Project: Imjin War

Those who seek death shall live. Those who seek life shall die.
   - Admiral Yi Sun-sin

Korean 'bushi' for Ronin

Little project, done over I think three evenings. Which is very funny, because I think I bought these like five years ago. Jimmy and I were talking one day about how cool it would be to play Ronin, an Osprey Games blue book for Samurai skirmishes. My interest in samurai-era wargaming is generally muted (although I did watch a bunch of Kurosawa movies last year...) but I've always been interested in the Imjin War - and Ronin includes Koreans!

Most Samurai rulesets don't, by the way, even including Warlord Games recent supplement for Pike & Shotte, Wars of the Samurai. Which is good, in a way, because it means I don't wind up buying an entire Perry Miniatures Korean army only to have nobody to fight.

Anyway, these guys have languished in a box since then, but we were talking about it recently, so I decided to dig them out. I had forgotten that I'd based them on hexes - must have been in an old-school mood.

A brief sunshiney day a few days ago let met get them undercoated, and so these were a nice little bit of 'finishing something off' juice for the brain.

I mostly aimed for art close to the box set art, although a little casual reading seemed to indicate that the peasant soldiers should mostly have white belts and that the commander should have black, as well as possibly orange/red robes. I spent a little of time looking at the Perry range for details, as well as this good wikipedia article on the period army and these pretty pictures. Basing was done in the same way as for my cowboy vikings.

Detailed pictures below the cut. I need to bully Jimmy into painting his Ronin, but a work colleague also has some Chinese and martial artists...

Why would I pick an archer, which has extra details, as the test miniature? Anyway, he worked out okay. The Contrast Apothecary White does a lot of heavy lifting here. I'm also experimenting with actually varnishing these miniatures, which doesn't seem to affect them too badly. I should really do that more.

I like this guy's expression.

I gave these guys dark red spears, figuring that the peasant soldiery likely lacquered their wood.

Missing the back photo for this guy for some reason. These casts are a bit rough, but that just makes them feel old school and more authentic. Most of the flaws aren't visible at three feet anyway. Really easy and pleasant to paint.

While this small warband doesn't include the most fun weapons of the Imjin-war period Koreans (rocket launching cavalry and heavy flails), they do have some guys with twin swords. Everyone loves two swords.

The two swordsmen's coats are in different shades of red. Not sure how well those have photographed.

I love the Korean rattan shield (deungpaea 등패). Photos I saw online had a steel boss but I liked the idea of a laquered red one to tie in better to the rest of the warband. I also had read that officers used bronze in their armour, but I decided this guy had some simple iron.

A really fun little project; typing this up probably took longer than the commander took to paint. I did manage to get a couple of 'Mechs undercoated when I got these guys, and there's that one that I've half finished. On the other hand, I got a delivery notice for something being delivered today...