Test of Honour & Hedges

I've not been doing much on the hobby front in the last couple of weeks especially this week as it's been too damned hot. I did manage to get some Test of Honour in with Stu on Wednesday which is probably the hottest wargame I've ever played.

The game followed on from the last one where my hero captured an enemy spy and this time needed to escort her to safety in a nearby fort.

With a reduction in movement for the person escorting the spy the game descended into a mass brawl in the middle of the table with my men coming out on top. As the temperature rose we called in a Samurai win over the Monks.

Next up are some hedges from Warbases. MDF terrain has always had the advantage of being cheap and  quick to assemble but didn't always look the best once on the table. But over the last couple of years various manufacturers have been experimenting with colour printed MDF which whilst being more expensive is still quick to get on the table and looks good.

With Silver Bayonet being our next game I wanted to get some hedges to use so when Warbases released their Table Ready walls and hedges range to add to their growing range of coloured MDF I puit an order in. These go together really quickly with just some PVA glue and the only addition I've made is to add some saw-dust flock to the top of the hedge and along the join at the base.

Sengoku Japanese: Onna-bugeisha

Among the extra metal models I purchased are several packs of Onna-musha / Onna-bugeisha from Bad Squiddo ga,es. They have a large range of realistic female warriors across several periods of war.

These are high born Japanese ladies who have been schooled in the arts of war, often for home defence but sometimes they also took part in offensive operations. 

These lady Samurai are generally associated with the Naginata so I have a few of those and then plenty armed with Katanas.

They do have stats in Test of Honour and generally have a higher agility (better at dodging) than your average man.

Sengoku Japanese: Village Life

It's not that common for me to paint up civilians for a period we are playing but during the purchasing phase of the project I go slightly excited and ordered some Perry models to add some character to the table. They have a few packs of village / towns people and some farm workers.

These are the village and towns people packs with the farm workers to come in the near future. We have another game of Test of Honour lined up so these fine people will no doubt hit the table soon.

Sengoku Japanese: Ready for Big Battles

A big week in the progress for my Japanese armies as I completed the last of the models required for the big battles. These have pretty much all been from the Fireforge Games range of models with the very occasional metal miniature added in. I started these back in August so it's been a decent length of time I've been painting these up and I'm still enjoying getting paint on them.

So off the bench this week are the artillery pieces for each side, using Fireforge chaps as crew and a 3d print I found.

We also have the last of the cavalry for the Shimazu clan forces including three mounted commanders. I've made one up with a head and arms from the Sohei box to make up a mounted monk commander. I'm not sure the armies really needed any extra colour, but I've done it anyway!

So that's the bulk of the painting done now, 300+ plastic Samurai, Ashigaru, and Monks ready to fight a big battle. Never Mind the Naginata's hasn't been released yet but Billhooks the rules they are based off will fill the gap until they are.

The Shimazu forces:

Both Clans:

The Mori Clan:

I still have about 30 metal miniatures I picked up to paint and some terrain so it will be a while before this project is complete.

Test of Honour: The Battlefield

The third of our Test of Honour games saw my Mori Samurai once again face off against Stu's Monks.

This time we met after a larger engagement and needed to search the fallen for a family member. This involved rolling against our Wits to search an objective.

Both sides had two easily reached objectives which we successfully searched on the first attempt and then focus turned to wards the central objective. It would probably have been more sensible to have three objectives across the middle but having one guaranteed a big fight in the middle.  

My chaps spent the first few rounds of combat critically failing and stabbing themselves to cause light wounds, not the best of starts. But I did manage to keep models within 3" of the objective which stopped the Monks from being able to search it.

We then had a grinding fight in the middle with the Monks generally rolling better so they wore down my companions and Ashigaru until it was just my hero left.

He did manage to rouse himself to cut down his opposite number and the Monks also lost their higher Wits companion which was to prove all important.

Despite my hero eventually dying the Monks couldn't pass a Wits test to secure the last needed token so the game ended in a draw with honours mostly even.