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khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 4:40 am
by khurasan_miniatures
We are very pleased to announce that we have reopened our online store after a brief hiatus, and to celebrate that we are releasing our latest line, the 15mm Manchu (Q'ing) Dynasty Chinese.

Available here:
http://khurasanminiatures.tripod.com/ma ... inese.html

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Established by ambitious Manchurian (Jurchen) nomads in the seventeenth century, this was the last imperial Chinese dynasty. The great Manchu leader Nurhaci established the Eight Banner military system (largely made up on Manchus, Han Chinese and Mongols) and the Manchus used it to great effect starting in 1618, essentially conquering all of China by about 1644. (Some of you may recognise Nurhaci's name -- he was the chap in the vial in the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom!)

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The armies fielded by these Manchurian conquerors, more popularly called the Manchu, fielded an effective mix of armoured horse warriors (the Manchus themselves), Mongolian nomads who were unparalleled horse archers, and masses of Chinese infantry, the Green Standard troops.

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The Green Standard Chinese troops fielded primarily archers armed with a composite bow, with the front ranks interspersed with men with spears or tridents. Accordingly, our infantry pack has 1/4 tridents and spears, and 3/4 bow.

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Often supporting these units were men with huge muskets called jingals, so large they had to be mounted on a stand, and loaded by a separate crewman -- virtual light artillery.

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Separate bodies of especially bold warriors were called Tiger Men -- so called because of their ferocity and, at least initially, because of the tiger faces painted on their shields. (Later they would actually wear tiger costumes.)

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Whilst these bow-armed forces might seem anachronistic in an age of musketry, the seventeenth century Manchu Chinese were more than able to hold their own against musket armed enemies, as their contests with the Imperial Russians amply proved. Gamers fielding these men against pike and shot armies will find them surprisingly effective as they pour a hail of composite bow fire into the close ranks of the European foot, whose own weapons fire much more slowly!

Although this range was made to primarily represent the seventeenth century heights of power of the Manchu armies, students of the period will know that the Manchu remained quite similar in appearance until the late nineteenth century, and many of these models are very usable for hundreds of years of Chinese warfare.

Sculpted by Mike Broadbent, painted by Rafa Archiduque. Available now, as is everything else!

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 10:18 pm
by hazelbark
Excellent stuff.

And this will launch a wave of the new Iverson TM "Tournament Tiger Qing (Manchu)"

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 11:04 pm
by quackstheking
Great looking figures - three questions:-

1) are there any plans for foot command to lead the foot BG's?
2) can the numbers of spear/bow be varied when buying the figures?
3) any plans for heavier artillery/ rockets?

Don

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 12:17 am
by khurasan_miniatures
1) not at present although the spearman also makes a nice standard bearer if a command stand is necessary

2) they're only sold as on the website -- I buy them from the caster in sets

3) I'd like to make those but they are pretty marginal so it will really depend on the success of the first codes

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:15 am
by Three
K.M.

I've read some of your thoughts about figure production and the associated costs/returns on TMP (and I sympathise totally as my wife is in a similar situation with her sideline). I am also really tempted by the figures, but I'm in the camp of holding off until I can see the complete range. Not a criticism of your position, but I can see it being a bit of a chicken and egg situation. I'd be happy to start buying with a commitment to do the artillery later on.

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:26 am
by quackstheking
Hi KM,

I'm in the same camp as "Three".

The things that stop me is I do like to see a proper command stand which would only be 3 figures therefore no command stand means it's a non starter (for me at least). Also in FOGR, how the Ming are represented on the table is usually BG's of 8 stands, with the front rank as spears/tridents and the rear rank as bows.

Thus a Qing BG would need 3 command figures, 9 spear figures (12 if no command) and 12 bow figures. Using your pack make up, to get the 12 spears (incl Tridents) I've got to buy 2 packs, yet I end up with 24 redundant bows that I can't use - not good economics, as each 24 figure BG would cost me $28 (plus postage to the UK) or effectively over $1 per piece!

I can see the Jingal's proving very popular though for those who have other ranges as they're really nice!

Good luck with the range and I hope there is enough interest to enable you to expand it slightly!

