Considering Clan War is ancient and dead, does anyone know of any theme appropriate miniatures out there that won't be a long running treasure hunt?

There’s a current minis game called Bushido, by GCT Studios. Look for GCT Bushido minis if you want to google images.

So, this is a fun question, since I love miniatures wargaming in general. I'll stick at 25-30mm since that's the scale that will fit with any Clan War figs you pick up.

GCT's Bushido minis are great. So much character, lots of fantasy elements. Downside? They're big and won't scale well with any other lines of samurai figures aside from Zenit's Kensai which they'll only be "noticeably bigger" than. The other downside is they're ridiculously expensive which means if the aesthetics of scale matter to you, you and your wallet are stuck with Bushido. Their Bakemono (goblins) are so cool though and goblins don't have a set scale with humans anyway... Still, at like $4+ a goblin (and that's bargain hunting), that horde is going to cost you.

The best line currently, imo? Zenit's Kensai. Gorgeous, well-sculpted models. Lots of fantasy creatures and a line of undead ashigaru and samurai, as well as traditional samurai. Some of the samurai are even quasi-L5R in their look. Scale decently with other model ranges in the genre if being a little taller. Downside? They're also really expensive, especially the characters (which are most of the figures you'll want for the heroes). Line troops are a little more reasonable as they come in bulk, but still pricey. If you're in the US, take advantage of the exchange rate and try to find a seller on Ebay.es and buy them in Euros from Spain.

Best overall line in balancing price and quality? Perry Miniatures. Without a doubt. Of course, they are historical, so the only downside is that there's no fantasy stuff. Good source for samurai and ashigaru, with some decent townspeople. They will be smaller than Zenit by a tiny bit, but hey, some people are short. They will be dwarfed by Bushido. You can get them at a slight discount from TheWarStore in the US and Firestorm or Wayland in the UK.

Best price option? Test of Honor by Warlord. Sculpts are decent, especially for scrubs like "Generic Bad Guy Samurai, Ronin, and Ashigaru." Not a ton of options outside of that though. It's a samurai combat game and the figures are designed around that. Scale tends to be a little inconsistent because Warlord bought Wargames Factory's lines a few years ago and not all the figs were done by the same company or sculptors. But, for the most part, these will scale with Perry and Zenit (again, being a little smaller and slighter). The Ronin box has a really good metal Not-Crab samurai in it. And they are plastic multi-part kits meaning you can assemble them with weapons as needed. But these from the same places as Perry if you're looking online.

Figs I don't own:

North Star's Ronin figs seem like they scale well as I've seen in pictures. I don't own any yet. Their sculpts are okay. Swords are a little bulky and crude to my taste, but it is what it is. I do like the look of their Not The Seven Samurai set. The other figs seem like they can be done better with Perry, Zenit or Warlord, especially since all the packs have at least 2 teppo (musket) wielding figs in them that aren't useful to L5R.

Also, Ronin Hood has a couple of Not-L5R Shugenja , and might be the only seller currently selling those aside from GCT. Scale looks right, sculpts look a'ight. Price isn't bad. Edit: Oh, also, female characters. This is probably the only line other than a handful from Kensai that have female warriors. Again though, I don't own any so I don't know where these sit in scale or sculpt quality. Claim to be 28mm top-of-head to foot, so they should, if that's true, put them right in with Perry/Warlord/North Star.

Steel Fist minis look good, seem to be slightly bigger than Perry but scale well with Kensai. If you sprinkle them in, like with Kensai, from pictures I've seen, they probably won't stick out like a sore thumb. And the price of them means you won't be tempted to buy a ton of them anyway.

9 hours ago, zyxba said:

Considering Clan War is ancient and dead, does anyone know of any theme appropriate miniatures out there that won't be a long running treasure hunt?

Zvezda and Caesar miniatures both make excellent 20mm samurai figs.

There are a still a fair number of figures from the Old L5R miniatures game Clan War on Ebay as well as a nice smattering of Reaper Miniatures made for the RPG.

There are some generic Samurai/Bandit Ashigaru models and terrain from Warlord Games for a game called Test of Honour .

Given their connection with them via stuff like Black Powder and Pike and Shotte, it wouldn't suprise me if they're Perry sculpts, but I can't say that with confidence.

Not really much use for getting a lot of stuff as the price per mini is pretty high, but these guys: https://www.heroforge.com/ are ace for doing individual characters, PC's villains etc.

We recently got our D&D party done and they're really nice

check out "Test of honor miniatures" from Warlord games . Great minis, and i think you can order them from thewarstore.com .

8 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

There are some generic Samurai/Bandit Ashigaru models and terrain from Warlord Games for a game called Test of Honour .

Given their connection with them via stuff like Black Powder and Pike and Shotte, it wouldn't suprise me if they're Perry sculpts, but I can't say that with confidence.

They're not. Warlord bought the old Wargames Factory samurai line (among other WGF lines), and that makes up the overwhelming majority of the Test of Honor stuff. I forgot who sculpted them, but I'm almost 100% sure it wasn't the Perrys. I think only the metal figs in that line are new (or they came from a source I'm not aware of). The metal characters actually pretty nice and characterful. T he plastics are decent , but not comparable to the quality of the Perry metals. Perry ashigaru spearman on the right, Warlord/WGF next to him.

Oh, one other thing about the 20mm Caesar and Zvezda lines... $12 to $15 gets you 30-45 minis. 20mm is cheap, both due to low demand, and due to less material. Adn they're still big enough to paint up well.

14 hours ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

They're not. Warlord bought the old Wargames Factory samurai line (among other WGF lines), and that makes up the overwhelming majority of the Test of Honor stuff. I forgot who sculpted them, but I'm almost 100% sure it wasn't the Perrys. I think only the metal figs in that line are new (or they came from a source I'm not aware of). The metal characters actually pretty nice and characterful. T he plastics are decent , but not comparable to the quality of the Perry metals. Perry ashigaru spearman on the right, Warlord/WGF next to him.

Fair enough. The terrain is a pretty good selection, regardless.

On 15/11/2017 at 11:45 AM, zyxba said:

Considering Clan War is ancient and dead, does anyone know of any theme appropriate miniatures out there that won't be a long running treasure hunt?

If you're into 10mm I would say of the current lines Castle Art's is the best and seem to be made to map out to the old Clan War major troop categories , including shugenja.

Pendraken as a long running line ( that you can check here in comparison with other manufaturers ) which I think are also distributed/made by Kallistra (I think one casts it individually and the other in strips IIRC).

I have a few Magister Militum I rather like as well.

For 15mm I absolutely reccomend Peter Pig.
The main problem in not using 25-32mm iniatures is that shugenja/spellcaster will be hard to find.

Are you also interested in rulesets?