15mm Chinese - Update

Rebased T'ang Chinese Militia

Having completed my T'ang Chinese back in June 2019 I thought that I had nothing more to do with the army. Upon reflection I decided that I didn't like the uniformed look that the Chinese Militia blocks had.

see blog entries

https://drewjarman.blogspot.com/2019/01/late-tang-chinese-part-7.html

and

https://drewjarman.blogspot.com/2018/12/late-tang-chinese-part-5.html

for the original units. I decided that I will rebase them and took half of the completed elements to mix up the colours to give them that irregular peasant look. I still have another 24 bases to mix up but for now they can wait.

Thats all to blog for now 

This brings the painting tally so far for 2022 to

240 foot [72 elements]

9 Feature Pieces [9 elements]

24 Rebased elements

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 9

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 9

After a long break from painting the T'ang, my last blog was in January 2019 I decided to finish off the last eight elements of Regular Crossbowmen. They are Outpost Wargames Services figures Code STC11 Armoured Crossbowmen - Pose 2. I will return to other projects for now but might get the urge to paint up more of the missing elements later in the year.

Outpost STC11 Armoured Crossbowmen Pose 2

Outpost STC11 Armoured Crossbowmen Pose 1

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 8

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 8 The Fleet

As part of my building project I needed to source suitable models for the T'ang Fleet. There's a few makers out there who produce Junks including, Navwar, Langtons, Museum etc. The Tang fleet consists of four different types of vessels, 5 x War Junks, 2 x Horse Transports, 2 x Tower Ships and 1 x River Paddle-wheeler.

The war junks were the easiest to source as I used Grumpy's models as I already had a large bag of them in Project Lead Mountain. They are sold in the UK by East Riding Miniatures to special order as they are deleted from their current catalogue due to the Grumpy's moulds being at the end of their life and not everything is castable.

They are also available from Eureka in Australia casting code GRU-SHIP05

I decided that the fleet would be painted a uniform colour scheme based on traditional Chinese colours of Red and Yellow. 

Grumpy's Junk

Next up are the two horse transports. For these I purchased two large junks from EBay for next to nothing. They turned out to be Museum Miniatures casting code BO08.

Museum Miniatures Junk

The tower ships were problematic as no one makes anything suitable from historic ranges but I came across the now discontinued Spartan Games Ralgard starter fleet. 

Whilst these are designed for fantasy naval games they style is perfect for use as Chinese type ships. They are cannon armed but I can say that these represent the Greekfire weapons of the time instead. The model is right out of the box.

Ralgard Cruiser

The Chinese of this era used man-powered river paddlewheel galley type ships. Theres nothing at all like them available and I only had this line drawing to guide me. 

Since I had used two of the Ralgard cruisers I looked at the frigate models in the box and decided that I would convert one of them. The models sail was far too large so I took a pair of Grumpy's masts and sails to use on the hull. The stern rudder had to be removed so I could model a stern wheel and the model needed sponsons to house the paddlewheels that ran along the hull sides.

Converted Ralgard Frigate

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 7

More T'ang Militia To Expand The Army To 500 AP

With this blog entry I have almost completed the Militia part of the Late T'ang Army. They are all Outpost Wargames Miniatures and are the last three contingents of Militia Infantry and the last contingent of Untrained Peasant Militia. I am still four elements of Militia Swordsmen and twelve elements of Militia archer Skirmishers short but these are not a priority at this time. I started these just before Xmas and I am quite pleased I managed to complete 112 infantry in fourteen days.

Outpost Wargames Codes STC7 Unarmoured Archers & STC18 Unarmoured Swordsmen

Lastly are the final eight elements of Peasant Hordes that are required to complete the list options.

Outpost STC15 Peasant/Horde

I still have a lot of troops left to paint to complete the list options but I can field a 400 AP list at the moment.

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 6

Late T'ang Chinese Armoured Swordsmen

With this instalment of the T'ang Chinese army I can finally field a 400 AP army list. This blog entry consists of the Armoured Swordsmen from Outpost Wargames Services. The figure code is STC17 Swordsman - Armoured. The code only comes with a single pose which given the variety included with the spearmen and archers was a bit of a disappointment. I could not find any reliable painting suggestions in my reference books and their website didn't have any painted examples in the gallery of figures. So I had to use my imagination and based the painting scheme on the other figures within the range and what I had already done to date. Being regular troops I painted them in uniforms and created four contingents of troops. The castings were quite clean with minimal flash, the bases needed filing flat underneath and there was a tiny amount of flash on the sword tips and at the front of the helmet. The swords were also cast in contact with the sides of the helmets so I gently prised them apart to allow for a more realistic pose.

