Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Adventures in the Far East => Topic started by: matakishi on November 05, 2015, 06:49:18 PM
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I recently bought the bluray of the original 1967 Dragon Inn film by King Hu. The design of the inn for this version (1992 version also an excellent film, the 2011 version, not so much) started the building juices flowing and so I fancy making a small skirmish game around the events portrayed.
My problem is I can't find any suitable miniatures :(
Any suggestions?
(http://www.channelnewsasia.com/image/1054386/1396251779000/large16x9/768/432/dragon-inn.jpg)
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They are releasing King Hu movies on Bluray!? Come Drink with Me and A Touch of Zen are some of my favourite movie of all time.
Don't know about the minis. But North Strar is working on ming chinese.
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Forlorn Hope do some in 28mm:
http://www.forlornhopegames.com/index.php/category/200-ming-chinese
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Ming in 28mm is few, far between and generally terrible. I've seen some beautiful stuff out of Germany but it's in 1/72 and I'm unsure if its commercially available. I'm not sure why the Ming have been so undeserved since they constitute the Toyotomi regime's most formidable opponent in the Imjin War and, in their earliest phase, squaring off against Timur-i-Lenk.
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It looks like this will remain on hold until I see some miniatures I like.
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Clibinarium has hinted he his currently sculpting a range for an as yet unannounced manufacturer. There are odds that would work in some of the earlier period ranges from SHQ, Newline etc. and Irregular have Ming but its clutching at straws. I have about 100 Cavalcade (now Forlorn Hope) which I mostly converted from the original poses but I am not too much a fan of the later heavy infantry figures. The preview from Northstar looked very similar, not sure if Mike Owen did both?, they are nice enough figures but for me pale when placed alongside the Perry Koreans. Here's hoping Clibinarium comes up trumps, what I have seen of his recent stuff bodes well.
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I've had a look at the TAG Song and Mongol miniatures and I might use them as an alternative.
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North Star does a Ming range?
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North Star does a Ming range?
North Star is going to release a Ming "warband" for Ronin, nothing more. Expect 10 figures at most (probably fewer), all oriented toward skirmish gaming.
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=83057.0 (http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=83057.0)
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Clibinarium has hinted he his currently sculpting a range for an as yet unannounced manufacturer.
I was beginning to think people were missing the hints ;)
I can confirm I am working on a Ming range to fit with the existing Perry ranges (though I am not suggesting my work is to the same high standard as their figures). Its been cooking for quite a while now, its a personal project and will launch as a Kickstarter early next year some time. Provisional plans are for about 20 packs of infantry and 7 or 8 of cavalry. There's a lot of work to be done yet, but I'll post previews here when I have the first figures done.
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Clibanarium, are you including regional troops in the range? Also, will they be appropriate for the armies of the (Southern) Ming refugee courts in the south?
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Clibinarium it's a very good idea ! i hope this will be a success !
Ming will be a very interesting (and historical) opponent for the Perry Sengoku Jidaļ range ... and idem as an ally for the Perry Coreans ;)
One question : 25mm or 28mm !?
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I don't want to be too specific yet as plans are subject to change. The focus of the range will be the Imjin war, and will be designed to fit with the Perry Koreans, which are a bit bigger than their samurai, so they are definitely 28s.
As for regional troops; well the range will be a core of the most common types of soldier, the cavalry will suit Northern armies most closely, the infantry Southern armies. Regionally distinct troops will probably be fitted into stretch goals, like the Lang Bing/Wolf troop, or Koxinga's Tie Ren/ Iron Men, so that will depend on how the campaign goes.
The focus is not the Southern Courts period, but there should be useful troops for that.
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I don't want to be too specific yet as plans are subject to change. The focus of the range will be the Imjin war, and will be designed to fit with the Perry Koreans, which are a bit bigger than their samurai, so they are definitely 28s.
As for regional troops; well the range will be a core of the most common types of soldier, the cavalry will suit Northern armies most closely, the infantry Southern armies. Regionally distinct troops will probably be fitted into stretch goals, like the Lang Bing/Wolf troop, or Koxinga's Tie Ren/ Iron Men, so that will depend on how the campaign goes.
