The Manchurian War

Finally a RJW post. My previous battles have been fought using proxies as I assembled figures better suited/painted for the RJW. No company makes a 6mm RJW line, so proxies had to be selected and painted to serve in the role. On line research indicated that none of the 6mm lines that offer possible figures work well together. I like the Baccus line of 6mm figure and decided to stay with that company and work through the limitations. Figures are based to play using the Bloody Big Battles rules with a figures scale of 1000 infantry, 500 cavalry, and 24 guns per base. Ground scale is normally 333m per 1″ (12″ per 4000m). Time scale is normally one hour.

The Russians figures are mainly Baccus’ WW1 line. The challenge here was that the line didn’t include any color bearers. Color were carried in the field during the war, so I modified a suitable figure by adding a flag staff.

There were two challenges after the infantry. The first was that the M1900 Putilov field guns didn’t have shields. All the WW1 artillery guns in the Baccus line had shields, so I had to look elsewhere. I decided that the Civil War 3″ Ordnance was about as best as was available. Peter at Baccus’ willingness to help came in handy. He allows one to mix guns and crews, so I could order the Ordnance guns with the WW1 Russian artillery crews. The result was acceptable.

The other challenge were the Russian machine guns. The Maxims were mounted on wheeled carriages so the WW1 machine guns sets won’t work. With some search I settled on the Colonial line’s Royal Navy Gatling Gun, again with the Russian artillery crews. Card stock was used to add the gun shield and a little brass paint completed the transformation.

Cavalry was straight forward using the WW1 line. As the Cossacks carried lances during the war, the lance equipped figures were used.

Cavalry on both sides dismounted, so dismount figures were needed. The Baccus line had WW1 dismounted cavalry so again very simple. I would need many dismounted stands and the Baccus package came with 8 dismounted cavalry strips and 2 horse holder strips. Peter allowed me to mix the packaging and I ordered 5 strips of each. That allowed me to create a dismounted stand of three figures and a horse holder with horse.

I wanted some limbered artillery stands but the artillery limber sets were too big for what I envisioned on the table. However the dismounted set gave me some extra horses that I could use as limbered artillery markers.

While the Russians were fairly straightforward, the Japanese were not as simple. I decided that the cap was the main feature I needed to find. After a lot of searching and thinking , I settled on the Franco-Prussian War Imperial Infantry in tunics. I opted to use the skirmish figure to better match the Russian figures. The skirmish packs didn’t have command so I had to order the commands from the Imperial Infantry in Tunics formed. As I didn’t want any formed infantry, Peter again allowed me to order a pack of only commands. As the Japanese didn’t use drums, that figure was discarded. I had the figures all painted in the blue uniform. My current order will have them in khaki.

Japanese Guard Division.

The big challenge for the Japanese was the cavalry and the artillery. The limitation for cavalry was the figures had to be available as both mounted and dismounted. The Japanese cavalry during the war often fought dismounted. That pretty much limited me to a WW1 figure, which limited me to the French Chasseurs for the cap.

As the Japanese Cavalry Brigades had an MG squadron, the WW1 French Hotchkiss worked fine. I plan to rework the MG base to include a horse holder.

There weren’t any models that came anywhere close to the look of the Type 31 Arisaka field gun, so one must hold their nose and use something. I selected the Franco-Prussian War French Reserve Artillery as it already had the crew I would use.

Both sides used mountain guns, but as no good models exist and at this scale it likely won’t matter, mountain guns will used the same artillery stand but labeled as such.

So this is what I have assembled for my RJW games. Doing a playtest using these figures instead of my previous proxies. Our group will fight a RJW battle in March.