Chinese Warlords - A new project

Every new year needs a new project and something I've been wanting to do for a long time is to idulge my self with a Copplestone Back of Beyond project. After an age of indecison I decided upon basing a game during the Warlord era in China. 

For those you who like to know these things, The Warlord era spans 1916 to 1928, however several Warlords maintained their influence well into the 1940's and the Chinese civil war could be seen as a continuation of Warlordism. Essentially with the fall of the Qing dynasty through the Revolution and attempt was made to unify China as a republic, unfortunatly after the first President, Yuan Shikai, decided that he'd be better off as a new emperor, the new republic quickly splintered into areas ruled by various army commanders who decided that they would be the best man to reunite China. Obviously others disagreed, hence over a decade of warfare. The ironic thing is that each of the Warlord armies were, strictly speaking, just sub sections of the republican army, with loyalties divided between various characters who commanded large (or small) areas of the country. These warlords would band together in cliques to increase their influnce and fight wars against others. It was all very complicated.

Due to some online selling of bits and bobs I was able to take advantage of an offer from Northstar and got myself a nice chunky delivery of Copplestone goodies.

I ordered enough figures for 8 squads of 10 infantry plus officers and a couple of Heavy Weapons.

I think this is likley to increase at some point as I'm looking to run this kind of game for 4 players and I want them to have 4 'toys' each, as it were. Expect motorised fun and games as well.

I've based my historical figures on pennies for ages now but getting a hold of the requisite numbers of 1p pieces is a pain in the hoop, requiring a visit to a bank during the working week, and I simply don't have the time to be travelling 20 odd miles, pay for parking, faff about in town and deal with quizical looks from cashiers. Instead I ordered a big bag of MDF bases from Warbases and, if they work just as well as pennies, I may well just stick to them from now on.

The republican chinese army unifrom is usually depicted as a light grey but with some khaki versions as well. I reckoned that to have two forces with identical unifroms may be a little bit confusing so I started work on one force based around a greenish uniform. I figured there would be plenty of scope for local manufacture or even just dyeing so that the forces of this warlord would stand out. I've mixed in various pieces of Khaki kit on both sides so that will be the unifying factor. 

The first 20 figures for the first, as yet nameless, warlord are pretty much done.

Next up a colour test for the troops of the 2nd Warlord. Expect much more about this project in the near future.