Tumu Crisis (planned for KublaCon)

I'm back, if only so I can post pictures of the Old Glory Ming Conscripts. Please no snide remarks about the paint job. This was 72 infantry figures painted in the space of less than a week, so I'm not all that proud of the quality.


The reason I'm working on Ming figures at such a frantic pace is because I'm planning on running a Field of Glory scenario at Kubla Con (May 22 to 25). My scenario is running on Sunday, May 24 at 10:00. It is based on the Battle of Tumu in 1449, in which a Ming Chinese army was destroyed by the Mongols and the Emperor was captured.

Most of my Ming figures are from Grumpy Miniatures of Australia. Even given that my good paint jobs are not much better than my ten-figure-a-day wonder above, the quality of the paint job just makes the Old Glory figures look worse by comparison.

In fact, I'm usually down on Old Glory 15's, and I can't quite figure out what it is I find so unimpressive about them. They're very large, dwarfing almost any other nominal 15mm scale figure apart from Xyston. They're a bit blobby, though I can't fault the sculpting as being truly bad - just not all that inspiring. Most annoyingly for the Ming figures, they don't come with a couple of standard-bearers in each bag of infantry. For once, that's an army for which having every other stand include a banner is historically accurate.

The Grumpy figures, by comparison, are well-proportioned and beautifully sculpted. The ability to purchase figures individually makes it easy to construct an appropriate army. Of course, the cost is more than Old Glory, but I don't find it too bad, even after adding in the shipping from Australia.


Then again, convenience trumps all else. When I went to put together the Mongol opponent to the Ming, I ended up relying on Old Glory again.

I probably shouldn't complain. These didn't come out all that badly, after all.

Scenario Ideas : "You were a bloodthirsty foe, but your chicken is delectable!"

I have occasionally run Taiping-era games at conventions, using a modified version of the Brother Against Brother rules (which I've titled Elder Brother Against Younger Brother). It's an intriguing period, colorful, and allows me to play out Colonial-era games without the annoying colonists who grossly outclass everyone else.

Among the many intriguing people from this era is the Imperial Chinese general Zuo Zongtang (左宗棠), better known as Tso Tsung-'tang. He's the General Tso of General Tso's Chicken fame, the name being used only to mark the meal as a Hunan-style dish. In fact, the dish is entirely American in origin. One of my favorite variants of the recipe is here, which I originally found from this article. As a vegetarian, I use either cubed tofu or chicken-style textured vegetable protein. (It's not as vile as it sounds, particularly after you cover it in batter and deep-fry it.)

All that aside, the thing that caught my attention was reference to Zuo hauling Krupp siege guns all the way into central Asia to put down the Muslim Rebellion in the 1870's. While I have no clear historical scenario to work from, I immediately saw the opportunity for a skirmish scenario involving Chinese troops seizing a position from which they could bombard the Muslim Hui fortress. Of course, it meant buying some Old Glory Krupp siege guns, and painting up a bunch of Afghan troops to look vaguely like Bokhara mercenaries. And perhaps I really should be using some Foundry figures for the Hui rebels. And by the time I had all the lead I wanted, there wasn't time to paint it all for KublaCon.

Perhaps I'll run it at the next ConQuest.

One last, food-related note. Kudos are in order to the KublaCon staff for convincing the food vendors to stock a decent selection of healthy foods this year! As a vegetarian, I can say that there is nothing worse than finishing running a game at 3:00 in the afternoon to find that the only edible food available is an extra-greasy cheese pizza and a bag of chips. The fruit bowls and vegetable platters were lifesavers. Overpriced, as always, but for once I was able to forgive that.