Chaos Dwarves, Araby, and Nippon, anyone?

[Spevna]

I have no knowledge of the WHFB books but it seems to me that you might be able to use the Brettonian book to represent an early Japanese army.

The horses aren't armoured.
They have lots of peasants.
No black powder weapons.
Sense of chivalry.

I may be totally off as I know bugger all about the rules but from an historical point if view I can see the connection.

@Mike the Pike - Spot on. The middle ages were about as dirty, grimy, and disgusting as the come. And also pretty brutal. Read about the first crusade to see just how brutal they were.

[Primarch]

I actually do think that high quality samurai swords are/were the best swords ever made but not every Samurai could afford such an amazing weapon let alone wield it with the skill of that guy. He is obviously a professional whose 'job' is practicing his sword techniques. Would a real Samurai have had the time to reach such a skill level, in between running his fief, drinking tea, writing haiku and warring?

Also, Katanas are generally closer to bastard swords (or hand and a half swords as they are sometimes known) because they can be wielded one handed or two handed. High Elf Sword Masters use great swords which require the use of two hands to use properly.

Anyhoo, arguing history vs fluff is kind of silly since 1 of them is entirely made up.

If you want to use Samurai in WFB, I would recommend the fan made army book as it seems different enough from Empire or Brettonia whilst keeping the "human" level of those books. Plus killer kabuki dolls, oni and kitsune sound cool.

[Mike the Pike]

Which one is the made up one Prim?

The 'imaginary' races of the WFB world are pretty rooted in existing Fantasy stereotypes which are more or less cast in stone. Despite them being imaginary people just wouldn't accept things that went against their stereotypes.Don't believe me? Do you see many T4 (40K Phoenix Lords aside) Elves out there with I1 . Any M5 Dwarves? Any LD 10 Goblins? People would scream Blue Murder if GW introduced any of the above as regular troops (I'm not talking heroes/rare units etc). But why? The 'Old World' is Gw's IP to do with as they please. It's just that no one dares go against the established vision (Tolkein/D&D/Arthurian/Fantasy/European Horror films) of what these things are.

Anyways, what I have been trying to say all along is that all of the human races, Brettonia/The Empire/Tilea/Araby/Nippon/Cathay should be based on the basic human stat line. It's the monsters, specialist units, characters, magic items that really set them apart (which is what Prim was also trying to say). I disagree with the mighty Prim as to them being 'made up' armies however. GW's concept for Brettonians, the Empire and Tilea are fairly squarely based on actual historical periods and regions. Why wouldn't Nippon be the same?

Finally, back to the original topic, as I said before, the Nippon army book presented at the start of the topic does look better than most of the others I have seen. However Prim said he wouldn't be happy using an unoffical book, to which I replied that IMHO a Samurai Army from the Sengoku era would be a lot like an Empire army without the heavy armour and steam tanks if you wanted to go in that direction, which I have actually done. Then some green skinned clown jumped in and said that Samurai remind him of Elven Sword masters and things started to go downhill from there. So you see, it's all Admiral badruck's fault.

[Mike the Pike]

P.S. A No-dachi is a two handed Samurai sword, as used by the imcomparable Toshiro Mifune in the "Seven Samurai"

[Primarch]

Finally, back to the original topic, as I said before, the Nippon army book presented at the start of the topic does look better than most of the others I have seen. However Prim said he wouldn't be happy using an unoffical book,

Its not so much using the unofficial stuff (I'm right behind that concept as the NagoyaHammer 2011 stuff should show), its the buying a WHOLE army that is 100% unofficial to use with that unofficial book. At least with the Tempus Fugitives or Bell of Lost Souls stuff that I have, it is only a handful of models and they are just kit bashes. Plus proxying what is quite clearly one army as something which is quite clearly another has never sat well with me.

I have looked closely at the Nippon Army book and it does look nice. If I am ever in the position where I have the money to do so, I may pick up some stuff. If Pikey would let me use his samurai figs, I'd love to give them a whirl with that army book.

[Primarch]

P.S. A No-dachi is a two handed Samurai sword, as used by the imcomparable Toshiro Mifune in the "Seven Samurai"

That would actually be a really cool game. One player gets 7 fully kitted out samurai heroes/lords and the other player gets a standard army.

Hmmm. I could probably afford to buy and paint 7 samurai models pretty easily.

[Primarch]

New rules up, this time for Norse. http://battlereporter.freeforums.org/no ... t2631.html

[Mike the Pike]

IIRC, around the time of the Lustria campaign, WD put out a little scenario a while back where one side (Dwarves) got to pick seven heroes/lords and kit them out how they wanted up to about 2000pts and the other side (Lizzies) had to pick a normal army. The aim of the game was simply to survive. I would love to do it sometime actually. I think I have the rules somewhere too.

[Admiral-Badruck]

if any one finds a Mongolian Raiders army on the net... and models to back it up I will be buying it don't really care what it costs.

[Spevna]

if any one finds a Mongolian Raiders army on the net... and models to back it up I will be buying it don't really care what it costs.

http://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/ra ... ?range=BOB

Ask and ye shall recieve. Scroll down to the Mongols section and take a look.