The Deluge a New Project for the Poles and Cossacks

With the great confinement upon us I have lots and lots of painting available including new projects, but I couldnt help getting caught up in something new. I say new but its more of an extension of the forces I already have in some ways.

I have always hankered after the Central and Eastern European armies of the mid 17th centruy, Winged Hussars, Cossacks and Tatars. The team responsible for the By Fire and Sword figures and rules have been advertising like mad and I finally caved. Their figures are lovely and cover the full range but I was pursauded by chum Dave to re-consider in 28mm. Mainly given the troops I already have.

Dave is also considering this period as it happens, he already has Cossack cavalry, again for the Great Northern War initially, he also has a large English Civil War collection which may yeild useful units to add to this project with the swapping out or discarding of command bases with English flags.

With 4 units of Cossack Cavalry, 2 of Cossack foot and 8 of Polish cavalry it would have been silly to start again so  decided to simply expand these current ranges, collected for my Great Northern War project and of course the vast majority can still be used on the Great Northern War project so double use.

I have a bag full of Old Glory Cossack foot donated by chum Jerry and whilst many of them are not very nice there are enough that look OK to form the bulk of the 3 extra foot units I want to kick off with.

The Poles currently consist of 2 units of Winged Hussars, 3 of Light cavalry and 3 of Pancerni. That leaves me light on Pancerni amnd needing at least one unit of Dragoons.

The TAG figures have the long pennants of ther Hussaria, I have seen original woodcuts with these for Lithuanian Pancerni.

These Warlord Winged Hussars are probably the nicest of the Poles

My initial purchase from Redoubt has been enough figures for an extra unit of Pancerni, a couple of Cossack Pikemen and two heavy wagons for the Tabor I intend to have. These came very quickly and are lovely pieces, the Pancerni in particular are fantastic figures and some of the best on the market currently I feel. I will definately be getting more of these. The Wagons are a bargain at £5 or £5.50 with a light cannon.

I also picked up some figures from The Assault Group, a further pack of Pancerni, 2 of Cossack foot and one of Polish light cavalry command, to flesh out units I am already starting.

Finally I have ordered a group of figures from Ebay, poorly painted but hopefully easy to repair these are mainly winged Hussars with the odd Pancerni and Light cavalry figure mixed in, all from the old Wargames Foundry range, still lovely figures.

My biggest head ache at present is the Polish Dragoons pictured above. Old Glory do these but I am not a massive fan of this particular set. The Polish Dragoons would be dressed in similar fashion to most western dragoons such as English Civil War troops but with the long cavalry boots and fur hats (Too early for cartridge boxes). Using for instance the Warlord games dragoons with head swaps would work well. Head swaps I guess might be provided by the Over Mountain men heads from Kings Mountain. I do want to explore easier and possibly cheaper options before I buy a stack of figures to convert.

Ok so thats where I am at for now, watch out for updates.