Redvers and Son Get Into Bushido

For some reason I have two of these models, not sure why as you’re only allowed one. Satou Hatchi is the first of my Gashadokuro (meaning starving skeleton) and decided to paint all of my skeletons together to get a similar bone colour.

In game, he’s a high value model. He comes with 4 melee dice which is very unusual for Cult of Yurei models but also very handy. He does not have an special Ki abilities and does not generate Ki either. His strength lies in combat, where he can use either his Katana that provides a reroll to his opponents defence dice (handy for getting rid of any 6’s that were rolled) or he can use his Yari that gives him Reach (attack first) and gains a +1 on his defence roll.

In addition to his combat abilities, he comes with Armour (reduces the damage roll) and Fear. Like all skeletons in the game, he’s immune to just about all states (like blind, disease, poison etc). He has Prowess in Melee, so he can re-roll one dice of his choosing.

He only comes with 4 wounds, which is normally a problem but like all skeletons, he is Durable, meaning that he can only ever take 1 wound at a time, regardless of how many wounds are dealt. He also regenerates 1 wound at the start of every turn and an extra wound if you win the tactical roll at the start of the turn.

I painted all of the bones first (not just here but on all of the skeletons I have). Base cost of German Black brown followed by a wet brush of light brown with the idea of just leaving the very deepest recesses with the black brown. Once dry, I then applied a light dry brush of bleached bone followed by Iraq Sand on the highest points. I’m quite happy with the effect that it has created.

I spent some time looking at pictures of Japanese samurai armour. I really like the black/red effect, so opted for that. The black was firstly a dark grey given a couple of washes of nuln oil. I’ve then picked out the higher points with dark grey, dark grey/light grey and then and then just light grey. The red was a crimson then highlighted up using scarlet and orange to finish. I picked out the cord with scruffulous brown.

The purple smoke was a base of imperial purple followed by a wash of purple/off white mix (smoke is lighter in the thinner areas and darker in the thicker areas). I’ve then glazed the thicker areas with a dark purple glaze to get the contrast. Final step was to apply a mid purple glaze over everything to tie this together.

The rest of the model was made up of some gold, light brown with a wash for the Yari shaft and gun metal with nuln oil for the steel areas.

To get into Bushido, we initially picked up the starter set. This came with 10 models listed as Ronin. Ronin can fight for any faction listed on their card, so whichever faction you decide to opt for, there’s at least a couple of the starter box models that you can draft into your warband. The starter box also has a Romes and Juliet love story between the two factions.

I’ve painted up three of the models but the rest had sat unpainted since. Time to correct this travesty and get the painted. And an opportunity to try some speed paints out to see if I can figure out how to get the best out of them.

I’ve really taken the quickest approach to painting these with a white undercoat and then just a quick speed paint over the top. I’ve picked out the smaller details with ordinary paints and then given the model a quick dry brush, but otherwise these were finished in a couple of evenings. The basing took almost as long!

Annoyingly, I had a paint accident while they were sat on my painting table. A pot of paint splattered while I was squeezing some into a palette and some of the splatter went over the models. I could clean these up but I’m not sure that these models are going to be used enough to warrant the time.

First up, we have the Hozumi Family. The first three models I had painted previously and aren’t speed paints.

And then we have the Kiyozumi family

I’m still not sure about the speed paints. The green worked quite well, as did the hardened leather I used. Some of the others not so well. I can’t decide whether it is my application or my expectations being too high. Jury is still out for me.

Josei is the last of the four sisters to be offered power by Yurei and one of the three that accepted the power. Josei synergies well with the zombies (or Kairai) that Yurei can field and any such zombie in the army gets a regeneration bonus of +1 every turn that Josei is still around. Otherwise she is much like the other sisters in that she shares her Ki with a common pool card and can use any of the shared abilities on it. She also has the Death Magic ranged attack as well.

In addition, she has her own Ki feats. First up is Sacrifice that allows you to remove a friendly model but gain 4 Ki tokens – very useful if there is a decisive moment where a well placed Ki feat will swing the game. Seed of Destruction places a ‘bomb’ on an enemy model. After their next two activations, they explode and all enemy models within 2″ of the exploding model share out 8 wounds, so your opponent has the choice of almost certainly losing one model or taking damage across a lot of models.

Finally, if this model kills an enemy model with a ranged attack, the enemy model can be replaced with a zombie.

