Redvers and Son Get Into Bushido

Just in time for Christmas, our starter factions are complete. First up, here’s my Cult of Yurei starter set in all of its resplendent glory

My son has also completed his Temple of Ro-Kan starter set. By his own admission, he doesn’t like painting models that much and to this point, I think he’s only painted 3 in his life. He finds it quite challenging and much prefers reading the cards, meta gaming and playing the game. But, he was quite keen to get stuck into these and I also bought some speed paints for him to lower the entry level for him. He actually started a couple of them before I had even primed them, painted straight on to the bare metal. Those got several coats of varnish to try to protect them as much as possible.

I think he’s done a great job with them

We did have one casualty of war. The sculpts for the game are lovely and the Temple of Ro-Kan models really have a dynamic look. However, a number of the models are balanced on one foot. I’m not a big fan of this, especially for gaming pieces and GW have been doing this for some time now with their BB models. They get broken easily. In this case, not only are some of the Temple models on one foot, their on tip toes as well. This particular model eventually just fell of the base slot. I’ve no idea how to get her back on as her leg is very thin and pinning will be a challenge. Maybe a tactical rock or something…..

Starting the arms race.

Not part of the Temple of Ro-Kan starter set but one of my son’s favourite models is Kuma, the bo staff wielding panda. This is also the start of the arms race. Everyone knows that starter sets are just that, a starting point. Kuma delivers a big punch and coupled with my son’s other recent purchases (Master Po etc), he’s wiped the floor with me in the last couple of games (more battle reports to come!). I have some models up my sleeve that, once painted, will get deployed into the fight.

We both have additional stuff on our Christmas list, so as long as we have been good this year, the 2024 arms race is well underway.

Last, but not least, we have Mo Ises. He’s clearly made some poor choices in his life given that his skin is hanging off his back but he still seems well up for the fight. In game he has the disguise special rule, making it hard for him to be targeted early on. He also has the assassin rule, making surprise attacks he might make just that little bit more deadly. His Ki feats allow him to drain Ki from opposing models (handy), gain control of opposing models (very handy) and force them to move toward him (good for manipulating the battlefield).

I wanted to add some colour into the warband and Mo Ises seemed the perfect choice to do this, especially with his court robes. The green is a goblin green that has then had a number of dark green glazes added to try to create the shadow. The yellow started as light brown and then I’ve used a sunburst yellow to gradually build up the highlight. The under robes were a khaki given a brown wash. I picked out the fan and the scabbard in purple for the warband theme colour.

And that is the starter set fully painted. I’ll set them up for a group shot and load that here.

The game is a little sketchy on what or who Ibara is. But given the face covering and robes, perhaps he or she likes it that way.

Within game, they’re quite a cheap model to take and provide an average combat ability. They’re main weapon is their Ki Feat that allows them to blast fire markers onto enemy models from afar. When used with the Crush the Oppressed event card that the Cult of Yurei can take, you can double any markers in play. Double the fun!

I wanted Ibara to be very muted. Given the face mask and low key clothing, they’re clearly not trying to draw attention to themselves. So I’ve opted for a black and dark green. The black is my usual approach, a base of dark rubber with a nuln oil wash (times 2). I then highlight up the raised areas using dark rubber and then a mix of dark rubber and luftwaffe grey. The green was a base of German Fieldgrey with a grey wash for shading. I’ve then highlighted up using fieldgrey mixed with elf green.

The headband and belt I’ve picked out in the warband theme colour of purple. Leggings were a simple bone given a wash and then highlighted. I’ve used a shiny bronze for the pot and the prongs of the farm implement. This was given a strong tone wash and then just left as it was as it looked fine.

Bushido draws upon a lot of Japanese and Far Eastern culture. It seems that vampires are not just confined to Romanian castles but are also part of the mythology in the form of the The Penanggalan (or Penny, for short). This was a new one on me so I did a little bit of reading. Penny is a dismembered head complete with the entrails and bodily organs suspended from its neck. It roams around looking for pregnant women and young babies to feed upon.

In game, Penny has the usual vampiric traits. In combat, if she hits, she gets to hold the opponent model. This is handy, as a held model becomes much easier pickings in combat. She also has a couple of handy Ki feats, one being able to ‘hypnotise’ an opponent so that they lose an activation counter, which is very debilitating. Finally, if she is holding on to someone at the end of the turn, she deals 2 damage and regenerates 2 herself.

The model is a two piece build, with the neck/head being separate from the body. I though about just using the head/neck as the mythology says this is what they look like. But after some thought, I decided to use the the whole model as the neck is quite flimsy and would be difficult to mount. As it happened, pinning the neck to the body was quite challenging given its size….

I decided to keep the paint job simple. A dark rubber base coat was given a couple of nuln oil washes. I then picked out the highlights with dark rubber and then dark rubber/luftwaffe grey mix. The bow is an off white and then I’ve used luftwaffe grey glazes to gradually create the shadows. I’ve edged the dress in purple as my warband’s ‘colour’.

The skin is made from the Scale 75 Skin colour set. I start with a base skin tone and then glaze accordingly. The entrails started with a cavalry brown base and then I’ve highlighted up using various shades of red. I’ve left the entrails with a satin varnish to create a ‘wet’ look. The rest got a matt varnish.

It’s not entirely clear whether Risu male, female or something else but they come armed with a pitch fork. In game, they are very much a supporting model, having a fairly poor combat dice pool. What they do have is a Ki ability to poison enemy models from afar, so very handy for slapping poison tokens all over your opponent.

The model is two piece, with the hat and curtain combo being separate. Painting the face is going to be largely impossible once the hat is in place, so I’ve opted to paint this up first. I also want a very pale, disembodied face peering out from the depths of a dark background. To try to mimic this, I’ve used the really black paint for around the face and inside the curtains. The face I’ve painted using my skin tone set but starting with the lightest colour and gently shading the darker areas.

I envisage Risu as a travelling farmer type, so I want to go for muted colours and a dusty, road traveled feel. Starting at the top, the hat is Iraqi Sand, washed and then highlighted. The white curtains and lower clothing was originally a 50:50 off white and Luftwaffe grey. The recesses then glazed down with Luftwaffe grey and even some dark rubber. The higher areas lifted with off white glazes.