Outpost STC17 Swordsman - Armoured Reg Bd F

This leaves me with a couple of boxes of figures still to paint, consisting of more Militia Archers and Swordsmen, eight more Regular Crossbowmen elements, eight more Peasants Hordes, twelve mounts for the Regular Infantry, some Southern Tribal troops, a small Tibetan ally contingent and a Khitan ally contingent. At least now the pressure to complete the army so its useable has gone for a few months so I can now relax and paint at a more leisurely pace.

Late T'ang Chinese - Part 5

Late T'ang Final Get Some Commanders

As part of my original EBay purchase the army only had two generals elements. Having made sure I had sufficient figures orders from Outpost I was disappointed when the figures turned up with only two horse poses. I had thought their generals horses would have been armoured. Luckily my Lead Mountain still has plenty of spare castings within it to provide me with suitable armoured horse castings to use instead. The castings were very well pised but the separate standard and flagstaff was so flimsy it wasn't worth the bother of using. I cut off the metal pole and hand carved a groove into the side of the metal flags and replaced them with steel lances. I have three reference books on the T'ang plus the Chinese Osprey books so I researched what their flags looked like. Since two of the flags were already done I repaired the damage I had done replacing the flagpoles and put them to one side and painted the other two flags. After what seemed like ages I finally got around to painting the actual horses and riders this week. None of the generals came with shields but since I knew I wanted to make them carry shields I had already ensured I had sufficient painted shields left over from when I completed the T'ang cavalry early this year.

There are four generals, one is the CinC, two sub-generals and an internal allied general. Each flag is different so it means I will be able to tell them apart quickly if necessary. The pictures are not of my usual standard due to my camera deciding to play up so I used my camera phone to take them.

The CinC

Outpost Wargames Code STC14 Mounted Command 

Sub-General No:1

Sub-General No:2

Allied General

Next up are some more T'ang Militia Infantry. This is the third batch of six I plan to do and since they are peasant troops I decided to give them a green uniform for variety. They are yet more Outpost Wargames castings just like the other two batches.

Outpost Wargames Codes STC7 Unarmoured Archers & STC18 Unarmoured Swordsmen 

The army also has a lot of Regular Trained Armoured Crossbowmen which is the staple core of most Chinese armies. Outpost of course make a suitable figure for these troops. The code STC11 Armoured Crossbowmen has two different poses. Thankfully they supplied the poses in even numbers of 32 each meaning I decided to make two batches of crossbowmen each of eight elements of 4 identical figures. I put aside the second batch for another time to concentrate on getting at least half of them completed. The castings were nice and clear with minimal flash and hardly any casting feed lines.

Armoured Crossbowmen - Pose 1

Outpost STC11 Armoured Crossbowmen Pose 1

I am finally getting to the stage that I can think about putting the army on the tabletop. Since I am modelling the Regular Army version I still need to complete the armoured swordsmen before I can use the army and that is the next thing on my painting table.

Finally once in a while EBay turns up a bargain listing. Part of my long term plan will be to be able to use this army using the Sui and Early T'ang army list which includes the option to field the Million Man Army that invaded Korea in 612 AD and was defeated by the Goguryeo at the Battle of Salsu. This battle is listed as being one of the most bloody battles of pre-industrial times with over 300,000 casualties. The Sui army requires 60 elements of Untrained Unwilling Soldiers classified as Hordes. The Late T'ang list has 24 elements of Horde within it and I noticed a Feudal Chinese lot on EBay consisting of 15 elements of Hd totalling 75 painted castings. The basing of the elements is pretty uninspired but for a purchase price of less than the cost of brand new unpainted metal from Essex Miniatures I ended up with 15 elements of Irr Hd O as a quick and cheap way of getting a large part of the Horde elements done. The painting is average but it means I don't have to worry about painting them. I have no idea what figure codes were used and they are a very mixed bag of castings and makes.