Painting wise, as I wanted the sisters to be colourful, I opted for blue as the main colour here. One of my favourite blues is Periscopes which formed the base coat. I’ve then used a nightshade wash to darken the recesses and gradually mixed in ice blue to the periscopes to get lighter shades that were applied as glazes. Skin tone was as before, a light skin tone given a wash followed by highlights of pale skin tone. The dismembered body parts started as pale skin tone and then I’ve applied a grey wash as I wanted to make the skin look decayed.

The wicker basket started as light brown followed by a dark brown wash. I’ve then highlighted with light brown before adding an Iraqi sand highlight. The white, including the masks, were a light grey followed by off white and then a white highlight.

As Josei likes zombies, I assumed that should would have been wandering around digging up old bodies. I therefore thought that some mud and dust applied to the lower regions would reflect this. I’ve used enamel mud effects from MiG for this, firstly a wet mud splatter and then dry dust thinned and washed over the top.

That’s all of the witches completed, so here they all are together

Since I started this project, several new factions have been released for the game. We have the Awoken, a spider infested faction (don’t tell Justin), the Imperial Court (which was part of the Ronin mercenaries but is now its own faction) and we have the Horselords of Ataka.

The Horselords are currently only available at conventions, so while I was lucky enough to attend UKGE, this was mu opportunity to pick these up, which I did.

The models are resin 3d print and there is some assembly but apart from removing some 3d supports and a little bit of smoothing around the joins, these went together very easily. Here are the base set and the extra model fully built.

I’m paranoid about models with small contact points, so I also pinned these wherever I could. Overall, these look lovely and have some very different rules to what I am used to in playing the Cult of Yurei, so looking forward to getting these to the table.

But, disaster struck. After building the models (as per the picture above), I put them in my garage for storage. Then it got hot in Sussex and my garage had internal temperatures of something like 40 degrees. The resin didn’t like this and, with very small contact points on some of the models, the had what can best be described as brewer’s droop.

The two footed leaping horse was on its knees and one of the models was lying flat on its side on the base. Not good. Fortunately, as it was still warm I was able to bend these back to roughly their original position and then either glue them or shove something under them to provide some support. Not ideal and I may need to look into additional supports for these models.

Shojo is another of the four sisters like Akuba and Hikari below. In game, she gets to pool her Ki tokens with the other sisters giving some good flexibility on what to focus on each turn. She also comes with a short range attack (as do the other sisters) that if it hits, allows any of the sister’s to heal a wound.

She also has some interesting Ki Feats. Her first creates a 6” aura around her that, should any enemy model spend a Ki token while within it, that enemy model gains a control marker at the end of their activation. That would allow me to take control of that enemy model and take an activation with it as if it were part of my warband. So this could really put a dampener on the enemy within the aura, especially if they are heavy Ki users (like my son’s Temple of RoKan).

Her second Ki feat allows her to attempt to steal an activation from an opposing model and give it to a friendly model within 6”. As every model gets 2 Activations per turn, losing one is quite a blow but then having a friendly model gain it is doubly so. There are certain Cult of Yurei models that become a real problem with 3 Activations in a turn!

She also allows all models with the Burakumin key word heal a wound at the end of every turn, so useful for keeping them alive.

Painting wise, like the other witches, I wanted to bring some colour to the table, so red was the main choice here. I’m still experimenting with how to get a good red and I’ve been thinking that a dark base and highlight up is perhaps the way to go. I’ve started with a maroon mixed with a bit of dark brown as the base, applied only to the lower parts or areas in shadow. Over that, I’ve applied a thin maroon. I’ve then worked up using glazes of maroon/scarlet, just scarlet, scarlet/orange and finally a very fine orange over the top. Then, in an attempt to blend this together, I’ve used a maroon glaze for the recessed/shadow areas and scarlet for the lighter areas – a couple of applications of both. The white ‘petals’ along the hem of the dress are a decal I purchased from Mastercrafted.co.uk.

The purple ‘ghost’ was an imperial purple to start given a deep purple wash. I’ve then reapplied the imperial purple to raised areas and then through gradually adding in off-white into the purple, highlighted up. A couple of imperial purple glazes over at the end helps blend it together. 

White areas where a light grey base, thin luftwaffe grey glaze into the recessed areas and then Off-white highlights. The instrument was scrofulous brown with a wash. Skin was a Scale 75 light skin tone with a wash, then back in again with the light skin tone to highlight and finally a pale skin tone to pick out the raised areas. 

