The Chinese

I am finally finished (well, mostly) my 1920’s Warlord Chinese army (for now…).

I have no real information about the organization of Chinese troops in this period (if there even was any sort of consistent organization) so I have styled it after a modern European brigade (I tend to think of the “units” as Battalions) of two infantry regiments – each with three battalions – plus attachments. The additional force troops include an MG company, mortar and field artillery batteries, a cavalry regiment, a unit of specialist assault troops, a battalion of White Russian mercenaries, and a unit of executioners.

In game terms, the force consists of;

1x Chinese Warlord (C-in-C)
2x Staff officers (technically, according to the army list a chinese army can only have one unless it has foreign advisors… I’m not really all that concerned about following army lists, I have two figures, and two regiments, so… I have two staff officers…)
1x Warlord’s Bodyguard (the White Russian mercenaries – 17 figures)
1x Assault Unit (10 figures – all armed with “trench brooms” – SMGs)
6x Regular Chinese Infantry (18 figures each)
1x Cavalry (12 figures)
2x HMGs (again, technically only one allowed – and I’d normally only field one – but I do own two, because at the time they were only available in packages of two…? One I painted in a grey uniform and it may be the beginnings of a second Chinese Warlord force which I would paint all in grey-green uniforms…)
1x Field Gun (unfortunately I have only one of these howitzers so they currently have to share it with the British… I just painted up a couple of my generic artillery crew as Chinese should I ever feel the urge to field an artillery piece…)
1x Mortar
1x Executioner

Here they all are:

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)


Most of the rank and file infantry are my own castings as are the cavalrymen. The Horses the cavalry are on are Hinchliffe horses from the Colonial Connection. The Russians were also cast (and painted) by myself from a mould I borrowed from my friend John Bertolini (which he made from his own master…). Each unit has an officer, and indeed the entire assault unit, the MGs, the mortar, executioner, the C-in-C and staff officers are all from Coppelstone Castings. The Field Gun (shared with the Brits) is a 4.2” QF Howitzer Mk. I from Reviresco while the crew are my own models/castings.



Another view from the above.


I do also have an airplane that I haven’t quite finished it’s a Testors Spad (Which they don’t seem to have listed in their catalogue any more… lucky me I got it when I did!). I’m going to paint a Chinese dragon on the side of the fuselage as the pilots personal symbol at some point…

At some point I might like to add an armoured car and/or an FT-17 to the force as well…

I finished up a couple other figures recently as well…


The Baron Roman Nicolaus Fyodorovich von Ungern-Sternberg (from Coppelstone Castings).


The beginnings of my Bolsheviks a pair of Commissars from Coppelstone Castings (one is actually from the Bolshevik Heroines pack…).


These are a couple of John Bertolini’s Japanese he made for the Russo-Japanese war. I found them in a box I was cleaning out last week. There’s a picture of some Japanese in Siberia near the back of the Osprey book on the White Russians. The uniforms look quite similar so I thought I’d paint these up to see what they look like. I was really guessing at the colours as I have no info about Japanese uniform colours in the late teens/early twenties (the picture is, of course, black and white.. also in the picture they’re in greatcoats...).

I thought the Japanese might be an interesting interventionist force to do for the Russian Civil War - as there was quite a few of them in Siberia (far more than the Canadians, Brits and Americans...!). I won't be seriously considering this any time soon, however!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

On Wednesday these Chinese might be seeing action! Stay tuned for complete after action report and pictures of the battle!