War in the Land of the Rising Sun
November 18, 2010 by lloyd
My copy of Wargames Illustrated just arrived in the studio today and I’m a very pleased it did.
On our recent trip to Gamesday UK we had a chance to meet up with Alan and Michael Perry (two of the most renowned sculptors in wargaming, click here for some info.) and I have to say they’re two very cool guys. We had a look around in one of their gaming rooms and it was stuffed full of fabulous army’s not to mention an extensive collection of authentic uniforms, armour and swords etc. In fact I was at one point holding a sword in my hand that was over five thousand years old (yes 5000!).
So to the point, they had a huge range of Samurai that instantly caught my eye. I have been thinking about building a Samurai army for ages, in fact ever since playing Shogun Total War and this month Wargames Illustrated is full of articles based on Medieval Japan and looks like it could be just what I need to get my new army kick started.
I’m drawn to the idea of having a Samurai army quite simply because of how cool they look, the armour, masks, weapons, standards, rocket war machines and the abundance of colours, what’s not to like! But I will hold my hands up and tell the truth, I know nothing about Samurai that’s why I’m so pleased, I’m going to have a good read over Wargames Illustrated this weekend and see if I can get to grips with Medieval Japan.
Now I wasn’t planning on going to historical with my army in fact I was thinking of going down the fantasy side and creating a cool Samurai army that includes oriental style dragons and magic, and then maybe try to coming up with a Warhammer Fantasy/Kings of War army book for it.
Anyway guys I just thought I would point it out. If you’re into Medieval Japan then Issue 278 of Wargames Illustrated maybe just what the doc ordered.
Right I’m off to actually read it! Oh and here’s a link to the Samurai Section on Perry Miniatures.
BoW Lloyd
Too right, Perry miniatures are fantastic and very well priced too. Certainly I hope they continue their expantion into their medieval Korean range and also maybe one day start producing some Chinese miniatures from the same time period. The sadded thing for me is the lack of plastics but it is my understanding that the Perrys felt that the current casting methods, which they are putting to great use on their Napoleonics, American Civil War and War of the Roses stuff, just didn’t give an acceptable level of detail to show intricate samurai armour. I don’t know how much of… Read more »
I have a few metal perry Samurai…they are awesome, Ashugari should be an easy plastic set I would have thought.
I must find a copy of the mag and snap it up
You might be interested to hear that Wargames Factory stated on their site (as part of a short list of upcoming products) that multipart Samurai are in the works and expected to be released within a couple months time.
ahh Shogun: Total War one of the greatest strategie games I ever played 😀
I haven’t ever bought a single WI. This will be my first issue, because I like the Samurai. Hope there is a lot of stuff in there for them.
Lloyd (and others, who want to field a samurai army in WHF) might be interested in this
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33025584/Warhammer-Armies-Nippon
They went to town on this 117 pages that’s going to take a bit of reading! Thanks lucas I hadn’t seen this before and there’s a whole range of armies. What a great find, here’s a link to their scribd profile: http://www.scribd.com/M4cR1II3n and to their website: http://warhammerarmiesproject.blogspot.com/
I started getting wargames illustrated a little while ago and have to say im very impressed with it. As a long time player of GW games, it was refreshing to see a magazine put out by a wargames company (they own, or are owned by Battlefront, who make Flames of war), who make a magazine which has articles and reviews from a whole range of companies covering a whole host of genres and eras of wargaming, not just thier own products. although as Im not a subscriber (yet) i have to wait until the 27th for it to be released… Read more »
old skool White Dwarf did that originally – back when Citadel produced stuff for about 20 different ranges and WD was the hub of all fantasy/sci-fi wargames & rpgs.
Mantics magazine is aiming to become the Fantasy version of Wargames Illustrated I believe.
I remember those days…all went wrong when Livingston left and went totally GW only around issue 100