After a lengthy delay, my final unit of terracotta warriors is done. The crossbowmen give the army a little ranged ability, and fit nicely with finds made in the warrior pits. The Chinese crossbow of the time was incredibly advanced, mass produced, simple and reliable, so it would be remiss to omit them from the army.
With this unit my clay painting technique has moved on again. I've stippled more colours over the basecoat before washing and drybrushing to give the impression of the remains of paint. The original warriors would have been very brightly coloured, gaudy even. I added some flowers to the bases to give them a little more colour. After some discussion with the Scale Creeps, I went back and added some to my other units too, the colour varying for each unit.
With the crossbowmen done, that give me three infantry units, the halberdiers, swordsmen and crossbowmen, the guts of the army. It was a bit of a slog near the end, but I'm delighted they are done, and I'm very happy with them.
Here they all are, emerging from a hidden tomb entrance at LoPan's foul bidding, ragged pennants blowing in the wind as they await their new master.
