"Imgin War horse archer dress?" Topic

I have what I believe are OG 15mm horse archers (I bought them several years ago). The have broad brimmed hats and are unarmored. Some of the figures have a rather dainty cape tied around their necks…I can't find any pictorial evidence for this for either Ming or Koreans so don't know what to use for coloring. Anybody know about these archers?

I have only found one figure like what you describe…

Kwak-Chae-u

Are you sure these are Imjin War Koreans?

OG didnt make figures for this period.

The Koreans were very poor and didn't field lt cav horse archers as only wealthier classes could afford to keep horses. Korean cav (until they were destroyed) were medium or heavy.

The Ming employed mercenaries as horse archers for their Korean campaigns and their horse archers would look like Mongol or Turkic lt cav.

Your minis sound like maybe Sung Chinese cav (the hats).

If you want to use them for Imjin War, you may want to paint these "capes" in unit colors to distinguish them.

How about posting a picture?

cwlinsj – it's Old Glory 15s rather than Old Glory, so they are Imjin War period.

However, from the description, the figures are the horse archers from the Ming range, not the Korean.

Yes it sounds like the Ming horse archers from the old glory range.

What these are exactly is harder to say. Most Chinese cavalry was armoured and pretty much all carried a bow, plus a hand weapon of some sort, medium or heavy in wargames terms. Most "light cavalry" archers would have been allies or mercenaries from the Northern "barbarian" peoples.
These figures appear to be unarmoured and wearing the very common felt hat (or possibly the iron helmet of similar shape). Its not that these items are wrong or anachronistic, one could point to some Ming images of horsemen in similar dress, but whether they represent a type of light horse archer is more difficult to say.
At least that's my understanding. I'd be interested to hear what others think.

The scarf or small cape (Jian Jin, 肩巾 ?)seems to have been worn by soldiers as a type of identification, or possibly used to store rations in. I'd paint them the same colour in a unit.

This is how mine got painted.

Currently they are for "Military academy Light Horse" (troop type in the Korean lists for FoG), but might get used for a Ming army in future.

link

Thank you for your help--Ming it is--