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.

OLD McDonald had a Bronze Age Farm

So next weekend its Vapnartak the York Wargames show and the last of the figures for our Bronze Age SAGA game are complete.

 So here are my five civilians that will add some eye candy to the gaming table along with the animals and buildings.


Below is the Itinerant Bronze Smith laboring under the weight of his wares.

 Then we have Farmer and Mrs McDonald, nice but very simple figures these, I can see them chatting to the Bronze Smith as the pigs snuffle about the farm.

 This teen age girl is based on a bronze age outfit found on a bog body, looks like she has just gone to get some water for their guest the Bronze smith.

 And then the priestess, not much to say here to be honest.

 I had also planned to have a warrior queen to lead one of my warbands. Plenty of  stories in Irish Mythology to support this. The model is from Hassle Free and although clearly a fantasy figures the clothing is near enough to some of the evidence for me to be not too concerned. I bought two of these so I could attempt to model one onto the chariot and have her mounted and dis-mounted.

 So above is the dismounted version and below the finished version mounted in her chariot..

 Both together below. this model has a slotta base so one painted I trimmed this back just leaving a peg of metal to push into a hole drilled into the chariot. I like how it works.

 So that's the Bronze age done with for now. Loads more of them to paint but not for this game. So just to prove that I am back on it with GNW below is the fourth and last unit of Cossacks before it wings its way to the basing department.


I am dropping her back off this evening and picking up some units of finished Swedes and Cossacks so hopefully some more posts later in the week when I get the opportunity to photo in the light.

Thank you for reading and see you again soon.

Workbench update

Hi All.


So the basing department returns next weekend with three or so units finished and the weekend after we have our Bronze age game so I thought I might share a little update to see us through to the posts that these two events will create.


I have focused a lot on finishing off my Bronze Age figures for the York show but I have not entirely neglected the Great Northern War project.


Below are the latest unit over the line, Upplands Tremanning regiment. Mainly Ebor marching Swedes, I will do a proper write up when they are based.

 The Bronze Age has gone much quicker than initially I thought, mainly due to the restricted pallet I have used and how simple the figures are to paint. I wanted to finish off some units which I have already completed and shared on previous posts, then add some civilians and if I got chance my Warrior queen in her chariot.. Well most of the civilians aare above and the chariot is below.

 And the Warrior Queen and a naked dancing priestess are below. I just need to matt varnish the below, then cut away the base and pin her feet to the chariot and we are on to final basing. Woohoo.


I hope to have these finalized before next weekend and share a further post with you, I will also talk through my choice of figures etc at the same time.

And finally something neither Bronze or Great Northern War. After painting large volumes of camels for the Sudan both for my collection (Since become Dave's collection) and that of Wargaming chums Richard and Andy from Legendary Wargames ( http://legendarywargames.com/ ) Chris has started calling me the camel man. Although these are my first Bactrian Camels. Bit of a favour for Chum Chris Charlton, there you go Chris not forgotten.

That's it for now, hopefully a completed Bronze Age post to follow then some lovely GNW stuff.

Cheers for reading.

First Carlist War Battle of BARBASTRO AAR 1837

Hi All, been a busy week for gaming with two Black Powder games in 4 days. The second one was from the first Carlist War and is based on the Battle of Barbastro 1837.


Being 2 years into the War both sides are much for seasoned and evenly matched, although the Isabelino's still have a minor advantage in guns and horse.


The battle sees the another effort by the Govornment forces to corner and destroy the main Carlist field army in the North.


For the game we have the village at one side of the table with a road running through and a crescent of low wooded hills in front occupied by the Carlist's.

The above map and the basis for my army lists is from the excellent book "All Honour is Lost" by Kings Carbine. Below is our table interpretation of this, say hello to Steve and Jerry opposing commanders on one flank.

Fairly last minute, wargaming chum Chris Charlton had to pull out as his family all came down with heavy colds, I re-drew the army lists to take out his two battalion per side, however in hindsight taking the Isabelino battalions from their initial attack force rather than the reserve and missing a second rocket battery left them without enough punch to get their attack going. As we will see it was to cost the Liberals dearly.

Above is the Carlist army, their actual initial deployment was amongst the wooded hills to their front. Below is the three brigades of the Isabelino advance Guard. Over all Orders of battle were.

Carlists.