The focus is not the Southern Courts period, but there should be useful troops for that.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! :D
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The focus of the range will be the Imjin war
Very interesting, looking forward to seeing how it pans out :)
And, more for completeness (as there's no photos on their site :-X), Scheltrum also have Ming Dynasty range.
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I don't want to be too specific yet as plans are subject to change. The focus of the range will be the Imjin war, and will be designed to fit with the Perry Koreans, which are a bit bigger than their samurai, so they are definitely 28s.
As for regional troops; well the range will be a core of the most common types of soldier, the cavalry will suit Northern armies most closely, the infantry Southern armies. Regionally distinct troops will probably be fitted into stretch goals, like the Lang Bing/Wolf troop, or Koxinga's Tie Ren/ Iron Men, so that will depend on how the campaign goes.
The focus is not the Southern Courts period, but there should be useful troops for that.
Any chance of some design sketches or sources you plan to use we can have a nose at them and give feedback? ;)
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Sorry, too early for that, and I just sculpt from scratch without concept drawings, using whatever sources I have to hand. I've never really been comfortable showing WIP stuff. But rest assured I've spent more than a year looking into researching the Ming, and have been advised closely by someone well versed in the sources and reads Chinese characters, so we've built up a pretty good idea of a very under-researched army; certainly the picture that the Ospreys would give is at best very fragmentary.
Closer to launching I'll preview some figures on the forum.
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Cool, feel free to check out the late ming period painting I posted in the new minis for ronin thread if it helps with your research.
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Cheers for that. I am pretty familiar with the painting "Ping fan de-sheng tu", its probably the best single source for Ming Cavalry of the later half of the 16th Century, most of the cavalry figures will be based on this illustration.
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Clibanarium, check out Robinson's Martial Spectacles of the Ming Court. Beyond its own value it's bibliography has excellent sources (almost without exception in Chinese) on the material culture of the Ming armies.
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Sounds interesting, but potentially quite academic in outlook; would you say there is material in the book itself that would be useful in sculpting figures?
I ask because although I will likely get the book for my own interest eventually, money is a bit tight right now so if its not immediately useful I'll have to put it off for a while.
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Cheers for that. I am pretty familiar with the painting "Ping fan de-sheng tu", its probably the best single source for Ming Cavalry of the later half of the 16th Century, most of the cavalry figures will be based on this illustration.
I'm definitely hyped now for your figs.
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Any updates?
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Currently I am waiting on castings of equipment like helmets, quivers, shields etc to come back to me. I decided to 3D print those items for the sake of consistency. Once I have them back I can get stuck into the sculpting properly. Also I recently solved the issue of how to sculpt brigandine relatively quickly, which was a significant obstacle as it took forever to do the rivets.
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I'm hyped for these too! Please keep us informed on your progress here. Best wishes.
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Will do. I am hoping that those 3d printed bits will arrive with me in the next couple of weeks.
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I, too am very glad and excited to see my Joseon Koreans will soon have some Ming allies to back them up :D
I was surprised to see that there is so little representation of Ming Dynasty forces in tabletop gaming, especially considering how many different Sengoku era samurai ranges there are. You'd thing after a certain point the samurai on samurai fights would get boring after a while.
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I was surprised to see that there is so little representation of Ming Dynasty forces in tabletop gaming, especially considering how many different Sengoku era samurai ranges there are. You'd thing after a certain point the samurai on samurai fights would get boring after a while.
I wholeheartedly agree. Post WW2 with the occupation of Japan and the opening of its culture Westerners took a great interest in it, but at the same time with the Communist takeover in China, the country became a closed book. While we've been soaking up Samurai history for years (look at the amount of movies/books there are), its only really since the start of the 21st century that the West has woken up to China in the same way (possibly the Chinese too have been able to look back to their past in that time too, since the emphasis was on the present and the future until the end of the cultural revolution and its aftermath).
The reason the Ming are neglected by wargamers is due to their low visibility in English language history. There simply isn't much out there for the wargamer to work from. In terms of figures the material for sculptors to work from is scarce; a couple of (rather poor) Ospreys and a few other bits. Most of what I've gathered has been through the internet with the aid of Chinese-speakers. Otherwise I'd have made little headway. Even then its not easy to be definitive about troop appearance/arms in the same way as it is for Samurai. But we are giving it our best shot.
