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One of the more colourful units I wanted to build for the
Great Northern War were Cossacks. If you have read my previous posts you will
already be aware that I like to produce units that have multiple uses, value
for money I like to think, others might just say I am a tight Yorkshireman.
Cossacks are a good example of this. Traditional irregular auxiliaries
of Russia, these can also be used as Polish irregular Cossacks or Ukrainian
Cossacks. When you consider that Poles and Ukrainians fought on both sides at
different points of the war then you start to see how useful a unit or two of
these might be.
I picked up some of the fantastic Wargames Foundry Cossacks,
sculpted by Mark Copplestone, from ebay at a very good price (you see value for
money again) and this might mean I now have enough for 2 units. I do love Mark
Copplestone figures, they are full of character and really suit my painting
style, fun to paint too.
The above and below give examples of Cossack clothing, being
irregular of course they wore whatever they fancied but there were probably
some dominant colours, browns and greys with brighter reds and blues where the
Cossack was able to afford it (Or loot it!) Fighting often against the Turk
there was probably plenty of opportunity to loot some fancy cloth.
I have tried not to get carried away (which wasn’t that
easy) but still maintain that wild, irregular look on my figures. Below are the
first couple which I hope you like.
Command
In wargaming terms they are going to be of limited value.
Cossacks came into their own raiding and disrupting the enemy supply lines,
cutting up stragglers and foragers and then pursuing broken enemy after a
battle. They can however fill out an army to give the gamer a false sense of
the volume of his own forces. In Black Powder terms this could well mean that
Cossacks have a lower stamina or are possibly wavering. In hand to hand however
they should still be quite savage.
I have played about a bit with basing (which still needs
finalising in general) on a 50mm front 80mm deep Cossacks do have that “horde”
look, a mob of unruly state sponsored bandits, if I am to reduce the depth a
bit I may want smaller numbers of riders, perhaps a unit of 7 across 3 bases,
rather than the usual 9 I have for cavalry, with 3 in the middle base and 2
each on the outside’s. I don’t want a dense formation but a loose mob. That
said I want some uniformity to basing. 50mm frontage still remains my
preference. The Swedes almost certainly on 80mm deep to accommodate all the
pikes, bayonets etc. of the charging figures. The Saxons will probably be on
50mm by 60mm as their foot will all be marching and don’t need the space. The
Poles, including Cossacks, will all need to be on the same depth and I am not
sure that I will need as much depth for the winged hussars who want to be
slightly more formed. The key thing is that frontage is the same for all units,
outside of that depth is just more about how the thing looks, so keeping depth
the same within armies but only frontage the same across the whole collection
works for me.
In other news I spoke to Nick from Ebor the other night
about his Great Northern War range. He has just released Swedish artillery
which is available on his website and exceptionally nice indeed, the infantry
are apparently all now ready to go and he has the figures ready to post but not
on the site available to order yet. Nick had wanted to get some painted up by
the fantastic Dave Imrie (check his paintjob on the gunners below) but Dave, I
understand, has a lot of his own projects on the go so Nick is now thinking to
get ink washed examples for pictures sorted soon and painted ones can follow.
Nick has also shared with me that Russians are not too far
from ready either and these will be followed by Danes, no dates yet. So I am now
figuring out how many battalions of Swedes I want from Nick so I can get an
order in before Christmas. I have a couple of Swedes on the way along with
command figures for my Saxons, once I have some figures I will share my
thoughts and maybe some pictures.
Thanks for reading.
