you imagine them.

I believe my miniatures are a more similar size to kingsford but more similar to perry in style.
Hope this helps.
Cheers

The book very useful also it mostly in English, it is called the history of japanese armour vol 2. Number, 978-4-499-22956-2
It covers many aspects of samurai armour and significance in the sengoku period.
Cheers

I read the same in the English books, and was expecting this to be challenged. But the book is very assertive, that these were used in the sengoku period, but more as statements by daimyo than for cavalry in general. I said wide use referring to the fact the book said daimyo competed to display the most extravagant horse armours.
But whatever the case, as there is disagreement among experts I'm more inclined to believe japanese experts than western ones, as they don't have the language barrier.
As a side note this will be the only one in horse armour as I want it to appear unusual.
The book mentions the osaka screens, I must admit I cannot find them, as the pics are too small,
Cheers

Yeah it fits what i've seen ad well, that dragon armour existed (and is found in contemporary paintings) before edo period, but that they were unusual and flashy.