The clothing was an elf green with the highlights being made from a desaturated elf green/off white mix. The wooden pole was a light brown given a wash, the ‘tights’ were khaki and any leather was painted using scruffulous brown.

The sash/belt I’ve painted purple to tie it in with the rest of the warband.

To create the dusty, road traveled look, I’ve used an enamel dusty earth. This was thinned and applied in several coats to build up the look. As each coat went down, I applied less on the upper parts and more on the lower part of the model, to really build up the dust toward the bottom.

To base the model off, I’ve used and acrylic dry earth and some dead grass. This again ties it in with the rest of the warband.

Way back at the beginning of this project, I bought some MDF terrain buildings. I completed the small rice stores but still have the temple, dojo and house to get painted up. I find painting MDF a chore, especially when there are plenty of lovely models to paint instead. But, you can’t put these things off forever, so time to finish off the temple at least.

Firstly, I had a look at some reference material. There’s plenty of pictures of Shinto shrines on the web, here’s an example of what I’m aiming for.

After sealing the shrine with an MDF sealer, I dug out my cheap acrylic paints and got to work. On the one hand, cheap acrylic paint is cheap and therefore cost effective for this size of model. But on the other hand, it goes on poorly, streaks and takes several coats, especially white

One positive from the streaking was that I quite liked the look it gave the wooden planking outside – it looked a bit more ‘wood’ like.

After the base colours of white, red and brown, I went in with some gold to pick out the door. This was tricky given the angles and the pillars. I used an enamel wash on the planking to try to pick out the boards and the recesses on the front wall. This had varying results….

For the roof, I went with a simple grey. I’ve applied some streaking with some thinned down enamels which provides a bit of variation.

I’ve varnished everything with a matt varnish except the wooden planking. I’ve left this as a gloss to try to replicate the highly lacquered flooring that you sometimes see in Japan and China.

Finally, some acrylic mud effect around the edges and a bit of static grass to hide the mdf base it is on and job done.

As we now have some new miniatures, my son was keen to see how his new ‘troops’ measured up. I decided to keep my powder dry and try to figure out my existing list before adding the new stuff in. I think there are synergies that I can get with my new models that aren’t necessarily there with my current warband. So, without any paint applied to the new models, we dived in. We opted for an 85 point game and decided on the Very Important Model scenario.

Scenario Objective. With the VIM scenario, each player secretly nominates a single allowable model as their VIM. This model has to make it across the board and exit the opponents deployment zone on turn 6 (not before). And of course you need to prevent your opponent from doing the same to their VIM.

For the Cult of Yurei, I went with,
– Mokoti (dreadful in combat but can control enemy models). I elected Mokoti as my VIM, mainly because it was one of the least obvious targets
The Penanggalan (who we’ll call Penny). A vampiric head that can hold opponents in place with a successful attack
– Yama Uba
– Risu (A pitch fork wielding nutter who can poison people from afar) who I’ve also given an enhancement card Violence Fetish to provide a bigger punch in combat
– Ibara (Can handle himself in combat and can throw some fire around at range)
– 2 Plague Rats. Cheap chaff that if they do get a successful attack in can poison the opponent
Drain Spirit Event. This allows me to steal a couple of ki tokens from an enemy model
Random act of unkindness event. When played, my son must either nominate a model and I can pick an unpleasant state that this model enters. Or my son picks a state and I get to apply it to a model.
Crush the oppressed. When I play this card, all of the state markers on the enemy get doubled
Cursed Honden. This is a terrain piece. At the start of each turn, any enemy model within 4” loses a Ki token

My son went with,
– Master Po. One of his new models and basically a fat monk who is a combat monster. He’s hard to hit and capable of handing out the pain. This was also my son’s VIM
– Tsutsumi. Another new model and another monk. This one provides a decent melee attack but more importantly, some ranged ability with a Sonic Blast ranged attack that leaves the opponent prone
– Oki Shisa. Effectively a temple statue. It’s slow but has the Durable special rule meaning that no matter how much damage to manage to deliver in an attack, it will only ever take 1 wound at a time. Very annoying
– Kiyozumi Hinadori. This is a Ronin from the 2 player starter set and a character that can Heal friendly models
A Gorinto terrain piece which allows 1 model within 6” to generate an extra ki token.
Prayer beads enhancement which allows the model it is attached to to generate 1 extra Ki per turn
Stillness medallion which stops Ki being removed from the model it is attached to
Name of the Wind which gives the attached model an extra 1” movement per turn
Master Po got all of the above enhancements

Turn 1.
This was the usual scurrying forward to get to within engagement distance. I managed to have Ibara use their Dark Fire Ki feat on Tsutsumi but I rolled double 1’s so it failed. I then had Risu cast Mortal Corruption on Tsutsumi but this also failed. Hardly a great start

Turn 2.
My son opened the turn by charging Po into Yama Uba. Yama Uba gets to attack first in combat and Po opted to use their special defence of Counter Strike Defence. If Po successfully defends against the attack then it is possible to cause damage to the attacking model. I rolled poorly, my son rolled exceptionally and he was able to cause 2 wounds through his Defence. Po was also able to land a successful attack, causing another 2 wounds. Yama Uba only has 6 wounds, so not a great start for my most expensive model!
I decide to have Mokoti cast obey on Kiyozumi which, if successful, would give me control of Kiyozumi for one activation. I rolled double 1’s again, so failed.
Tsutsumi then got involved with his sonic blast which knocked Mokoti prone and caused a wound. Mokoti would have to use an Activation to stand up, effectively taking him out of this turn.
Ibara got into an exhausted Po and was able to cause 2 wounds to the fat fella. This was short lived as Kiyozumi activated next and cast Heal to restore the 2 wounds.
Tsutsumi then sonic blasted Mokoti for a second time doing a further 1 wound and already putting my VIM strategy under strain.
I had been advancing my rats up my left flank to bring them round the back. My son spotted this and moved oki Shisa into combat with one of the rats. This was no match up and my rat died.
Penny managed to successfully Hypno Gaze Kiyozumi causing the young lady to lose the remainder of her activations and stuns her. Meanwhile, at the back of the board, Oki Shisa, with a hunger for rats, attacked my other one and killed it. So much for the rats….
With my son now out of Activations, Penny activates and attacks Tsutsumi. He fails his Fear test and, despite him being exhausted, frightened and losing 2 melee dice, I rolled poorly again and fail to hit at all.
Finally, Ibara continues to attack Po who just uses Counter Strike Defence and causes 2 wounds to Ibara, so completely useless from my side.