Don

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:40 am
by Three
To show that I've have actually been thinking about this range :idea: I'd use the mounted command for a foot BG and double base one stand with the 2 mounted figures and 2 foot, That way you get to spread out the spearmen figures more evenly, and the spare bowmen can be Green Standard skirmishers. You really need flags to make it look the part imo.To be honest I'm not that fussed about having the front rank all spear/trident armed anyway, since they were double armed so either speas/bow figure is accurate, comes down to aesthetics I suppose.

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 1:20 pm
by kevinj
These do look very nice, unfortunately I've recently completed a Qing army. :(

I did mine with the front rankers having 1 bow and 2 spears to show they have both. As for command figs, the the one in yellow with a long spear looks like it could take a flag and the tiger men could be officers. That of course depends on whether there's any flexibility with the packaging of BGs.

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 9:35 pm
by khurasan_miniatures
quackstheking wrote: Also in FOGR, how the Ming are represented on the table is usually BG's of 8 stands, with the front rank as spears/tridents and the rear rank as bows.
Q'ing?

Yes, I had these made for BGs of 8 stands. The front ranks would be mixed bow and close combat weapon (6 of each) and the back rank would be all 12 as bow. So that's 18 bows and six CCW. IMO having all close combat weapons in the front rank over-represents the CC fighters in the unit (50%), so I thought mixed for the front rank was the best compromise. Sounds like Kevin's had the same idea -- my mix has two of those stands with two CCW soldiers and a bowman, then two stands with one CCW soldier and two archers.

Releasing a more esoteric miniatures line puts one in a bit of a mexican standoff with the customers. :) What I did was release enough models that gamers could field what I understand is quite an effective force in FoGR, and if I start getting bites I'd ask for input as to what else was needed, especially things that the gamers say are needed but not yet made, which I think may be the case with the artillery.

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 9:47 pm
by marshalney2000
I think artillery is a must. I certainly would not consider fielding the army competitively without including the artillery. This gives the army an added and probably essential element.
Really nice figures.
John

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 9:51 pm
by khurasan_miniatures
Interesting image of Chinese artillery:

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Would want to get well clear of the middle one before firing! :wink:

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:04 pm
by khurasan_miniatures
Kidding of course! The actual cannon will look like this:

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Also it occurs to me I can solve the commander issue by breaking open a pack of tigermen and selling them singly. :)

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Thu Mar 14, 2013 1:38 pm
by madaxeman
marshalney2000 wrote:I think artillery is a must. I certainly would not consider fielding the army competitively without including the artillery. This gives the army an added and probably essential element.
Really nice figures.
John
Other companies make artillery pieces, so I'd not see that as an issue. Maybe for the actual crew perhaps some people might want the crewmen to be the same style/size as the figures in the rest of the army, but there is already one "artillery crew" with the jingal...so maybe one or two generic crew figures might be the solution for all concerned

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2013 2:59 pm
by khurasan_miniatures
The line has been very well received so far, so I've asked Mike to make the cannon and crew. He's making Early Henricians for me now but I'm hoping he can sneak that in with the latest Henrician code (demilancers).

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Sat Mar 16, 2013 7:53 pm
by Three
khurasan_miniatures wrote:The line has been very well received so far, so I've asked Mike to make the cannon and crew. He's making Early Henricians for me now but I'm hoping he can sneak that in with the latest Henrician code (demilancers).
Good :lol:

I've already made a small order, I'm glad I did so, and I will be making more.

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2013 1:16 am
by khurasan_miniatures
And here's the Qing Qannon:

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Should be added to the range in a few months. Stay tuned!

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2013 1:18 am
by khurasan_miniatures
I'm not sure why, but the images I have been posting keep getting cut in half. Any ideas?

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Wed Mar 27, 2013 1:33 pm
by list_lurker
The phpBB software displays the image at full size. It doesnt have any resize functionality. I'd recommend just shrinking the image at source. Your 800p pics at the top display OK

Re: khurasan releases Qing (Manchu) Chinese

Posted: Fri Mar 29, 2013 12:56 pm
by Three
My figures arrived yesterday, I've just managed have a good look at them, and have to say that they are superb. Well Done, I'll be getting a good few more in due course.