Great Northern War Foot Cossack Regiment

Hi, I managed to get some pictures today before the light went of the latest figures to arrive from the basing department.


The first to share is a regiment of foot Cossacks.


The article I read in the Great Northern War Compendium first led me to consider these troops. I know there were plenty of Cossacks fighting on foot around Poltava. The article refers to "Town Cossacks" or "Mercenary" Cossack regiments. These seem to have a uniform coat but civilian clothing otherwise, not dissimilar to how Western European armies were uniformed in earlier periods.


There is reference to a force of 2,000 of these being cornered and destroyed in the early campaigns of the Swedes in Lithuania and Poland whilst fighting alongside the Saxons as the Russian contingent. So I see me being able to use them to supplement Saxon, Swedish or Russian armies. I intend to have two of these. The article shows troops in either grey or brown coats so I will have one unit with a mainly grey coat and the other mainly brown.


The first finished then is my grey coated regiment.

 The majority of these are from the foundry range sculpted by Mark Copplestone with two TAG Cossacks added in. The only very minor conversion was the Priest, I cut out his staff and drilled his hand to talk the standard. This is from a sheet of Cossack and Polish flags I picked up from ebay but I cant see who the actual manufacturer is.

I have yet to start the brown coated regiment but have just sent the last of the mounted Cossacks off to York for basing. To follow I have the third of my Cossack regiments of horse, the second of my Swedish Guard foot and some more generals and artillery so watch out for more posts.