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I am thinking about Poltava: it is an interesting battle to play and
not so one-sided as it can looks at a glance. My idea is to play it with
V&B at the regimental scale and Maurice (so I can use my Notables). Looking
at the Orders of Battle I realized that I am short of units, since my Swedish
army is based on Holowczin and Helsinborg whereas the Russian one is based
solely on Holowczin.
Accordingly I started to paint units and here I proudly present the
first results (never, never forget that I am a very slow painter….)
Kalmar Regiment: with the King Army from 1701, captured at Poltava,
raised again and at Helsinborgs 1710 and in the Norwegian campaign 1718. The
flag was scanned from the Hoglund book. The miniatures are from the Strelets
boxes “Swedish Infantry of Karl XII” and “From Narva to Poltava”. Interestingly
the fifer has red facings and the rank and file hat lace are blue twisted
white.
Kronobergs Regiment: with the King Army from 1702, captured at
Poltava, raised again and at Helsinborgs 1710. Captured at Wismar 1716,
reraised for the Norwegian campaign 1718. Also in this case the flag was
scanned from the Hoglund book. The miniatures are Strelets with one pikeman
from the Mars “Swedish Infantry” box.
The King at Poltava. This is a very nice scene provided in the
Strelets “From Narva to Poltava” box. The four soldier carring the litter are
Drabants whereas the standing figure depicts the Hetman Mazeppa. For the
Mazeppa dress I took inspiration from this romantic XIXth century painting of G.
Cederstrom:
Now I must paint two more regiments to have enough swedish infantry. I
choosed the Nyland and the Osterbotten Regiments, both with karpus, the
Osterbotten regiment being a muskeeter-only unit. To show the process I follow
when I plan to paint an unit here there are the pictures of the “raw” material.
The “Nylanders”. The first row is from Mars, the second from Strelets,
the NCO which shall be modified to carry the flag wearing an hat.
The “Osterbotteners” (did such a word exists?). Again the grey are
Mars, the brown Strelets whereas the green one is from the Mars box “Saxon
Infantry of Great Northern War” which we met before under Danish disguise. Of
course I have to replace the hats with karpus whereas the big-bellied officier
shall be modified to carry the flag and bayonets will be added to muskets. I
choose a fifer because the karpus and the coat are laced with yellow/blue/white
braid, a nice and defying combination to paint.
When these two regiments will be completed I shall have 32 battalions
(bases) which are the equivalent of 8 Maurice units or 16 V&B regimental
bases, enough to play Poltava. I’ll return on the scenario the next post,
before to deal with the Swedish cavalry and the Russians host.
