Boxer Rising-The Imperialist Powers

 

Old Glory Russian Dragoons and Cossacks above and below. These are the Ussuri Regiment. Ussuri started off as Cossacks and transformed to Dragoons. Here we have both incarnations. The Ussuri Cossacks are two men light. Did I ever have them? Don't know. Can I find them? Not so far. I need to find a solution.

Obviously, if you know TMWWBK that is, these will be rated as Regular Cavalry and Irregular Cavalry with Modern Carbine respectively. The latter for variety.

Russian Sailors. I'm fielding these as Irregulars with Modern Rifles. Once again I'm missing a figure. This time it is the Russian Officer. I'm using the Campaign Dress excuse by way of justification.

Western Regular Infantry and good quality at that. Italian Bersiglieri who will be Regulars, Modern Rifle and Veteran. Expensive in TMWWBK but formidable.

Russian Regular Infantry, these ones are from Blue Moon. Bigger than the OG ones but workably so.

German Regular Infantry from OG. The Chinese building in the background is a work in progress. 

Many more to come. Including a couple of units from Frontier miniatures. These I bought with some Falcon Imperial Chinese for the Tai Ping Wars. My main reason for the purchase. The "Falcons" are incredibly difficult to find and long out of production.

You might have noticed I've forgone the usual historical context. I will get to it. I like to aim for an objective view and in this case it was eluding me. Inspiration came in the form of a cup of tea. Appropriately enough. That's for another time. Then we will see the rest of my Western Troops. That's a clue. I don't own any Japanese. Yet.

If I had some Japanese I could do the Russo-Japanese War in big skirmish/small battle. Maybe.

Back To China

 

Above Imperial Guardsmen old style. From Old Glory 15mm. As is everything else you will see today.

Long ago I had a big box of Boxers. China don’t you know, and the Century of Shame. I didn’t do much with them. Mainly because I didn’t know if I was big battles or recreating 55 Days in Peking.  I did a fair bit of painting and that was it. An abandoned project.

TMWWBK has worked its magic. Behold the Kansu Braves. Originally raised as a provincial unit the Kansu lads were formidable. That was not unusual in China. Provincial troops often proved to have the edge over the centrally raised professionals. Often this was because they were defending their home province. Better motivation at a guess. Less prone to the vices of the Big City too.

Anyhow, the Kansu, mainly Moslem, were used to supress a Moslem Rebellion. Then they were called to the Capital to shore up the Dowager Empress. Once there they were enlisted into the Rear Guard of the Imperial Army. This meant pay, rations, training and Mauser rifles. 

European sources often called the Kansu Irregulars. Possibly because they didn’t know about their absorption into the Regular Army or maybe because they were newly arrived to Beijing.

How to rate them for TMWWBK? I’m going for Irregulars with modern rifles. if you have a better idea let me know.

Another Imperial unit here. Old style once more. I'm not sure how these fellows were armed. The actual figures have modern rifles but surely that is not the decider. If you happen to know do let me know.

Two of the new Imperial units here. These troops were Western trained and equipped, well motivated too. As you can see by the basing they are Regulars who can form close order and volley.

That's it for the moment. There will be more. Jingals and Tiger Men.  Mongols too.