Great Northern War WIP

I managed to get a few photos of the Uppland regiment which I finished painting last month. I am quite pleased with them and I think they are an acceptable wargame standard. The figures are Musketeer Miniatures and they are very easy to paint with nice raised detail and a clean finish.

I still have to add the pikes but Musketeer had none in stock, and still don't, so I will probably order some from Front Rank. I have the flags, which are by Little Big Men, and will fit them when I do the pikes.

Also I have been thinking about basing all my Great Northern War and Mahratta war figures on hard board bases, as John has been doing, so these bases are just temporary and mean I can store the figures safely.

The above figure was a spare one I had and I have painted him in the uniform of the Queen Dowagers Life Regiment. I will probably paint a couple of garrison regiments in the future and this regiment has a particularly nice combination of uniform colours and flags. I have another 24 figure regiment to paint in Karpus but at the moment I have been painting more of the Mahratta figures as I want to complete my first Brigade of Mahratta regulars.

Our ex pat Chris popped in on Sunday to say hi and presented me with a Tiger mortar and crew (thank you Chris!) so I will endeavour to paint this up in the coming week. The figures are by Redoubt and (hopefully) they will look the business when painted.

Talking of Sunday, we played a game based on the Prussian attacks on Napoleons right flank at Waterloo (well it was the anniversary on Saturday!) and Paul took loads of photos, so either myself or Paul will post an AAR soon. We used my Napoleonic figures which was nice as they have been sitting in their display cabinet at home for far too long. Hopefully it wont take us as long to post the pictures!

Great Northern War

As I mentioned in my previous post I have now succumbed and purchased some Great Northern War figures from Musketeer Miniatures. The GNW is something which has fascinated me for many years but was poorly represented in the 25-30mm market. There seems to be a rising interest in this period now with both new figures and some interesting books available. My starting point was The Battle of Poltava by Angus Konstam, an Osprey title which I bought a few (maybe 15?) years ago. Then more recently I got a copy of Peter Englunds book on Poltava and as a result I resolved to start collecting figures for this period. Luckily the Musketeer Miniatures range has been expanded recently after a couple of years of stagnation.

After buying a couple of regiments of figures I purchased the above book. This is an excellent reference work on the Swedish uniforms and organisation. The only slight criticism I have is that the quality of the illustrations are a little dissappointing. Having said that there is more than enough information in this book to recreate the entire Swedish army of the GNW! I highly recommend it and I intend to purchase the follow up volume when I begin building my Russian forces.
Anyway below are a few of the figures I have already painted, in fact the first regiment is almost complete. This is the Uppland regiment, one of the Indelta formations. My painting doesnt really do justice to the figures but I still think you can see the quality of them in these photos.


NCO of the Uppland Regiment.

Uppland officer.

Musketeer.

And rear view.

Grenadier.

And again a rear view.

I hope to have the regiment based and with their flag attached by the end of this week. I am on night shift at the moment which leaves me with little time to devote to wargaming and quite honestly leaves me just too tired. Once this regiment is complete I must choose whether to complete the second one ( the Vastmanland), or get some more of my Maharattas done. I will see how the mood takes me!

Oh and of course the Vauban stuff needs completing too . . . .

New Terrain Pieces

While I was helping out with picking up some stuff from the wholesalers I came across these two pieces in the aquarium section.
Now being a wargamer I immediately saw their wargaming potential! I have it in mind to use them as jungle terrain for my Maharatta project, although I am sure John will think of a few more scenarios in which they can be utilised.

I have pictured them with a couple of my Maharatta figures (Redoubt) to give an idea of the scale.

As you can see they are fairly substantial and require no further work!

I really like them and I will keep an eye out for any others next time I am there. Especially considering I paid £4.50 for the two.

I have also posted a couple of pics of my first complete Maharatta regular battalion. This project is a slow burner (as I am a slow painter lol). However I am chipping away and I have another 16 regulars primed and ready to go and these will complete the Red turban battalion.

In addition to these I have about 20 almost complete sepoys sitting in my painting box. Why can't I concentrate on one thing at a time?! In the next couple of weeks I hope to get these progressed but, as John has mentioned in his post preceeding mine, I have been a little diverted by the Vauban fortifications and a recent purchase of some Great Northern War figures from Musketeer Miniatures.

I have almost completed the first regiment (Uppland). This period has been one which I have wanted to do for a long time and I have been waiting for the right figures to be produced. Now that Bill at Musketeer Miniatures has started to expand his range I have given in to temptation.

I will post some pics of these later tonight hopefully.