Turn 3.

Surely this turn will improve for me? I start out by playing my Drain Spirit card on Tsutsumi and taking 2 Ki and give that to Penny. I would have played this on Po but as he’s got the annoying Stillness Medallion, I can’t steal anything. It seems that my son has planned ahead….

I also play Random Act of Unkindness. My son opts for the Impetuous state which means that any model who has it has to activate first. I don’t want to give this to Po as he’ll continue attacking Ibara, so I assign it to Kiyozumi, who goes first and Heals herself.

I have two options, move someone else into combat with Po to support Ibara or try to control Tsutsumi. I opt for the latter with Mokoti using his Obey ability. Yet again, I roll double 1 and fail. 

Clearly my son is confident in Po’s abilities as he activates oki Shisa first and attacks Penny. Penny isn’t able to resist and takes 3 wounds and only deals 1 in return. 

I move Risu into combat with Po. Normally, with two models attacking one, the defending model would suffer a -1 dice pool penalty, but not Po, he’s got the Indomitable trait meaning that he only suffers the -1 when you get to three or more against one. Either way, Risu is not able to hit Po but Po also fails to land a hit.

I then move Yama Uba into combat with Po meaning that I now have 3 vs 1 and Po will suffer the -1 dice pool modifier. I also use Yama Uba’s Morph ability to copy Po’s Melee Statistic of 4. This will then give Yama Uba 4 melee dice against Po’s 3. Additionally, at the end of this combat, Po will be exhausted, removing another 1 from his dice pool for additional attacks! What can go wrong? 

Po declares Counter Strike Defence and rolls all three dice into defence. Yama Uba rolls three in attack and one in defence. Yama Uba not only fails to beat Po’s defence dice, she fails it by enough to give Po a damage roll through Counter Strike Defence. My son rolls high and Yama Uba is dead. Things are unravelling fast.

Ibara then attacks a now exhausted Po. This also doesn’t go well and Ibara ends up dead as well. The bodies are piling up around Po.

Turn 4.

Oki Shisa goes first and makes quick work of killing Penny. I’m not left with much but if I can get Mokoti to the board edge and off on turn 6, I can at least draw, maybe win. I need to support Mokoti and use Risu as a blocking force. I try to disengage Risu from Po but this goes badly. Risu ends up dead.

I do the only thing I can do, and march Mokoti up the board.

Turn 5.

Oki Shisa, as the nearest model, attacks Mokoti and manages to cause 1 wound. Mokoti is not looking too healthy now. Tsutsumi uses Sonic Blast to cause another wound and Prone Mokoti meaning he can’t move any further this turn. Tsutsumi tries to sonic blast again but manages to hit Oki Shisa, wounding the temple statue.

Turn 6.

By this time, Po has leapt across the board and attacks Mokoti. This is not even close to a fair fight. Mokoti tries to defend but to no avail, Po batters him and it is all over, the cult has lost.

Wrap up.

This wasn’t even close to a fair fight. My son has put together some good synergies in his list and played really well. I had no answer. I think we will be seeing a lot more of Master Po in future battles!

The Temple of Rokan can run some characters that are effectively temple statues. They come in two flavours, the smaller, less powerful Shisa and the more powerful Oki Shisa. Some time back, I 3d printed the Shisa and painted these up with a simple bronze effect. My son quite liked these and then wanted the bigger, ‘better’ version.

I searched the various stl file locations for a suitable file and found a free one that had been uploaded of a scan of a real world temple lion with a baby lion. Once downloaded, it was a simple job to scale it to the correct size and then virtually attach it to the correct base size (40mm round in case you were wondering). This then got printed out.

I wanted to keep the paint job simple here and given that they are statues, this should be possible. As the smaller Shisa were painted up as bronze statues, I want these to be jade in appearance.

I’ve started off with a zenithal highlight. I’ve then taken a bit of sponge and stippled the model with white and black. My thinking being that jade is not always a uniform green and the stippling will look like natural colour variation.

I’ve then given this a couple of coats of green ink. Firstly applied all over and then the second and third layers from top down. Once dry, I’ve varnished and flocked the base and job done.

It’s not the greatest paint job and could have done with a lighter touch with the stippling and perhaps a satin varnish rather than matt (I might correct this). But for a simple paint job, it works and didn’t take long.

We both want to expand our force but I did put a rule in place that we should have painted, or nearly painted, our starter sets before we add to the collection. Maybe a little draconian and my son wasn’t happy with this but it does help focus the attention onto what you have and getting that ready before new shiny toys arrive.

But as we are almost there on our starter sets, we decided it was time to add a few more models and this turned up earlier today.

We opted for a couple of Ronin, which can fight for different factions. In this case we added 2 kami models, which are spirit models that often provide either a boost to your side or hinder your opponent. We also added Eldest Brother who is an Oni that will fight for just about anyone. This was for no other reason than we both wanted an Oni.

My son added Master Po, who looking at his stat card, looks an absolute monster and at complete odds to model who depicts a chubby fella balancing on tip toes. I’m not looking forward to facing Master Po on the table and I’m not sure I have an answer to him either. My son also added Tsutsumi who is handy in combat but also provides ranged attack in the form of Sonic Blast. Finally, he got an angry ape called Kosuke who’s wielding and enormous maul – I don’t think there will be much subtlety in how Kosuke plays.

