The Army of Oda Nobunaga.

Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582) was the first of the three great unifiers of Japan. Coming to power at the age of only 17, he soon proved his ability by defeating a rival, Yoshimoto Imagawa, whose force of 25,000 warriors vastly outnumbered his force of only 2,000. Had Oda Nobunaga not later died when betrayed and attacked by one of his own generals, it is thought that he would likely have been the one to unite Japan and become shogun. Nobunaga achieved control over the province of Owari (around the modern city of Nagoya) in 1559. As many other daimyo, he was keen on uniting Japan. Strategically and favorably located; he succeeded in capturing the capital in 1568. After establishing himself in Kyoto, Nobunaga continued to eliminate his enemies in turn. Among them were some militant Buddhist sects, especially the Ikko sect (Pure Land Sect) which had become very powerful in several provinces. Nobunaga destroyed the Enryakuji monastery near Kyoto completely in 1571 and his fight against the Ikko sect continued until 1580. Nobunaga was rather fortunate concerning his two most dangerous rivals in the East: Takeda Shingen and Uyesugi Kenshin. Both of them died before they were able to confront Nobunaga! After Shingen's death, Nobunaga defeated the Takeda clan in the battle of Nagashino (1575), making use of the arquebus and modern warfare strategies. In 1582, general Akechi murdered Nobunaga and captured his Azuchi castle. Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a general fighting for Nobunaga, reacted very quickly, defeated Akechi, and took over control. Hideyoshi continued to eliminate remaining rivals. He subdued the Northern provinces and Shikoku in 1583 and Kyushu in 1587. After defeating the Hojo family in Odawara in 1590, Japan was finally reunited. Toyotomi Hideyoshi died of natural causes in 1598 leaving Japan open to the ambitions of Tokugawa Ieyasu.

The East of India Company is proud to announce that this famous daimyo, his generals and his army will be added to our ever increasing "Shogun Collection" range throughout 2005 and 2006. Below we have depicted our new generals and also production models of all our new ashigaru which have been completely revamped to a higher quality since our original release of these figures back in the year 2000 when we first started business. More variety in pose and much finer detail in our opinion. I hope you all agree the effort was worthwhile! Please note that we also intend to produce samurai figures from the Oda clan to compliment this range. Designed by us and sculpted here in Hong Kong by TEoIC some of these master figures were painted by the very talented model soldier artist and Japanese historian Till Weber, in his studio in Japan. I hope you all agree, he certainly has done a sterling job and we think the results are stunning. In fact we liked them so much that we have actually shown some larger than their actual size of approximately 1/32 scale to show off the very fine detail!

The Oda Daimyo.
The daimyo were the highest class of aristocracy and were defined as a samurai having an income of over 10,000 koku (one koku was supposed to be the amount of rice needed to keep one man for one year). Each was required to provide a number of horsemen and footsoldiers according to their income.

Our new range for Spring 2005 includes the great man himself, Oda Nobunaga, along with his most notorious generals; Ikeda Nobutera, Sakuma Nobumoi and of course the flamboyant Akechi Mitsuhide! Naturally to prevent loneliness amongst these guys we have produced a banner set with all their relevant banners, a maku (camp screen) for the Oda encampment with the famous melon flower mon, and an entire army to keep them well protected.

The Daimyo Sets

SCD221

SCD224

SCD221 Oda Nobunaga with Camp Stool. - USD 33.00
SCD224 Akechi Mitsuhide with Camp Stool. - USD 33.00

SCD222

SCD222 Rear

SCD222 Ikeda Nobutera with Camp Stool. - USD 33.00

SCD223

SCD223 Rear

SCD223 Sakuma Nobumori with Camp Stool. - USD 33.00

Jimbaori (waistcoat) is painted after an existing one. It is an abstract Zen representation of Mt. Fuji surmounted by a Chinese symbol; the lucky cloud. - No Sakuma mon is apparently known as such.

SCF404 - Standards for Daimyo loyal to Oda clan..
4 standards; at the left side we have the banner of Sakuma Nobumori, next is the nested crane of the Mori, next right is the "flaming sword" of Ikeda Nobuteru, and lastly to the far right; the banner with mon of the "traitor" Akechi Mitsuhide..

SCF404 Oda Banner Group - USD 65.00

SCD225/SCD226 - Oda Maku.
These are the famous Maku (Camp Screens) of Oda: In black and yellow with the clans distinctive melon flower mon. Available in a set of 3 or individually.

SCD225 Set of 3 Camp Screens - USD 60.00 (Packed in our normal light yellow cardboard box)
SCD226 1 Camp Screen - USD 20.00 (Packed in a Bubble Wrap package but none the less safe!)

The Oda Ashigaru.
Our figures show the uniform of a typical ashigaru in the Oda army and are dressed in the distinctive "lemon yellow" colour with black armour of this clan. Complete with the famous Oda mon (heraldic crest) in gold on jingasu helmet and breastplate. They have a variant in trouser pattern, lacings and socks etc. within groups of figures (archers, arquebusiers, yarimen Esc) . It actually was quite normal to have these variants and in fact only the richest of Daimyo had their troops dressed in any kind of uniform at all. Oda Nobunaga naturally fell into this wealthy category!

The Ashigaru Sets

SCA16D - Oda Ashigaru Arquebusiers - Set 1 - Price USD 150.00.
6 Figures, 4 different poses.

SCA17D - Oda Ashigaru Arquebusiers - Set 1 - Price USD 150.00.
6 Figures, 6 different poses.

SCA18D - Oda Ashigaru Arquebusiers Supply Set - Price USD 60.00.
2 Figures plus cartridge box and powder bucket.

SCA05D - Oda Ashigaru Archers Standing Group - Price USD 150.00.
6 Figures, 4 different poses.

SCA06D - Oda Ashigaru Archers Kneeling Group - Price USD 75.00.
3 Figures, 2 different poses.

SCA07D - Oda Ashigaru Archers Supply Set - Price USD 60.00
2 Figures plus extra 100 arrow quiver. (please don't count them!)

SCA23D - Oda Ashigaru with Yari or Naginata - Price USD 100.
4 Figures with 8 weapons. You can either display this set with yari (spears) as shown above or with naginata as shown above that. Or indeed a combination, of course the choice is yours! Maybe buy both sets for the complete entourage and use the spare weapons with other figures from our range!

SCA34D 5 Oda Ashigaru with standards - Price USD 165.00.
Oda Nobunaga personal standards: Ashigaru with Uma Jirushi & 2 Nobori standards with Oda mon and & 2 Nobori with Oda "coin" mon - reversed black on lemon yellow and lemon yellow on black. These ashigaru are painted in a slightly different colour scheme from the arquebusiers, yarimen and archers depicted above - the same basic yellow and black colouration but with variety in trouser pattern and lacings.