In practical news; apparently the 3D prints are proving troublesome to master. :-(
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The reason the Ming are neglected by wargamers is due to their low visibility in English language history. There simply isn't much out there for the wargamer to work from. In terms of figures the material for sculptors to work from is scarce; a couple of (rather poor) Ospreys and a few other bits. Most of what I've gathered has been through the internet with the aid of Chinese-speakers. Otherwise I'd have made little headway. Even then its not easy to be definitive about troop appearance/arms in the same way as it is for Samurai. But we are giving it our best shot.
That makes sense and I have had to dig through Chinese sources myself for greater detail on a number of subjects I've wanted to wargame (especially the Warlord period!). Though as of late I have noticed that it does seem to be getting better with a larger variety of English language works available these days. Good on you for tackling this though ;)
I do think it is more just a lack of exposure on the behalf of wargamers that we see this period neglected, because I know once I discovered Perry Miniatures Korean range I just fell in LOVE with the models and had to build a Joseon army.
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That makes sense and I have had to dig through Chinese sources myself for greater detail on a number of subjects I've wanted to wargame (especially the Warlord period!). Though as of late I have noticed that it does seem to be getting better with a larger variety of English language works available these days. Good on you for tackling this though ;)
I do think it is more just a lack of exposure on the behalf of wargamers that we see this period neglected, because I know once I discovered Perry Miniatures Korean range I just fell in LOVE with the models and had to build a Joseon army.
Most contemporary Chinese sources rely on period scrolls,tomb murals,statues and artifacts. The main gripe I have with contemporary sources is that they depict parade armor as field armor.
The Perry Koreans are slightly anachronistic,the sources they use postdate the Imjin War.
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Most contemporary Chinese sources rely on period scrolls,tomb murals,statues and artifacts. The main gripe I have with contemporary sources is that they depict parade armor as field armor.
The Perry Koreans are slightly anachronistic,the sources they use postdate the Imjin War.
I'm not an expert by any means, but are you sure? The Perry Korean garrison infantry and command look exactly like Peter Dennis' illustrations from Stephen Turnbull's "Samurai Invasion of Korea 1592-1598". See KOR6 and KOR8
There is a painting in the Ch'ungyolsa Shrine in Tongnae where the Koreans are counter attacking So Yoshitomo's position during the first battle in Pusan. The Koreans in that painting look like the Perry guerrillas, including the hair knots over the headbands. See KOR4
Another painting in the same shrine shows the Korean commander Chong Pal just before his death. He wears an all black studded armour, just like the garrison command figure in KOR5.
To my untrained eye, they look good. But I'd be willing to be shown otherwise. :)
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I'm not an expert by any means, but are you sure? The Perry Korean garrison infantry and command look exactly like Peter Dennis' illustrations from Stephen Turnbull's "Samurai Invasion of Korea 1592-1598". See KOR6 and KOR8
There is a painting in the Ch'ungyolsa Shrine in Tongnae where the Koreans are counter attacking So Yoshitomo's position during the first battle in Pusan. The Koreans in that painting look like the Perry guerrillas, including the hair knots over the headbands. See KOR4
Another painting in the same shrine shows the Korean commander Chong Pal just before his death. He wears an all black studded armour, just like the garrison command figure in KOR5.
To my untrained eye, they look good. But I'd be willing to be shown otherwise. :)
I believe the Perry's based their armored Koreans on Muyedobotongji (武藝圖譜通志 1790) as well as Chosen seneki kaisen zubyobu?(朝鮮戦役海戦図屏風 1941). The former is a Joseon era Korean military manual while the latter is a Meiji era rendition of Korean marines.
I would also caution using the Ehon Taikoki(繪本太閤記 circa 1797),Ehon Chosen gunki(繪本朝鮮軍記 1800),Ehon Chosen seibatsuki(繪本朝鮮征伐記 1853?) as accurate portrayals of the forces involved.(inspired by the Song dynasty/late Heian era)
I don't read hangul,nor can I vouch for the veracity of the these images,but Korean netizens have suggested that these images depict Imjin era armaments.
