First battalion of GNW Russian Foot

Festive greetings to all. Thought I might share one of the goodies brought home by the basing department at the weekend. My first battalion of Russian Foot.


Now I am only planning two of these, brigaded with two battalions of Foot Cossacks, my main focus remaining on the Swedes, Saxons and Poles.


These are all Ebor miniatures and very nice figures, they are available to buy but Nick hasn't got them on his web site yet. Ebor only do a firing line but I think this is ideal for the Russians who much preferred to try and overcome the Swedes with fire power.


The Regiment I chose is the Siberski Regiment, nothing scientific here, I wanted a green faced red unit and as the uniforms and flags of the Russians at this period are not that well known I was happy to go with a unit identified as Green Faced red in two sources and where a flag was available specifically for them from Reiver Castings.

 I think the gabion adds a bit of something to the bases and the Pikeman with a pistol is really nice. This last by the way is historically correct, instructions to foot regiments had one in 3 pikemen issued with a pistol, presumably to increase short range missile fire.

 

 

 The last two shots illustrate again the virtual three ranks and how this works on the deep bases.

Really happy with these. I may try mixing in some figures loading for the next unit though.

I also have my third unit of Saxon foot finished and will share a post with you by the weekend with these. Sat with the basing department I also have a unit of foot Cossacks, Mounted Cossacks, Swedish foot guards, Saxon, Swedish and Cossack Generals and  Saxon Field gun. Meanwhile on the workbench I have made a little start on a Swedish Tremanning battalion in Grey faced blue.

All coming along nicely.

If I don't speak with you before, have a great New Year.

Cossacks, Casualties and Christmas

Hi All


Well as we start to close in on Christmas I thought I would share the latest from the workbench.


First of all Cossacks, both foot and mounted.

 I now have enough dismounted for the first foot battalion of Cossacks as below. these will now be heading in the direction of the basing department.

 I also now have enough mounted Cossacks for a unit with the six below and the three previously shown. Like the foot Cossacks these are mainly Foundry with a smattering of TAG.

 I also have some casualty markers for my Saxons, please excuse the quality of the pictures. These are Warfare miniatures and are very nice indeed. The horse being a Warlord pike and shotte horse which snapped.

I do have a couple more battalions back from the basing department to share with you over the holidays so keep watching.


In the meantime please have a fantastic time over the holiday period whatever you are doing and wherever you are.

More Saxon Guard

So I alluded to another unit of Saxons back from the basing department and here they are. These are the second battalion of the Polish guard and the third out of four for my Guards Brigade. Like the Swedish Guard they saw lots of action in the Great Northern War and also fought in the War of the Spanish Succession making them multi purpose.


The uniform and the flags are the same for the Saxon Guard and the Polish Guard, the only difference really is the Grenadier cap and I have made the hat tape different.

The majority of figures are plastic Wargames Factory with metal command figures, inthis case mainly Wargames Foundry. I find the Wargames Factory figures quite nice Probably the only thing I am not keen on is the faces on the Grenadier heads, but as less than £0.30 per figure when I got them I cant complain.

 With the marching figures the ranks show up much better than the charging Swedes, the above and below pictures illustrate this quite well.

 A couple of close ups from either end of the line. I quite like the grenadier carrying a grenade ready to throw. One of the advantage of multi part figures.

The basing department has a couple more units finished and returns home for Christmas on the 22nd so I will have a couple more posts over the holiday period.


I am also nearing completion of painting on the first unit of Foot Cossacks, with mounted Cossacks not far behind so watch this space.


Just as an aside I am almost at the pint where we have enough figures for a small game. By the end of the holidays I will have;


 8 battalions of Swedish foot with 3 guns and 3 units of horse.
4 units of Polish Horse
4 units of Saxon foot, 3 guns and 2 units of Saxon horse
1 unit of Russian Foot with 2 cavalry units
1 unit of Cossack foot and 3 of Cossack horse.


Add that to Marks 8 Battalions of Danes and 2 of Danish horse and we are pretty much ready to go.


Keep an eye out.


Thanks for reading.

Another Great Northern War Workbench

Hi


A pretty successful week with painting so I thought I might share some progress. A mix of Swedes and Cossacks with a few Saxons too


Firstly the gun crew for the Saxon gun completed on the last workbench post. Ebor figures, takes me to 3 Saxon guns, one per brigade should be plenty..

 Cossack foot! Really enjoying doing these, the below are all Foundry by Mark Copplestone and full of character. I intend to do two battalions of foot Cossacks.

 The command for my next unit of Swedes, in this case the Guard Grenadiers.

 And the command for my fourth unit of Life Guard, just the other 15 to paint for this unit! Its a start.

 The next batch of Guard Grenadiers for the Swedes, Ebor figures , just another 5 to finish this unit.

