Trying to Figure Things Out

Eventually, of course, I would like to build up to army level games with the Samurai. But of course, the deployment of Samurai armies is fraught with puzzles, like these:

painted screen

the army of Takeda Shingen

It all looks terribly complex. There are interesting deployments like "Birds in Flight" and "The Crane". There's a lot of depth. A lot of thin lines of different troops. There's a lot of flags!

I think 'traditional' wargame units of 2 or 3 ranks would not be correct and not give the frontage required.

Fortunately, a clever fellow on the internet, who goes by the nom du net of Evalerio, has done an in depth study of things and has posted handy interpretations for us, complete with nice graphics:

Takeda Army Deployment

You can see his full break down of the command structure and organization on this forum.

He's also done a very detailed study of Samurai heraldry, and you can view some of his work on this other forum. Again complete with lovely graphics like this:

I can only hope Evalerio puts out a book on all this.

But from what I can sort out; it seems the mon, or badge of the Daimyo (great lord) is the unifying element. All ashigaru and lesser samurai would wear his mon. Different colours could be used to designate different divisions. Horizontal and diagonal stripes on the nobori and sashimono could be used to designate units within a division. Higher ranking samurai, commanding divisions under the daimyo, would be allowed to display their own device on their uma-jirushi.

Of course, I could be wrong. But it's a start.

I'll need more flags. A lot more flags.