18th Century Sojourn: Restoration of the gunpowder era Chinese

I had thought about selling this collection of Imperial Chinese and Chinese Rebels. Figures were collected from the 15mm Old Glory Boxer Rebellion; rebels are exclusively Boxer figures while Imperial troops are conversions from regular Chinese infantry. Soft caps were shaped to have a Mandarin hat appearance and if I am not mistaken, the Imperial cavalry were originally Mongol irregulars with lance replacing firearms.

The decision to restore the collection was prompted by a search for suitable opponents for the Melnibonean Elves. How they came into contact with the Melniboné is the subject of a future chapter of their saga, but let us return to the restoration project.

The Rebels

The rebels were entirely rebased which offered an opportunity to reorganise similarly armed figures into proper elements. The bulk are classed as solid horde and are fixed to a deeper base of 40mm x 40mm which certainly offsets them from their faster counterpart. Elements based with a mix of spear and blade weapons are now ‘warband’ types while elements armed entirely with halberd or sword, are ‘fast’ blade. Lastly, supporting the rebel infantry is a small group of cavalry and light horse wearing yellow turbans.

A coat of mat varnish improved their overall appearance from their original high gloss coat. After rebasing 77 elements to 53, I judged that was enough work, but looking at the photos I think black lining might improve their appearance.

Rebel horde (solid)

Rebel horde (fast)

Rebel warriors (warband)

Rebel cavalry and blade armed infantry

Rebel force arrayed

Imperial Troops

These did not require much rebasing, but doing so rearrange blade from spear armed figures, expand the number of jingal based elements plus add a few mounted infantry types. The figures were organised into groups containing five elements; two shot, one spear or pike, one halberd and one skirmisher. Each group were painted uniformly but with minor differences to identify them from other groups.

In the photos, you will see smaller but better armed troops are wearing red coats and similarly uniformed mounted infantry. Some units required no repainting as mat varnish was enough to improve their appearance, such as the rocket and artillery batteries, cavalry lancers and light horse.

Expanding the jingal artillery and adding the mounted infantry elements raised the total number to 53 elements.

Imperial infantry.