Brigade 1 left of line, 3 line and one veteran battalion

Brigade 2 centre, 2 line and one veteran battalion

Brigade 3 right, 3 line, one veteran battalion and one field gun

Brigade 4 reserve 5 squadrons of lancers

Brigade 5 off table 3 line and one light mountain gun

Isabelino's

Brigade 1  left of line, 3 line one field gun

Brigade 2, centre, 3 line one rocket battery

Brigade 3, right, 3 line one field gun

Off table, 4 Battalions of Veteran Guard and French Legion with mountain gun

Off table Cavalry Brigade 1, 3 line lancers

Off table Cavalry Brigade 2, 3 Veteran Guard and Legion squadrons

The Carlist reserve came on the roll of a D4, THEY GOT A 1!

 

Isabelino's all came on go 2. reinforcements for both sides came on via the road.

 The Isabelino advance guard quickly got forward and entered into a fairly ineffective firefight with the Carlists. The most effective thing on table at this point being the British rocket causing a fair bit of damage to the Carlists.

 The guns of the Isabelino's were their advantage and they used them reasonably well to try and damage the exposed Carlists in the centre, meanwhile they themselves took plenty of damage on the left of the line under Jerry.

 Malcolm's brigade on the right along with his British got forward as quickly as they could, to try and bring the Carlists into bayonet range.

 Initially this was successful driving the Carlists out of the wood, but a particularly brutal melee saw one battalion of Carlists destroy two of Isabelino's, the third battalion in the Brigade fled the field without firing a shot taking the gun with it and leaving a large hole on the Isabelino right flank.

 Meanwhile the Veteran Guard and Legion Brigade marched purposely forward to batter through the centre of the Carlist line Supported by a Brigade of line Cavalry.

 The Carlist reserve was brought up to the right of centre whilst the Cavalry was split in half, with three squadrons advancing into the gap on their left whilst the other 2 waited to see where the Isabelino Cavalry would go.

 At this point things went from bad to worse for the Govornment forces as an order to advance and clear the woods led to a blunder and the whole Veteran Brigade fell back two moves and pinned the Cavalry brigade behind it thus taking half of the Isabelino army out of the game for 2 moves at a crucial point in the game. As you can see Chris took this with a good grace (to be fair a far better grace than I would)

 The British Brigade which was the Isabelino right flank continued to press forward against determinded opposition from Marks' Carlist Brigades, whilst the Guard Cavalry swept around the left flank and almost into the rear of the Carlists. Unfortunately the Carlists had foreseen this and 2 battalions of foot supported by a mountain gun and two squadrons of lancers awaited them.

 Finally untangled, the rest of the Isabelino Cavalry decided on a do or die charge and try to punch a hole in the centre of the line whilst the Guards brigade advanced behind to take advantage of any success. It was not to be. They drove the Carlists back again and again but could not break them. Eventually only one of the three squadrons remained on the field. Below, Malcolm ponders what to do next and Chris digs purposefully into the rules.

 Through all of this the only ray of sunshine was the British Rockets which caused severe damage to the Carlists again and again, capably wielded by Malcolm.

 As the battle in the centre raged the Guard cavalry engaged the Carlist reserve. Again a do or die charge was the order of the day. They took the mountain gun but were repelled by the infantry then followed up by the Carlist Cavalry, very soon only  a badly mauled French Foreign Legion squadron remained.

 Frustrated by the accuracy of the rocket battery Mark's Carlists sent three whole squadrons of lancers to silence it, effectively taking the cavalry out of the game. By now the Carlist line had re-formed on the outskirts of the village and though damaged was still intact. The Isabelino's had lost one brigade of foot and both brigades of cavalry and would now have to attack a force which outnumbered their own and was out of range of their artillery. At this point the Govornment forces wisely conceded they would not be capturing the village without more reinforcements and conceded the game.

A really great, fun, hard fought game. A better approach to the army lists by me and the result may have been more in doubt. We again used the amends to Blackpowder where units fire before moving and had Brigade morales at over 50% rather than just removing the Brigade. Again the amends worked really well.


Thank you Chris for your hospitality and Mark, Jerry, Steve and Malcolm for a great days gaming. Get Well soon Mr Charlton and all the best to wargaming chum John Smith who is also un-well at the moment. Wishing you a speedy recovery John.


Thank you for reading as always.