For the Cult, I’ve added Rokuro, who is a Tengu that has fallen in with the Cult of Yurei. He’s lost the ability to fly but does come with a couple of axes than provides a bit of fighting edge that the Cult lacks. I’ve also added Fuwa Kaidan, who is a ghost and can re-spawn but also turns opponents against their own side, so handy for getting the enemy to fight for you, albeit for an activation only. Finally I’ve added Ikyiro who is a diminutive spirit lady but packs a real punch from distance with a damage dealing spell – something that I currently lack in my arsenal.

So, more shiny new models to add to the painting queue!

We’ve been busy painting recently and there are quite a few models and terrain pieces on the painting bench that are almost complete. So with any luck, the pile of potential should reduce this month….

One such model that has rolled off the painting bench in Yama Uba. In Japanese folklore, there are many different tales of Yama Uba, seemingly with each prefecture having a different story. Some portray her as a young woman who wanders the hills, other stories talk of an unkempt old crone. Yet more stories talk of a woman that attacks travellers and eats those she kills through a mouth hidden in her hairline. This being the Cult of Yurei, the latter tales are likely the truest in Bushido’s manifestation of Yama Uba.

In game, Yama Uba is quite powerful, being one of the more expensive characters that can be taken by the Cult. Her stats are reasonable and her bonus skills give her fear as well as disguise meaning that if she doesn’t attack, she can close on enemy models who cannot attack her. Her Ki feats are why you take her though. Her first allows her to move 2″, even if locked in combat, so excellent for positioning and even moving behind an enemy model ready for a sneak attack into the back. The second Ki feat allows her to mimic any stat, ability or Ki feat of an enemy model that she is in base to base contact with. So simply pick an enemy model with a useful stat or ability and move Yama Uba in to copy it. Very handy!

Painting wise, I wanted a rich red. I’ve always been told that for a good red, you really need to darken the shadow areas. Normally, I shade red with a straight purple but here I’ve opted for a cavalry brown/purple mix to try to create a richer tone.

For the skin I’ve used Scale 75 Flesh Paint set and opted for a very light skin tone except around the face where I’ve gone for a more brownish hue. I usually paint my skin with a base of Golden Skin and then glaze the tone up/down from there using mixes of GS and the other colours in the skin paint set.

The sash/ribbon is the Cult purple, my theme colour to tie all of the models in the warband together. The hair is dark rubber given a black wash and then gently highlighted with a dark rubber and luftwaffe grey mix.

The basing is the same as for my other Cult models, again to create a degree of uniformity to the warband.

As my son has a couple of terrain pieces he can buy into his warband that provide him with a boost, I thought it was time that I added some options to my force. The Cult of Yurei have a few options that they can use, two of which look fairly easy to put together. Firstly there is a rubbish pile, which in game generates a small rat swarm for free every time a victory point is scored. The other terrain piece is a cursed honden. In game, this allows me to drain 1 Ki from any enemy model within 4″, which should come in quite handy against the Temple of Rokan who just love their Ki feats.

For the rubbish pile, I’ve searched the 3d printing sites for a small pile of rubble which I’ve digitally attached to a 30mm base and then printed out. I’ve picked out the various rocks with differing shades to provide a bit of contrast and then just given everything a heavy wash. It took less than half an hour to complete.

A honden is the centre of a shrine and the most holy place within it. It is usually represented by a mirror or often a statue. In this case, I’ve chosen to go with a stupa that has been digitally captured from a shrine and then turned into an stl file. I’ve not opted for a statue as there are other terrain pieces that are represented by statues and I wanted this to look a little different. Again, I’ve opted for a simple painting approach. A dark grey for the stone which I’ve given a wash of black and then a dry brush. The top is shining bronze which I’ve then gently dry brushed a grey over to take the shine off a litte.

To make it cursed, I’ve stippled a reddish brown over the model using a sponge to represent dried blood followed by a lighter stippling of red as the ‘fresh’ blood. The banner is cut from the metal foil found around the top of wine bottles. This did of course mean that I had to drink the bottle of wine first, but I was prepared to make that sacrifice. After cutting the foil to the correct shape, I’ve broken up the uniformity of the edges to make it look more battered and ripped/torn. I used Google translate for the lettering, it’s supposed to say ‘join the cult’ but I’ll settle for not insulting any Japanese who read it.

Game 4

Time for another game. My son wanted to play a bigger game and suggested 150 points. While Bushido will stretch to that limit, it will take some time to complete. I’m also not sure I have enough Cult of Yurei models to get to 150 points, so I talked him down to 120. This should allow another couple of models per warband and/or a few more enhancement cards to be added. My son also suggested that the game should be first to destroy 50 points of enemy models, to which I agreed.

For my warband, I went with the following,

• Mo Ises (an assassin that likes stabbing people in the back)
• Mokoti (dreadful in combat but can control enemy models)
• Umeka (another assassin armed with a pair of scissors – I guess she also likes hobby crafting)
• Yama Uba
• Risu (A pitch fork wielding nutter who can poison people from afar) who I’ve also given an enhancement card Violence Fetish to provide a bigger punch in combat
• Ibara (Can handle himself in combat and can throw some fire around at range)
• Tenbatsu (another ronin who’s a combat monster)

Drain Spirit Event. This allows me to steal a couple of ki tokens from an enemy model

Feed on Fear. Every time an enemy fails a Fear test, this card gains a Ki token. When it gets to 4 ki, I lose the card and can distribute the ki across my models

Crush the oppressed. When I play this card, all of the state markers on the enemy get doubled

Cursed Honden. This is a terrain piece. At the start of each turn, any enemy model within 4” loses a Ki token

My son opted for the following,

• Master Ekusa (who’s a monk riding a tortoise and can heal, remove activation tokens and stops attacks due to his zen like demeanour)
• Taiyo (a ronin from the starter set who has a low points cost and is able to resupply friendly models. He’s also a Villager, allowing my son to take the two pit trap cards below)
• The Grey Pilgrim (a lightening wielding ronin)
• Kuma (an angry, bo staff wielding panda who can root opponents to the spot while slapping them around a lot)
• 2 Kami of the evening flame (a flame spirit that provides a boost to nearby monks with the flame speciality)
• Riku (a water monk with a massively powerful tsunami Ki feat and also quite handy in combat)

My son also took a lot of enhancement cards including his favourite trap cards and a couple of cards that allow him to generate extra Ki. The Temple of Rokan really excel when they have Ki, their Ki feats and abilities are very powerful. He also took two terrain pieces, the Gorinto which allows 1 model within 6” to generate an extra ki token. And a Roadside Idol that allows a model in base to base contact to generate Ki for an activation. 

