Jung Pirates

Hi all

Ok 3 posts in 2 days is getting silly but yesterday's two were bonus posts for me and we now go back to our regularly scheduled programming ;-)

I said I was going to start my next faction for Bushido with the starter set BUT then Damon "Rulez" Carlton of the Nerd Herd found someone selling their entire Kickstarter set 'Rise of the Kage' and the expansion set 'Docks of Ryu' with two lots of extra minis for a ridiculous sum of money.  

This board game version of Bushido pits the Ninja clan 'Kaze Kage' against the Prefecture of Ryu and the Dockyard thugs of the Jung Pirates.  The game is yet to be played by us and I will let "Rulez" run you through the unboxing and our first games rather than do it now. The amount of minis that he got with the game is astonishing and although cast in soft plastic they are to an amazing detail (as you would expect from GCT Studios) in fact they are the same as their metal counterparts that were released for the tabletop version of the game albeit the detail is marginally softer, marginally and for the princely sum of about 75pence compared to £7.95 for its equivalent it's a bit of a no-brainer!

Because of this I sifted through his extra set of minis and extracted the dockyard thugs (as well as a few choice Prefecture minis for my Ryu faction). First up is Minato Jung...

Although trained in the ways of the Samurai, Minato was always destined to follow his own unique path. A brute of a man, more at home in a water house than the courts. His body tells the stories of countless battles, wearing each scar proudly as a mark of honour to his physical prowess. That is not to say that he is all brawn, a cunning and clever leader, hiding from the Prefecture in plain sight. In battle he wields his trademark anchor, launching it through the air making it appear as light as a Tengu feather. Those unlucky enough to be caught by his attentions sent sprawling, dazed and disorientated.

I've shown the studio version of the mini first for a reason (i don't normally show them at all, why show up my own painting! lol), The studio version is the metal miniature that they released following the successful kickstarter and the release of the boxed games.  It's a particularly gorgeous miniature with really crisp detail but I wanted you to compare it to the plastic version and, paint job aside I defy you to see a big difference between the two.  The detail as I stated earlier is softer but it really is only just.

base colours

with shading

after highlights

rear view - ooh er! you can see some of the Prefecture models in the background.  The ninjas (green) are Damon's

to me the differences are so slight and once on the table you would be hard pushed to tell the difference unless you picked the mini up!  The plastic, where it had been stored and sent was a little bent on the anchor and spear shafts and swords on the other models but easily corrected with a little boiling water and ice water dip.  Then a quick trim and scrape got rid of most of the mold lines, finally a spray of whatever primer I had lurking in the shed (I had some white and some Dunkelgelb) finished off the prep.  The pinky red colour I chose on his "hakama" contrasted nicely with the yellow and he was fairly easy to paint in the end.  Finally I shamelessly stole a basing idea off a chap - Matt Sophisticat on the Bushido - The Game Facebook group whose Jung Pirates are amazing!  Not only did I pinch the feature on the base but also the LoS markings on the rim of the base, something I've been struggling with for some time.  If you let me know what you think, because if its a thumbs up I will probably do the technique for the rest of my factions (a process that will take a looonnnggg time!).  First up though this is the injury I received while cutting the minis off of the supplied bases using a flawed cutting technique....

This guy was always going to be added to my Pirate faction as he is absolutely brutal in combat and will take up the majority of the fighting tasks while the others crack on with the scenario conditions, so I'm really glad I managed to get him so cheaply - thanks Damon!!

Finally the base LoS will be more prominent on the next couple of posts.

hope you enjoy
dGG