From TomC: Banzuiin Chōbei (25 points)

Hello again everyone, long time no post, the gap between posting is getting longer when I need it to be getting shorter! It can be done, January has been a busy month, some of it for good reasons (getting my wife's manuscript in front of publishers), some of it less so (UK self-assessment tax deadlines)...

 Today's entry is a 28mm Warlord Games sculpt, from when they carried the Test of Honour range, and is Banzuiin Chōbei, from their Chōbei's Rebels set. He's still available under their Warlords of Erehwon line but I did not acquire him that recently!

The man himself was a Japanese folk hero, using his prodigious sword skills to protect his local area from roaming hoodlums. A traditional drama suggests that he was only killed when his yakuza enemies, unable to defeat him combat, trapped him a bath house and set it on fire! 

He was a great change of pace from my last entry, despite all the laced armour panels (although fewer than there could be!), I really enjoy these Warlord sculpts and this was no exception. He also holds the curious distinction of being the first topless miniature I've painted... (Doombull Brown / Cadian Fleshtone if you would like my nipple recipe) I still have trouble with bright metallics, at least the sword looks sharp!

I took the opportunity to finish the basing on these characters while I was working on Banzuiin, which means that I've finally completed the Bandits and Brigands box Warlord put out... you can see the assembled gang below, I painted the first about six years ago now (first in from the left)!

 

Points wise, no improvement on my accounting ratio from last time (or Curt's Rosetta Stone!): one 28mm miniature for 5 points and a Famous Person location bonus for another 20 points for a not so grand 25 point total. 

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Hi Tom! Well, if we are going to have these ratio-heavy 25-point single figures, at least they look amazing! Some fantastic brushwork here, even if there are "fewer" laced armour panels, given that "one" is too many for me and thus has always kept me away from ever exploring this sort of setting. 

And bravo on finishing off that box set...that sort of thing can take a bit of time for all manner of perfectly legitimate reasons...for example, say, you start five other boxes of things at the same time? Or life stuff happens? Whatever! It is done, and the whole group looks fantastic!

25 points for you - thanks for treating us to some incredible painting.

GregB

From TomC: When the last humbug has been eaten* [Swords & Sandals] (30 points)

 

 Ahoy, hoy! Like Mr Burns, I too have a) not posted in a long time and, b) worse, not commented on anyone else's wonderful entries. I promise it's not because I'm terrible, my cat was very ill (she didn't eat my homework, she has a form of epilepsy!), and it's taken some time to get the right care for her. She's doing well enough now to get some brush time in though, which I desperately need to have any hope of hitting my challenge target!

 Today's studio destination is Swords & Sandals, with a roguish cast of two of the Warlord Games's Bandits and Brigands set from when they carried the Test of Honour skirmish game. They're a great assortment of period characters, intended as roaming thugs, and ideal villains to set against more honourable Onna-Bugeisha, Sohei monks or other staples of the genre.

 These metal Test of Honour miniatures are some of my favourites from Warlord's selection, I've been working on the box on and off for... some time now, so this was a good opportunity to finish off a couple extra! I have just one left, who was disqualified from this studio for bringing a musket. As befitting eclectic low-lives, they have an un-uniformed appearance which I wanted to emphasise with a loose colour scheme of greys, greens and off-whites. 

 Alright, so he looks like a peppermint humbug, but I'm at peace with it, the sculpt is cool enough (in my eyes!) to carry such a fashion faux-pas. I've painted a lot of the gang with black hair, so I made Humbug Hanzo a silver fox, whether he's a sly veteran or an Uncle Iroh is yet to be seen!

 Our other vagrant, by process of association either Masanari, Genji or Zuko (depending on your preferred reference...), has a slightly less saccharine sartorial style, with just a pop of purple and a jazzy (if perhaps historically inaccurate) sword for street credentials.

 

    

 Back when I started with this set I was using metallics, I've generally moved to NMM now because I never really mastered getting reflective metallics to look the way I wanted and... still haven't! A challenge for another time perhaps.

 Scoring here is simple enough, two 28mm miniatures at 5 points apiece, both equipped with swords and sandals for a 20 point studio bonus and a grand total of 30 points.

 Now I've got a week to get a Western in, so I suspect this will be my last Friday post, and so big thanks to Phriday minion Phil for enduring my 'jokes', eleventh hour posting and naval miniatures!

*With apologies to poor Sidney for further degeneration of his planned ruleset title... it's for a good cause?

Friday Minion: Welcome back Tom, glad to see you making a final bid for points. Sorry to hear about your poorly cat, glad to hear she's on the mend. Do we get a picture of the troublesome moggie? 

And what an entry - I love these Japanese ruffians and their boiled sweet themed fashion. Top work on the stripes and subdued basing. 

30 points for your tally, will you fit another entry in to creep over your points target?

