My alternative Japanese Mordheim

I have built a Samurai army for about two years now, using it as a WHFB counts-as Empire army. Recently a friend at my local club showed an interest in collecting Samurai too, but getting enough troops to start playing actual historical battles would take quite a long time. But why not try out some skirmish gaming? Flicking through the Mordheim rules we realized that it needed very few modifications to work in a Japanese context. Make armour cheaper, ban crossbows, make pistols rarer, modify the warbands, rename wyrdstone "loot" and hey presto!

Anyhow. With a few trial games done, we are now busy cranking out enough themed terrain to not have to slog it out over burned out 40K ruins and ork huts.

First house: Batayori's Barracks

This was my first real scratch built terrain ever, barring some popsicle pin crap as a young gamer. I used mostly cardboard, tape and drinking straws, fumbling in the dark as I really had no idea what I was doing.









And finally:





I quickly realized that this was not a very practical way to do roofs, and I can promise that I haven't tried it out again since.

It also has no interior, which is fine for our WHFB games but quickly turned out useless in our trial games. That, and a single entrance point with no real windows made it a rather pointless building for skirmish games. Oh well, it was a start at least.

For the next house, I got out and bought some foamcore and it was a hundred times better than working with corrugated cardboard for the walls.

House 2: Goemon the Woodcutter's Cabin



I made it really simple, with just a frame of foamcore covered with cut out slices of cereal box cardboard. Toothpicks and greenstuff became a hatchet and a pick, to make it look more like someone actually live in the house.



This time I made a thatched roof instead, one made out of spare bath towels.



And it is finished. I sort of chickened out and made no actual interior, but put in a front door and a back door so that it would be a bit more useful, and unlike the barracks the roof is removable. But still, a big empty room is not all that exciting.

House 3: Sadamasa's Farmhouse

Now it was time for a real project.



I used the same techniques, but actually cut out the door and the windows. I had also gotten the balsa wood I ordered from a airplane modelling store, so I could do new things that I could not do earlier, such as the supports on the front side of the house. I was not really planning to do the interior at first, but once I got started I realized that I could try to do flooring by pressing in the actual planks with a pen on a piece of foamcore. Soon I was making an actual interior.



From the back:


Painting was a breeze, just repeating successfully lighter brown drybrush layers.











So the first real house with interior and everything was done. While vastly better than the first two houses, I had still made a house with just one entry point and negligible windows. D'oh!

Wow, you made that first building look great, given the materials you used! The 2nd building is great as well. I gasped when I read you used a bath towel for the roof...my wife would have a fit!

Last for tonight is a watchtower. These were often built for the firefighters to be able to keep vigil of a town and quickly see smoke and fire, but they also make excellent (but very exposed) sniper positions!





Ash: Well, if you buy a new towel... and tell your girlfriend/wife something like "honey, I noticed that our towels are a bit scruffy, so I bought us some new ones! I threw away this old rag" you will come off as a hero rather than a marauding looter.

The first two buildings are REALLY quite nice, but the third IS a BEAUTY! That's quite impressive progress. The first & second ones are still usable as impassable terrain that blocks LOS. VERY WELL DONE! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

Oooo! I love the watchtower! What a fun pice of terrain to have on the table. I may just make one ro two this weekend...

very nice , love all the far east way, watchtower is copie
best

Wicked! It all looks very proffesional, especially given the materials used.

Really cool.
I like these japanese Stuff.

Were do you buy your models?

COOL WATCHTOWER! That's the nicest piece thus far. It has a VERY Japanese feel to it; it also looks rather delicate. May it survive the rigors of the Gaming Table . WELL DONE!

That's some really nice stuff you got there.

Im impressed with what You can DO with so little material...

I can learn some things from this thanks!

And keep up the good work !!!!

