On the road again

A new post after a long time. I was unfortunately enough to be caught by the lockdown far from my house. So I didn’t  spent all my quarantine time painting minis or playing wargames and boardgames as many of you did.

Back home at the end of June I finally took brushes  again to complete the doubling of Danish cavalry: here you can see the result (yes, many bases are still unfinished because in the meantime I  also finished the Vallejo texture…). All the details about the regiments were given  in older posts.

Swedish temporary foot and Danish cuirassiers

To add some variety in my Swedish army I added two “temporary units” in gray coats.

The first one is the Smaland Tremannings. It was in Livland and then with the Lewenhaupt army. After the disaster at Lesnaja the survivors were placed in the Livgardet. According to Hoglund the coat was blue but the “gray vadmal pajrock” with yellow linings and cuffs was in use for the privates. The second regiment is the Södermalands (och Östgota) Tremannings (blue lining). It was a short lived unit, broken in 1703 after the Colonel Putbus death, one battalion transferred to Livgardet, the other to the Upplands Tremannings. Reraised in 1712 with an history of reraising and breaking till 1721. Miniatures are the usual mix of Strelets and Mars.

As it can be seen in previous post, the Danish cavalry for Helsinborg was painted with one base for each regiment. However, as I did for the Swedish and Russian cavalry all the regiments will be double-based. In this way two bases can be used as “regimental base” for V&B and a four-bases unit for Maurice will represents a two-regiment brigade.

The first regiment I put in full strenght is the 1st Jyske (Jutland) Cavalry Regiment in its “vintage” XVIIth century cuirassiers attire. The ensign has a converted hat from a tricorne into the old-fashioned one wich is depicted in the Snorranson article on the Danish Army, whereas the cuirassier in the other base had an head-swapping with another miniature.

More GNW miniatures

End of holidays painting: the Busch Grenadier regiment, raised in 1708 from the grenadier companies of the Belozerski, Lefortski, Viatski, Kievski, Rentzel, Rostovski, Tobolski, Olonerski, Koporieski and Ivangorodski regiments, from 1715 Weide’s Regiment. Present at  Holowczin and Poltava, then at the Prut an from 1711-19 in Pomerania. The blue uniform was introduced in 1711. Three grenadiers are from Zvedza “Russian Infantry of Peter the Great” box, the other three are converted from the Preobrazenski grenadiers from the Strelets box “Guard of Peter I”, by modifying the grenadier cap.

The cavalry was from the Zvedza box “Dragoons of Peter I”: they are simply outstanding, areal pleasure to paint. The flag has the motif in relief but it was not a problem since it was exactly the motif of the Moskowsky regiment I opted to paint. The only drawbacks of the box is that it has only 10 figures on the horse, the other being dismounted dragoons (nicely done with the horse holders and different arms): this requires a disproportionate amount of boxes to obtain a sizeable force. However one can have also a sizeable force of dismounted dragoons. The Moskowsky regiment was raised in Moscow in 1700 as Gulitz’s (Goltz). At Narva, then in the baltic theatre, at Kalisz 1706, Poltava and Pruth. The officers wore the red waistcoat with blue cuffs, a nice variation.

To finish, a third artillery base for the Danish army, once again from the Strelets “Artillery of Charles XII”:

It is time to make the second base for all the Danish cavalry I did previously: then I shall have enough bases to replay Helsinborg with both Maurice and Volley&Bayonet. Stay tuned.

A small pause and new projects

After completing the Swedish for Poltava, a little pause before the next achievements. Next goal will be the completion of the Russian Army which is underway. Then I shall double all the Danish cavalry bases.

At this point  something of out-of-the-track could be done. I am already planning to do a couple of Tremannings regiments in gray coat and the Valacks, these by using the Orion cossacks. By the way the Valacks can be used either as Polish or Russian Cossacks, the only difference will be a “command base” with a swedish officier for Valacks, a Polish flag for the Poles and I don’t know what for the Russians.

Having done the Swedish, Russian and Danish armies (enough to refight Holowczin, Poltava and Helsinborg), it could be the time to move my attention to the Saxon-Polish army which can widen the horizon to Klissow, Fraustadt and Gadebusch as well as to a lot of smaller actions (the crossing of Duna in 1701 would be an interesting scenario, look here for an example)

The uniforms are well documented, at least for the Saxon part. Besides the Hoglund book there are the Dan Schorr tables from his defunct site Northernwars.com. For the Polish contingent some informations can be obtained by the two Osprey volumes of R. Brezinski on the Polish Army and from the blogs Oderint dum Probent and Kadrinazi. Anyway it will become necessary at least to have some Winged Hussards, a colorful addition to any collection. The other cavalry (Pancerni, Jadza Lekka, Dragoons and Arquebusier, Cossacks) and the elusive infantry units can follow later.

Since I had a very good experience with the Mars Saxon Infantry, which I used to represent the Danish, I’ll probably use them to depicts my Saxon Infantry. I have not yet decided if I’ll use the Zvedza or the Strelets miniatures for the cavalry. 

I would like also to finish the Kolin analysis, this time with V&B and DB-Hx (or HFG) and give a similar treatment to some GNW battles. 