The rest of the ornaments and jewellery were a shiny bronze with a wash, interspersed with some other metallic colours to break things up. 

Akuba is one of the four sisters who were offered power by Yurei but with the caveat that all four had to agree. Three did but Hikari didn’t, so the other three killed Hikari (who I painted up earlier and posted up here). Akuba shares common abilities with the other sisters and they have a common ability card where all of their Ki tokens go, giving some good flexibility on who gets to use them (if you take more than one of the sisters). She also has a ranged attack that if it deals wounds, generates healing for one of the sisters.

Her special abilities are very useful if you are taking skeletons. Every skeleton on the board gets regenerate 1 while she is alive (meaning they heal a wound at the start of every turn). She can also summon a skeleton once per game. While this is quite a big Ki token cost, you can add a new model to the table! Very handy.

Painting wise, I wanted the four sisters to add a bit of colour to the battlefield. With this in mind, I opted for a yellow paint scheme and started with a base of scruffulous brown. This is already a yellowish brown and hopefully a good base. Yellow has always been my bogey colour to paint, so I’ve invested in some other brands of yellow to try to help out, so I’ve used a Golden Fluid Acrylic cadmium yellow (don’t lick the brush with this one!), Pro Acrylic golden yellow and a Vallejo ice yellow. To get the final yellow colour on the model (that I’m quite pleased with!) I mixed the cadmium yellow into the brown (with some glaze medium) to create the first highlight, then added progressively more golden yellow, adding each lighter tone to the raised areas. Finally, I’ve added ice yellow to the highest points.

The white was a light grey with a luftwaffe grey glaze applied to the deeper areas. The higher areas received an off white/light grey mix and then just off white.

For the skin tones, I’ve used Light Skin and Pale Skin from Scale 75 with a darker wash. 

The bones started as light brown, received a bleached bone highlight, a wash and then another highlight. 

The purple areas (to tie the model into my faction colour), strapping and other bits I’ve probably described before.

Game Write Up

Just a quick battle report for a fun game that my son and I played out. For this game, my son went for a Masters list. This is a Temple of Rokan list that primarily uses the Master Monks who are excellent in combat but come with a high price tag! My son used Master Enos, Master Akari, Master Po and Master Charlyn. 

I stuck with my Cult of Yurei and went with Eldest Brother (an angry Oni), Mokoti (for some cheeky control markers), Animated Militia (cheap skeleton chaff), Fuwa Kaidan (some handy auto Ki feats), The Penanggalan (handy in combat and has a useful Hold ability), Ikiyro (for hanging back and burning opponents with her laser eyes) and a Kami of Chokking Fog (for some cheap debuffs).

The mission we played was zone control with the three zones spread diagonally across the table. To control a zone, you must have the most points in models wholly in the zone and more figures than your opponent. Whoever controls the most zones at the end of each of turns 2, 4 and 6 wins a VP. 

The initial deployment is below.

Turn 1.

The first turn was about getting position on the board. We both took control of the two zones closest to our deployment areas. I used an Animated Warrior and Ikiryo on my left and my son used Master Enos. My son also charged forward into the central zone with Po, Akira and Charlyn. I chose to arrange myself around the centre and also push up on my right toward my son’s closest deployment zone. Given the zone control conditions, his very low model count is a problem for him.

End of Turn 1 below from above and from behind my closest control zone. The Penanggalan advancing through the cherry blossoms, and Ikiryo and a skeleton in my control zone while Mokoti watches across the pond.

Turn 2

I used Fuwa Kaidan to Rage Charlyn who then treats all other models on the table as the enemy and must attack the closest. In this case, it is Master Akira. This combat ended with no damage but did waste an activation token for both.

Master Po attacked my Kami and killed it before attacking Eldest Brother, causing some damage there as well. I advanced The Penanggalan up into combat with Enos doing no damage but Holding Enos in place.

I tried zapping Akira with Ikiryo’s laser eye Ki Feat. This failed to hit, as it would every turn until the end of the game.

As my last move, I advanced my skeleton around the back of the central zone of control and then into it. This meant, at the end of Turn 2, I held the zone closest to me and the other two zones were contested. So 1 VP to me!

End of Turn 2 below from above. Then my closest control zone, my son’s master’s controlling the central zone and The Penanggalan sucking the blood of Enos in the last zone.

