Falling Blosson - Japanese/Nippon 3d print 'Samurai army' miniatures
This article will cover all the 'Samurai' miniatures in my Legiones Antiquitata army. By Samurai I am playing fast and loose with terminology as anyone with just a passing interest will know that 'Samurai' armies for gamers might contain Ashigaru, Monks, Ronin and pirates as well as actual Samurai. I am also being economical with the truth in that a small number of the miniatures in my army are in fact plastics as I owned them before I entered the brave new world of 3d printing.
The Samurai command stand above however is both Samurai and 3d printed. These boys are from the Kyoushuneko miniatures who have an extensive collection with almost 100 codes now. As you can see detail is sharp and anatomy pretty realistic. I did find that with some of the earliest minis the presupported versions were occasionally a bit dodgy and bits did not print. I cant say 100% the supports were at fault but once i used the unsupported version and just auto added the supports in Chitubox all was well. Even with this I think they are excellent STLs. This no longer seems to be an issue at all.
Another Kyoushuneko mini - this time the General or Damyo. The bases are by Cobramode from their Oriental bases range and will appear often. The option to have a mounted general is also filled by a recent release by the printing goes ever on (TPGEO) below
Here we have a General alongside two Hatamoto bodyguard troops all on barded horses. TPGEO have recently released a whole chapter of Japanese/Nippon miniatures including fantasy elements which are perfect for my Legiones Army but also Old World Nippon. The Hatamoto bodyguard here are actually standard Samurai but the barded horses are an upgrade!
A similar story with the foot Hatamoto below which are standard Kyoushuneko Samurai but with a black paintjob because black armour obviously means elite. Well known fact.
An alternative non 3d printed general which I already had was this one from Warlord Games. This has the bonus of having a fan and a big saddle balloon...
I suspect these are a few years old now as the horses are a bit weak compared to newer plastics and 3d prints.
Moving down in rank we next come to the Samurai, firstly the cavalry. Mine are the aforementioned Warlord as despite having the TPGEO stls and Kyuoshuneko cavalry being lovely I am not going to print and paint new minis when I have older ones. As a commission painter the time I have available to paint my own stuff is limited and efficiency rules!
For foot Samurai I have Kyoushuneko once again, a mix of bow and katana guys all painted in the red armour I had to use as I had already painted the cavalry in this scheme! I tend to mix the bow and katana in the same units to show they have both ranged and melee capacity. The 3d printed minis lack the back banners of the Warlord minis though tbh these are fragile and I probably wouldnt attach even if they existed.
TPGEO have released some lovely bow armed minis in the classic Japanese archer poses but once again I wont be printing them as I already have Bowmen. What I did print were a few of these Naginata armed men. The pose is a bit grass cutting but a nice mini nonetheless and mirroring gives me a small variation.
Following on down the social scale we next come to the masterless Samurai - Ronin. For these I use the Kyoushuneko stls which are excellent in everyway. There is a variety in them as well as great character and anatomy.
Some more Cobramode bases used for these as they are more individualistic.
Falling further down the scale we arrive at the common soldiers, the Ashigaru. My Ashigaru are some more Warlord plastics though if I was starting today I would print both TPGEO and Kyoushuneko as they are both better quality and have a wider variety of weapons. This Ashigaru officer is by TPGEO and commands lots of lesser quality plastic Ashigaru!
My Warlord plastics fall into 3 types, Bow, Musket and Pike. I may print some TPGEO spear once the weather improves again but for now they are missing. With the Ashigaru I went with much plainer colours as befits their lower status.
Warrior monks are well served by Kyoushuneko with some outstanding sculpts. I have Naginata and bow armed men but there is a wider variety on his myminifactory site. Again I have gone with less colourful for my monks though I am aware that they were often brightly dressed as I have painted Footsores' excellent metal Sohei miniatures for customers.
My monks
Metals by Footsore painted for customers
Ikko Ikki - again Footsore I believe.
I have no idea where ninjas would fit on the social scale but as Peasants are next I will put them above those. Both TPGEO and Kyoushuneko have ninjas. Mine are Kyoushuneko simply because they existed first and TPGEO are very recent.
Similarly my peasants are Kyoushuneko simply because I know of no other Japanese peasant STLs! Fortunately these are really nice and combine rustic peasantyness with some menace as they are armed with peasanty sharpened bamboo and agricultural tools!
Finally and completely outside the Japanese social order are the Wako or Wokou Pirates. These were generally Japanese pirates who mainly raided Chinese and Korean shores and sometimes existed in great fleets of smaller ships commanded by a real pirate king. My Wako pirates are from an earlier TPGEO release which was to proxy the LOTR pirates who appear in the Return of the King. The bases are by Zabavka miniatures.