Swedish Cavalry "Augmentation"

When I started to paint GNW Swedish, the idea was to use them to refight Holowczin with V&B at the battalion level, half-scale. Accordingly, each regiment of infantry was represented by a 40x30 mm scale, roughly half of a standard V&B 3x1.5 inches base. With such a basing two bases represented a regiment, full-scale (80x30 mm being close to 3x1.5 inches). 

As far as the cavalry was concerned, a single 40x40 mm base represented (at battalion level and half-scale) a single regiment: clearly, at the full-scale a 3x3 inches brigade should be represented by an 80x80 mm square base which could be represented by putting two bases on a sabot. 

Later I turned to the full regimental scale and thus I realized that every cavalry regiment I painted must be doubled. In such a way 4 bases could be used to represent a V&B cavalry brigade or a Maurice four bases "unit" or also a Black Powder 4 bases "normal unit". 

So I crossed the Rubicon and started to double the existing Swedish cavalry regiments (Russian and Danish will follow, sooner or later): for manifold reasons I decided instead to represent Dragoons with only one base, in such a way that a 4 bases unit will be formed by four different regiments.

This is the result, up to now:

Ostogota Cavalry Regiment

Vastgota Cavalry Regiment

Smalands Cavalry Regiment

Nylands och Tavahustas Cavalry Regiment

LivGardet Cavalry Regiment

to which must be added a base of Dragoon and a base of the Sverige Adelsfana (yet to be doubled).

To refight Poltava I need 6 V&B brigades, hence 24 bases (which by the way are also 6 Maurice or Black Powder units) and accordingly I must paint 10 more bases of Swedish Cavalry: 3 Dragoons and 7 Horses.

More Swedish with Poltava in mind

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.

Danish Infantry at Helsinborg. Part II

The last five regiments of Danish infantry are finally completed.

The Drottingens Regiment (a.k.a. The Queen Regiment), unique in its red coat which will become the standard uniform color after 1716. The grenadier is based on the drawing from the Snorrasson article, which actually represents a grenadier NCO:

the Fynske Regiment, with its unique red collars (but it seems that is an error and that probably it was a necklace: anyway I liked it….)

the Jyllandske (Jutland) Regiment: the grenadier cap is based on an illustration taken from Snorranson.

Two milita units, the Vestsajellandske and the Ostsajellandske Landsmilitia: the sources states that the Landsmilitia flag was the simple “Danneborg”, the white maltese cross on red field.

In the last picture the Danish army in its OoB at Helsinborg, 1710:

More Danish Infantry, step by step.

This is my Danish Army thus far: all the cavalry, 9 bases, 7 Infantry regiments on 12 and 2 guns on 3.

The long waited box of Mars GNW Saxon Infantry is finally arrived. When I opened the box, I get a pleasant surprise: the plastic is a nice medium grey, not the abysmal bottle green of the first production (see the review at PSR for a full appreciation of the original color).

This time I’ll spend some time to describe the process of painting I use. First of all, after washing the miniatures in lukewarm water with dish soap, I spray a coat of cheap hobbyst matt white, brushing some spots with acrylic white (I generally use LC01 Matt White by Lifecolor). Then I mount the figures with white tack on ice sticks, three each, already organized by bases.

A liberal wash with GW Devlan Mud (which now is called Agrax Earthshade!) and they are ready for the “mass painting”step.

First of all two passages of dry-brushed white, for all but the Drottingen regiment which is instead coated with Vallejo Scarlet 70817.

Then face and hands with GW Kislev Flesh and Vallejo Chocolate Brown 70872 for hair, gun, poles, partisans etc. (notice that my soldiers, aside for an handful of Officiers, all has dark brown hair. The belts and any leather detail are painted with Vallejo Desert Yellow 72073. Finally, black tricorne, scabbards, hair tie and cartridge/grenade pouches.

All these parts are washed with GW Gryphone Sepia. The mass production stops here: at this point I take any single unit (6 miniatures) and finish it before proceeding to the next one.

I begin with Fynska regiment, that with green facings and uniquely, a red collar: for the green I use GW Warpstone Glow (sic!) whereas the red is the same as before. First the facing colors: cuffs, breeches, gaiters/socks, waistcoat and only in this case the collar.

After this passage I correct all the mistakes done in the previous phases with white, used also to highlits the shirt around the hands and the neckcloth. The hat lace and the shoes are painted at this stage, as well as the base which is painted in the color of the unit base (I paint most of my unit bases dark brown: I choosed to leave those of the Danish of the natural color of the stone texture to add some variety).

The metals: gunmetal, silver and brass. The flag is done completely at this stage (I draw and paint with brown ink the parts which are then painted with brass and highlighted with gold): having no idea at all of the flagpole color, I paint it in a contrasting color, in this case red. Some final finishing touches (for instance Gryphone Sepia on the neckcloth which, according to Snorrasson, was also used as a towel…..) and details and the unit is ready to be mounted on the bases, made with thick cardboard and painted with the same sand as the miniatures base.

The terrain is made with the Vallejo Stone Texture “Brown Earth 26219”, unpainted and liberally sprinkled with hamster litter.  The bases are then sprayed with a matt transparent varnish.

The next step will be to wait 24 hours and add some static grass; the following day the grass in excess shall be removed and then we shall be finished. It the next post I’ll present all the regiments which completes the Danish Army at Helsinborg.