55 Days at Peking... A beginning

One of Don Kingman's wonderful watercolour paintings from the opening credits of the 1963 classic film
produced by Samuel Bronston and starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner and David Niven

Right then! I've finally made a decision about my big new project for 2017 - it will be a Boxer Rebellion theme and it will be centred around the Siege of the Legations in Peking in 1900.

After much consideration, wandering about the interwebs exercising my Google Foo and counting my shekels over and over I have decided to go with a 28mm large skirmish model. This will involve at least 130 Chinese troops and as many as half of that number in Great Powers troops spread across most of the various imperial protagonists.

Last night Russ, Cory and I played a test game using Matakishi's free skirmish rules The Natives Are Restless Tonight available from his own Boxer Rebellion project. They mostly suit my needs and with some tweaking will, at least for the time being, be the preferred rule set as they play fast and allow for plenty of on-the-fly silliness and heroics from both sides.

This morning I sat down and re-watched (for about the 100th time I think) the 2.5 hour cinematic epic 55 Days at Peking, one of my favourite all time history / war movies. I love everything about it from the story, to the scale, to the relatively accurate period colour. I'm not usually a Charlton Heston fan but in this instance I think he suited the role and alongside David Niven (who was magnificent IMHO) made the film quite watchable over and over, for me at least.

The sets from the film are one of the things that have always caught my eye and I'll be looking to try and recreate some of that flavour on the table when I start build the board. My intention is to build approximately 4-6 legations, plus a number of gardens, the canal, a large ornamental gate (thanks to Dave Docherty!) and plenty of other smaller items to add flavour. It will be a LOT of work and storage will be an issue but I've wanted to do this for some time and there's no point doing it by halves.

Over the last few weeks the lovely Mrs Millsy and my in-Laws have shelled out on some serious reading for my birthday this year to keep me fired up and interested. I've got both the Osprey Men-at-Arms Boxer Rebellion and Peking 1900 Campaign books in the post, along with an eBay find I have been after for some time...

Lastly there is some more serious reading for bedtime, a copy of The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China by David J. Silbey. I have read several good reviews about it and am very keen to get my head into it the minute it arrives...

So, plenty to keep me occupied for the next few weeks as I work out my requirements in terms of troops. They'll be predominantly from the Redoubt Miniatures Boxer Rebellion range which covers pretty much everything I require, although for some reason seems to lack personality figures despite these appearing in their other colonial ranges?!? Go figure...

Anyway, that's enough for starters...

Cheers,

Millsy