The Angry Lurker: Japan

Showing posts with label Japan. Show all posts

Friday, 13 June 2014

15mm Russo-Japanese demo game at Broadside 2014, The Rejects sweating their crackers off or....

....how BigLee is crap with the dice even when it's a demo game!

We have been going to Broadside for it's last 3 years now and while I thought we would go again but not put on a game! Little did I know that Postie would rustle something up quickly and that it would be impressive enough and beautiful enough to win a prize!

It was hot that day...........

We arrived about 0800hrs for an opening at 1000hrs, took about 50 minutes for it to be put together.....

Little help from the smiling one........

Just more useless advise but every group has one........

The showstopper.........

Russian balloon for spotting and telephoning in Japanese movements........

Sculpted metal base to balance the monster, beautiful work from the little megalomaniac......

Finally set up........

Apart from the Peter Pig building this is all hand crafted too..........

Japanese start their advance....

Russians hide behind their hills, me and Lee started to get suspicious about the Russians intentions in this demo game..........

Very suspicious.........

Siberians in their lovely whites...........

We even have telegraph poles with telegraph lines, sewing thread lines, first one to knock a pole over had to buy the teas, poor old Lee.........

On another note I have been put in charge of advertising, where it says "Posties Rejects" we can add your name or business for a nice little, very cheap, negotiable little fee, I'm hoping for Coca Cola and Burger King to come in first but no offer openly laughed at at this stage.......

How do we win this game now, we had been advancing our figures forward for the effect and as eye candy for the visitors to the show........

All of a sudden the Russians are up and prone and firing at the poor strung out demo advancing Japanese.....

We were more engaged with talking with visitors and trying to keep cool in the fecking heat, we had little time to play a demo game (I hope I'm not saying demo too much Ray!)......

Ray about to release a serious wedge in to the Foundry coffers......

The Milton boys had found a cool spot and were making the most of it.........

I did mention it was hot?..............

Tamsin (fellow Reject) taking a picture of Rays devious and conniving I'm playing a real game face for evidence)......

The Japanese taking a little bit of a hammering in this demo and not a real game......

That observer was a bit of an eagle eyed git..........

International observers too frowned upon the playing style of the Russian side........

A melee for which I cannot find a result as it was not recorded I believe......

We soon wiped the smug faces of these two Russkies when me and Lee went shopping and called a tactical demo draw and headed off.......

Winner, winner chicken dinner, all down to the little megalomaniac, well deserved too............

Next time: The treatment of metal miniatures, bullying from scary little gits and my Analogue Hobbies Challenge 600 point bet figures start to come home to roost!

Thursday, 16 June 2011

My 28mm Painted Portuguese Jesuits for Japan.

The Society of Jesus (Latin: Societas Iesu, S.J., SJ, or SI) is a religious order of men called Jesuits, who follow the teachings of the . Jesuit and brothers—also sometimes known colloquially as "God's Marines" and as "The Company", this terminology because of founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background—are engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations on six continents reflecting the Formula of the Institute(principle) of the Society. They are known in the fields of education (schools, colleges, universities, seminaries, theological faculties), intellectual research, and cultural pursuits in addition to missionary work, giving retreats, hospital and parish ministry, promoting social justice and ecumenical dialogue.

The Society was founded by St. Ignatius who, after being wounded in battle, experienced a religious conversion and composed the Spiritual Exercises in order to help others to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ more closely. In 1534, Ignatius gathered six young men, including St. Francis Xavier and Bl. Pierre Favre, and together they professed vows of poverty and chastity, and then later, obedience, including a special vow of obedience to the Pope. Rule 13 of Ignatius' Rules for Thinking with the Church said: "That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity, if [the Church] shall have defined anything to be black who to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black."Ignatius' plan of the order's organization was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540 by the bull containing the Formula of the Institute. The opening lines of this founding document would declare that the Society of Jesus was founded to "strive especially for the propagation and defence of the faith and progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine. The Society participated in the Counter-Reformation and later in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council in the Catholic Church.

The Society of Jesus is consecrated under the patronage of Madonna Della Strada, a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is led by a Superior General currently Adolfo Nicolás. The headquarters of the Society, its General Curia, is in Rome. The historic curia of St Ignatius is now part of the Collegio del Gesù attached to the Church of the Gesù, the Jesuit Mother Church.

Thursday, 9 June 2011

Ninja.

Some of the ninja from my collection, the rest (40-50 I think) are in black and I will take pictures of them at a later date, always considered this one of my favourite parts of the samurai warfare period.

