Mike Broadbent is making Qing Dynasty Chinese for us. Very pleased with his first model, a spearman. The rest of the range will be made in the next week or so and we should have them available for purchase by October or so.
The first offerings will be:
General and standardbearer
Manchu bannermen (armoured horse archers)
Mongol bannermen (unarmoured horse archers)
Green Standard troops (unarmoured infantry in a set as below)
Tigermen (unarmoured men with a large shield and a sword)
Jingal with two crewmen
The first batch of Green Standard infantry will be archers as these were still the most numerous infantry type in the army -- the matchlockmen get all the mentions but that's because they existed at all, not because they were the standard footmen!
The infantry unit will have three spearmen, three trident men, and eighteen archers. This allows the gamer to have the front rank stands with half close combat men and half archers, with the rear ranks entirely archers, to represent front rank Bow LS and rear rank Bow. I’ve been devastatingly cunning and had the spearman made so he can double as a standardbearer if you want one.
The Tigermen in the 17th century seem to have been typical infantry with shields painted with tiger faces on them, rather than wearers of tiger suits, which apparently came in the later 18th or 19th century (as an 18th century image shows them without suit also).
I had wanted to make a native army for Colonies and Conquest, as I have (or have planned) multiple native armies for Cities of Gold, but not a one for C&C. Qing seemed to make the most sense as the models can be used right up to the Opium War and Taiping Rebellion more or less without modification. I was very pleased when Duncan Head provided an image of Chinese infantry from 1644 showing Nurhaci entering a city he’d just taken by siege and the infantry looked just like an image from the late 19th century showing Green Standard men fighting Muslim rebels – including the disk medallion on the front and back of the jacket and the cloth tassets! (Duncan wants armoured infantry too, as are often shown, but this is usually either in court or in a siege, so it was my opinion that these are dismounted Manchu bannermen and the list writers seem to have felt the same way.)
Imagine my surprise when I came onto the board and read that the Qing were doing well for themselves in tourney! The Empire strikes back!
I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the models ….
The infantry unit's components. Tigermen being made now, jingals, cavalry and command to follow.
