The Marvelous Miscellany of MMcV

[mmcv]

Thanks!

Great stuff and most impressive.  However, previous posts have suggested ALL such troops should be in black armour [bar the troops of Ii Naomasa].  Is it a bit of historic/artistic licence to use blue armour?  Asking for me!  I have yet to do my samurai.

In the later periods most armour would have been black, particularly the munitions grade stuff worn by ashigaru and lower samurai, but lacquering and decorative additions were used amongst richer samurai. Coloured silk laces were used extensively to bring colour, as well as fabric panels. For my 16th Century Sengoku Jidai samurai I plan to do mostly darker armour, these guys however are for use for earlier periods (11th-15th century) where the armour tended to be more boxy (those huge shoulder pads you often see) and more decorative and colourful using a mix of leather, iron and fabrics, compared to the later mostly metal armour.

Early period:



Note the coloured lacing all over the armour.

Later period (the more famous Sengoku Jidai):



Note the darker metal base and more subtle decoration.

If you want to add colour to your samurai there's no harm in it. The reason the likes of the Ii in their red and the Date in their black (as Ithoriel mentioned) are so notable is because they dressed uniformly in that colour, compared to the more varied colours seen elsewhere. Samurai would often have decorated their armour with fabric, worn coloured over coats and used coloured lacing.

Ashigaru generally would have been more uniformly dressed, particularly later in the 16th century, in munition armour and possibly coloured clothing. Though a lot of it is still guesswork based on artwork and the odd mention in period texts.

For instance, we know in the Genpei War the Minamoto were typically using red banners and the Taira white. But did they also bear clan symbols as in later periods? We don't know for sure. And did that influence their armour and clothes? Again unsure, but I'm using a red theme for my Minamoto and a white theme for my Taira, and greens, yellows and blues for provincial clans just to give them a general appearance for identification without it being necessarily uniform. So a little liberty but not unrealistic.

From a composition perspective, earlier periods tended to be more archery focused with horse archery being the primary samurai fighting style and much simpler looser formations. Naginata were common as melee weapons and ashigaru were only supporting players. Later periods were more focused on melee, the yari spear/pike being the primary melee weapon of both ashigaru and samurai, and the gun of course growing in prominence along with larger infantry formations of ashigaru commanded and supported by samurai.

[mmcv]

Remembered I had some bases leftover from my ECW rebasing, so with a little scraping I have another base of early feudal provincial samurai:


Oops little blurry on the front ones

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Good mix and nicely done

[hammurabi70]

If you want to add colour to your samurai there's no harm in it. The reason the likes of the Ii in their red and the Date in their black (as Ithoriel mentioned) are so notable is because they dressed uniformly in that colour, compared to the more varied colours seen elsewhere. Samurai would often have decorated their armour with fabric, worn coloured over coats and used coloured lacing.

Many thanks for the reply post; very informative! 

[Techno II]

Very nice work, Matthew !

Cheers - Phil.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Wot he said

[fred.]

I'm liking these earlier period figures, much more colourful than the later Sengoku ones (but the later ones are easy to paint!)

[mmcv]

Thanks!

Many thanks for the reply post; very informative! 

No problem, I hope you have fun when you get to your samurai!

I'm liking these earlier period figures, much more colourful than the later Sengoku ones (but the later ones are easy to paint!)

Yeah does give a bit more opportunity to be creative with the colours. Though I've mostly gone with this as a smaller base project due to this. I'm itching to do some more big base ones for the later period but awaiting an order as I'd only enough to do a sample base from my previous order. Lots of dark grey armour with a pop of colour on the fabrics and flags.

[mmcv]

August update, https://mmcvhistory.home.blog/2021/09/06/progress-update-august-2021/

Nothing new to report here, haven't touched a brush (or been about the forum much) since that last picture at the start of the month for various reasons. Nothing too serious, but just directing my attention elsewhere for a bit. My order of additional Japanese has arrived but haven't sorted through it yet.

Hopefully, this month will see me pick up the brush again!

[mmcv]

Still a slow month on the hobby front but two more units of early feudal Japanese done.





Got a new mobile phone this week, much better camera on it. Now I can't hide poor paint jobs behind blurry photography!

[Techno II]

They look really good, Matthew ! 

Cheers - Phil.

[Steve J]

Looking good to me!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Superb.

[mmcv]

Thanks! Some more early feudal Japanese. Dismounted samurai and retainers.

[Techno II]

Very nice indeed !

Cheers - Phil.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Way cool! 

[Steve J]

Excellent work old chap!

