More swedish Infantry for Poltava

Two more swedish infantry regiments (indeed finnish), both present at Poltava. First the Nylands regiment (one battalion with Lewenhaupt at Lesnaja, placed in the Vastamalands regiments at Poltava: the other battalion at Riga and captured there in 1710).

The miniatures are Mars, all form the Swedish Infantry box but the fifer, which cames from the Saxon infantry box. I like the fifer for his blue/white/crimson lace. The flag was scanned from the Hoglund book.

The other regiment is the Osterbotten, a solely muskeeter regiment with the same story of the previous: at Poltava it was merged with the Närke-Värmlands. The kneeling figure is again from Mars, the others are Strelets. I changed my mind with respect the original plan (see previous posts) and added a grenadier figure since there were 100 grenadiers out of 1200 soldiers. Also in this case the flag was scanned from the Hoglund book.

To command the infantry I did a base representing the General Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt (1659-1719) His name in swedish should sound Leijonhufvud (In italian the swedish pronunce of such a name sound awkward as a norse spell…). His defeat at Lesnaja put a shadow on a previoulsly good career: indeed he was able to defend the Baltic provinces when is King was dealing with Saxon and Polish. His care of his soldiers is reflected in the final surrender of the beaten army at Perevolochna. He was despised by Rehnskjold and treated with some comptent by the King (He called him the “Latin general” because he mastered such a language: intellectuals are ever misplaced in any army, as far as I known…).

Both figures are Mars, the officier from the Saxon and the grenadier orderly from the Swedish boxes.

With these last two regiments I finished the swedish infantry for Poltava which now is represented by 32 bases (indeed 32 battalions) which are equivalent to 16 V&B regimental stands or 8 four-bases units in either Maurice or Black Powder. In a next post I’ll show all the infantry parading in front of the injuried King.

Poltava: the redoubts, part 1.

Any decent replay of Poltava can’t  be done without the famed redoubts. As we all remember, the Russians built 10 redoubts straight on the swedish advance line just the night before the battle (some of them were indeed unfinished at the beginning of the swedish attack). In my scenarios I reduced the number to 5 and started to think how represent them.

An idea of how they should be is given in this painting I found on DeviantArt:

however, given the scale of my scenarios (a 40x30mm base represents a battalion and a 40x40 base represents 4-5 squadrons), rather than a “real” redoubt capable to receive a real garrison, I decided to represent the redoubts as terrain items with specific combat capabilities (more or less like the DBHx “Strongpoint”). A token miniature then will represent the presence of a garrison whose values and capabilities are given by the scenario rules.

It follows that my redoubts size will be 65x55 mm with an empty space more or less of 40x30 mm inside to host the token miniatures (one or two, I have not yet decided).

Here I’ll show the steps I followed to build my redoubts.

First of all a cut a rectangular thick cardboard 65x55 mm and a “rod” taken from an HD polystirene insulating board, of an approximatively square cross-section  about 20 mm.

Then the redoubt "walls" are glued with white glue to the cardboard; at this stage the rod overlaps the cardboard base:

To give a certain uniformity to the scarp I made a template to draw the contours of the parapet: then by using an hot-wire saw I cut the polystirene to create the scarp.

The embrasures and the redoubt access are roughly drawn and then cut with the hot-wire saw. 

The outer faces of the redoubt and the parapet are then plastered with the Vallejo Brown Earth paste 26.219.

The redouts interiors are lined with cardboard stripes and toothpicks to represents the wooden planks.

Finally I did the redoubt access: I decided to give different accesses to each redoubt to add variety: in this case with toothpicks and cardboard I realized a tilting drawer.

At this point the redoubts are ready to be painted. More on a next post.

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.

Another new project

Another new project…..

Pretty busy in many real-life involvments, last night I took from the shelves “The Campaign for the Liberation of Saxony, 1758” by Alistar Brabant, translated by Alistar Sharman and Neil Cogswell, LTR-Verlag 1998 (two volumes, the second filled by maps, drawings and OOB).

There are no full-scale battles between the ReichsArmee and the Prussian Army of Prince Henry, the most important actions being at Sebastienberg and Eilenburg. The only noticeable encounter was indeed Hochkirch between the old lions Fritz and Daun.

Nevertheless the campaign narrative leaves open the possibility of many interesting scenarios, as the -aborted- joint Austrian-Imperial attack on Dresden.

Accordingly, since I have a full ReichsArmee and enough Austrian, Prussian and Saxons to play a full-scale campaign, I would like to design a campaign scenario, starting from the late summer positions. The description, besides Brabant, can be found schematically on Kronoskaf. 

I have to choose the time and space scale: in my mind the map would be a point-to-point one, with a degree of detail greater than the WOR campaign. At this time there are two boardgames with a point-to-point map of Saxony, both dedicated to the Napoleon campaign of 1813:

Napoleon’s Leipzig Campaign, Omega Games, 1994 (this is indeed the map from the Cyberboard module designed by Rafael Pardo Almundi):

Jours de Gloire Campaign IV: Allemagne 1813, de Lützen à Leipzig, Hexasim 2011:

My idea is not to use these maps, which are tailored on a Napoleonic time and movement scale, but rather to use them as an inspiration for a brand new map which will be based on a map 26 given in by Neil Cogswell in Volume II:

Yet to decide rules and all that stuff. Stay tuned!

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: