First game with samurais

In between Mordheim games and WHFB's we decided to plan an evening playing a new game. After we went to Crisis'11 in Antwerp, new games, war bands and miniatures we were inspired. Now it was time to play Red Sand Blue Sky the Samurai version. After reading some posts on this blog we took up the idea as well. RSBS lends itself perfectly for converting it to a samurai version.

We played this game for the first time and we were with the three of us. All having one samurai in the field to make it less confusing.
The Japanese garden I made was of perfect size. With small stones we denoted the different zones of the RSBS arena. We chose to make a simple samurai based on the two sworded gladiator. Now all samurais were quite similar only difference in weapon being 2 swords or a 2-handed sword. Furthermore the difference was in the dice rolls and division of attribute points of course. This was for us enough for now since we were learning the rules of the game as well.
I think it worked out well actually. It took us 2 hours to play this version the first time including making the samurai rosters. No campaign just a simple fight to the death. Good for the first time.
I think we will be creating our own samurai rosters and the major change in the rules being the fighting styles. We just have to create some fighting styles for samurai and the game is as good as converted. Campaigns can be played just the same not having gladiator schools but samurai families/schools and we're off! Next games will be play testing our own created samurai fighting styles which of course will be posted here.
Good fun this new game and when more familiar with rules can be a quick game to start or finish a gaming evening!

Red Sand Blue Sky: painting the samurais

With the three of us we've bought two sets of samurais and we ended up with 4 models each. I started to paint the first one in the color theme: red and black with gold features.

This something completely different than painting fantasy figures. Also very refreshing in painting approach and I found out stuff that I can use for fantasy painting. For example the dragon on the back of the kimono pas simple and easy to do but gives a lot of character to the mode. Painting flesh is something that should look more human skinned and is a challenge. All in all I think the first steps in painting samurai came out nicely.
I decided to put them on a simple round base with simple sandy cover to keep it tight with the japanese garden terrain I made.

The next samurai has already some paint splashed on so I will give you the first work in progress picture as well. Again the same colors but now reversed. The other 2 samurai carry armor and more battle gear so they will be a lot different then these two, but that is for the next post!

Red Sand Blue Sky: Samurai version

Besides gaming, new games are in the pipeline. After finding some cool blog posts on several cool tabletop boardgames that can be played quick and do not involve huge amounts of miniatures we bought the rules for Red Sand Blue Sky(check the site out: Two hour war-games has more cool rulesets, buy your own mini's and go!). Originally this game is for playing with gladiators but after reading this post on the possibility of playing it Samurai style we decided to go for it.

I built me a game board that should resemble a Japanese garden. With the cherry tree and specific placing of stones and nice lined gravel it really resembles what I had in mind. The sand you see, is a mixture of fine sand and watered down wood glue (PVA glue). WOrks like a charm! I thought the sand would still come off and my house would be all over after playing with it once, but it is rock solid! Good stuff.


We've ordered our samurais at Perry miniatures. Painting them just started so only basecaoted miniatures on the battlefield to show you the size.

Of course the game for gladiators we also will be playing, the arena is already made (look at this post on our blog). 4th of november it is Crisis in Antwerp, Belgium were we are heading: gladiator miniatures are on the wish list!