Just a thought on regional aspects of war games over Asia?

[Conquistador]

Given the Rich and Long History of China (and the 'Asian Wild West' aspects of the history around South East Asian history I bumped into working Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei - plus temporary stints over the Philippines - when I did Regional Analysis work years ago,) I wonder why there are so many Samurai/Ronin models to cover Japan's wars and so few models for China and the S. E. Asian (SEA from now on in this thread) parts of the world?

Yes, there are miniatures for China in many periods of history but it seems many (especially larger 'skirmish' game manufacturers) have more Japanese figures in suitable for this sub-forum than China/SEA figures?  

Is it a lack of cultural awareness/appeal?  Is it a 'history gap' at work?

Is it a lack of clearly applicable rules?

Is it a lack of miniatures just by the earlier appeal of Samurai (snow ball rolling downhill affect) currently that will change over the short term?

Is it that Japanese figures have more easily viewed pictorial information for painters/war gamers?

Or is it I just haven't seen the figures because I haven't searched on the right words?

There are other possibilities but I just wanted to 'scratch an itch' that came to me recently while looking at/for 15 and 25+ mm figures for South or West China/Tibet suitable for In Her Majesty's Name (IHMN) games.

Your thoughts please?

Gracias,

Glenn

[olyreed]

I know what you mean. I have always wanted to do a skirnish type game based on the Thai film Bang rajan. Curteys have some possible figs to use i suppose but they are general rank and file figs. One day maybe...

[Wansui]

I think its has to do with the lack of quality English sources.

Now I'm not one to disparage the Osprey's as they contain an abundance of information however I believe much of it is outdated as now there are plenty of new archaeological findings.(especially findings dating towards the Han dynasty).

I think there are many problems in researching Chinese armors/troops/weapons/ruleset etc.

1.Language Barrier:While Google Translate might serve you in identifying a dynasty its generally convoluted and I wouldn't dare use it for document written in Classical Chinese.

2.Difference in warfare and mentality:I think it will be quite hard to formulate a working ruleset for Chinese armies as they fought enemies from all sides so obviously their strategies would be different as well as Chinese warfare was highly regimented and there would be rarely independent units ie compared to the Samurai. Once defeated Japanese peasants would switch sides and resume farming while the Japanese learned it the hard way in Joseon Korea when instead they were confronted with barren fields and hostile militias.

Chinese warfare also changed immensely throughout the dynasty ie early Ming crossbows were integral while by late Ming it was restricted to aborgines and militias while the Ming even lost the ability to operate some Song era contraptions.

3.Different society: Feudalism was crushed in China after Qin emerged victorious therefore we won't see the equivalent of Daimyos or Shoguns courting for the Emperors favor rather they would all try to be the Emperor themselves.

While in some dynasties the military was hereditary generally it was looked down upon ie several times foreign mercenaries or generals rebelled and set up their own dynasties which meant in later dynasties the civil officials can overrule military ones and generals that would curry favor instead of accumulating combat experience.

4.Difficulty of texts:Classical Chinese is not for the fainthearted and is notoriously difficult to read,with many texts being so obscure that the Internet doesn't even have them or they lack punctuation.