A ninja (忍者^?) or shinobi (忍び^?) was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations. The ninja, using covert methods of waging war, were contrasted with the samurai, who had strict rules about honour and combat. In his Buke Myōmokushō, military historian Hanawa Hokinoichi writes of the ninja:

“

They travelled in disguise to other territories to judge the situation of the enemy; they would inveigle their way into the midst of the enemy to discover gaps, and enter enemy castles to set them on fire, and carried out assassinations, arriving in secret.

”

The origin of the ninja is obscure and difficult to determine, but can be surmised to be around the 14th century. However, the antecedents to the Ninja may have existed as early as the Heian and early Kamakura eras. Few written records exist to detail the activities of the ninja. The word shinobi did not exist to describe a ninja-like agent until the 15th century, and it is unlikely that spies and mercenaries prior to this time were seen as a specialized group. In the unrest of the Sengoku period (15th - 17th centuries), mercenaries and spies for hire arose out of the Iga and Kōga regions of Japan, and it is from these clans that much of later knowledge regarding the ninja is inferred. Following the unification of Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate, the ninja descended again into obscurity. However, in the 17th and 18th centuries, manuals such as the Bansenshukai (1676) — often centered on Chinese military philosophy — appeared in significant numbers. These writings revealed an assortment of philosophies, religious beliefs, their application in warfare, as well as the espionage techniques that form the basis of the ninja's art. The word ninjutsu would later come to describe a wide variety of practices related to the ninja.

The mysterious nature of the ninja has long captured popular imagination in Japan, and later the rest of the world. Ninjas figure prominently in folklore and legend, and as a result it is often difficult to separate historical fact from myth. Some legendary abilities include invisibility, walking on water, and control over natural elements. The ninja is also prevalent in popular culture, appearing in many forms of entertainment media.

Iga and Koga Clans

The Iga and Kōga clans have come to describe families living in the province of Iga (modern Mie Prefecture) and the adjacent region of Kōka (later written as Kōga), named after a village in what is now Shiga Prefecture. From these regions, villages devoted to the training of ninjas first appeared. The remoteness and inaccessibility of the surrounding mountains may have had a role in the ninja's secretive development. Historical documents regarding the ninja's origins in these mountainous regions are considered generally correct. The chronicle Go Kagami Furoku writes, of the two clans' origins:

"There was a retainer of the family of Kawai Aki-no-kami of Iga, of pre-eminent skill in shinobi, and consequently for generations the name of people from Iga became established. Another tradition grew in Kōga".

Likewise, a supplement to the Nochi Kagami, a record of the Ashikaga shogunate, confirms the same Iga origin:

"Inside the camp at Magari of the Shogun [Ashikaga] Yoshihisa there were shinobi whose names were famous throughout the land. When Yoshihisa attacked Rokkaku Takayori, the family of Kawai Aki-no-kami of Iga, who served him at Magari, earned considerable merit as shinobi in front of the great army of the Shogun. Since then successive generations of Iga men have been admired. This is the origin of the fame of the men of Iga."

A distinction is to be made between the ninja from these areas, and commoners or samurai hired as spies or mercenaries. Unlike their counterparts, the Iga and Kōga clans produced professional ninja, specifically trained for their roles. These professional ninja were actively hired by daimyos between 1485 and 1581, until Oda Nobunaga invaded Iga province and wiped out the organized clans. Survivors were forced to flee, some to the mountains of Kii, but others arrived before Tokugawa Ieyasu, where they were well treated. Some former Iga clan members, including Hattori Hanzō, would later serve as Tokugawa's bodyguards.

Following the Battle of Okehazama in 1560, Tokugawa employed a group of eighty Kōga ninja, led by Tomo Sukesada. They were tasked to raid an outpost of the Imagawa clan. The account of this assault is given in the Mikawa Go Fudoki, where it was written that Kōga ninja infiltrated the castle, set fire to its towers, and killed the castellan along with two hundred of the garrison. The Kōga ninjas are said to have played a role in the later Battle of Sekigahara (1600), where several hundred Kōga assisted soldiers under Torii Mototada in the defence of Fushimi Castle. After Tokugawa's victory at Sekigahara, the Iga acted as guards for the inner compounds of Edo Castle, while the Kōga acted as a police force and assisted in guarding the outer gate. In 1614, the initial "winter campaign" at the Siege of Osaka saw the ninja in use once again. Miura Yoemon, a ninja in Tokugawa's service, recruited shinobi from the Iga region, and sent ten ninjas into Osaka Castle in an effort to foster antagonism between enemy commanders. During the later "summer campaign", these hired ninjas fought alongside regular troops at the Battle of Tennōji.