The assault group samurai sets and blister packs are good to paint, lots of detail and in large numbers in the boxed setsSamurai foot should be made up of Swordsmen and Yari spearmen and units of Ashigaru armed with spear or missile weapons.
A number of cavalry types and some warrior Monks here and there and ninja and civilians to make things intersesting..
The samurai used various weapons, but the katana is the weapon that is synonymous with samurai. Bushido taught that a samurai's soul is their katana and sometimes a samurai is pictured as entirely dependent on the katana for fighting. They believe that the katana was so precious that they often gave them names and considered them as part of the living. This contrasted with the swords and crossbows of Europe at the same time which were, principally, tools for combat. However the use of swords did not become common in battle until the Kamakura period (1185-1333), where the tachi and uchigatana (the predecessor to the katana) became prevalent. The katana itself did not become the primary weapon until the Edo period.
Assault group have much of whats needed and in large packs for economy.
all the foot types are covered,warriors, bow and monks with Katana,Tachi or No-dachi, Naginata and so on.
Their size and detail allows for clan symbols or traditional designs
to be added to figures and the entire range is a must to
beef up armies or as an alternative to other manufacturers poses and types.
The wakizashi itself was a samurai's "honour blade" and purportedly never left the samurai's side. He would sleep with it under his pillow and it would be taken with him when he entered a house and had to leave his main weapons outside.
The Tanto was a small dagger sometimes worn with or instead of the Wakizashi in a daisho. The tanto or the wakizashi was used to commit seppuku, a ritualized suicide.
The samurai stressed skill with the yumi (longbow), reflected in the art of kyudo(lit. the way of the bow). The bow would remain a critical component of the Japanese military even with the introduction of firearms during the Sengoku Jidai period. The yumi, an asymmetric composite bow made from bamboo, wood, rattan and leather, was not as powerful as the Eurasian reflex composite bow, having an effective range of 50 meters or less (100 meters if accuracy was not an issue). It was usually used on foot behind a tedate, a large and mobile bamboo wall, but shorter versions (hankyu) could also be used from horseback. The practice of shooting from horseback became a Shinto ceremony of Yabusame.
In the 15th century, the yari (spear) also became a popular weapon, displacing along with the naginata from the battlefield as personal bravery became less of a factor and battles became more organized around massed, inexpensive foot troops ashigaru. A charge, mounted or dismounted, was more effective when using a spear than a katana and it offered better than even odds against a samurai using a katana. In the Battle of Shizugatake where Shibata Katsuie was defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, then known as Hashiba Hideyoshi, the Seven Spearmen of Shizugatake played a crucial role in the victory.
The latter half of the 16th Century saw the introduction of the teppo or arquebus in Japan through Portuguese trade, enabling warlords to raise effective armies from masses of peasants. The new weapons were highly controversial. Their ease of use and deadly effectiveness was perceived by many as a dishonorable affront to Bushido tradition.
Nobunaga made deadly use of the teppo at the Battle of Nagashino in 1575, leading to the end of the Takeda clan. After their initial introduction by the Portuguese and the Dutch, the teppo, were produced on a large scale by Japanese gunsmiths. By the end of the 16th Century, there were more firearms in Japan than in any European nation, with largely superior craftsmanship. Teppo, employed en masse largely by ashigaru peasant foot troops were in many ways the antithesis of samurai valor. With the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate and an end to civil war, production of the guns declined sharply with prohibitions to ownership. By the Tokugawa Shogunate most spear-based weapons had been phased out partly because they were suboptimal for the close-quarter combat common in the Edo period, this combined with the aforementioned restrictions on fire-arms resulted in the Daisho being the only weapons typically carried by samurai. In the 1570s cannons became a common part of the samurai's armory.
they often were mounted in castles or on ships being used more as anti-personnel weapons though in the siege of Nagashino castle (1575) a cannon was used to good effect against a enemy siege-tower. The first popular cannon in Japan were swivel-breech loaders nick-named kunikuzushi or destroyer of provences.
Kunikuzushi weighed 264 lbs. and used 40 lb. chambers, they fired a small shot of 10 oz. The Arima clan of Kyushu used guns like this at the battle of Okinawate against the Ryozoji clan. By the time of the Osaka campaign (1614-1615) cannon technology had improved in Japan. At Osaka Ii Naotaka managed to fire an 18 lb. shot into the castle's keep!
Some other weapons used by samurai were jo, bo, grenade, Chinese trebuchets (more as an anti-personnel weapon than a siege engine) and cannon (infrequently and at great expense).
Perry brothers Samurai range is superb for all troop types and personalities
It includes Ashigaru of many weapon types especially and civilian dress and peasants.
The term Samurai originally meant "those who serve in close attendance to nobility", and was written in the Chinese character (or kanji) that had the same meaning. In Japanese, it was originally pronounced in the pre-Heian period as saburapi and later as saburai, then samurai in the Edo period. In Japanese literature, there is an early reference to samurai in the Kokinshu ( early 10th century):
Attendant to your nobility
Ask for your master's umbrella
The dews 'neath the trees of Miyagino
Are thicker than rain
(poem 1091)
The word bushi (lit. "warrior or armsman") first appears in an early history of Japan called Shoku Nihongi ( 797 A.D.). In a portion of the book covering the year 723 A.D., Shoku Nihongi states: "Literary men and Warriors are they whom the nation values". The term bushi is of Chinese origin and adds to the indigenous Japanese words for warrior: Tsuwamono and Mononofu. The terms bushi and samurai became synonymous near the end of the 12th century, according to William Scott Wilson in his book Ideals of the Samurai Writings of Japanese Warriors. Wilson's book thoroughly explores the origins of the word warrior in Japanese history as well as the Kanji (Chinese symbols) used to represent the word. Wilson states that Bushi actually translates as "a man who has the ability to keep the peace, either by literary or military means, but predominantly by the latter".
It was not until the early modern period, namely the Azuchi-Momoyama period and early Edo period of the late 16th and early 17th centuries that the word saburai was replaced with samurai. However, the meaning had changed long before that.
Command figures are window dressing for larger actions but their quality begs to be added and painted
During the era of the rule of the samurai, the term yumitori ("bowman") was also used as an honorary title of an accomplished warrior even though swordsmanship had become more important. (Japanese archery (kyujutsu) is still strongly associated with the war god Hachiman.)
A samurai with no attachment to a clan or daimyo ( was called a ronin ( In Japanese, the word ronin means "wave man", a person destined to wander aimlessly forever, like the waves in the sea. The word came to mean a samurai who was no longer in the service of a lord because his lord had died, because the samurai had been banished or simply because the samurai chose to become a ronin.
The pay of Samurai was measured in koku of rice (180 liters; enough to feed a man for one year). Samurai in the service of the han are called hanshi.
With a variety of ideas for scenarios it's a change to play one involving non combatants, without armour, at night and so on
Links to manufacturers
Shopping around is half the fun and the number of companies with samurai is extensive but these will do nicely if you're getting started.
The Assault Group medieval asia range
Perry Brothers samurai range
Westwind samurai wars
Old glory samurai wars
back to the Old Guards site