 A Swedish Brigadier, not decided who this is yet, but I noce figure pointing the way forward to the enemy, again Ebor.

This next chap is a Saxon General, a rather old casting from Foundry but still pretty serviceable.

 Then back to the foot Cossacks, poor photography sorry, rushed them through to add to this post. Foundry again, the priest had a minor conversion to add what is a very nice looking flag I feel.

 

 Foot Cossacks from TAG (The Assault Group) nice figures that fir in well with the foundry ones.

 And finally TAG mounted Cossacks, the photography doesn't really do these figures justice, I will do better when I have them as a finished unit, promise!

Next on the workbench more Cossacks, I finished horses for the next 6 mounted which will give me my third mounted unit of Cossack, then a couple more dismounted should see the first battalion of those complete too.


I will update the blog with another battalion of Saxons at the weekend so watch this space.


Cheers.

GNW SWEDISH LIFE GUARD

Hi All


The finance department has been to visit the basing department in York and returned with lots of goodies.


The first I will share with you is the first battalion of the Swedish Life guard.


My intention with the life guard is to model all 4 battalions including the combined grenadier battalion. This isn't just me wanting the field the best troops I can find so as to smash other armies, the guard were almost always the first into a fight and the Swedes often used them as a hammer to break through the enemy with other troops in support. There are numerous battles where the army was led into battle by the guard and I think that makes this an ideal brigade to work towards.


Unlike most of the Swedish army the Guard was made of Swedes who volunteered rather than being called up to serve in regiments locally. It had no local identity but earned its elite status numerous times. Like the indelta local battalions it had one third pike and 2 thirds muskets, although the combined grenadier battalion would not have any pike.

The guard took the day in battles like Narva and Holowczyn under tremendous fire from the enemy and were destroyed with the rest of the main field army at Poltava.

The privates were in blue faced yellow with yellow hat tape, whilst the officer of most regiments, including the guard, had blue faced blue.

All of the figures in this battalion are from the Ebor GNW range. 

 

  Below gives you a view of how the virtual third rank works, giving the unit some depth, but also how the 80mm deep base protects the bayonets from my fat fingers. 

 Below from a different angle, the casualty figure is again Ebor from a pack of casualties I have used across a number of units. 

The last shot gives you a view of how deep the bases are and how they protect the figures.


The second battalion is painted and will be based when the basing department returns for Christmas, the Grenadiers are half painted I will give you an update later in the week as part of a workbench post. Also to follow will be another battalion of Polish Guard for the Saxon army. No I'm not obsessed with the guard, they just fought in more actions than other units and are therefore more useful.....honest!


So that's me done for now. Thanks for reading and see you soon.

A Swedish Workbench

With all the posts about Russian Civil War and Carlist games and most of the figures coming off the table being Saxon, Polish or Russian you could be forgiven for thinking I had forgotten the Swedes, fluttering off butterfly-like to other pretty flowers.


But no in the background the Swedes have been slowing massing. As I have finished painting one unit and started two more I thought a quick update was in order.


Firstly I have painted the second battalion of the Swedish Liv Guard. I intend a Brigade of these chaps and they do look the part. Full post when based but.....

 Ebor Pike

 Ebor Musketeers

 Foundry musketeers

 Ebor Command

 Ebor casualty

 The regiment ready to be based

We then have the first figures painted for the guard grenadier battalion. Only battalion of combined grenadiers I am aware of the Swedes using. This is half of the Ebor "Storming Party Command Pack" ready but on the website yet. Another officer and two ensigns to go. Along with the casualty figure this will make the Grenadeirs a very lively looking unit.

 Then the first Swedes in grey, this will be one of two Tremanning units both will be in grey and marching so they will look a little different to the rest. 2nd from the left is foundry rest are Ebor. I will discuss what a Tremanning unit is when I have them finished,

And finally just to prove I am still a butterfly, a Saxon gun. Crew to follow in next week or two!


So there you are, hopefully have some finish units back from the basing department in a couple of weeks to share, in the mean time thank you for reading!.

GNW Generals

Hi


So the basing department has come home for the weekend again and I have a couple of command bases from her. She has been focusing on basing Marks Danes over the last couple of weeks so not much of mine over the line just yet. 2Saxon and 2 Swedish Battalions awaiting the basing departments time.


These figures are from a Warfare command pack for their Currassier wth Currais under coat. I bought standing horses in error and eventually decided that painting them as Generals might be a good use. The first one is loosely based on a picture of Swedish Field Marshall Carl Gustaf Rehnschold.


I particularly like the stance with his fist on his hip. There is a picture of Rehnschold in the GNW Compendium in this pose with a breastplate under his coat.

 I have then put the standard bearer and trumpeter on one base as a Saxon Cavalry command base. I cut the arm from the Ensign and put a sword arm on instead and quite like the result.

