"Jin and Xi Xia - Curious about figures" Topic

Having just read a few books on Genghis Khan I'm curious to know if anyone makes 28mm figures for Jin and/or Xi Xia? I know there are several Song manufacturers; would it be suitable to use Song for Jin?

cheers
jon.

You could probably use Sung infantry figures for a Jin army. The cavalry would more likely look similar to the Khitan Liao as the Jin hailed from Manchuria. So a mix of Sung Chinese infantry with Khitan cavalry troops would give a pretty accurate Jin army! The Xi Xia were a Tangut people(related to the Tibetans), and I would use the the excellent Tibetans from Curtey's Miniatures if I were doing Xi Xia in 28mm scale. Post some pics when they are done! I find this era of history fascinating too!

Excellent, thanks for that!

I had never been very keen on the period until I read two books by John Man called Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan. They opened my eyes to a whole series of events and campaigns that I didn't know much about and the wargaming options are fascinating; chinese, korean, mamluke, european opponents and so on. Then I saw the TAG news notice here the other day and it got me to thinking about the period….:) I have a rough idea of Song and Jin army composition from my readings so I think it is time to have a go!

cheers
Jon.

You'll never believe how I got interested in this period. I watched an old movie with Omar Sharif as Temujin and I was fascinated by the battle scenes. I think it was called Ghengis Khan or something. I remember trying to re-create the look of the Jin troops from the movie. I still toy with idea of doing these after I am done with my Crusades era projects…

Best wishes,

Perris

John Man has a nice easy going writing style which makes his book rather interesting. Here are three books that you may find useful:

The Mongol Art of War by Timothy May ISBN 978-1-59416-046-2

War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China 900-1795 by
Peter Lorge ISBN 0-415-31690-1

The Fall of the Jurchen Chin: Wange's Memoir on Ts'ai-chou under the Mongol Siege (1233-1234) by Hok-Lam Chan ISBN: 3-515-06285-8

C

Splendid, I'll have a look around for them!

cheers
Jon.

The best English language source for the Jin (WG Chin) is:

Author: Herbert Franke
Title: Krieg und Krieger im chinesischen Mittelalter ISBN:3515082166

Which is surprisingly easy to get and cheap in the UK/US. The sections of the book dealing with the Jin army are in German and English.

Thanks all for the assistance and I'll certainly hunt up the books. Can anyone recommend uniform sources? I looked at the osprey book but it appears a little general, and I balked at the price of WRG 'Armies and Enemies of Ancient China" which was $279.95 USD on Amazon!! and is no longer available from WRG…I've had a look at various galleries etc but a paper source would be good.

Don't want much do I…:)

cheers
Jon.