Basing Samurai for Skirmish and for Impetus

by Derek · December 14, 2009

I recently came across “Song of Blades and Heroes” by Ganesha Games and having played a couple of games I have been inspired to dig out and all sorts of old figures that have not seen the light in years. Song of Blades is a fantastic system for skirmishing and you only need about eight to twelve figures a side for a good game.

Among the figures that I’ve unearthed are these Dixon Samurai. They have been sitting in a box for somewhere near twenty years while I tried to find a decent set of samurai skirmish rules to use with them. The Song of Ninja and Katana variation found on the songofblades Yahoo Group fills the bill and I have played one game so far. Fantastic fun.

The foot figures are based on two pence pieces while the mounted figures are based on 25mm x 50mm ovals of 2mm mdf I had custom-made for me by Martin of Warbases.co.uk . Warbases don’t advertise the fact on their web site, but they’ll custom cut just about any base you want.

I also want to use these Samurai to play the excellent Impetus, from Dadi & Piombo so I got Martin to make me some custom sabots.

The sabots are 12cm x 6cm and the holes for the figures are 26.5mm – that’s 0.5mm bigger than the two pence pieces I’m using for the bases. This leaves enough room for me to paint the edge of the bases. Here is one of the sabots once I’ve finished it.

I have had similar sabots made for the cavalry, again the holes in the sabot are 0.5mm bigger than the bases.

The custom sabots cost me £1.20 a go with 60p for postage and packing. That’s the same price as Warbases charge for the various stock movement trays they make. A bargain as far as I’m concerned.I seem to be on an Italian kick at the moment, both Song of Blades and Heroes and Impetus come from Italian publishers.

Credits: Most of these figures were painted by Jack Glanville of Pioneer Professional Painting, though some were (badly) painted by myself many years ago and then extensively touched up by Jack. I did all the bases myself.