The Ronin Project 3

Ronin Project 3: Musket Armed Figures

With the next sprue I balanced up the musket/bow ratio with 4 musket ashigaru to one archer.

Pairing up the left and right arms was not too difficult and the loose musket offered the opportunity to paint the chest unobstructed before putting the weapon in place.

The Ronin Project 2

Completing the first sprue

Generally speaking, when building up plastic figures, I do a sprue's worth at a time.

So here are the other four. 

The arrow in the ground was one cut from the arm of another figure (see last below)

There are only four bows on the sprue so one had to be firearm armed. The first thing I did was look carefully at the sprue and mark left and right arms before cutting off the pair for the man loading. Note there is only one musket with a ramrod protruding to meet the arm with the top of the ramrod

One pair of legs give the kneeling position

This pair of legs gives this leaned over position.  Between the bow arm chosen and the arm with the arrow, I could not get the arrow to rest anywhere realistically against the bow. It got cut out and provided the one for the base of the top figure.

Ronin Project 01

The Ronin Project 1

The publication of the "Ronin" skirmish rules for Feudal Japan has given me the excuse to get some of the Wargames Factory "Rising Sun" 28mm range of plastic figures.

I'm starting with the Ashigaru missile men as this was the only box I could get readily.

It makes up 25 figures, archers or musket men, from five identical sprues with 5 figures to a sprue.

The leg pieces are obviously paired and matching a bow arm (top left) with a bow arm (bottom left) is straightforward however I expect some challenges matching appropriate left and right arms for the firearm variants.

It seemed sensible to paint the heads while they were still on the sprue

This is the test/first figure. Looks a bit odd with the head already done.

And here he is finished except for a design for the back banner.