I’m a child of the 90’s. My first girlfriend was named Megan Kurosawa. One of my best friends received some black market ninja stars from his Uncle who bought them in California, or overseas? I don’t remember, it was almost 40 years ago. We killed a lot of trees with those throwing stars. We played too much Ninja Gaiden, Final Fantasy, etc. I am also a subscriber to Wargames Atlantic tribes on MyMiniFactory, and I just happen to have all of their Japanese models in my digital collection

So when this book was announced, I was mildly interested. And of course I grabbed a copy.

Let’s start at the end as I like to do. There is no index, which is beginning to be disappointing to me. I like to be able to look up rules quickly in an alphabetical order. Not a game breaker, but it is a little frustrating none the less.

History

The first fiftiesh pages are all about the history of the period. I really enjoyed it. I had no knowledge of the what amounts to a 100+ years of civil war in Japan. The author focuses on the three main personalities of the period, aka the 3 Great Unifiers (Oda Nobunga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu). I will admit I struggled quite a bit with the names in this period. It doesn’t help that they changed their names several times over the course of their lives. It is a good history lesson, and I learned a lot about the period, the people, and the various types of soldiers.

Rules

The next section (about 14 pages) is the rules. I haven’t actually played any Pike & Shotte, it is not my period of history that I am excited about right now. There is quite a bit here about setting up armies, how they were organized, and strategems.
The rules make sense, they don’t seem too hard to follow, and I could see this being a fun period to fight. You have Samurai charging, Peasants with muzzleloaders, and ninjas.
I particularly liked the rules for the ninjas (aka Shinobis). You can pick a number (X) with your opponent, and then you role X dice, and depending on how you arranged your ninjas, stuff happens. Stuff like assassinating your opponents general, sabotaging terrain features, or even blackmailing one of your opponents units to turn on them in the middle of the battle.
I did enjoy the rules for the Dubious Loyalty. The ability for one of your opponents units to turn on them or flee the battlefield can really help turn the tide of the battle.

Scenarios

There are eleven scenarios. These are based on historical battles that took place during the time period. You have everything from straight up fights, to seiges and last but not least, you have the battles where units just straight up decided they were backing a losing horse, and they just just switch loyalty in the middle of the battle. Yeah, I keep bringing that up, but I really like it. It seems fun.
These scenarios will take some serious setup and time. I think just about everyone of them requires an 6 x 4 table. You need things like hills, castles, rivers, oceans, woods, etc. Not too mention that amount of troops that will be required to play them. One scenario contains 19 different troops types. Assuming even just 8 men to a unit, it would be at least 152 troops. That is a lot to paint and glue together. Once you have all those troops, they can be reused for multiple battles.

Misc.

There are a ton of pictures of painted minis. I like that they are really good paint jobs, but they aren’t something that the average hobbyist can’t achieve. It is nice not to see minis that are painted by masterclass painters who spend weeks painting one single mini. It makes the whole period much more accessible for the average hobbyist who just wants to get some painted armies on the table.

The scenario maps are really good. They give you the deployment of the various units, and where the terrain should be set up.

Finally last but not least, you get a bibliography to learn more about the period from a variety of publishers.

Collecting a Sendoku Period Army

Let me know of any more collections that you like in the comments, and I will add them to the list.

Digital:

Ikko Ikki Warriors - Atlantic Digital

Samurai Yari Cavalry - Atlantic Digital

Samurai (2) - Yari Samurai - Atlantic Digital

Armored Samurai (1) - Atlantic Digital

Ashigaru with Tanegashima - Atlantic Digital

Dragon Empire 1.5 - Titan Forge

Dragon Empire 2 - Titan Forge

Japanese Samurai Army (9th Age / WP) - Kyoushuneko Miniatures

Hokusa Samurai Army - Hokusa 3D Designs

Most of these figures should be interchangeable, so you can build just about anything listed in the book. I’m sure there are more digital collections that I am not aware.

Physical:

Samurai Army Command - Wargames Atlantic

Samurai - Wargames Atlantic

Ashigaru - Wargames Atlantic

Steel Fist Miniatures - Large collection

Fireforge Games - Large Collection

I don’t have any of these, so I can’t attest to the quality, and this is not a comprehensive list, a quick internet search will turn up many more. I have been happy with the plastics I have gotten from Wargames Atlantic

If anyone wants to purchase and send to me, then I will gladly paint and play with them :) Kidding.

Summary

All in all, I enjoyed my perusal of this book. Will I be playing the Wars of the Samurai? Probably not anytime soon. I have the ability to actually make all the models in the book, but I’m not sure I’m that interested in it to actually undertake the modeling required. But if you like Samurai, Japanese history, and ninja’s, I would recommend picking this up.