Turn 3

Po killed Eldest Brother and then headed off to deal with The Penanggalan who was still holding Enos (and now doing damage as her vampiric effect comes into play). Fuwa Kaidan repeated the Rage trick on Charlyn with the exact same effect. And Ikiryo again failed to hit Akira with her laser eyes. Sadly, Akira was able to remove my Skeleton from the board with an attack that caused a critical strike.

End of Turn 3 below from above. Ikiryo and Mokoti holding my closest zone. Charlyn and Akira holding the central zone while Fuwa Kaidan watches on. The Penanggalon and Enos while Po approaches from behind.

Turn 4.

Enos died from The Penanggalan but Po battered the Penanggalan to death shortly after. I pushed Fuwa Kaidan into the central zone but Akira was able to kill Fuwa Kaidan making the ghost respawn back at her spawning pot too far to further affect this round. 

Ikiryo again failed to hit Akira and Mokoti managed to place a control marker on Charlyn. I could have used Charlyn to attack Akira but, realising that this was turn 4 and a scoring turn, decided to Run Charlyn out of the central scoring zone, leaving just Akira in it. My son then used Charlyn’s second activation to walk around behind my closest scoring zone and get into a position to attack Ikiryo next turn. 

With my last activation, I ran Mokoti into the central scoring zone leaving me controlling my closest zone with Ikiryo, my son controlling his closest zone with Po and the central zone contested, so no VP scored this round.

End of Turn 4 below from above. Ikiryo in the control zone with Charlyn approaching from around the cart. Mokoti just sneaking into the central zone with Akira and Po holding the remaining zone. 

Turn 5

I started the turn by having Ikiryo use laser eyes on Akira. It missed. Again. 

It was now getting late and at that we concluded it would now be a draw. Ikiryo would have been killed by Charlyn and Mokoti would have lost to Akira which would have made it possible for my son to control at least 2 zones in turn 6 and claim the last VP. Had Ikiryo actually hit Akira, it could have been a different story but alas, she needs glasses.

Maiden of Sagoya

This model is all about Fear. Fear can be a very powerful tool in the game against the right enemies. Any model failing a Fear test and becoming Frightened cannot move into btb with an enemy model that causes Fear, loses a dice from their dice pool in combat and cannot roll more dice in attack than in defence, making combat more predictable for your models. 

The Maiden isn’t great in combat but does have the Vengeance trait against any Frightened model, meaning that she gains a dice when in combat against a Frightened model. She also has two very handy special traits, Cower, that is automatic and stops a Frightened enemy model from doing any action other than Disengage, Stand Up or Wait – handy for really stopping a model from doing anything useful. 

The Maiden can also summon Sagoya Kaidan, another model, as a ki feat. Sagoya Kaidan synergies very well – better in combat, but with some excellent ki feats. Firstly, Horrify creates a ranged effect pulse where all enemy models become frightened. Secondly, the Thanatophobia ki feat makes every frightened model in the range take a damage roll. So summon the Kaidan, get it to slap some Frightened markers down and cause some damage, then have the Maiden charge in with vengeance to remove what’s left!

For the painting, I wanted the Maiden to look very innocent, which also gave the opportunity to bring some colour and life to my faction. I wanted the Kaidan to be dark and menacing. Starting with the Maiden, I painted the white cloth with a light grey then applied a dark grey wash. I then reapplied the base grey and highlighted this grey up with off white, applying the lighter shades to the raised areas. The hair was a dark grey given a black washed and then carefully highlighted with a mid grey and a final, very light dry brush of light grey.

The blue cloth was a sky blue given a dark blue ink wash. Once dry, I reapplied the base colour to the majority to leave the ink in the shadows before adding off white to the sky blue to highlight up the raised areas. I applied off white to the edging as I wanted this to really stand out.

Skin was the same as previous models – I really struggle with this and have a basic formula that looks ok, so I’m not brave enough to change it.

The purple mist was a base of imperial purple with a 50/50 wash of black and imperial purple. From there, I reapplied the base colour and using off white, highlighted slowly back up.

To make the Kaidan ‘menacing’, I opted for a monotone approach on the main body. This was concrete as a base colour and then given several black washes. From there, a dry brush of concrete, concrete + light grey and finally a very light dry brush of light grey. The purple mist was done in the same way as the Maiden but to try to make the impression of the mist merging into the body colour, I applied several glazes over the transition to smooth it out.