Lastly in this first section we have a Taiko drummer by TPGEO. I dont really know if these were a regular battlefield sight or not but it looks cool and it would be a shame not to have one. Especially when the drummer looks like he has eaten the other drum.
For the historical purists amongst us this is where you might want to exit stage left pursued by a bear as from now on things get a bit fantastical, a bit more Warhammer The Old World Nippon. However feel free to carry on if you like Japanese mythology and fantasy.
Starting as we mean to go on first up some Japanese magic users.
This mini is a plastic Malifaux mini by wyrd games. I used to play Malifaux and it is a great game but as i get older I find there are just too many wheels within wheels in Malifaux and my brain cant keep up. Many of the minis have been repurposed for my various Legiones armies and the Old world such as this one. Here she is a Miko - a sort of magic user. In fact my main magic user although a lesser magic user is available as an acolyte using this TPGEO chap.
In Legiones all armies have access to a slow moving totem of various sorts. I would love to have the Kyoushuneko shrine but dont have time to paint it so make do with this Torii gate. If your Magic user is adjacent when casting you get to reroll some fails depending on the intrinsic magic boosting power of the totemic item. I believe the same idea as the Cauldron of blood or the Imperial cart shrines. Genuinely can't remember where I got this one but possibly Titanforge.
Next up some Kyoushuneko Sumo warriors. He has armoured versions but I like these chaps better as they look more Sumo like to me. They are obviously strong and can provide some oomph when they charge as well as just looking cool! Bases again Cobramode.
Also providing some oomph are the Oni by Titanforge. These are troll size equivalents but not stupid. I have two of these and while they never really perform as they should for me a friend recently used my Japanese army and had an Oni obliterate 3 times it's own points value. The 50mm base provides some scale here.
For some proper oomph!! though you really need a dragon and this Titanforge dragon pulls double duty in both my Nippon and Cathay (WIP) forces. This dragon is actually at about 75% and still the base is about 10cm long so its a big model. It was one of the first models I printed and I had not grasped how many parts there were and how I might end up printing double right legs and no left legs. As a result the process took longer than it should have.....
I think this rather oversize cannon is also Titanforge. I have put it here in the fantasy section rather than the historical because whilst the Samurai lords did have access to some 'cannon' they were not like this which is pure fantasy.
Nor did they have access to Samurai mounted on flying deer creatures called Kirin! However I do ,and am using Kyoushuneko Kirin riders as below. Essentially the same stats as a Pegasus Knight in game terms but without the big wings. It isnt one of my favourite models and I am not sure why I don't like it. It might be either the model or just the way I have painted it but I cant warm to it!
I really like this though. This is another Wyrd games Malifaux model, a Jorugamo spider demon. I bought this as a lot off ebay with most of the other Oni models here and have rebased and repainted as the original bases were impressively tall and likely to cause me to break the models by clumsiness. The Jorugamo can be summoned by a magic user but its a tough call needing quite a few successes so if i want one I just pay for it to start on table rather than take the risk.
A slightly cheaper summons are these Kyoushuneko Nagas which are fast, poisonous and have the chance to immobilise opponents. I really like these sculpts and though its hard to see I painted the scaly parts in 'shifter' paints. These change colour as the model or viewer moves which clearly does not show well in a photo for obvious reasons. These show what print quality is available on a standard budget hobby printer nowadays.
Another great summons are thes Shikome. These are again Malifaux miniatures from the same lot as the Jorugamo and again repainted. Useful as objective grabbers in any force and just cool models.
Cheapest summons and pretty much just chaff are these Yokai, again Malifaux minis but any search in myminifactory will supply lots of different Yokai including the Titanforge Yokai monthly release from April 2021.
Away from the demonic summons this Kabuki model is also an interesting unit as it can be used to both Lure and Confuse enemy models, presumably by deft use of the fans or just an unmissable narrative. This is another Kyoushuneko mini and better quality than the lacklustre paintjob shows.
Sticking with the ladies another Malifaux mini here is a Geisha who acts as a spy. No real combat power in attack or defence but can take a look at the opponents hand of objective cards which if you have a good memory can be powerful or if like me have a fishlike memory can be completely useless! Again Geisha mini stls are not hard to find and if I had not already owned the Malifaux geisha I would have gone with epic miniatures versions.
Miniatures are not the only 3d printable goodies for Samurai generals as Terrain is also widely available. I have just printed and painted this Samurai style castle by TPGEO as a centrepiece
and these village houses by Hartolia who do a huge amount of terrain pieces at a very competitive price.
To see the full ranges of both Kyoushuneko and The printing goes ever on miniatures follow these links on myminifactory
Cobramode bases
Comments