15mm Chinese Part 18 - Handgunners & Rocketeers

15mm Chinese - Part 18 Handgunners & Rocketeers

I am working through the tail end pieces of my Chinese project. I am still missing Black Powder Artillery elements which I have yet to purchase but this blog entry concentrates on Handgunners and Handheld Rocket Artillery.

Essex Miniatures make a nice generic Chinese Handgunner pack see https://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/products/cho18a-generic-chinese-infantry-early-handgunners?_pos=3&_sid=d8f981362&_ss=r

Essex CHO18A Generic Chinese Handgunners

I quickly realised that they could also double up for Handheld Rocketeers in the army lists. There are two poses in this figure code so I used the ones with helmets for my handgunners.

The later lists require four elements of Reg Ps S Handgunners so I devised a suitable looking uniform for them, nothing specific so they can be used in any of the armies that need Handgunners.

Essex CHO18A Generic Handgunners

The Handheld Rocketeers are classed as Reg Art I & the rules recommend 1-2 models per base. This means that the bases would be virtually empty because that would just be a pair of foot figures. Having test mounted the figures I realised that the optimum number of infantry on the base would be five which I factored to mean that would allow for fire by rotation whilst they reloaded their handheld rockets. I had a bag of spare Outpost Wargames shields left over from my Regular Auxilia which allowed me to use as a defensive shield wall for the hand gunners. It wont make any difference to how well they fight or shoot but is there for purely cosmetic looks.

Essex CHO18A Generic Handgunners with Outpost shields

I had three leftover castings plus more shields so I created another element in the same colours as the Handgunners which I am going to sell on.

Last thing in this blog was I noticed that the Three Kingdoms list required three Light Horse elements with Halberdiers. I had a four bases of elderly Mikes Models figures that I had previously rebased as Cavalry as blogged under Part 3. So out with the knife, off with the bases & on with the glue gun. they look the part and are a quick win figure wise.