Turn 1.

My son clearly didn’t like the fact that I had bought some terrain that drains Ki from his models and went full tilt to destroy it. In hind sight, I probably deployed it too far forward as he was able to run the Grey Pilgrim forward into base contact with it and then spend an activation to destroy it. So much for my Cursed Honden, with the only small crumb of comfort being that it cost the Grey Pilgrim an activation to deal with it, so at least they weren’t going to be using their ranged weapon on my warband this turn. Otherwise turn 1 was the usual moving forward and getting in to position. Kuma was able to spend his Virtue token to generate an extra Ki ready for his next round shenanigans

Turn 2.

My son launched his fire kami attack this round. He’s clearly been doing his research and had read these cards in detail. I hadn’t. His first fire kami entered base contact with Tenbatsu and then promptly exploded. This applies a level 2 fire marker to Tenbatsu and all models within 2”. Unfortunately, I had grouped Yama Uba and Risu close to Tenbatsu as support and they also picked up a level 2 fire marker.

As retribution, Risu launched her special Ki ability of Mortal Corruption on Kuma and succeeded in giving the big panda 3 level 1 poison markers. My son then launched his second fire kami attack exploding it on Mo Ises and Umeka, who both pick up a level 3 fire marker. With most of my warband now on fire, my son moved the Grey Pilgrim forward and uses her special abilities Raijin Rage and Electrify which boosts her call lightening attack to ‘leap’ to another model within 3” of the first target and gives all attacks stun. The Grey Pilgrim then calls lightening against Tenbatsu which hits but fails to do any damage, but Tenbatsu does pick up a stunned marker to add to his fire marker. And then Raijins Rage allows my son to make a second attack against Risu which hits and does 2 damage as well as adding a stunned marker. (Stunned markers effectively require an activation to remove them or you act at reduced capacity when you do activate).

Kuma spends his virtue token which unlocks Master Ekusa’s ability to lift all tokens from a model and so Kuma loses all of his poison markers. Kuma also gains 2 Ki as well. Kuma then charges Tenbatsu and in the ensuing melee is able to inflict 2 damage on Tenbatsu. It’s clear over the games that we have played that my son has a particular dislike of Tenbatsu….

Mokoti, so far lurking around behind cover, attempts to control Kuma and succeeds in the Ki test. Kuma now picks up a control marker and, for his next activation at least, is part of my warband. I try to activate Umeka but my son plays one of his pit trap cards. Umeka is unable to pass the test to avoid it and my son rolls very well on his damage roll, killing Umeka outright. First blood (again) to my son.

Finally, I activate Mo Ises who is able to control Taiyo and give him a control marker. I then play my crush the oppressed card and double all of the markers that I have handed out this turn, meaning both Taiyo and Kuma pick up an extra control marker.

At the end of the turn, the fire markers are removed meaning that Tenbatsu, Yama Uba, Risu and Mo Ises all take 2 damage each.

Turn 3

I immediately activate Kuma and spend both control markers to have him charge the grey pilgrim but unfortunately he’s not as effective when fighting for me and does no damage. The Grey Pilgrim calls lightening again on Tenbatsu doing 2 damage and, thanks to Raijins Rage, this leaps to Risu who is hit and killed. My son has already scored 21 points (Risu at 11 and Umeka at 10).

Riku triggers his Ki feat Tsunami which pushes all models within 3” of Riku back until they hit either terrain or the edge of the board. This pushes Ibara back and way out of the fight.

Tenbatsu is now able to do his thing and attacks Master Ekusa. I pour a lot of Ki into getting extra dice and also use the Combo Attack special ability, which if my attack is successful, I get to make additional damage rolls. I’m able to break through Ekusa’s defence and deal 3 damage to the tortoise riding monk. Ekusa deals 1 damage back in return.

I activate Yama Uba and have her enter melee against a now exhausted Kuma (I spent both of his activation tokens charging the Grey Pilgrim). Yama Uba activated her Ki feat ‘morph’ which allows her to copy one of Kuma’s abilities until the end of the game. In this case she take Brutal which gives her a +1 to melee attacks. She then attacks Kuma and uses her Critical Strike attack. Yama Uba is rolling a lot of dice in this attack and succeeds in successfully hitting Kuma. With Critical Strike, a roll of a double on the damage roll automatically kills the target, regardless of how many wounds they have. And yes, a double 4 on the damage roll had me laughing and my son deeply upset with me. Kuma is dead and, at 22 points, I take the lead!

Turn 4

My son really needs (and wants) to kill Tenbatsu. He’s badly damaged and, at 27 points, he’ll be 2 points short of winning the game. With this in mind, he attacks with Riku but Tenbatsu is able to hold him off doing no damage, partly because I put a lot of dice into defence to protect Tenbatsu. Yama Uba then attacks Riku, who being on contact with two enemy models, will lose melee dice. Yama Uba is able to inflict 1 damage.

My son attacks Tenbatsu with Taiyo, creating a scrum of models in the middle. Taiyo is somehow (he’s not very good in combat) able to hand out another 1 damage to Tenbatsu. Yama Uba uses her second activation to attack Riku again. As Riku is now exhausted and outnumbered, he loses 2 melee dice giving Yama Uba (who still has Brutal) and significant advantage. It pays off as Yama Uba hits and deals out 6 damage to Riku, killing the water monk. That gives me another 17 points taking me to 39.

With Tenbatsu nearly dead, Ekusa attacks him and successfully hits. It’s enough to cause the 1 wound required to kill him and my son moves to within 2 points of victory.

