League of Augsburg- Great Danes

 

My Danish collection began life as a contingent for the Williamite Army in Ireland.  Since then it has grown into its own.  I now have enough Danes to take the Swedes on in The Great Northern War. Above and below the first battalion of the Garden til Fods.

Below we see the second battalion Garden til Fods.  All flags by David at Not by Appointment. Figures mostly from Essex and Irregular.

Next, Regiment Fynske/Funen, figures from Irregular and Flag from David at Not by Appointment. 

One battalion of Fynske served with William in his Irish Campaign. These are they attired for that theatre according to Mr McNally in his Boyne book. The regiment appears to have had a range of attractive uniforms in our period. White on green seems best for Ireland.

Once more figures from Irregular and the flag is from David.  A winning combination I find. These boys have been hard at it. Only one Grenadier survives and the officers have lost their red coats.  Regiment Fynske had more than one battalion and as it happens I have another too.

This one carries the Colonel's and the regimental Colours and will be good for Continental engagements. The Flags are from Barry Hilton 28mm and shrunk to size.

Here are two often found in English or Dutch Service.  First the Sjællandske Infantry Regiment.  I have used light blue facings, others prefer a mid blue.

The Prinz George Infantry in grey and red.

Flags from Mr Hilton, scanned and reduced.  The Danes had given up the pike in favour of added fire power. Consider that the Swedish Army often fielded forces with a plurality or even a majority of hard charging horsemen.

The Danes didn't take any artillery to Ireland.  They do need some if they are going to fight the Swedes.  

Two pieces here from Irregular. The violet and green uniform was hard to resist.  Below the Danish Grenadier Regiment created in the early 1700s.

All from Dixon who seemed the best match for the cap and with a flag from David.  A striking colour combination.

Below we have the 1st Squadron of the 3rd Jyske Cavalry. I'm not sure who made that flag.

Here you see the 1st and second squadrons of 2nd Sjællandske Cavalry. 

David of Not By Appointment blog provided the flags.  

Just the ticket, thank you David. 

I recently came across a definitive answer to the Danish cuirass question.  Not in Ireland and no buff coats when in Foreign Service. Yes to both when at home.  My source, a post from the late, and much missed, Dan Schorr on the League of Augsburg's Fighting Talk.

Permit a GNW diversion if you will. It happens that most of my GNW Collection is from Dixon. Consequently they are slighter than most of the Danes you see here.  Not that that will stop me using them together.

My GNW Swedes are all in turnback coats and tricorn. I'm happy with them. That said were I to be starting such a collection I would go with Irregular.  

The reason being that the Swedes could be better represented with a mixture of Irregular Marlburians and League of Augsburg figures. If that's of interest check out Khurasan's Swedish offering. Irregular's Marlburians would make fine GNW Russians. 

For our next League of Augsburg foray we are going to look at the French.  We will start with the Guard infantry.

Before that we may see some plastic Ancients in 15mm. Late Romans and Huns.

Great Northern War- New Units

 

A pack of Minifig Generals above painted for the Swedish Service.  These are very nice figures.  Note the cuirass the lad on the left is wearing.  The latest research shows that some Swedish cavalry were cuirassiers.  Good news for me.  I can now press some Dixon Cuirassiers into the Swedish Service.

Should you want to know more Sergey Shamenkov's latest book for Helion. Volume 2 "Charles XII's Karoliners".

The Grenadiers of the Swedish Life Guard above. Centre, with the flag, a lone CP model.  The rest are Dixon.

Two new Russian Battalions below representing the Ustyuzhski Regiment.  Figures from Minifigs.  You will note the regiment has two battalions.  

In Talon and Claw speak they are "Regulation" that means musket armed with supporting pikemen.  The "ideal" as it were.

The first battalion is rated "Drilled".  The second battalion is rated "Raw". I'm waiting for their pike men to arrive.

The flags are by Russian James, fine fellow that he is for making them freely available.

Here we see the Ustyuzhski Regiment manning a field redoubt.  The Russians liked to use these when fighting the Swedes.  To that end they were often willing to cart around ready made portable defences.  It was an old tradition.

I have two of these and may do a third.  These come from Alternative Armies.  They have lots of interesting bits and pieces.

The thinking being that the steppe often lacked trees for improvised barricades and the rolling plains were little better.  Digging was arduous and time consuming.

