Browsing over the ashigaru and samurai range, they all look fantastic but after seeing the heiho rules you can identify a key unit missing. That being armoured teppo (Handgunners).
would be great to see some matchlock samurai infantry and matchlock cavalry. Just wondering other peoples thoughts on this? :)
While there was some matchlock cavalry in Japan, I think thats more common in PC games and film than it was in real history, also while I am sure there where some troops of Samurai infantry with teppeo its actually debatable weather some infantry samurai are true samurai (some prefectures listed ashigaru as lower ranking samurai), from what I can tell the most "proper" samurai of the Sengoku peirod fought as bow and spear cavalry or as very elite spear and bow infantry.
That said both maybe a good addition for a fantasy upgrade box (after all it is the first human army they have for 10mm, why not have it listed up to fight orcs), maybe alongside some oni or other yokai.
@Brian Van De Walker that is true, to be fair. I may have misunderstood the heiho rules where it says "samurai shot" and "samurai mounted shot" as this could mean archers which was more historically accurate.
@Jack Winstone No, its likely historically accurate for both weapons, its just bows would be way more common for samurai since they where trained to use bows and bows where in many ways still the better range weapon in that era (faster reloading time and more accuracy than the old Teppeos and European imports). Plus among the ways I have seen the upper crust samurai and warlords depicted when using teppeo they had multiple people reloading and passing the shooter a fresh gun like some weapon team, so it might be a more diverse and therefore difficult topic to cover, (it probably depended on which prefecture the army was from).
we know that all levels within the warrior social class were enamored of firearms. and that even the upper levels of the Bushi (the ones we call samurai) used them. but i'm not aware of any incidents where large units of heavily armored samurai formed up and served as musket users. that seems to have been largely done by the lower ranking Bushi (the ashigaru) who already were used in such large formations before guns.
samurai in armor with muskets would fit well into a skirmish game, but doesn't seem to have much support historically for use in a mass battle.
that said, it could be a fun addition, given that "what if" is valid within games. perhaps it could be added to a future box of less common or questionably historical unit types, perhaps alongside things like Warrior Monks, Waku Pirates, Onna-musha, etc.
@Mithril2098 yeah I understand they weren't particularly historically accurate as a large scale unit, especially compared to ashigaru. I also know funnily enough that samurai believed firearms to be cowardly and too easy (stated in Teppo-ki).
I remember seeing a public vote with what to do next for the samurai range which included armoured teppo which got me thinking. Having a base of samurai teppo mixed with the other samurai unit types would be pretty fun to use in game (albeit not 100% historical).
In fairness there's not much more I can think of that can be added to not deviate from true historical accuracy and maintain that high miniature box count that we see with grand scale battle boxes.
@Mithril2098 Actually I think wokou pirates could be a box all on thier own, same deal with Warrior monks. Both those actually got fielded as whole armies during the Sengoku period, pirates even took over smaller castles on occasions.
@Jack Winstone Hmm, well there are a couple of marketable options for samurai teppo troops that wouldn't step on history player toes too much. One is to put them in a specialist box along with other exotic but real world army options from the Sengoku era ('Ninja" commando unites, Onna Bushi, artillery, etc). The other again is to make a fantasy expansion for Classic Fantasy Battles, you can add all sorts of ahistorical or limited historcal troops to fantasy expansion and no one would bat an eye.
@Brian Van De Walker I'm keen for the idea of expanding more on the types of samurai tbf. More yari and cavalry. I'm planing on making a takeda clan army so more cavalry would be good.
specialist box would be good to include some tate shields maybe and o-zetsu hand canons would be fun for siege style games