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Thanks for that reply, Wansui.
Firstly, I can assume that Chosen, Chosun and Joseon are all synonymous terms, correct?
Also the slight differences between the armoured cavalryman with two handed flail in your illustrations, and those figures of the Perrys KOR10, seem to me to indicate summer and winter dress respectively. Could that be the case?
The helmets seem to be the same, but are fur lined. Also the jackets are thicker and fur lined and the forearms are covered. I'll admit that the painting scheme of Chris Adcock may display some artistic license. Lovely as the painting is.
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Thanks for that reply, Wansui.
Firstly, I can assume that Chosen, Chosun and Joseon are all synonymous terms, correct?
Also the slight differences between the armoured cavalryman with two handed flail in your illustrations, and those figures of the Perrys KOR10, seem to me to indicate summer and winter dress respectively. Could that be the case?
The helmets seem to be the same, but are fur lined. Also the jackets are thicker and fur lined and the forearms are covered. I'll admit that the painting scheme of Chris Adcock may display some artistic license. Lovely as the painting is.
Chosen is the Japanese pronunciation,Joseon and Choson are both English transliterations of the Korean term.
My knowledge on Joseon armaments is quite lacking,primary sources can be scrutinized while I have no command of Hangul.
Lamellar and brigandine armor were separate, rank and file wore lamellar in Joseon Korea while it was the opposite in Ming China. The exception being Liao garrison as indicated by the Si Zhen San Guan Zhi(四鎮三關志 1576) which recorded the population,expenditure,armaments etc. of the 4 military garrisons(Baoding,Changping,Ji,Liao) and the 3 passes(Juyong,Shanhai,Zijing).
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I'm curious what kind of forces people would build for ming Chinese. Personally I would probably go for something small around ronin or daisho size.
Would love to see others do larger Ming forces for lions rampant or impetus etc.
So those of you who are planning on a ming force what size force and what ruleset would you use.
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Killer katana II is an excellent rules set for big battles :)
There is an extension book for the Imjin Wars
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Probably Hail Caesar or Pike and Shotte for me. While P+S may be closer to the actual time period, HC may be a better fit to that style of combat. I would like to see the newest version of Killer Katanas also. I don't have my Samurai painted yet, so I still have some time to think about rule sets. I'm doing 2 samurai armies, with one side painted as the Takeda clan and the other as the Ii. That is purely for the visual contrast between the opposing forces.
I would like a large Korean and Ming army to face the Samurai in the Imjin Wars. That's a lot of painting in my future.
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My current 28mm Ming number around a hundred but I would like to at least double that. They are also all foot so some cavalry would be most welcome. I posted quite a few of them in a thread a few years ago.
As for rules it will probably be a home bashed mash up starting from WHAB or similar.
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A Friend of mine and I created a system that uses a mash up of Pike&Shotte and Black Powder rules, plus some of our own. We made the system so we could use the Samurai lists that Warlord games released for PDF. Since then we've been kicking around ideas for varying forces from Korea and Ming China. Any game I'd play would be to the scale of those games.
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I, too am very glad and excited to see my Joseon Koreans will soon have some Ming allies to back them up :D
I was surprised to see that there is so little representation of Ming Dynasty forces in tabletop gaming, especially considering how many different Sengoku era samurai ranges there are. You'd thing after a certain point the samurai on samurai fights would get boring after a while.
Most Sengoku warfare would be more accurately described as ashigaru on ashigaru fights.
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My Ming army is about four hundred strong. But in 10mm, I hasten to add!
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My own intention is to base figures individually so as to work with Ronin, then Lion Rampant, then Hail Caesar/War and Conquest, as I get more figures painted. I have a feeling that I'll use Lion Rampant for the most part.
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So those of you who are planning on a ming force what size force and what ruleset would you use.
I have 100 points of Ming for Ronin using Forlorn Hope miniatures Ming and Ebob Mongols. I plan to expand it to 250. At this point I have too much on my hobby plate to build a proper Ming army; that and the Forlorn Hope range is rather limited.
