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This planned set of armies was inspired by the 15mm range of Yayoi armies available from Khurasan miniatures. The Yayoi people crossed over from the Korean peninsula in the Neolithic era and eventually mixed with and ultimately overwhelmed the original hunter-gatherer Jomon people of Japan.

The only opponent listed for the Yayoi is other Yayoi armies. The Meshwesh database gives a date range of 500 BC to 274BC for the army list. The Jomon culture lasted from 14,000 BC to 300 BC, so there is some overlap between the Yayoi and Jomon timelines. I had the idea to field a Jomon culture army using the Yayoi list and minimizing/maximizing some of the troop numbers.

The army options allow for Heavy Foot with dagger-axes, Light Spear, and masses of troops with bows, fielded as Bow Levy, Skirmishers, and even a few optional Archers.

The two army lists would look like this:

Yayoi: Five Heavy Foot, five Light Foot, two Skirmishers, and six Bow Levy
Jomon: Two Heavy Foot, two Light Foot, twelve Skirmishers

I finished two test stands; one for each army. The slingers are Yayoi and the bowmen and Jomon.



Not my best work but it did produce some ideas on how to improve.

The Yayoi will be Khurasan figures used with minimal conversion. Many of them are carrying small shields and will have bronze-headed spears.

The Jomon will be Eureka brand Tlingit and Mound Builder figures with suitable conversions. Most of the Skirmishers will be wearing animal hide clothing, the Light Foot will be wearing simple cloth, and the Heavy Foot will be wearing patterned clothing in brighter colors with chest armor made from strips of bark. There is not a lot of information about Jomon clothing so this is all a best guess. Weapons will be bows with obsidian-tipped arrows and spears with stone heads.

This army represents the early Yayoi period when the Jomon Culture was still present and influential while the Yayoi continued their expansion . The warriors have clothing of their original hunter-gatherer ways mixed with some Yayoi weapons and clothing style. There are two stands of Heavy Foot, five Light Spear, and nine Skirmishers. Most of the troops are wearing animal skins or plain clothing of rustic cloth or hide. Some of the wealthier warriors have patterned cloth like traditional Ainu clothing, others have wooden breastplates like the Yayoi.





HEAVY FOOT TROOPS



The commander is carrying a whalebone sword, one of the more interesting artifacts recovered from Jomon sites and a nice reference to their heavy dependence on food from the sea.





LIGHT FOOT TROOPS



he youngest warriors have the least equipment; a loincloth and a spear with a stone point.





SKIRMISHING ARCHERS





The figures for this army are all from Eureka miniatures. The Tlingit North American and Mound Builder figures required a few conversions like adding some beards but were a pretty close match to the few illustrations I could find of Jomon people.

This army represents the Yayoi culture at the end of their era, when the Shamaness-Queen Himiko united the rival kingdoms of Wa (ancient Japan). This army has four stands of Heavy Foot and two stands of Light Spear. There are also ten stands of Skirmishers.





The figures in this army are all from Khurasan miniatures. I made minor modifications to quite a few of them; adding plain straw hats, replacing weapons, and modifying the turban-like headgear to look a little more proportional on the figure.

HEAVY FOOT





SKIRMISHERS

The army list calls for bow-armed skirmishers, but I already had a few Yayoi slingers so I put them to use. The slings cast on the figure looked like throwing sticks and one of the figures had an odd head, so that was fixed with Green Stuff sculpting material. There are only two poses so rwo of them became javelinmen.









LIGHT FOOT

Some battle photos, scatter terrain, and references.

Battle Photos







Scatter Terrain

I read that Jomon graves often contained bones of wild pigs. This Roman civilian from Forged in Battle was given a straw hat and the pig was painted as a young wild boar. I have an extra straw hut to use if there is any village terrain on the game board so this figure will go nearby.



References:

UNESCO World Heritage - Jomon Prehistoric sites in Northern Japan. https://jomon-japan.jp/en/learn/jomon-culture

Early Samurai armies AD 200-1500; Anthony J Bryant, Osprey (1991)

Heritage of Japan
https://heritageofjapan.wordpress.com/y ... oi-people/

Excellent work once again Paul. Though rustic in appearance you have managed to apply an interesting colour palette.

Cheers,