Suppliers / Manufacturers

(click on link to read review / find web adress)

Company	Range	Comments	Quality	Example
AEG, Clan War REVIEW Now distributed through Reaper as "Rokugan" and "Legend of the Five Rings".	Large range (both "historical" and fantasy). Reasonable prices on larger packs but high prices on unit and personality packs.	From what I've seen so far I would rank these miniatures as almost of The Foundry quality. The range varies in size/scale slightly and some people claim the Clan Warriors are oversized (but I love 'em).	4/5
Assault Group, Samurai	Historical 28 mm samurai (similar range, if not that large, to Perry Miniatures).	Haven't seen them IRL yet.	?	?
Black Orc Games, 100 Kingdoms: Bushido	Historical/fantasy 28 mm samurai (incl. "Sumo Honour Guard").	Haven't seen them IRL yet.	?	?
Dixon, Samurai REVIEW	This is it! Huge selection and a catalogue with good hand drawn pictures. Samurai, Ashigaru, Ninja and Bakemono. Many mounted historical Lords. Weapons and sashimonos sold separately - equip your other troops...	Compulsory! Although of 25 mm scale, they look great on the gaming table. Sculpting flaws include "fat" faces and strange legs on running models. These models could make up the bulk of your army as well as nice command (even war gongs and Taiko-drums).	4/5
Eureka Miniatures REVIEW	A few samurai, sohei and ashigaru miniatures in 15 and 28mm.	Really nice 28mm and incredibly good 15mm.	3/5
The Foundry / Wargames Foundry REVIEW Discontinued	About 30 different (unmounted only).	Designed by Aly Morrison (!) this range is an absolute must. Buy the lot and You´ve got all the Heroes your army will ever need.	5/5
Games Workshop REVIEW Discontinued	Rather large selection of Ninjas. Some Samurai (even one mounted on a Temple Dog).	Excellently sculpted but expensive.	4/5
Old Glory, Historical REVIEW	Large range, reasonable prices. Packages of 30 foot or 10 cavalry and some command/special packs.	Buy the civilians and peasants, stay away from ashigaru spearmen.	3/5
Old Glory, Samurai Wars REVIEW	Rather good range with the same characters on foot and on horseback.	Actually quite good. I like most of them, only complaint: The poses seems a bit unnatural at times and the heads of the sohei (with cowls) are smallish, also the horses (as almost all other samurai manufacturers) are too small.	3/5
Minifigs	12, 15 and 25mm miniatures - including lots of samurai.	?	?	?
Perry Miniatures, Age of Wars REVIEW	Great range.	Really nice miniatures, a bit small ("true 28", not "heroic 28") but really well sculpted and historically correct. Probably the best range for historical wargamers. Highly recommended. Gotta love Perrys for publishing greens of their range.	4/5
Ral Partha, Bushido	Nice range. Many creatures and special characters.	Tends to be a bit to small (<25 mm). You will not find any Heroes in this range.	3/5
Ral Partha, Historical	Large range, cheap. Many mounted samurai.	Too small for my taste (15-25 mm). Poorly sculpted.	2/5	(why paint one?)
Reaper, Damiyo	Approx. 20 different (of which about five are worth buying).	Some are of high quality, others are not. Warning: they vary in scale from 15-25 mm ! They claim to have won "best historical..." and yet they have samurai wearing flower-power trousers from 1970...	2/5
Reaper, Dark Heaven Legends REVIEW	Hidden among the various miniatures in Reapers range there are a few samurai, monks, ninja and other interesting figures.	I just *love* Reaper for publishing greens of their range.	5/5
Scheltrum Miniatures	Resin samurai boats and ships (!) with crew-members.	?	?	?
Steve Barber Models	42-mm (!) samurai and ashigaru miniatures...	?	?	?
Warrior Miniatures	Large range, very cheap. Samurai and Mongols. Army deals.	Too small for my taste (15-20 mm). Poorly sculpted.	2/5	(why paint one?)
Village Green, Bushi REVIEW	Samurai, houses and boats.	Altough not as great as their houses - Stronghold-Miniatures has a really nice samurai miniature range.	3/5

 

Contact me:

If you know of any other companies that produce high quality Samurai in 25-32 mm scale then mail information about them to me, please... Samurai miniature manufacturers are welcome to send samples to me - I promise to review, paint and "web" them A.S.A.P. Mail me for an postal address :-) NOTE 1: On this site I focus on 25-32 mm scale miniatures and therefore I tend to give low ratings on figures that are small(er). This does not automatically mean that those figures are of poor quality (compared to other 15-20 mm scale miniatures). If the ratings above has broken some miniature sculptors heart - well, than I am truly sorry. NOTE 2: I have created these pages in an effort to guide you into buying the right stuff and I promise to try and be fair with my ratings. All pictures are of my own miniatures and they are simply scanned into 72 dpi gif/jpegs without resizing them so that you may compare scale. NOTE 3: This site is designed for a resolution of 640x480 or better and I recommend using Netscape 3.0 or higher. My intention is to continue keeping the layout simple and the pictures as small and low-res as possible to shorten download time. I have deliberately chosen a white background and black text having both onscreen reading and printing in mind. The pages are generated using Claris Home Page 3.0 on a five year old Macintosh. NOTE 4: Thank you for stopping by, I hope you found what you were looking for and that you will return later to look at future updates. I would love hearing from you, any comment - positive or negative - will be highly appreciated. Regards, Magnus Johansson

 

Updated 2004-03-28 © Magnus Johansson, 2004