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So what happened with the masters of the 3D prints? Is progress back underway?
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I got an email yesterday telling me that the items have been successfully moulded except the quivers for which there was no space. So I am going to finish off some bits of equipment I have here that can fill out the mould; they aren't prints but they can go in the low temp mould just to fill it out.
When I get the first batch of stuff back that will allow me to get moving forward. Not that I've done nothing in the mean time, the first twenty or so figures are nearly done.
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Fantastic! Is it too early to give an ETA for the kickstarter?
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It is, at the moment; I'll have a better idea once I get the printed stuff back. I am being pretty cautious about timescales generally, I don't want to give dates that I can't live up to. One thing I've learnt about miniatures projects is that timescales slip very easily. I'll update this tread when I have more concrete news.
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Thanks mate! Alas, I suspected that it was still a little while off. Nevertheless, I'm hoping to be able to do my bit in the coming Kickstarter! 8)
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any movement on this?
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Got some of the printed 3D stuff at the start of last week, so I've been working on archers and handgunners, plus shields and other ancillaries. I think the helmets will ultimately prove too large; only by 1mm, but that's 20 percent too big. It tough tailoring that level of accuracy through printing/casting as there are size changes in those processes. No real loss though, I am pretty comfortable doing those items by hand now that I've has some practice.
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Any updates?
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First test figures are off for moulding right now, should be a couple of weeks for those. Some have to be done in a low temp mould as the material used for some armour might melt in a high temp one. Might do all mastering in a low temp mould as it seems to give better results. Once I paint the first test sculpts I'll preview them here.
Also being moulded are cavalry and horse dolls, some other bits and pieces, so once its all done I can get the first batch sculpted up, enough to found a kickstater on. I do want to get a substantial amount of the work done before lanuching a campaign so as to get a head start on it.
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I 'll follow you Clibanarium !
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Thanks Byblos (sorry I didn't see your message at the time). Still waiting on those first test figures.
Anyway, Northstar have released their Ming figures, intended for Ronin.
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--egwVjoKgE0/V6on5T2NeRI/AAAAAAABD24/ZUWZFJXMruk-Vig7VTlBF3dmdO_k2Q4CACLcB/s1600/img8584.jpg)
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Thanks Clibanarium !
The Northstar's Ming are not bad , but this is not a range , only a band for "Ronin" ;)
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Not bad, hope to see more.
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I like them and will get some but they are very toy like. Is Ronin a game aimed at kids who cannot be trusted not to break in scale weapons so these have to have telegraph poles? The mounted officer is great and they are all better than the Koreans but they again have not strayed far from the Forlorn Hope ones he did, presuming they are Mike Owen.
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There won't be enough of these to do anything larger than small scale skirmish :(
cheers
James
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Yeah I think this is pretty much all they have planned for Ronin, but arguably that's all that's needed.
I have about thirty packs (four per foot, three per cavalry) planned, but that's subject to change.
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Hace you noticed irregular miniature has a 28mm Ming line?
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Yes, but they are some seriously odd figures. I am not sure what their headgear is supposed to be, and while the armour is not too far off what I've seen, its not of a common sort (perhaps it was early in the dynasty, I mostly study the later part). The Sung figures are arguably more like what the Ming looked like. The other period figures look off in many cases too, I suspect the range is done from the old WRG Chinese armies book, which was probably the best thing available when it came out, but its be superseded many time over by more accurate material.
That said its still very difficult to get reliable information on Chinese armies; there's a few Ospreys that are definitely wobbly too.
NB I still think Irregular are a lovely company.
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I use quite a lot of Sung figures in my Ming army, perforce.
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Indeed, there's a fair amount of Sung gear continued by the Ming, or perhaps resurrected might be the term.
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Hi Clibinarium, how goes the progress on the Ming?
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Hi Fig-man1,
Honest answer; slowly :(
I've been chatting it over with the friend who's advising me on the history. At the current rate the project is too big to be realistically do-able in a reasonable time frame. So I think the solution is to boil it down to its essential elements and run a kickstarter to get the basics done. Then if the core kiskstarter shows there's interest I'll run a second campaign to flesh the range out.