My son then makes a mistake as he attacks Yama Uba, who while she has damage is a much more formidable combat opponent than other models on the table. Yama Uba also has Reach, which means that she will attack first in combat, which, coupled with Brutal, gives me a significant edge. We roll our dice and I get a significant success in the attack and the damage roll is the 2 damage required to kill Ekusa. This gives me enough points to win a very close and well fought game.

Umeka is a lovely lady who’s preferred weapon of choice is a pair of scissors. I assume that she likes to deliver these to the kidneys from behind. In game, she’s cheap and has the Assassin skill which gives her a boost to damage when attacking from outside of an enemy’s line of site. She also has a Ki feat that allows her to debuff enemy models making attacks against them deliver more damage. So handy to have loitering around on the sides waiting for the chance to sneak in and shank someone.

For the painting, I wanted to give her a colourful feel and opted for a deep sea blue for the coat. I opted for purple for the inner lining as this is my choice of faction colour to tie all of the models together. Both of these colours I’ve applied the base colour and then mixed up lighter and darker versions using an off-white and dark brown. This was then applied in glazes. The blue undercloth was a mix of different shades of blue, glazed on to create the highlights.

The white sash is luftwaffe grey and off white mixed together in differing amounts to create the shadow. Same for the stockings.

The hat is Iraqi sand given a wash and then a very careful picking out of the higher areas. Off white completed the ribbon in the hat.

Leg bindings are flat earth and then highlighted with light brown.

I wanted to give Umeka a sinister look, so decided to only paint the lower half of her face. The top half and the underside of the hat got painted black. I picked out the lips in a blood red to really emphasise the look.

The metal work was either viking gold or a polished metal.

In addition to the purple colour, all of my Cult figures will get the same base of a dry earth acrylic paste. This is given a brown wash and then I’ve applied some dead grass in patches.

And that’s my second model of the starter set finished.

In all my gaming history, I’ve never made a tree for the tabletop. I’ve bought trees and added a bit of extra flock, but I’ve never started with an armature and built upwards. Now that I want some Japanese cherry blossom trees, I need to address this gap in my hobby cv.

I’ll keep this brief as this is not a new approach to tree making, just a tried and tested method you can find on the internet or, in my case, in Mel’s terrain book.

To start with, I need armatures. I’ve bought some plastic ones from eBay and I’ve 3d printed a couple as well, just for good measure. These were primed and painted a Flat Earth before I dry brushed them a light brown.

Once dry, I mounted the plastic armatures on a small mdf off cut and then glued this to a plasticard disk. The 3d printed armatures I cleverly printed out already on a base. I’ve covered the base in my acrylic mud and applied a static grass to the base.

I decided at this point to take two approaches. The plastic armatures have their branches close enough together to just flock these directly. I did this by spraying with mounting glue and then sprinkling the coarse flock over the top. This was then sealed with a spray of scenic cement.

For the 3d printed armatures, I took a trip to the garden centre and bought some hanging basket liner and teased this apart. Once thinned out, I’ve glued it to the armature. A spray of mounting glue and a finer flock was then applied. Once dry, I sprayed again and applied a lighter green flock over the top. I’ve then added a pink coarse foam flock for the blossom. And then finally sprayed it all with a scenic cement.

Unfortunately, some of the colour has leached out of the blossom so it is not as vivid a pink that I was hoping for but it still looks very spring time Japan.

As part of your warband, Bushido allows you to purchase upgrade cards, event cards and terrain to refine your approach. My son likes to use both the Road Side Idol and the Gorinto cards as part of his Temple of Ro Kan force so rather than deploying 30mm bases, I decided to 3d print some terrain for him.

On the left in the picture, we have the roadside idol that allows a monk in btb with it to use an activation to generate their full Ki for the turn. Very handy for the Ki hungry monks.

The idol was a 3d scanned image of a real Buddhist statue (I forget which one) that I’ve downloaded and reduce in size to fit the game scale. I’ve then virtually attached it to a 30mm base in a 3d building tool and printed it out. It’s been painted with a bronze, given a light dry brush of dark rubber grey, a heavy dose of nihilakh oxide which I’ve then wiped most of it off. Finally, a dry brush of shining gold to pick out the detail. All quick and easy.

The Gorinto (on the right in the picture) allows one model each turn within 6″ to gain 1 extra Ki (Ki being the in game currency for models to perform their special actions and boost their abilities). Out of game, a Gorinto is a Buddhist pagoda, often used in funeral services.

To create this, I’ve searched thingiverse and found a free gorinto which I’ve then attached to a 30mm base in a 3d builder program. Once printed, it got a grey primer, black wash and then a grey dry brush. It was painted in about 30 minutes including drying time.

We’ve got no vegetation for our Bushido games, so time to correct that. I’ve ordered a bag of plastic bamboo. It’s not the most realistic of plastic flora but will certainly work for some throw down terrain for our games.

I’ve got lots of left over 3mm mdf off cuts which I’ve used as a start of the base. I’ve drilled a hole in the mdf and then just glued the bamboo into it, cutting the bamboo to different heights to create variation. I’ve then cut plasticard to the desired shape and size of the terrain and glued the mdf/bamboo to the plasticard.

Once all the superglue is dry, I’ve smeared the plasticard and mdf with my acrylic mud paste. I’ve been very liberal here to hide the mdf. Once dry, an application of pva and some flock and job done! Quick, easy but quite effective.

We’ve now got lots of lovely terrain to play around but time to actually paint some models beyond the Ronin starter set. I’ve delved into my Cult of Yurei starter set and started on Mokoti. In game, he’s cheap – just 10 rice, the Bushido equivalent of points – so in a normal 100 point game, he’s not hogging a lot of points but he does come with the Obey Ki feat which allows him to attempt to control other models. In the last battle report, this came in handy in controlling the mighty Kuma!

He’s based upon the Zen Buddhist Komuso monks that used to travel from village to village in Japan, playing their flute for food donations. They used to wear a wicker or reed basket on their head (called a tengai) to separate the monk from their ego.

In the case of Mokoti, he uses his flute to subvert those he meets and bends their will to that of the Cult.

