Graf Bruhl Cheveaulegers

Saxon cheveauleger regiments Graf Bruhl (blue facings in foreground) and Prinz Albrecht (green facings in background). click all images to enlarge the view

Prinz Albrecht leibfahnen

Graf Bruhl ordinarefahnen.

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Minden Saxon Cavalry Pix

Saxon regiment Prinz Karl Cheveaulegers (CL2) - click to enlarge the view.

This evening I completed the first of two squadrons that I plan to paint of the Prinz Karl Cheveauleger cavalry regiment in the Saxon army of the SYW. I used Minden Miniatures Prussian dragoons for the Saxons. I usually have two 12-figure squadrons comprising a cavalry regiment in my  organization, or 24 figures to a regiment. Some day I might up the total to three squadrons of 12-figures, or 36 figures. For now though, 24 figures is enough for me.

I decided to freehand paint the leibfahne colour for the regiment. I usually use a GMB Designs flag, but they do not make Saxon flags at the moment. Maverick Miniatures in the UK has Saxon flags and will size them for you to fit with any size of wargame figure. I used Dr. Stephen Summerfield's book on the Saxon army for my source of flag information and the Kronoskaf website for the uniform information.

Ground level view of the squadron with a good view of the flag.

The Graf Bruhl cheveaulegers are next on my painting table and I should have a squadron of them completed later this week.

Minden Saxon Cavalry

Minden Prussian Dragoons painted as Saxon Cheveaulegers

My goal is to paint enough Austrian and Prussian forces, including units already painted, to host a Battle of Kolin game at the next Seven Years War Association convention on March 30, 31 and April 1st in South Bend, Indiana. Christopher Dufffy will be the guest once again and he plans on giving a talk about the Battle of Kolin. So you can see how my mind is at work on this one.

The Austrian army at Kolin had a contingent of Saxon Cheveauleger cavalry (basically they are dragoons) posted in reserve on the right flank behind the Oak Wood. So I decided that I would need to have several Saxon units to play this role in the game.

After taking a look at the information on the Saxons at the Kronoskaf web site, I decided that the Minden Prussian Dragoons would be acceptable stand ins for Saxon cavalry. With this in mind, I painted three test figures to represent the Prinz Karl, Prinz Albrecht and Graf Bruhl cheveauleger regiments at Kolin.

Here is a picture drawn by Knotel:

Here are some close up pictures of the individual cavalry figures. I always paint one sample figure of any new unit before painting the whole regiment. I like the way that these Minden Saxons are turning out.

Prinz Karl Cheveauleger

Prinz Albrecht Cheveauleger

Graf Bruhl Cheveauleger

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Saxon Flags of the SYW

Saxon Infantry Flags painted by Mark Allen (click to enlarge)

I recently commissioned 4 sets of flags from Mark Allen for my nascent SYW Saxon project. Mark had previously painted a set of Saxon Leib-Grenadier-Garde regiment flags for me ( a set being comprised of the white Leibfahne and the colored Ordinarefahne). Mark is the gentleman who paints all of the flags that John Ray uses in his 28mm SYW armies, as seen in his book, "A Military Gentleman".

From left to right, starting with the top row: von Bruhl or Rochow regiment leibfahne and ordinarefahne; the Lubrinsky regiment leibfahne and ordinarefahne;

Bottom row, left to right: Prinz Maximilian leibfahne and ordinarefahne; and the Prinz Clemenz leibfahne and ordinarefahn.

In for a penny, in for a pound, I might as well add another brigade of four regiments to give me a total of 8 infantry regiments. For the cavalry, I will paint the three Saxon chive-leger regiments that escaped capture at Pirna with the rest of the Saxon army in 1756. The Prinz Albrecht, Prinz Clemenz and Graf Bruhl regiments had the good fortune to be stationed in Poland at the outbreak of the SYW, thus escaping the capitulation at Pirna.

I plan to use Minden Prussian musketeers with Swedish cuffs for the Saxon infantry and the Prussian dragoons for the Saxon Cheveau-leger cavalry regiments.

Ostgotland Kavalrie Regt. Completed

Ostgotland Kavalrie Regiment - click pix to enlarge.

So here I am serving up a double wedgie of Swedish cavalry for the Great Northern War (GNW) using Warfare Miniatures Swedish cavalry figures, in 28mm. As the Russian troops might say, "ouch!"

I have finished painting the first 18 Swedish Kavalrie that I recently purchased from Warfare Miniatures, adding them to the two infantry units that I painted over the past several weeks. I am trying to pace myself by only ordering figures that I can paint in a reasonable time period; once they are completed then I can order more figures. This is opposed to my normal method of just buying an insane amount of figures for the whole project and then only painting a fraction of what I have ordered.

