Steel Fist Samurai

With delivery of the Clash of Katanas KS due shortly, I thought I should expand my collection a bit more, particularly with respects to ashigaru.

The Steel Fist range come with separate heads, so although there’s only four bodies for the archers, you can still create a bit if variation by mixing the heads around.

Four yari armed samurai. I struggled a bit doing justice on the intricate lacing on the armour plates, but to be honest, they look okay for a tabletop.

The sashimonos currently lack any mons, as I’m yet to decide which clan these samurai belong to.

This pair of horse archers were another of the recent additions to the Steel Fist range. Native Japanese horses were small and sturdy, related to the hardy ponies that the Mongols used. They also rarely had any facial markings, so I had to resist any flourishes like stars or stripes that I like to add to give horses more individual character.

The horse’s saddle and headgear have sets of cloth straps (sangai) that were typically a single colour such as red, yellow, blue or purple, so a good opportunity to add some bright colours. The reins (tazuna) were a piece of cloth, often a single colour, but blue and white striped versions also common.

A great place to get some inspiration of Samurai cavalry is to look up images for Sōma Nomaoi, which is a festival held in Fukushima with lots of people dressed as Samurai and holding races and other competitions.

These Sohei (Buddhist warrior monks) are relatively recent additions to the Steel Fist range of miniatures. Again, some very characterful models that were good fun to paint, even though the colour scheme involves a combination of  yellow, orange, white and black – colours that I often struggle to paint well, now all together on the same models!

Been a little while since I updated this project, and although I haven’t painted up any more samurai, I have been working on getting some suitable terrain together.

The buildings are resin models by Oshiro Model Terrain, whilst everything else has been scratch built to keep costs down

A second samurai carrying a nodachi, a long handled sword with a blade that could be up to 5 foot long. The armour of this samurai is bit plainer than the last one, but has the tall helm seen on another model that mimics the popular court hats of the time (an eboshi kabuto).

Another more unusual weapon on this model, this time a nagamaki, a long handled sword.

Inspiration from woodblock prints again. A triangular pattern on the armour plates is relatively frequently seen in prints, so I had an attempt at replicating it, along with the common green and orange/red colours.

Despite the project name, this model is by Footsore Miniatures, and comes in the Test of Honour core game set. I love the pose of this model, although he doesn’t really mix with the heavily armoured samurai.