BoB: White Russian Cossacks & An Obituary

Finally got around to finishing off the Cossacks, and used the Photo Box Mk2:

Generic Cossacks with the basic blue riding breeches and khaki gymnastroika.
As usual, Copplestone models BU39. These will go with my ragged White Russians.

Somewhat morbidly, I often read the Obituaries column in the Torygraph, as it often features colourful characters and personalities. ISTR even reading one one line interview about games designers using obituaries as a source of inspiration for characters in RPGs. I’m not surprised as there really are some great stories of adventure and derring do.

Here’s an example:

Zvansov was enrolled as quartermaster into the Eskadrone (“the Squadron”) — a military unit of 150 “white” Russians established under the command of Chinese Nationalist General Omar Ma. But in 1944 the Soviets succeeded in chasing the Chinese out of the northern part of Sinkiang and declared a puppet state, the Eastern Turkestan Republic. After a series of advances and military reverses, by 1947 the Eskadrone had been chased to Ku-chöng near Urumqi, the seat of the Nationalist provincial government.

Here’s the full article, although it is a bit later than the BoB period, its still an interesting read and shows that the White Russian units continued in China for more than two decades after the RCW – though I’m betting that they didn’t by then have many veteran of the RCW itself.