Showcase: Test Of Honour Ronin!

Koncha!

Dear honorable Test of Honour friends, here is my first completed expansion set: Kadashi and his Ronin thugs.

I was lucky enough to get hold of the Test Of Honour expansions sets at Salute, and as the Ronin box has a low figure count (the core box has an extraordinary high one!) I decided to start with them.

Building the figures was fun although it does require some moderate modelling skills using plastic, as well as super, glue for the special Ronin heads which are metal.

I was amazed how the characterfully sculptured heads indeed transform the ordinary samurai bodies into a gang of Ronin!

Unfortunately our family dog, a Beagle puppy called Pixie, must have thought the same and she took a particular interest in Kadashi himself…

At least I could retrieve the head and part of his weapon. The keen observer will have noticed the extensively converted Kadashi already…

Converted Kadashi, pretty gruesome he is!

When I first started to think of painting Samurai figures and looked at pictures for reference I did feel slightly intimidated and a little unsure how to paint them. In fact so much that I considered a monochrome approach:

But having been a little more work than I had hoped, and taking under consideration all the lovely pre-painted 4Ground buildings I am planning to use them with, I eventually discarded the idea.

Still, I wanted to capture the feel of the old black & white Samurai movies I loved to watch as a lad. Therefore I went for a very limited colour palette and a fairly featureless and minimalistic basing.

There is nothing wrong with painting them all differently and colourfully, of course, but I like a dark and muted colour scheme for them. After all, they are the baddies!

As for building the figures, please don’t be shy! If you’ve got a hobby knife and some imagination you really can get a lot out of those plastics