Painting wise, I’m going to use Purple as the accent colour to tie all of my Cult models together. In this case, I’ll paint the tassels of his shawl purple. The main clothing is off white and then mixed with Luftwaffe uniform to develop a gradually darker grey that was applied as a glaze into the folds.

The wicker basket was tricky as the definition is too fine for dry brushing but I started with Iraqi sand, then a light soft tone wash (twice) before carefully trying to pick out the higher areas with first Iraqi Sand and then IS mixed with off white.

The shawl was a Luftwaffe grey given several nuln oil washes. I’ve then picked out the raised areas with glazes of Luftwaffe grey and off white mixes.

The sandals was flat earth for the wooden bases while the strapping was scruffulous brown. Flesh was made up of a mix of various flesh tones from my Scale 75 flesh set.

The writing on the board I think says Pay Me, at least that was what Google Translate came back with. It could be highly offensive or mean nothing at all.

The base I’m aiming again for consistency across the Cult. In this case it is a dry earth acrylic mix which, when dry, gets a brown wash. I’ve then applied clumps of dead earth, to really highlight the Cult’s dead side.

Overall, fairly easy but the glazing always takes a bit of time to get right.

This game was played a little while ago, but I’ve only now gotten around to tackling the project system in submitting it.

Once again, it was my son’s Temple of Rokan (TRK) force against my mighty Cult of Yurei (CoY).

We selected a new mission for this game with deployment along each faction’s back edge. This called for 6 objective markers (the chess pawn looking pieces painted a metallic blue)  to be placed on the board in a hexagonal shape. The two objective markers closest to each faction’s deployment are friendly to that faction (and consequently hostile to the other faction) and the two objectives deployed on the centre line are neutral. Each faction also received 3 prayer tokens.

Scenario points can be earned on each turn if a model in base contact with an objective marker uses an activation to pray. A prayer token is spent and the factions gain 1 scenario point for praying at a friendly objective, 2 at a neutral objective and 3 at hostile objective. At the end of Game Turn 4, each faction gains scenario points equal to the number of friendly objectives that are on the table. 

1 Victory Point is then earned at the end of Turn 4 for the faction with the most scenario points. The scenario points are then reset to zero (any used prayer tokens are not reissued but unused tokens can be spent in future rounds).

At the end of Turn 5, any prayer scenario points earned that turn are added to the number of friendly objectives that a faction has and the most scenario points gets 1 Victory Point. The scenario points reset to zero again.

At the end of Turn 6, the same happens and the game then finishes, with the faction with the most VPs the winner!

In addition to praying at an objective, a model in base contact can also choose to spend their activation and interact with the objective. This turns a hostile objective to neutral and a neutral objective friendly.

Simple eh? It’s more simple than I’ve described it…..

Onto the forces.

My son ran a slightly different list in this game than the previous two and it is below,

• Master Ekusa (who’s a monk riding a tortoise and can heal, remove activation tokens and stops attacks due to his zen like demeanour)
• Taiyo (a ronin from the starter set who has a low points cost and is able to resupply friendly models. He’s also a Villager, allowing my son to take the two pit trap cards below)
• Yim (a monk who’s strong and linked to iron)
• Saruka (another flame monk and can also cast a fireball like ranged attack)
• Kuma (an angry, bo staff wielding panda who can root opponents to the spot while slapping them around a lot)

In addition, my son had selected a couple of terrain pieces that allow extra Ki generation for his models (Ki allows the activation of special abilities and boosts regular stats and the TRK are big Ki users). He also selected some trap cards as well. He had a one off event card that allows him to give 4 Ki to any one of his models. Kuma also had an enhancement card of prayer beads allowing him to generate an additional Ki each turn.

I changed my list up and also opted for some additional cards,

• Mo Ises (an assassin that likes stabbing people in the back)
• Mokoti (dreadful in combat but can control enemy models)
• Umeka (another assassin armed with a pair of scissors – I guess she also likes hobby crafting)
• Risu (A pitch fork wielding nutter who can poison people from afar)
• Ibara (Can handle himself in combat and can throw some fire around at range)
• Tenbatsu (another ronin who’s a combat monster)
• 2 plague rats (very quick, dispensable and can also hand out poison)

In addition, I equipped Mo Ises with the Violence Fetish enhancement card which gives her a boost in melee combat. I’ve also taken the Crush the Oppressed event card, which when played, doubles the number of state tokens applied to all enemy models. I think this could be a game winner for me as state tokens include poison, fire and control. Played at the right time, my son is not going to be happy!

Terrain and Deployment.

You take turns placing terrain until one side stops at which point the other faction can place one more piece. I stopped after about 3 objects but my son just carried on sticking stuff down across the board. He kindly placed quite a lot of cover on my side of the board.

You deploy each model in turn with the edge of the base in contact with the back edge of your side. I deployed into three groups, on the left flank I have the two fast plague rats and Risu, in the middle Umeka, Mo Ises and the mighty Tenbatsu and on my right Mokoti and Ibara.

My son placed Ekusa, Kuma and Yim in the middle (making a solid central force!) and Taiyo and Saruka on his left. He had no right flank.

Turn 1.

All of the models move forward in a largely uneventful turn. Yim prays at a friendly objective earning TRK 1 Scenario point. Saruka also gets into range of one of the TRK terrain pieces to gain extra Ki. I’m able to advance my plague rats quite far up my left flank – I’m hoping to bring a threat from the rear onto some of his models. My son tried both of his trap cards on my rats but failed to have any effect as I rolled the required numbers to avoid them!

Turn 2.

My rats continue their gallop around the back and are into the TRK back field – handy! Kuma gets into base contact with a neutral objective and spends TRK’s second prayer token to gain another 2 scenario points, bringing TRK’s total to 3.

Taiyo (who’s not known for his martial skills) charges Ibara. Ibara can strike first but fails to do any damage however Taiyo suddenly finds his inner samurai and batters Ibara for 4 wounds. 

Saruka activates next and in support of Taiyo moves forwards and uses her Ki to cast Dance of Dragons and kills Ibara. Some nice combo work there from my son!