We were thinking of the core being about 10 packs of infantry (of 4 sculpts each) and 4 of cavalry (3 sculpts each). That would cover the essentials, but more interesting stuff like artillery would have to go into the second phase. In fact the fist four packs of foot are already sculpted.
I'm really enthusiastic about the project, and we've done a lot of research. Its just finding the time to do it (by which I mean getting enough stuff worked up and painted to make an attractive package to launch) and still pay the bills is the tricky part.
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If you need any help painting them I'd be happy to help ;) ;)
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Thanks for the reply. I'm really looking forward to these to add to my Koreans. In the meantime I'v been working on this slightly earlier command to keep me busy!
(http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii319/fig-man1/IMG_3391_zpstvwmcnvu.jpg)
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Wow Fig-man1, those are superb!
I'll see if I can post up the basic figure list a bit later on, as I'm away from the computer with it on it.
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As mentioned above this is the list for the "mini" version of the kickstarter, it covers only the essentials (you'll notice that some numbers are missing for instance). There is a long list that includes the less essential stuff like artillery, cavalry armour variants, infantry in various armours like paper and rattan, high command and so on. Those are not essential, but its not to say they aren't important; they are not included so that the project is not one big "go for broke" gambit that might prove unmanageable. That stuff would be covered by a second kickstarter if the first one was to be successful.
MI1 Unarmoured, swords, advancing. Cloth turban/futou cap,puttees
MI2 Unarmoured, swords, attacking. Cloth turban/futou cap,puttees
MI3 Unarmoured, two handed, advancing. Cloth turban/futou cap,puttees
MI4 Unarmoured, two handed, attacking. Cloth turban/futou cap,puttees
MI5 Armoured, swords, advancing. Kettle helmet,knee length brigandine,scarf,boots
MI6 Armoured, swords, attacking. Kettle helmet,knee length brigandine,scarf,boots
MI7 Armoured, two handed, advancing. Kettle helmet,knee length brigandine,scarf,boots
MI8 Armoured, two handed, attacking. Kettle helmet,knee length brigandine,scarf,boots
MI11 Armoured archers, nocking. Cavalry/Metal helmet,knee length brigandine,scarf,boots
MI12 Armoured archers, loosing. Cavalry/Metal helmet,knee length brigandine,scarf,boots
MI15 Armoured handgunners, loading. Cavalry helmet,Split brigandine,vambraces
MI16 Armoured handgunners, firing. Cavalry helmet,Split brigandine,vambraces
MC1 Northern, bows
MC2 Northern, swords
MC3 Northern, polearm
MC4 Northern,command
Cavalry outfitted as per the "Depature Herald" scroll "Ping Fan De Sheng Tu".
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Excellent!! I'll look forward to seeing the Kickstarter. :)
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Yes, I will get on board as well.
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Cheers guys. I had the chance to paint up one of the test figures (MI2), here's a pretty ropey photo. Figure is subject to revision (there are certain things I am not quite happy with.
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4264/35614833806_60768cc035.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/WgakhJ) (https://flic.kr/p/WgakhJ)
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Oh yes, that will do nicely. I had better start selling my soul as it is pretty obvious yourself and Gringo are going to bankrupt me
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Oooooo....very nice! Can't wait for these. :-*
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Very nice. It can also be used for later period in a Taiping or Manchu army :)
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That does the job :)
cheers
James
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Very nice ! Interesting !
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Following with interest. :-* :-*
Need some chinese pirates na who knows i end up doing a small army. o_o
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Do you have a timeframe for the KS?
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Oh yes, that will do nicely. I had better start selling my soul as it is pretty obvious yourself and Gringo are going to bankrupt me
I'll second that emotion ;D
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Thanks for the interest guys. I won't give a timeframe yet as I'll almost inevitably miss it if I set it in stone. But I'll post in this thread once it begins to crystallise.
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Just writing this to give the topic a "bump". Any new developments?
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Is this possible to have some pictures of the green in this topic !?
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Hi all,
Sorry I missed these latest posts. To update you, there's been a (slight) change in direction on the project. Its still going ahead, but probably a different way. What was holding me back from progress was the fact that I was doing my regular commission work during the day, and hoping to work on the Ming in my spare time. Only thing is I don't have much spare time, usually I work weekends too, and the thought of spending the evening in the studio too after a full day's work was just not realistic.