House 4: The Remote Retreat

For the next house I wanted to try out something fancier, so while this will not be the house of noble it might be a hunting retreat of a mid-tier samurai or a secondary house on the estate of a wealthier person. For this I wanted to try to make tatami style floors, a porch and some tile roofing.



I started out with etching out the floor design on the foamcore



Balsa sticks will give sturdiness while more foamcore is used for the walls.



The walls themselves are finished. Now for the fiddly part.



Strips of cardboard and balsa are used to get a more interesting wall structure. These types of walls are still very common in Japan.



I cover everything in cheap black acrylics. I've started to use GESSO for my priming, but I had forgotten the tub at home.



The tiled roof is made of ceral box cardboard covered by a layer of corrugated cardboard, and balsa. This small roof is not removable, but there should be plenty of room to move miniatures. By now the base is painted because it is impossible to reach under the elevated house. I'm planning to add other stuff on the base, but then I'll just re-paint those parts.



The big roof is prepared with cardboard. This is a very fiddly part and required a great deal of trial and error.



Bath towel roof is finished, with some flower pot sticks lending support. I'll see if I can get it painted tomorrow.

Thanks for all the positive feedback, I'll do my best to live up to them

Scallen: I buy most of my models from Perry Miniatures (http://perry-miniatures.com), since I think that they simply make the best 28mm historical miniatures out there. They are mostly geared towards big battlefield soldiers in late 16th century, so recently though I have bought some Museum Miniature samurai too to fill out gaps such as unarmed retainers and villagers. For Mordheim I'm thinking of buying some from The Assault Group too, since their range is for several centuries earlier than PM. This means that they have an entirely different arsenal with things like samurai with bows and two handed weapons. If you are interested I could put up some images.

Really impressive. I like that a lot! Now I wanna see it painted.

VERY ATTRACTIVE! That IS a lovely little building. When you run out of towels, you might try faux fur of the sort that stuffed animals are made of; it's available from craft stores [if you value your life & wellbeing, DON'T even think about your Girlfriend's Teddy Bear ]. This IS going to be a beauty when completed. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

Awesome! THat's a really impressive looking village, I might try my hands on this as well

Ohh my! this looks extremele good! I'm in awe of your eye for reality and detail! Please keep us updated!

oh yeeahh, i that

Quote :

If you are interested I could put up some images.

I yes that would be nice.

Oh, these houses were so nice.
I thing I gonna build some like these by my own.

House 5: Hiroda's Hut

While the primer is drying on the last building, I finished off building another one. This time I wanted a smaller house, probably a peasant's hut. After all I want to start the actual campaign soon, and then it is more effective to build a lot of smaller houses than spending two months on a huge project.



The ground work was done in the same fashion as the last house with the porch etc, just smaller.



I added some rocks made out of modelling clay for easier access to the porch. Then the usual detailing with wooden paneling etc. The small square in the middle of the room will be a fireplace.



The foundation of the roof is done with cardboard. I added some firewood made out of sticks from the local park on the outside for some extra atmosphere.



Same progress, but from the front. A small walkway was made of the same modeling clay.



A simple thatched roof is added.



And it's done. Now I just need to wait for the glue to dry, and then it's priming time.

Scallen: I really love the Perry sculpts, so here's some of my samurai:



Standard bearer and swordsmen



Mounted swordsmen



"This part goes BOOM!"



Pikemen ashigaru (I'll add some pike rules, but they'll be pretty crappy for 1 on 1 combat just like expected)



Samurai with muskets

those first swordsmen banners... are those actually freehands?! they look brilliant!

Ezekiel wrote:

those first swordsmen banners... are those actually freehands?! they look brilliant!

No, I could never pull something like that off freehand! They are from the ebay store Imperial Forge, though sadly they seem to have stopped selling transfers just as I wanted to buy more of them

awsome buildings, could you do a group shot for the weak willed ones of us?

Sure, they are all at the club but I'll be heading there tonight to build some more random stuff and paint my houses. I'll snap a group picture then.