Just finishing the second battalion of Liv Guard so will do workbench update with these shortly.


Thanks for your time.

Triumph of the Will Russian Civil War AAR

Had a cracking game at Chris's barn wargames room today, pitching the Red hordes against the White counter revolutionaries.


We use the Two Fat Lardies Triumph of the Will rules, suitably watered down for large tables and large numbers of troops. The table was 14 x 6 and I had designed the game for either 4 or 6 players so 5 worked just fine.


I did promise not to mention that Steve Shann commanded the Red army so hopefully I will remember not to mention his name anywhere.

The premise of the game has a Red army in retreat, a small force of White Guards have blocked their retreat and the Reds must break through before the pursuing Whites catch and destroy them.

The Red forces were split into two Cavalry brigades and 4 foot brigades as follows.

2 X 9 Red Navy, aggressive regulars

2 x 8 Siberian Rifles, marksmen, regulars 

1 x MG

3 x 8 Red foot trained
2 x 7 Ex-POWS's trained

1 X MG

9 x 7 Red foot Militia (split into 2 brigades)


3 x 7 Red Cavalry trained

3 X 8 Red Cavalry trained

2 x Guns

1 x Aeroplane on the roll of a six.

1 x Armoured Car

The White Army had 3 foot and 2 Horse Brigades on table with a small Horse and foot brigade off table.

Blocking force

3 x 9 foot regulars aggressive

2 x 8 Polish Lancers

1 x MG

1 Gun

Pursuing Force

3 x 8 foot trained

3 x 8 foot trained

1 x Gun

1 x Tchanka

2 x 8 Cossacks Trained Aggressive

1 x 7 Cossacks Trained Aggressive

Off table

2 x 9 foot regulars aggressive

2 x 7 Mongol Horse Aggressive Militia

 

1 x armoured car

1 x aeroplane on roll of a six



 

 

 

  

 

 The Reds elected to leave their two Cavalry Brigades with both guns as rear guard with a Militia Brigade protecting their flanks as they took all their best Infantry bolstered by both MG's and the armoured car in an effort to bulldoze through the defending force.


As the White pursuers swept onto the Red rearguard the Red commander (Steve Shann) looks on pensively wondering if the rear guard has the fire power to slow the Whites.

 Move 2 and just as the Reds (Commanded by Steve!) think that things cant get any worse a flanking force of two Mongolian Cavalry units and two white officers units appear on their flank. Oh dear! was the cry.

At this point the Whites depress the reds further by rolling a 6 for their aircraft and a white plane (Yes I know I picked the wrong one up) sweeps into the red ranks, fortunately for the Reds ,Jerry promptly shot it down.

 Mean while as the Mongolians sweep onto the defending Militia, the hidden Polish lancers launch an attacked from behind their hill enveloping Chris's poor militia with unsurprising results.

 Whilst Jerrys two Brigades steamroller on knocking the odd casualty off the white defenders.

 The red left wing attack desolved into small bands of broken troops, however the charge of the various White cavalry sees them gradually shot down to small badly damaged units themselves so something of a stalemate.

 John's Polish lancers are reduced from 2 units of 8 to one of 2 and the other of 3, having destroyed three units of red infantry in the process.

 Meanwhile the red cavalry has charged into Richards pursuing Cossacks, but the quality of the Cossack Cavalry sees off the reds, the Whites at this point manage to roll for another aircraft and this one is not driven off, leaving the red Cavalry badly mauled.

 The patch of green above is the spot where the red cavalry was before the White biplane swooped, meanwhile the White cavalry finds itself sat in front of the red guns at pointblank range, again the results are fairly predictable.

 As the clock reaches 3.30 Jerry's Reds finally break through sweeping aside the remnants of Johns White Guards and is ready to march off table with the Whites far behind.


Chris's 2 brigades of Reds are almost annihilated but have held the left flank so that Jerry's troops break through almost untouched.


Johns defenders are reduced to one unit of almost untouched White guards whilst the rest of his cavalry is almost all destroyed.


The Red Cavalry is almost as badly off with only one units from 6 even vaguely capable of fighting, they have however put the pursuing Cossacks beyond the ability to carry the fight on.


Three almost untouched White foot brigades with their supporting Tchanks and Armoured car are still in pursuit but are a good 6 feet behind Jerry's Reds.


Only a third of the Reds will escape, but the remaining Whites are too far away to stop them, a great game thoroughly enjoyed by all, thanks gents.

So there you have it, a very bloody affair and whilst the Reds escaped, for a win I think a couple more units would have needed to escape.  A draw? I will leave it to Chris, Jerry, Richard, John and Steve Shann to argue it out.


thanks for reading as ever, next up will be a couple of GNW command bases.