Massed archery in the Sengoku period worked the way it had worked in every great archery tradition before it: not with individual marksmen picking targets, but with ranks of bowmen launching coordinated high-angle volleys that fell on the enemy formation from above. The Japanese yumi, with its long draw and the asymmetric grip that made it firable from any stance, was particularly well suited to this kind of arc fire — over a friendly rank in front, into the rear of an enemy formation engaged at the front, or down on troops in cover where direct fire couldn't reach. At Sekigahara, with two armies of eighty thousand men each fighting in dense formations, the arrow-storm from massed ashigaru archers was a continuous part of the battlefield's noise. The matchlock units fired in volleys; the bowmen kept fire constant.

This figure is a Western Army ashigaru archer in the high-angle firing position — bow fully drawn, arrow nocked, aiming upward to launch an arc shot. He wears the same body armour as the other archers in this series — lacquered cuirass with the yellow daimyo's crest, padded yellow sleeves, red-and-white hakama, blue tabi sandals — and the jingasa war hat with cloth sunscreen. The pose is the moment immediately before release, when the draw is at full and the archer is timing his shot to land in formation with the rest of the rank. He pairs naturally with the Western Army ashigaru reaching for an arrow and the kneeling archer drawing his bow — together the three form a complete archer firing-line scene from the same Western Army unit.

1/30 scale, matte-painted, single figure boxed. Catalog number SW004. As with the rest of the King & Country range, the painting captures period detail intended to read well in display.