The cavalry regiment depicted in these pictures is the Ostgotland Kavalrie Regiment at Poltava. My eventual organization will likely be two 18-figure squadrons in one 36-figure cavalry regiment. So really what you see in these pictures is only one squadron. Swedish cavalry regiments had two squadrons, apparently.

I am still experimenting with the basing, but I think that I like placing three figures on a 60mm by 80mm base, with one figure in front and two figure in a second rank. So when I clump three or more stands together, I get a wedge formation per Swedish tactical doctrine in the GNW.

Frontal view of two squadrons

A view of the proposed basing scheme, with three figures on a 60mm by 80mm deep stand, with the figures attached to the stand in a triangle shape. When several stands are placed together, they yield the visual of a wedge formation that the Swedish cavalry employed in their tactics.

A ground level view of the regiment.

I have now run through all of my Warfare Miniatures Swedes, so more are on order. While I await the delivery, I will turn back to painting Minden SYW Prussians and maybe start some Saxon cavalry at Kolin, using Austrian or Prussian castings.

Ostgotland Kavalrie Regiment - GNW

Warfare Minitures GNW Swedish Kavalrie Regiment Ostgotland. (click all pix to enlarge)

Same regiment, but this time depicting a separate Kavalrie commander.

I completed the first 10 of the 18 figures that will comprise my first GNW Swedish cavalry unit, the Ostgotland Kavalrie Regiment in service in the King's Army at Poltava. The figures are from the Warfare Miniatures Great Northern War range of 28mm figures.

The Swedish army had regiments of Kavalrie and regiments of Dragoons. Following normal European conventions of the times, I take that to mean that the Kavalrie are considered to be heavier battlefield horse whereas the Dragoons are one notch lower on the quality ladder. The uniforms of both appear to be exactly the same.

My GNW Swedish cavalry (generic term cavalry, to indicate anyone on a horse) will be organized into three squadrons of 12 figures for a regimental total of 36 figures. At a 1:20 figure to man ratio, that yields a field strength of 720 riders. The established or paper strength of the cavalry regiments were around 1,000 but I figure that attrition would result in a lower number of riders on campaign.

My brief understanding of Swedish cavalry tactics is that the Swedes loved to charge and they did it in some sort of a wedge shaped formation. I have to do some experimenting with basing to come up with a basing format that I like. For the time being, though, I am using a 60mm wide by 80mm deep base, same as the infantry stands, for the cavalry. I could turn the bases onto the long edge so that the 80mm side is the frontage of the unit. I haven't decide on this yet.

One advantage of the 60mm frontage is that cavalry units would have the same stand frontage as the infantry units.

Note to Dannie Fogleman: what size bases are you using for your Beneath the Lily Banner rules?

A squadron in the Swedish "wedge formation".

Same as previous picture above.

Formed in a more traditional wargaming line.

After working on two Warfare Swedish infantry units, I have a better understanding of how to assemble the figures and get them into the priming booth quickly. The cavalry figures require gluing on the right arm and the sword scabbard as well as the usual attachment of the rider to the horse. I use a little bit of green epoxy putty for the assembly, placing a small dab of putty into the socket holes that the figures provide for the arm and scabbard attachments. These are nicely deep so that you can easily locate the part into the hole. The putty creates a stronger bond and I recommend combining green putty with super glue for the assembly. I then use white Elmer's Glue to attach the figures to temporary cardboard bases and then prime them with grey primer. I seem to have moved away from the black primer system, just because, well just because.

The painting of the figures is relatively easy. They are not loaded down with equipment so there are fewer things to paint. For whatever reason though, the Warfare figures seem to paint rather quickly and are fun to paint.

It appears that the range does not yet have dedicated command figures for the cavalry (officers, standard bearers, and musicians) so these are provided by other generic figures wearing tricorn hats. The officers and standard bearer wear a cuirasse plate under the coat and have a large sash around the waist. I don't believe that the Swedish army used cloth waist sashes during the GNW so you kind of have to live with this error. The sashes can not be carved off of the figure, and in any event, it would be too much work and not worth the payback in time. Thus, I elected to paint the sashes yellow since this seems to be a predominate  color in the Swedish Army of the GNW. The figures look fine even with the sashes. I assume that at some point in the near future, the Warfare sculptor, "Clibinarium" will add the command figures to the Swedish army.

I will also need an infantry brigade commander and I think that the one depicted two pictures above (see wedge formation pix) on the round stand will work just fine as a general officers for my Swedes. Again, I expect that the range will add the extra command figures in the near future. Warfare will be releasing the first of its Russian GNW infantry by the end of September or early October 2015, so I am looking forward to giving some of my Reaper Paints "Elven Green" paint a workout.

