Back in the early seventies, any wargamer who was anyone played Ancients, Napoleonics, ACW or WWII. A few avant-garde types could be seen dabbling in English Civil War or even Seven Years War. And Fantasy hadn't yet been invented. For myself, I was a staunch ancients man (well, juvenile). I couldn't see past the achievements of Alexander although I had been known to occasionally dust off my Airfix ACWs for some brief "horse and musket" action.
At the time, I regularly attended a wargames club in Glasgow. Here, the emphasis was strictly on Ancients and Napoleonics. However, one day a few of the club's hierarchy turned up with a bunch of samurai figures from a new Minifigs 25mm range and a set of their hastily designed and typed rules (no word processing luxuries in those days). Being of an impressionable age, how could I resist a game with the Ultimate Warriors?
Unfortunately, as a mere underling, I was not invited to partake in such an exotic and innovative amusement. Not to be outdone, I immediately took on another paper round and promptly ordered my own figures. By the time I had these chaps painted up, a set of Samurai rules appeared, written by the London Wargames Section. These were a nice set of skirmish rules which I used on and off for a few years. Of course, my "real" wargaming was still ancients; the samurai games were only for the occasional skirmish.
Around this time I read a brilliant article on the campaigns of Oda Nobunaga by Stephen Turnbull in the short-lived wargames magazine called, I think, "Sword and Lance". James Clavell's "Shogun" epic was next, followed by "Samurai - A Military History" also by Turnbull. Despite my interest, I didn't consider the period for army level games, mainly because it took me weeks to paint a few of the blighters. I'm not the greatest painter in the world and I'm certainly not the fastest. Also, none of my wargaming pals would even consider painting a samurai army, so I would have had to paint two armies. No Way!
Time passed. I had just about completed three very large 6mm ancient armies and was thinking about starting a new army in a larger scale, probably 15mm. But what period? I couldn't face any more ancients and ACW was well accounted for. SYW Prussians were looking a good bet. Or maybe some 30 Years War Imperialists perhaps. Then, a series of articles started to appear in Lone Warrior by none other than our esteemed editor. Members of more than a few years will doubtless remember "The Siege of Osaka" and other articles. Naturally my interest was rekindled. But I still wouldn't consider painting up a couple of armies. Of course, no harm in just buying a few figures to see what they're like, eh?
Shortly after this, I was in Yorkshire on business and popped in to visit Kenn. And funnily enough, the wargames table just happened to be creaking under the weight of samurai masses. Being of an even more impressionable age (about 37), I finally decided that I would take the plunge and the planning of two armies (the Uesugi and the Takeda clans) was duly initiated. So although my interest in samurai goes way back, I suppose I can thank/blame LW for having Feudal Japan as a main wargaming period!
Now, six years and about 450 samurai figures later I'm kinda thinking of starting another period. Now what was that article Kenn wrote recently about Aztecs? Mmm, maybe not...at least not this week.
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