Although originally a samurai weapon, the bow was increasingly left to the lower ranks - the ashigaru - who were the foot-soldiers of medieval Japan - what would later be called cannon-fodder. However their importance steadily increased, particularly with the introduction of western firearms, which also lead to a gradual decline in the number of archers, as represented in this set. All the figures are quite uniform in clothing, with all wearing quite typical armour and the characteristic jingasa hat. All have the sashimono on their back, which as always has been provided by Zvezda in red and yellow, along with some wet-transfers with symbols to place on them. The bows are longbows, and everything here is fine historically.

As a game component there are only representative poses, but all the poses are nice and well produced. Much the same is true of the figures, which come in multiple parts but are easy to put together and need no glue. The sculpting is excellent, although the figures are much too tall for an average Asian man of the 16th or 17th century. The thick bases that can take a flag-type marker are also less than ideal if the intention is to use them as models rather than as game pieces, while there are some extra items such as a single base for all the figures, and some massively over-sized headless arrows which are presumably part of the game system. Apart from their height however these are impressive figures and match perfectly with the rest of this superb range.