"Japanese Samurai Terrain at Warlord Games" Topic

Those look extremely nice, and it's a delight to see more buildings for this setting becoming available.

But I do wish people would stop referring to aspects of warfare and culture from Japan's pre-industrial era as 'Samurai'. It's a bit like calling something medieval 'knightly'. One does not refer to a range of buildings intended for, say, the 1400's as "Knight Terrain" for example.

It would be nice to see such things being described for their era, such as Heian, Kamakura, Muromachi or Edo. There are distinct styles of Japanese architecture too, such as Minka.

Just an observation – as I stated, these do look very nice!

These are terrific!! Don't you hate it when an advertiser doesn't say what scale the models are.

Well, the Pike and Shotte range of miniatures is 28mm, so I'd willingly guess that's the scale of these offerings.

The town buildings would be perfect for a 'Gangs of Edo' themed game.

The Sarissa 'Japan' range of buildings are scaled for 28mm. I've a few of these buildings in my collection and I think they are easy to construct and very good. I've customised one or two of mine, changing the size and adding detail (such as stones on the roof).

Go see 13 Assassins. For that sort of scenario, you'll need loads of buildings.

Guy

How do these compare to the 4Ground buildings of the same setting/era?

Wish they'd come prepainted. The paint jobs on these look simple enough that it wouldn't be too hard, and I'd happily pay extra to save time.

How authentic are those roofs? They strike me as being very imperfect approximations of the real thing, but I can't tell for sure. Were buildings in feudal Japan ever roofed with non-overlapping square tiles (and without those tubular strips that I've often seen on the roofs of old Japanese buildings but have no idea what they're called) like these are?

I also have the impression that the roof on the "Samurai House" really ought to be curved. But I don't know for sure. It just strikes my untrained eye as counterintuitively planar-looking.

If I'm correct in that these roofs are inauthentic (although I hope I'm not), I'm sorry to say I wouldn't be prepared to use them for representing feudal Japan, at least not without a major makeover. On the other hand, what I might possibly want to do is give the buildings a lesser sci-fi makeover (leaving the roofs as they are) and use them with the sci-fi ryokan from LaserCutCard for games like Infinity.

As MDF buildings go, they are fine. Its a bit like a tile roof on a modern building, you can always put tiles on them if you want more detail.

I have added a few touches by adding stones and wooden slats. Not quite as good as this but you get the idea…

Failing that, there's always teddybear fur if you fancy thatch.

Guy

Having lived in Japan, just north of Tokyo, for 15 years of my life… I can say that most of the buildings are quite well done. The samurai house looks a little wrong to my eyes… perhaps the roof is too too steep. There are certain samurai houses that aren't all that fancy with the high roof (a staple of areas with high amounts of snow if I recall correctly).

But the "temple/shrine" is just something I've never remotely seen. Most places that even used posts only had them in the corners of the buildings… more for show since I felt the weight of the roof was on the walls.

The townhouse, large house, village house are all very accurate to what I used to see.

Walls and gates are good though I usually saw a gate that had a larger and further extended roof than what is shown here… mmm… maybe I should dig up some of my photos.

Now if Warlord would come out with some Samurai figures….

Look Nice!

Thank you for the information Sisyphus, I think I'll modify my Temple accordingly and remove the supports.

Guy

"This just in: Seven tiny lead people trapped in miniature temple collapse."

I'd leave all the ones in the front… but along the sides and back… drop those…

But this is what you might be looking for. It's an open platform sometimes in front of large temples for events or plays.
link

I might recommend the below fire bell watchtower. I don't know if anyone else has one of these…
link

Old Style Teahouse
link

Small Shrine
link

Mmm… I apologize. A lot of my photos were done on film and only in my latter years did I move over to digital.

One last thing… The person painting your buildings is going about it wrong. Shrine (Shinto) sometimes did a darker red but orange or orange red is uncommon. Most japanese buildings lean towards darker brown To charred black color.

The posted photo of a town is basically spot on… you can see how dark the wood is….

I can imaging the roof curvature will give your laser the fits. Residential roofs will be simple. Religious or the very rich will have those curved roofs.

Thank you, Sisyphus! This has been very enlightening. Have you thought about doing a write-up about the dos and don'ts of modelling Japanese scenery?

Thanks also to Gecoren for that great movie screenshot.

Sarrissa does do curved surfaces. I have 2 dozen buildings by them and the water tower has a circular feature that was made from lazer cut cardboard. To do the swept roof they would need to do the same thing. It would work nicely I think.

I would like to see them in 15mm scale too

Since some people asked about the historical correctness I'll give it a shot. My personal opinions of course, not absolute truths in any way. However I've been modeling Japanese houses for years and have both travelled a lot in Japan and have a sizeable library on the topic in both Japanese and English, so I have at least a grasp of the basics. I apologize for my nitpicking, but it's a topic that is close to my heart.

Samurai House – pretty ok if simplified, especially the roof. But given the limitations in the materials it's good. The gable would likely have windows or similar openings for smoke to get out as well as visible wooden beams and pillars, that would give it a lot more character and feel to it. The red railing on the deck surround the house is taken from religious buildings and would not be seen on a samurai's house.

Bridge- Pretty good given the materials involved.

Temple/Shrine – roof is completely wrong shape to be a buddhist temple or a shinto shrine. There should be a gable in there at least in some way, which is why it looks so off. The alternative is found in smaller shinto shrines, but those roofs look more like a folded paper, so it's even more off:

Window and doors are also completely off. The only part that has a resemblence of a shinto or buddhist shrine is the raised deck.

Torii: Pretty good

Shop/townhouse: best building in the set IMHO, well done at least from the picture. The wooden stairs are off, it should either not be there or it would be a single level, larger, and extend further to the sides. The entrance to a house would either be a raised deck directly to the raised area of the house, or it would be a simple doorstep to the part of the house with a dirt floor. The main entrance of a shop would not have a dirt floor, but the back entrance would most likely have it.

Walkway: pretty good

Large house: Well done overall. Not exactly sure about the windows. Door is off though.

Village house/outhouse: actually not a village house, but a type you'd see in larger cities. Door and windows are off, as before, but I like the overall look. Again, stairs are off as per previous description. This kind of house was often seen in long rows in larger cities like Osaka and Edo, and would be populated by ashigaru or less wealthy city dwellers. They would be in crowded streets and would often have a single entrance directly to the dirt floor part of the house, so there would be no raised deck in front of it.

Walls & gates: pretty good.

As for comparisons with 4Ground, I must first say that I own neither (I make my own houses for 28mm). But 4Ground seems to be more historically correct, glancing at their homepage. Some things are still off: the rice barn doesn't resemble a rice storage at all. But both interiors and exteriors look good, and I can see few things that obviously stand out as "wrong".

Personally I prefer to make my own buildings, but I'm happy for the options given by both Sarissa and 4Ground. I believe that Sarissa could have made more historically accurate houses if they had done more research, as there are some solutions where their model is not a mere simplification, but actually a diversion from historical architectural styles for no discernable reason. I hope they would look into it if they expand the line, as I think they could raise the bar further with just a few basic improvements.

I'm glad I checked in on this thread again. Thanks, setsuko!