Finally, I just really like the animation that the Warfare Miniatures cavalry figures have and that is one of the things that attracted me to both the period and the figure range.

GNW Swedish Brigade

Ostgotland (front) and Upplands (rear) regiments . Click to enlarge.

I have now completed the first two regiments of my Great Northern War ("GNW") Project - Upplands  and Ostgotland are now ready to serve Charles XII of Sweden.

All Swedish battalions will have 32 figures on five bases: 6/6/8/6/6 with the command stand having eight figures - six pikemen and two colour bearers. I include one command figure set behind the two ranks of infantry on each stand. This represents the officers and file closers who operated behind the infantry line and it also gives the illusion of there being a third row of figures on the stands.

Side view depicting the "third row".

Ostgotland (left) and Upplands (right)

I finished the Upplands regiment bases this evening by applying a mix of Winter and Highland tufts plus light green Winter Grass static grass on each base. I wanted the grass colors to be pale and washed out to depict type of terrain that one might see in the Fall and early Winter. Once the Ostgotland bases dry, I will dry brush the grit with a tan color and then add the tufts and static grass.

I am running out of Warfare Miniatures castings to paint, so I will have to wait for the quartermaster to place his requisition for more figures. In the meantime, I have 18 Swedish cavalry figures that I can start working on.

Ostgotland Regiment WIP

Ostgotland Regiment at Poltava. Click to enlarge.

I finished painting the Ostgotland regiment for the Swedish Army at Poltava in 1708: 32 figures using Warfare Miniatures. As you can see, I still have to terrain the bases and add the colours, but the painting is completed.

Front view

This regiment incorporates the more aggressive "action" or attacking figures in the Warfare Miniatures range. With all of those levelled bayonets, one needs a deep base. I use 60mm frontage and 80mm depth, which provides adequate room to place three ranks and still have room for the bayonets, so that they don't break off from wear and tear during a game.

Side view showing the "virtual third rank" of supernumeraries.

The regiment includes four stands with six figures and one central command stand with six pikemen and two standard bearers. Note the grenadiers on the righthand base in the picture below.

View of the full regiment from the front. Two partial battalions of 18 figures are shown in the background.

I have two partial 18-figure battalions ready for primer, but I need to order more figures to boost them up to 32 figures. While I wait for delivery of the next order, I will probably start on the 18 Swedish cavalry that I have on hand. My cavalry regiments will have 36 figures in three squadrons of 12 figures.


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Upplands Regiment Completed

Upplands Regiment - Warfare Miniatures (click to enlarge)

I finished the Upplands Regiment today, using the Warfare Miniatures Great Northern War ("GNW") figure range and flag sheets. I also completed the first stage of the basing process: troweling on the spackle compound and dipping it into a box of fine railroad ballast. Once the stands have dried, the next step will be to ink the bases and then add flock and tufts.

Ground level view of the Upplands Regiment. Flags are also from Warfare Miniatures.

Along the way, I decided to increase the unit size from 30 to 32 figures, using the following basing convention:

4 stands of 6 musketeers
1 stand of 8 figures (6 x pikemen and 2 color bearers)

The original idea was to have a 30 figure regiment (2 x 6-figures; 2 x 5-figures, and 1 x 8 figures), but my sense of symetry compelled me to increase the regiment by 2 figures so that all of the non-pike/command stands would have the same number of figures.

Rear view showing the third rank of supernumeraries.

The illusion of a third rank is attained by just placing a few supernumeraries  behind the regiment acting as file closers. It gives the illusion of having a 3-ranks formation.

A side view providing a different angle of the faux third rank, using just a few command figures to sugges a  third rank.

I use 60mm wide by 80mm deep wooden bases (MDF). The extra depth is needed so that the charging figures can be set back into the stand to minimize breakage. It also provides enough spacing to add a third row of soldiers.

Upplands Regiment WIP

Warfare Miniatures - Upplands Regiment

Here is a quick picture that I took this morning showing the first dozen Warfare Miniatures GNW Swedes that I have painted so far. I selected various regiments from the Poltava order of battle disclosed in the Osprey Campaign book on Poltava. I would imagine that a lot of other collectors use the same methodology- organizing around Poltava.

The figures are informally placed on their 60mm by 80mm stands to give an impression of how they might look when based.

The photo is uploaded from my iPad and for some reason, Blogger will let you edit your pix in any manner possible (save for improving the focus), but it will not upload pix that you can click and enlarge. However, if I email the pix to myself and download them into my desktop computer and then upload them into my blog, then the pix magically enlarge. Blogger, how stupid can you be; why don't you fix this feature in your software? Blogger wins my Stupid Company of the Year Award.

At any rate, I will fix the pictures this evening after I get home from work and add some better posed shots.