Found this cool pic of the battle, made about 100-150 years after the battle, but still a nice visual reference.
I finished cutting figures from sprues and trimming flash yesterday. The Red Box orcs I'd ordered a while back were nice molds with very little flash, but the Koreans had quite a bit, and the Japanese Ashigaru spearmen were making me play Queen's "Flash! Ah-ah!" in my mental music player as I trimmed them. Luckily the Ashigaru archers/arquebusiers had very little on them.
I need to pick up some paints to add a bit of color to easily distinguish units and troop types (no time to give them good detailed paint jobs). Koreans will have light and heavy foot in equal numbers (48 figs each), while the Japanese will have 100 light foot--the ashigaru--and a mixture of heavy and armored foot from my Zvezda samurai infantry (44 figures) and the medium cavalry (17 figures).
I may give the Korean defenders a cannon or two, as they did historically use cannon for defending fortifications (no idea if there were any at Dongnae during the battle--likely not), and they may need the help it will give them.
Then I just need to print up and laminate some terrain feature cards and walls, slap together my model of a fortified gate, and I'm ready to rock this game.
Once you get everything underway, I'm hoping for some pics...
ReplyDeleteSounds like fun! What're you playing?
ReplyDeleteScott--I definitely plan to take pics when we play.
ReplyDeleteNick--we're playing Chainmail, without the fantasy supplement, to play out one of the battles of the Imjin War (Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea in the late 16th Century) that took place right here in Busan.
How's your research into the battle going? There's that Osprey book about the Imjin War (I think it's called SAMURAI INVASION, by Turnbull), and there's another book I got by Samuel Hawley called, eponymously, THE IMJIN WAR.
ReplyDeleteWhat is frustrating is the complete lack of maps and details. I got a copy of Osprey's JAPANESE CASTLES IN KOREA, but they're all Japanese, not Korean, fortifications. Honestly, most foreign visitors throughout Korean history have remarked on how simple and unrefined Korean fortifications were, even during their various periods of disunity. For example, the concept of overlapping fields of fire seems to have completely escaped Korean military architects, except by accident.
If I remember correctly, that picture you display above is actually Japanese in origin, although I may be mistaken. I have to check up on it.
There's a great amount of artifacts on display in the War Museum up in Seoul, and they have a miniature (like, 1/4 scale) replica of a turtle ship. There's a full-size one someplace, but I dunno where.
Are you constructing fortifications or sending for them? What about terrain? You know, I think some of the walls are still up in the hills above Dongnae station. You can see them from the metro. Don't know if those walls actually date back to the 1590s, though. I've been unable to locate the actual Busan citadel remains from this time period. I fear its likely buried beneath concrete and asphalt.
Hey Dave,
ReplyDeleteDon't have the time to read whole books just for one table-top miniatures game. It's not gonna be accurate to any extent. (Not to say I wouldn't want to read something by Turnbull, just that I don't have time to do it now).
I've got a snap-together cardboard model of a fortress gate (actually the one in Suwon, but close enough) as actual 3D terrain. Other than that I'll just be following the lead of anther blogger (forget who at the moment) who used laminated paper with terrain drawn on it.
I'm not about to lug a whole scale mountainside up to PNU!
From what internet research I have done, the walls currently on the hill in Dongnae are reconstructions, and they're only partial. And yes, wherever the Busanjin fortress was (somewhere near my place, as I'm in Busan-Jin-gu), they're gone like the pterodactyl.