However, I strike back as Mo Ises uses her Obey Ki feat and is able to take control of Taiyo, which makes him part of my force for one activation. 

Yim prays again to gain another scenario point however Risu interacts with a neutral objective to turn it friendly to CoY.

Turn 3

I bring Tenbatsu into the fray and activate his Oni Rage. This makes him very aggressive at the expense of a degree of control. I charge him into Yim and cause 5 wounds to Yim with Yim unable to hit back.

The mighty Kuma, seeing his friend Yim in trouble, charges Tenbatsu and casts War Cry. Tenbatsu is outnumbered by Yim and Kuma and loses dice to roll in defence. This proves to be fatal as Kuma roundly slaps Tenbatsu into next week and kills him in one shot. This is not a good turn of events for CoY!

Mokoti, seeing how useful Kuma could be if he were on the side of CoY uses his Obey Ki feat and is able to convert Kuma to CoY, albeit for just one activation. Not wanting to miss out on the controlling Ki feats, Mo Ises uses Obey and is able to control Saruka. 

It’s at this point I play my Crush the oppressed event card and get to add one additional control marker to Kuma, Taiyo and Saruka meaning that I now get to activate them twice each in the service of CoY!. My son was really not very happy at this point.

I use the controlled Taiyo, who is out on his own a little, to move into base contact with Saruka. Taiyo is somehow able to kill Saruka, so CoY gets its first kill.

My rats, still lurking in the background, leap forward to attack the already wounded Yim. I don’t care if they die, so I allocate all my dice into the attack pool hoping to overwhelm Yim’s defence pool – I do and I manage to remove Yim’s final wound and kill him. 

Suddenly things are looking up for the CoY.

Turn 4

Kuma, still controlled by the CoY, attacks Master Ekusa. Ekusa is great in defence and Kuma struggles to get through but is able to cause a single wound. I run Taiyo back up the flank to move him away from my forces to use up his last control marker. 

End of turn 4 is where we look at the scenario points. My son has accumulated 4 scenario points from praying and has two friendly objective markers. I have three friendly objective markers so, with a score of 6 to 3, the TRK takes a Victory Point. The scenario points are reset to zero.

Turn 5

I kick off with Mo Ises who immediately targets Kuma and gets control of him. The TRK use up their wait token to see what I will do so I take the opportunity to attack Taiyo with one of my plague rats who hits, doing no damage but Taiyo picks up a poison marker. Taiyo kills the rat in return though.

I make Kuma attack Ekusa but this results in no damage as Ekusa’s defence cancels out Kuma’s attack. I use Mokoti to convert another objective to friendly and Risu moves up to block Kuma and Ekusa should they decide to make a dart for the objectives in the next round.

Once all of the models have been activated, the End Phase starts. It’s here that fire, poison and other tokens are managed. Taiyo takes a wound from the poison token he picked up from the plague rat and dies. The plague rat has his revenge from beyond the grave!

At the end of the round, my son is regretting burning all of his prayer tokens early on as with 4 friendly objectives to 2, the CoY have more scenario points and wins a victory point. 

Turn 6

All to play for as the scenario points are reset to zero.

Mokoti gets straight to work in controlling Kuma, who has spent more time fighting for CoY than he has for TRK this game. However, Ekusa uses his special Ki ability to remove all of Kuma’s tokens, lifting the control. Ekusa then attacks Risu but fails to cause any wounds.

I launch a plague rat at the rear of Ekusa, more out of hope than anything else but given that Ekusa has already taken some damage, the biting rat is too much for him and Ekusa goes down.

At this point, with just Kuma left, my son realises that he cannot get enough scenario points to pick up the last victory point this round and concedes the game 2-1, a win for the Cult!

Time to add some more small terrain elements. All of the following pieces have been 3d printed with the stl files coming from Thingiverse.

Japanese paper lanterns are a tradition and used to celebrate at festivals. They are often grouped together into racks to create a colourful display. I managed to find an stl file of the lanterns and printed this out. This then needed to be mounted as the racks did not come with legs. For this, I’ve just cut some wooden tongue depressors into the right lengths and stuck these to the rack. Once dry, it was primed and then stuck to a plasticard base and secured in place with and acrylic paste.

I’ve taken a quick approach to the painting. The wood was painted flat earth, then given a brown wash before an Iraqi sand dry brush. The lanterns were an off white with black for the writing. I’ve tried to copy some characters from internet pictures but the writing could be nothing, people’s names or something rude. Who knows but let’s hope I’m not about to start an international incident.

Sake racks are common to both display the barrels and allow for maturation of the drink. Drums are also used for both musical entertainment, war and communication, so both objects would lend themselves to the trappings of a small village.

The wood for both items was painted in the same way as the lanterns above. The drum skin and the sake barrels were then painted a bone colour and given a soft tone wash. The drum barrel is cavalry brown. You often see the drum skin gets discoloured where it is struck, so to replicate this I’ve used a watered down brown and gently glazed the area to reach the desired effect.

And job done (apart from the flocking – summer grass). Simple and easy.

The Cult of Yurei, being all about the death and decay, can take various rats as part of their force. As you might expect, these aren’t the most powerful or formidable of characters but they do provide some chaff to block parts of the board and have your opponent activate their models before your key characters activate. One of the rat units available are plague rats of which you can field three. While not particularly powerful, if they do successfully hit in attack, they get to dish out poison markers which inflict additional damage at the end of the turn.

In this case, I searched Thingiverse (not to be mistaken for Redvers) for suitable models of which there were a few. Using Microsofts 3D builder, I was able to manipulate the files to get the right size and then attached them to 3D bases for the game. These then went off to the 3D printer.

Painting wise, I took a quick approach to these. A base of dark brown was then given a dark tone wash. I’ve then dry brushed up the highlights through successively lighter browns. Teeth/claws were off white with a yellow wash. The tail was a skin tone given a brown wash. For the boils and lesions, I’ve used a purple glaze applied several times followed by a red glaze over the highest points.

The basing is just Mig Ammo dry earth acrylic mud with a wash applied and then a light flocking of dead grass. This will be my Cult of Yurei basing across all of my models to try to tie them together.