Did someone just say “Weeaboo”?

’cause I think I just heard someone  say “Weeaboo“.

Let’s face it, the Oniwaban is one of the coolest models in the range. Whilst I had planned to keep my force made up entirely of Chinese themed units, I eventually caved, partly because I wanted some TO in my IS lists and partly because he looks so damn cool. I use him with the profile of a ninja rather than an Oniwanban so that it’s all legal of course.

He spent his first game sawing through ‘Jean de Arc” with a DA CCW before moving on to hose down some loose ‘Fusiliers’. It was my first time using hidden deployment. It was also the first time I ever fought in close combat. I was impressed. He will be showing up in more lists, along with the final Kuang Shi I am still putting the finishing touches on (article forthcoming).

For anyone who is interested in how I did the green servo muscle, I started by mixing a 50/50 mix of GW Scorpion Green and Snot Green. I slavered this over 100% of the muscles, leaving no black showing through at all. I then painted on pure scorpion green on around the highest 95% of the surface. After that, I washed the muscle with GW Dark Green Ink (one of the older discontinued shiny washes). After that dried, I hit  the top 90% of raised surfaces with Scorpion green once again, before mixing Scorpion Green with Sunburst Yellow and applying it very subtly to the highest points.

Here’s a photo of how it looked in good light before I finished the rest of the figure.

You can see the original Snot+Scorpion Green mix on his calves.

The Japanese word “Ninja” and it’s Chinese pronunciation, “Rěnzhě”, both use the same characters, these being “忍者”

Seeing as everyone already knows how to say Ninja, I’ll get straight to the Chinese. To pronounce the  “rěn/忍”, it sounds like the Ren from Ren and Stimpy. This character stands for heard-heartedness (it includes the character for heart (心)), which in Chinese has more to do with willpower, tolerance and endurance rather than impassiveness than the English usage do denote someone pitiless.

The “zhě/者” sound is a little harder. Start with the ‘dge’ sound at the end of “Judge Fudge” and follow it up with the ‘e’ in ‘her’, all as one syllable. In this context the character serves as a suffix to denote a person. Kind of like the ‘-er’ at the end of ‘Killer’ or the ‘-or’ at the end of “‘decapitator’.

Together the characters give the impression of someone who is resolute. Emerging from the shadows slice people in half, unleashing a hail of ninja stars and then disappearing in a puff of smoke is not as central to the concept as I imagined

UPDATE: Now I also play JSA and am swimming in Ninja models, he gets to be the Oniwaban he was always destined to be.