These ones wouldn't stand artillery bombardment but as the Swedes rarely deployed their guns it didn't much matter.

Two squadrons of Russian cavalry next.

Minifigs, representing the Kazanski Regiment.  Swords drawn, but these fellows liked to shoot from the saddle too.

I would like to say that is my Great Northern war collection done.  More probably it is nearly done.  You all know how it goes.

Next week we are back to the West.  Will it be Wild?  Yes, very wild.

Great Northern War-Russians and Swedes

 

 

Mainly Swedes this time, above the Swedish artillery guns.  Roundway guns, crews Dixon and Roundway.   Below Regiment Kronoberg.

 

Next,  Regiment Skaraborg.  At a distance only the flags seem to differentiate these units. In fact the uniforms are all slightly different.  Blue breeches or yellow ones in this case.

Regiment Bjornberg here.  My only grey coated Swedes. The artillery above wear green-grey coats as favoured by the League of Augsburg fellows.  The grey/yellow combination is striking.

 

Another battery of Russian guns.  My second, all Roundway save a solitary Essex and a Dixon.

My last but one Russian infantry unit.  Or, so I thought.  A hidden cache has been discovered.

 

Next GNW time, the Swedish Grenadiers and another battalion of the Russian Guards. Then the Brigadiers and Generals.  After that some redoubts and it is job done for the GNW. Bar the Ottoman and Poles of course.

After Poltava there was for a brief period a force of Swedes, Poles and Ottomans.  I always wanted to try that out on the table top. Hence I'm due to paint a unit of Polish winged hussars.

 

With Talon and Claw- New Great Northern War Units

 

A while back I put my Russian and and Sweedish Armies into good order.  Enough to play a game.  This left a fair few figures to do. 

My figures are a mix of Dixon and Roundway.  The latter just about fit with Irregular, the former with Essex.

I need more Russians than Swedes so it was there I began.  In With Talon and Claw Russian battalions are either Regulation or All Musket.  One of the latter below.  Great for fire power not so good in melee.

 

Russian uniform details can be elusive. Regiments also went through an alarming range of coat and facing colour changes.  I'm not naming the units you can see here.  Suffice to say, at some stage in the GNW a Russian regiment wore the uniform colours you can see.

 

The excellent flags are mostly from Russian James.  The others, equally fine, from the better known Tacitus.  Check out https://russianjames.weebly.com/uniforms-and-colours-standards.html

All Dixon figures for the 2 units above.

 

Mainly Roundway for these fellows. I really like these musketeers. A shame they are no longer available.  I expect I'll do aother 2 Russian battalions as I have the figures.  My latest Dragoon regiment here.  Two squadrons.

 

Also in the works another two squadron regiments of Dragoons.  Mortar's, Field Guns and Battalion Guns.

And the Swedes?  To come, three battalions and a Cavalry squadron, some artillery too.  Also, the Guard Grenadiers.  I need to buy the Grenadiers, shock!  I thought I'd done buying for the GNW.

 

Return of the Qajars

 

We last saw my Qajar Persians back in ’22.  I got a fair bit done, but!  Ran out of figures.  By the time they arrived my attention had shifted.  It really doesn’t take much.

 

Caught in a painting lacuna, I thought I’d make some Qajar progress.  Here it is.

 

First, a unit of Kurdish mailed Lancers.  These are from QRF’s Turkish range.  They have some nice Persian style helmets.  I have another of these to do.

The next job was to finish the regular battalions.  Above, the Guard mainly Russians.

Mostly, this required painting 2 or 3 additional figures per battalion.

Job done and you see them here.

 

The regular cavalry next.

All lancers.

 

The Camel Gunners below-two units.  I intend treating them as ultra light artillery using cannister ranges.

There is some dispute about uniform colours.  Some favour blue others brown.  I did one of each.

 

Jezail armed skirmishers below.  Note the rests for accurate fire.  I'm tempted to have these lads fire on the Artillery Card and to give them a high dice.  Slow but sure sort of thing. Negible in close combat of course.  It is said the sound of jezails loading was like Church bells ringing.  Ominous to hear I'd say.

 

Horse Artillery, half a battery.

So, what is left to do?  A second gun and crew, a unit of regular cavary and some village militia.  I might do some Persian Field Artillery by means of conversions.  We will see.

I’ll fit them in between bouts of painting SYW French infantry. More of that anon.

Most of the above are from Irregular Miniatures.