So I had been looking at learning zbrush for digital sculpting to solve certain difficult sculpting tasks for the project (for instance mountain pattern scales) and it dawned on me that it might be better to do everything in zbrush, and get printed masters, or at least go forward with a hybrid of printing and hand sculpting. There is a lot of the workload that can be circumvented with digital design, but the main advantage is that I can go home in the evening and work on it on the computer, which is extremely freeing.
What this all boils down to is; one step back two steps forwards. I am having to learn zbrush from scratch but I am getting to grips with it, and it holds a lot of potential for the sculptor, I can see it as a necessary tool in the arsenal from now on.
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It could be interesting !
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Have you seen this site?
http://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.com/
There is also an English-language facebook group re. Chinese military history:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ChineseMilitaryHistoryGroup/
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Yes, I've been a follower of the Great Ming blog for a while, its excellent. Didn't know of the facebook group; thank you.
http://dragonsarmory.blogspot.co.uk/ is another interesting blog if you haven't seen it.
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You're very welcome! And thank you. I think that Jack Huang may also be in that facebook group.
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Is there anymore news?
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AS far as I'm concerned the news is good. The latest Atomico KS added a whole new set of Kung Fu miniatures and, because I asked, we got a swordsman, swordswoman and a eunuch in the set so I can continue with my Dragon Gate project :)
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Yes but what about the Ming that have been intimated as coming?
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Just giving this a bump to see what progress there is.
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I just thought I'd see if there was any progress on this. Here's hoping!
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Cheers guys. I had the chance to paint up one of the test figures (MI2), here's a pretty ropey photo. Figure is subject to revision (there are certain things I am not quite happy with.
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4264/35614833806_60768cc035.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/WgakhJ)
(https://flic.kr/p/WgakhJ)
I really hope this project does eventually see daylight as this sculpt was and is the most exciting Chinese I have seen and there have been some really good ones in recent times
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Hi guys, thanks for the continued interest and sorry for the lack of updates.
Unfortunately in the last year there has been illness in my family and the person in question passed away at the start of the month (please forgive the vagueness, but I am quite a private person). The last few months have been emotionally very hard, as is the grief now.
From a practical point of view this stalled the Ming project completely, but I am slowly getting back to my day job (sculpting of course) and will be able to return to the Ming as well. My enthusiasm is starting to return as well, and I am looking forward to putting in some serious work on it over the next few months. I don't want to give dates or anything yet as life can easily torpedo that, but I will preview the work here when I am happy its good enough.
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I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. The delay is perfectly understandable. I hope that sculpting will provide the therapy needed to get through this most difficult time.
All the best,
Jan
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I hope everything works out ok. Sorry for your loss.
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Sorry for your loss. Take your time to recover and keep up the good job ;)
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Sorry to hear that. My condolences.
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Any new updates on this thread, as really interested?
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Well, things are beginning to shift into the needed gear. As mentioned above the project was dependant on learning a new skill; digital sculpting. While none of us has benefited from the arrival of the pandemic, being in lockdown gave me the time to learn zBrush. It's a case of "It's an ill wind that blows no good" I guess. I think without that time I may never have had the chance to learn it properly. It was a lot to get my head around and had I known how much time it would take I might not have tried.
But I have a decent handle on it now, and have also obtained a 3d printer, and having printed my first figures (not Ming), I know the process works. Now the real work is underway.
Again I don't want to give deadlines I can't keep, but I am currently working on the basic building blocks- armour, weapons and so on. All this gear is the meat of the work, and the posing is the (somewhat) easier part. In digital work you just make a helmet once, not multiple times like in hand sculpting (or casting dollies of it).
I should have stuff to preview in the next few months (especially if we go into more lockdown, which looks quite possible).
Thanks for your interest and patience. This has been a trail of tears, but I am finally getting there.
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Thank you for the update, looking forward to seeing your sculpts.
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It's good to hear from you.
In the meantime, I have begun buying Cavalcade Ming but I'm still looking for new units to add to my army ;)