As someone who’ve also made a Nippon list (as I believe you already know), it’s always nice to see someone else take on it, and you have quite a bit of interesting ideas here, but there are a few things you might want to consider.
- More units! You have probably already planned this, but the list is rather thin atm. Some more choices based on Japanese culture or warfare should really spice things up. In my list for instance, I had both Sumo Warriors with nodachi swords and Kabuki dolls with poisoned hair pins, might be something to think about
- AP weapons and full plate. Now this is mostly just historical nitpicking, but the Samurai weapons weren’t made to pierce armour. I get why you would include that for game design, but it is rather the opposite of what the swords were good at. Likewise, full plate samurai armour makes little sense when their armour partly consisted of bamboo and had no protection of the back of the thighs or upper arms.
- The Way of the Warrior rule I like (will even nick that one for my bodyguard unit :)), but I think it might be a little too much for the whole army. I mean sure, Samurai are brave, but they are still humans and could break from combat like any other man. Though that is also just a small nitpick, it works just fine from a design POV.
- Kappa Riders: Kappa are really evil daemons, not something you would normally see as a mount. Though you could easily expand on that in the fluff I suppose. Just a little weird seeing “noble” Samurai on daemons, kindof like having Brets on manticores or something
- Empty Hand giving +1 AS to the enemy? How does that work? Can they take more punishment because you hit them with a fist instead of a sword? Because if they can KB a man, I’m sure they can hurt him just as much with their fists as with a weapon, just saying.
- Oni too, would really be daemons. But that’s just another design choice, you made fit rather well as warpstone tainted Ogres I must say!
- Gojira, while awesomely hilarious, feels more like it should be an enemy of Nippon than their ally, but that might just be me wanting to stay true to the movie. Nothing that needs to be changed really
That said, I think this is one of the better Nippon lists out there, it has some fun cultural references and sane statlines for one (unlike the many WS6, S4, T4, I6, A2 samurais out there)! Really looking forward to seeing what else you might think of!
Well it’s not a historical Japan army - it’s fantasy, so katanas are the best swords ever, like in stupid western films about them. Kappa and Oni are just names too - just because they’re demons in real-life Japanese mythology doesn’t mean they have to be that for the Nipponese too. My Oni concept, for example, owes more to the D&D Ogre Mage (itself based on Oni) than the real mythology.
The +1 armour save thing on Empty Hand is because they’re fighting unarmed and all models in Warhammer are assumed to be using a hand weapon - i.e. normal armour saves are against swords and axes. The mechanic I’ve chosen to represent this is taken from Mordheim, where daggers and fists did the same thing. Since Empty Hand only works when unarmed, there needs to be some disadvantage for using it instead of a weapon.
Also, Gojira being an ally is true to the movie franchise! He was only a menace at the start -now he tends to fight other kaiju, or at least be the lesser of two evils.
Well it's not a historical Japan army - it's fantasy, so katanas are the best swords ever, like in stupid western films about them.
I give them a rule allowing a re-roll to wound if the target has only a 6+ or no armour save.
Oni too, would really be daemons. But that's just another design choice, you made fit rather well as warpstone tainted Ogres I must say!
Oni do appear as big but dopey ogres more often than terrifying demons in Japanese culture though. The times when they are depicted in really quite disturbing ways are in the scrolls of hell and other older texts, where they do bad sh*t to people. ;)
I would say that Kappa and Tengu are both very specific creatures though.
Kappa-riders in particular conjures some very odd images. Have you read the old wives tale where they pull your innards out of your arse if you try to crap in the river? ;) That'll learn ya.
I am, but Baggronor sent me over his version of this and what it lacks in references to Japanese kaiju movies, it more than makes up for in actual knowledge of Japanese culture, so I’m going to incorporate some of his stuff and update the bestiary first.