From PeteF: Sam-mew-rai Warband (30 points)

Almost 2 years ago I was introduced to Warlord's Test of Honour at a gaming convention. The game's host put in a ton of effort that added atmosphere and enjoyment to the game - flickering tealights in the buildings, coloured stones in a rice bowl for activations (instead of cardboard counters in a bag), beautiful Japanese buildings and he gifted a professionally painted samurai figure to participants.

I was hooked - and even though I had no opponent a Test of Honour box was on its way to my gaming table to my Shelf of Shame, where it resided until the beginning of Challenge IX. My cunning plan was to persuade my son to be my opponent (as I write an anguished cry of "How many rules ARE there????" emanates from the living room) by painting up a clan with a theme around something he likes. And he likes cats - this one in particular, who serves as inspurration for the colour scheme.

Anyway - here is the beginnings of an Imagi-Nation Cat Clan unknown to actual hisstory.

Their boss, a fearsome Samewrai, is armed with a deadly Catana.

Scratch Built

These purrfectly poised Ashigarmew (that's enough! Ed) are three to a base and operate as a team.

The starter warband is rounded out by a pair of bow armed Ashigaru.

Bowmen paws for a shot at their enemies

Normally I get the Osprey, ask questions online and count buttons so it was a fun departure to paint something ahistorical. I discovered that Samurai only armoured up for big battles - so in any case the idea of a skirmish between armoured Samurai clans is unrealistic - a skirmish between the Cat Clan and their yet to be painted mortal enemies (ideas for a theme welcomed) doubly so.

The "loyal spearman" are Furmidable Opponents

We'll see how the teenager's introduction to a skirmish game goes. I fear Fortnite is too much competition. I noticed that Test of Honour is on Warlord's clearance list so maybe the game didn't catch on - there is always Osprey's Ronin  to fall back on - it looks like an interesting ruleset.

In case you think painting a few cat mons is a bit eccentric then consider civil war tails - a gettysburg diorama in which the soldiers are cats.

In their first game they lost by a whisker and the leader needed the first aid kit

6 x 28mm infantry (all from Warlord/Wargames Factory) for 30 points and 1 squirrel point for Sam-mew-rai (I said ENOUGH).

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Samurai miniatures have always fascinated me, though I fear I lack the patience for all the intricate work the armor entails. Even the slashes and puffs of Landsknechts are a bit much for me. A samurai skirmish game sounds interesting, though I wonder if they lack the visual appeal you get en masse.

Speaking of crewel and unusual punnishment . . .  

Bosun, trice up the gratings, get the cat o' nine tails out of the bag, call all Challengers to the mast to witness punishment!

I said a cat o' nine tails, not a fluffy fox! Who do you think you are, Bosun? The Spanish Inquisition and their comfy chairs?  

Very well, give that man thirty points, and put your back into it!

KyleC - Test of Honour - 85 pts

All quiet on the western front these days.. so we will switch to the eastern front instead!

Been incredibly busy with work, and a soon to be house move ( didn't I do one of those this time last year? )... but I have had a chance to get in some painting of some gaming models.

With Warlords promoting their new game Test of Honour, the local scene is quite enthused with it, and looking forward to it arriving. Though the game is not out, I realized that I had some Samurai models kicking around. Actually they were built and ready for LAST YEARS competition for being painted up and never got touched :(

But with this game coming, it was a good time to dig out these models then and give them a go at painting!

The models are ones from Northstar and consist of 2 different bands that they provide for their Ronin game. But I think overall they mix well enough, and since the ToH game treats anything not a samurai as a commoner.. it should be ok.

Though I do have too many Samurai at the moment, I think it will be ok. Or at least give me some flavour to seeing how I wish to play them.

At present when I was doing the first batches of them, I got the first 12 models completed. Giving me a Damiyo, 2 Samurai retainers, 4 with Muskets, 4 with bows, and a Ronin with a Kanebo... I still have 5 more with spears/polearms that got finished up afterwards.

Color scheme is not so historical, but was fun to paint up. And I just felt like painting red! :) The blue being an accent color for it.

The clan I have named after my high school teacher, Mr Yamamura, who unfortunately passed last year. So all the banners have Yama, or Mountain, as its symbol to honour him.

Much fun was had with painting them up, and just now hoping to see how they will do when the game gets released. But it does give me a reason to pull out all the Japanese buildings that I bought for my IJA forces in Bolt Action last year as well.

17 models of 28mm scale in total. And when the game gets released, I will have many more to add to it to make a much greater variety for me to play with! But what I do have at the moment is enough to start almost immediately for many of the scenarios that are already known!

ByronM: An excellent looking force here Kyle and one I am sure that your old teacher would have appreciated you naming after him.  The colours are spot on with lots of great shading and transitions.  I really like the muted tones on some and the brighter tones on others.  It all looks great.   I had not heard about this new game, but since I already have a pile of Northstar and Perry Samurai figures, I may need to check it out.