Sunday, December 27, 2009

Scorpions, Phoenix, Dragons and Lions…

The other night I finished up a handful of assorted figures for our upcoming Legends of the Five Rings Campaign on Savage Saturday Night.


These are actually from Perry Miniatures - the first of a few I recently ordered to check them out. They’re very nice. I picked up two daimyo command groups to use as general’s/camp follower stands to sit in my Samurai DBA camps. I also picked up these – a pack of samurai with swords in everyday clothes and some villagers and townspeople.

The rest are from AEG’s L5R/clan war line.


A Scorpion diplomat and two Phoenix Shukenja. The Phoenix shukenja are Isawa Uona and Isawa Tadaka.


I ended up with two packs of Uona and Tadaka – and I may have yet ANOTHER on the way (when you pick these up in lots of 4-6 packs… sometimes you get doubles… or triples…). So I thought I’d paint a second pair of them to make a magician stand for Hordes of the Things.

I think I’m going to try and put together a couple Rokugan HOTT armies. I have enough Unicorn already, and almost enough Naga. The Generic Samurai armies for DBA that I’m working on I’ll paint in the colours of the Rokugan clans… I haven’t entirely worked out what the make up of the armies will be just yet but here’s what I’m thinking for a couple of them so far:

The Phoenix
I get the impresson that the Phoenix are thought of as relatively weak militarily but strong in magic – so this would be a good army to sport a triple-wizard-combo. I’m thinking something like:

3x Magicians - Shukenja
1x Blade – Samurai Foot
2x shooters – Samurai Archers
2x Spear – Ashigaru Spear
1x Rider – Mounted Samurai

Alternatively I could replace one or more of the Shugenja with something else big and nasty that the Phoenix could summon to do their bidding… not sure what… Dragons? “gods”(Oni or powerful Kami)? Or maybe I should field a Cleric (defensive magician/monks). They also have some funky units like Isawa Inquisitors and Void Guard… I’m not sure what I’d classify these as – if I was even able to track down a pack or two of them…

The Unicorn

I more or less have all the elements ready to be painted. I got a Unicorn Army Expansion box and then picked up a few other hero types here and there. The army will look something like this:

1x Hero – Daimyo and personal guard or perhaps a unit of Battle Maidens – if ever I could find some
1x Magician – Mounted Shukenja – Iuchi Daiyu
8x Riders – Mounted Samurai

Alternatively I guess I could field some archers as shooters. It might be a good idea as this army would have a really, really tough time dealing with bad going otherwise… Some Knights, perhaps, as I have a few figures with fully barded horses.

The Naga
Between the Army expansion box set and two other lots I have nearly enough to field an entire army of these as well. I know very little about them however. I need to do some more reading. My initial thoughts are to call them ALL Beast (perhaps with a magician and/or hero). They are fast moving and move swiftly through bad-going – not super-powerful and hate other mounted… sounds like Beasts to me…

Shadowlands
I have a few Oni already and a pile more on the way… I have enough appropriate looking Orc Wolf riders to field an entire army of them alone… and if all that weren’t enough I have a PILE of clan war goblins on the way (another couple ebay lots) I will probably be able to field TWO commands of shadowlands baddies. I’m just not sure what to filed the host of wildly different Oni as… have to do some more reading and thinking about it…

The Other Clans – Lion, Dragon, Crab, Crane, Scorpion, etc
These would more or less be modeled on DBA Early Samurai army – perhaps with a Hero and/or Magician thrown in. Parhaps the Crab could have some Warband… I’m not sure… I’ll have to do some more reading of the background fluff…

Anyway, that’s my initial ideas – if anyone out there is very familiar with the Legends of the Five Rings – particularly Clan War – and have any suggestions, I’m all ears!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More o'the same...

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