Paint Your Wagons: Russian Ordinance Wagons

SYW Russian baggage train. Click on all pictures to enlarge the view.

I had a little bit of spare time over the Christmas holiday weekend, not enough to get much painted, but I did manage to finally base some of the wonderfully colorful ordinance wagons for my SYW Russian army. 

The iconic Russian Cossack wagon from the Perry Miniatures Napoleonic equipment range.
This wagon is suitable for use across the entire black powder era of military history.

Every year at the annual Seven Years War Association Convention in South Bend, Indiana Mr. Ed Phillips brings a huge amount of scratch built wagons and camp scenes to sell at the show. I was very fortunate to be able to purchase three sets of Russian wagons (2-wheel and 4-wheel) from Ed this past year. Once my SYW Russian Project started to pick up some steam, I thought it time to base the wagons with some Minden Miniatures horse teams.

You can see how well Ed's handiwork matches well with the Minden Miniatures horses and figures. I used the Austrian teamster (rider) as a Russian teamster, simply painting the figure in the uniform of the Russian artillery corps.

A pair of wagons in the green scheme of things.

The red pair of wagons.

The sky-blue pair of wagons.

Each of my Russian infantry brigades will be served by a pair of matching colored wagons and I flatter myself to think that they greatly enhance the appearance of my tabletop armies. Minden Miniatures happens to make the four-wheel and two-wheel wagons in metal, but you will have to paint your own wagons. Hmm, that has a familiar ring to it.

Now that I have the baggage train all lined up, the next item to check off of the to-do list is limbers and horse teams for every single cannon in my Russian army. I'll admit it, I'm a snob when it comes to having limbers for all of my cannon. I'm just not keen on the convention of turning the cannon model backwards to indicate that it is limbered. I would rather have limbers and horses because (1) they look better, (2) they take up space on the table that simulates all of the equipment that would be lined up behind the artillery battery, and (3) they are worth the time and effort to assemble and paint and give you a big payback on your effort.