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Good stuff

[Bob51451]

Hi, my name is Bob, and I was reading your forum and saw your mine's, very good , very good indeed. I too am painting a Japanese  10 mm army as well.  If you don't mind if I ask a few questions ? I am working on a Japanese army in the Sengoku Jidai Period. The rules that I may be using are the Impetus rules. Have you heard about them ? If you have, are they a good set of rules?
     You said, I think... you said that the Ashigaru armour was black...? Were their clothing colors bright, or dull colors ? Do you know any good sites on painting or showing different color schemes on the clans. Do you think that the rules I'm going to be using are a good set of rules to use a Japanese army with ?  I'm sorry for all the questions, I get that way at times...sorry... I can't wait to see your next pictures of your armies...
Stay well,

Bob51451

[mmcv]

Hi, my name is Bob, and I was reading your forum and saw your mine's, very good , very good indeed. I too am painting a Japanese  10 mm army as well.  If you don't mind if I ask a few questions ? I am working on a Japanese army in the Sengoku Jidai Period. The rules that I may be using are the Impetus rules. Have you heard about them ? If you have, are they a good set of rules?
     You said, I think... you said that the Ashigaru armour was black...? Were their clothing colors bright, or dull colors ? Do you know any good sites on painting or showing different color schemes on the clans. Do you think that the rules I'm going to be using are a good set of rules to use a Japanese army with ?  I'm sorry for all the questions, I get that way at times...sorry... I can't wait to see your next pictures of your armies...
Stay well,

Bob51451

Welcome! I have heard of Impetus but haven't played them myself. I understand they use single diorama style basing which I'm a big fan of and works well for Sengoku armies. There's a version of them (Baroque?) that fits the Sengoku period a bit better I suspect given the use of guns.

I'm actually working on my own set of rules to use for the era as I found Japanese warfare to be a bit different from a lot of warfare in the period and find it didn't quite fit with what a lot of the rules out there did.

Ashigaru armour was usually black or a dark brown as far as I can tell, but their clothes could be brighter colours. The main issue with the period (as with many periods) is that no one was really recording detailed information of what was actually going on and what soldiers actually looked like. Armour is usually an easier one to quantify as it survives for longer, whereas clothing fades and degrades, so it's difficult to say who exactly wore what. There was also a huge variance across regions. While it's likely that richer lords, particularly later in the period, could have fitted out their armies in spiffy matching colours, poorer ones would just have their peasants stick their armour over the top of whatever clothes they turned up in, which may be a lot more duller browns and greys with a few bits of colour here and there. Even with the banners used, the information on what they meant is lost to us, and there doesn't seem to have been any consistency from region to region either so while one lord may be using different colour banners to indicate levels of command, another might have been using different colours to indicate different groupings of soldiers and using stripes or other patterns to indicate levels of command. There's a lot of guess work! A lot of the information we do have is from the later Edo period where things were a lot more peaceful and organised and the writers were given to somewhat fanciful depictions of the preceding era, such as delicately configured battle formations with complex subunits of weapon-specific detachments (a near impossibility for a large feudal army to perform) as well as notions of "bushido" and "undying loyalty" that were completely contrary to the actual period accounts. So Edo period depictions on "uniformity" must be taken with a pinch of salt.

A lot of modern video games and the like will often give a clan a certain colour to make it easy to tell them apart in game, but a lot of the time that's largely arbitrary and in reality armies would have had an array of colours. For the SJ I plan to do a bunch of fairly generic units in a variety of colours (though maybe following certain colour themes similar to what I've done with the Early Feudal to make them easier to tell apart for game purposes) then some specific ones for the well known clans. Bear in mind clans were often interconnected and split out in many branches, so it wouldn't be unusual to see the symbols of an eastern clan fighting in an army in the far west as they happen to have a branch there that is sworn to a particular lord. The actual colours used could vary even with clans bearing the same symbol, or variations of the same.

So really it's mostly a case of a bit of imagination and common sense. One thing to note is the sashimono (back banners) were more often coordinated than the armour and uniforms. These were often white with a black kamon (symbol) but would sometimes be coloured with a white kamon, and other times be a mix of colours and patterns depending on what that particular lord wanted to represent. Probably the best inspiration is looking at the painted battle screens from the era and the colourful displays they present. There's a lot of good info here too: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/japanese_history/arms-and-armor-f35/?sid=b39a4288ce406ed7b65dffde2a046d90

At the end of the day, if you do something that looks good on the table and isn't too outside the realms of reality, you're probably going to have a nice looking army that's reasonably close to what it would look like. And if it's not, then it'll still be good fun to play! Hope you share some pictures of your armies, always good to see!