MOUNTED

These are Sung Chinese figures pressed into service I think. I can't seem to find the orignal packaging so I don't know for sure. In any event, the Pheasant-tail plumes are scratch built. They're also historical, Michael Perry has a beautiful illustration of a wounded horseman from the Liang dynasty in Osprey's Imperial Chinese armies: (1).

The Lances were made from pianno wire, dipped in soldier, which, will probably be replaced with something better before to long.

Here you can see some real feathers. These are the steps I took to make the plumes.

1. Drilled hole in horse's arse.

2. Bent pianno wire into S shape. Very difficult to do, I would recommend using a softer wire.

3. Cut clippings from dyed feathers, purchased at a hobby store. Cut close to the stem. Use at least three different colors.

4. Glue to S shaped bracket, and then place bracket into horse's arse, gluing in place.

I haven't figured out exactly what their all starring at. Maybe it's my opponent -- creepy!

Here you can see that I painted the horse's barding using a red and yellow, which is staight from Perry's illustration. A little meticulous to do, but the quality of the figures helps enormously.

One of the weaknesses of this army is the size of its mounted commands. Although, 5 Kn (F), 5 Cv (O), and 7 Kh (F) is not to shabby, they rarely are able to hold their own against other mounted commands. Consequently, I often use them in a skirmishing role, allocating plenty of dice from my regular commands early in the battle. Moving them forward, and then retreating them back to, or offset to the rear of the main line, works fairly well.

Great looking figures, easily painted. Cv (O) make for a decent cost-effective reserve, or to add some strength to a light horse command, but are generally unable to go toe-to-toe against many opponents.

I rarely take more than the required two elements, so you will rarely see this flying column bearing down on you.

Here, I have printed out flags made using Word Perfect's drawing tools. Not bad for a word proccessor. These flags are based on illustrations found in Osprey's Imperial Chinese Armies: (2).

Here you can see some of the detail that went into painting the horses. Quite a bit of experimenting in dabbing of paints was done in the process.

As noted, the SDC did not have access to large numbers of horses, and probably did not have much of a horse archer tradition as well. They were also cut off from traditional northern sources of nomadic horse archers. Why then does the SDC list allow for up to 7 elements of horse archers?

The North was not always stable, its borders not always secure, and apparently there was still a flow of nomadic horsemen willing to serve for pay in the SDC's armies. Some of these may have been dissatisfied members of the northern nobility, who had retained their earlier nomadic traditions.

Having 7 elements of Lh (F) is just about right, they can threaten just about anything, and then pull out without a serious fight.

These figures were the first mounted painted, and I spent a great deal of time trying to paint on the white markings. Looking at them now, I see that I could also have spent more time shading and highlighting them as well.

For my money, Reg Kn (F) make the best generals.

Too bad I can't remember which figures I mixed in?

In 539 AD, Ch'en Ch'ing-chih led an expeditionary force of 7,000 men north of the Yangtze river and briefly occupied Lo-yang. Unfortunately the maneuver was not supported, and Ch'en was forced to withdraw. He didn't make it, he was caught and killed.

However, this daring raid was maybe the South's best and last opportunity to retake the North. A brave attempt, and so I choose to name my C-in-C Ch'en Ch'ing-chih.

Chinese nobility, Jacobite Feudal I believe, Reg Kn (F)

09/09/01