Happy New Year. 

Last post of this strange 2020, with more GNW Russian Dragoons.

The Life Regiment in its 1708 uniform. The regiment was raised in 1707 from men of Zybin’s Dragoon regiment (disbanded in 1706). The first uniform was with a red coat. It was at Holowczin, Lesnaja, Poltava and Perevolotjna. Then at Riga 1710, at the Pruth disaster in 1711 and finally in Poland 1711-18. From 1719 it becomes the St. Peterburgski Dragoon Regiment.

The other newcomers are the dismounted dragoon from the Zvedza box (with some Strelets added). They are not intended to represent specific regiments, rather act as war-games “tokens” to represent the dismounted status of a unit.

That’s all for 2020. I wish you all to have a happier 2021.

More GNW miniatures

End of holidays painting: the Busch Grenadier regiment, raised in 1708 from the grenadier companies of the Belozerski, Lefortski, Viatski, Kievski, Rentzel, Rostovski, Tobolski, Olonerski, Koporieski and Ivangorodski regiments, from 1715 Weide’s Regiment. Present at  Holowczin and Poltava, then at the Prut an from 1711-19 in Pomerania. The blue uniform was introduced in 1711. Three grenadiers are from Zvedza “Russian Infantry of Peter the Great” box, the other three are converted from the Preobrazenski grenadiers from the Strelets box “Guard of Peter I”, by modifying the grenadier cap.

The cavalry was from the Zvedza box “Dragoons of Peter I”: they are simply outstanding, areal pleasure to paint. The flag has the motif in relief but it was not a problem since it was exactly the motif of the Moskowsky regiment I opted to paint. The only drawbacks of the box is that it has only 10 figures on the horse, the other being dismounted dragoons (nicely done with the horse holders and different arms): this requires a disproportionate amount of boxes to obtain a sizeable force. However one can have also a sizeable force of dismounted dragoons. The Moskowsky regiment was raised in Moscow in 1700 as Gulitz’s (Goltz). At Narva, then in the baltic theatre, at Kalisz 1706, Poltava and Pruth. The officers wore the red waistcoat with blue cuffs, a nice variation.

To finish, a third artillery base for the Danish army, once again from the Strelets “Artillery of Charles XII”:

It is time to make the second base for all the Danish cavalry I did previously: then I shall have enough bases to replay Helsinborg with both Maurice and Volley&Bayonet. Stay tuned.

Russian Infantry, part III (or IV, maybe)

Three more russian regiments, in different coat colours. The first one is the Vojvod Apraxin Regiment: raised in 1700 in Moscow from volunteers. At Poltava 1 battalion guarding the camp, the other with the city garrison, then in Finland. Merged with Galitski regiment in 1712.

The second is the "whole red" Regiment Moskovski, here in its 1709 uniform: raised in 1700 in Moscow from volunteers as Col. Ivanitski’s Regiment. At Narva 1700, then in Russia. At Poltava in the Hallart division. Then in Baltic, Pruth 1711, Finland 1713-14 and at the Staket landing, 1719. 

The third and last is the Regiment Nisjegorodski: raised in Moscow trough conscription in 1700 as Col. Bolmann’s regiment. At Narva 1700, Baltic 1702-04. At Poltava in the Hallart division, then Baltic 1710, Pruth 1711, Finland 1713-14 and Swedish east coast 1719. Green uniform 1708-11.

With these six units the infantry for the Maurice refight of Poltava is nearly completed. Only a blue-clad grenadier regiment is still missing, then I had to paint 7 more Dragoon Regiments and a bunch of Cossacks.

The whole August production is here:

More Russian Infantry for Poltava

Two more GNW Russian units, this time in yellow and in white outfits:

Regiment Kievski. Raised through conscription in Moscow in 1700 as Colonel W. von Delden. At Narva, then in the Baltic theatre. At Grodno 1706 then in the Russian campaign: present at Poltava in the Repnin’s division. At Riga in 1710 then in Pomerania. The 1708 yellow coat changed to red with yellow lining in 1711.

Regiment Troitski. Raised in 1700 as the previous, first Colonel Fliwerk. At Narva and in the Baltic. At Poltava garrisoned the main camp; then again in Baltic and Finland campaign. Here is depicted wearing the 1708 white uniform. The white flag is the Colonel flag.

First redoubt finished

Some posts ago I showed the early stages of the redoubt construction for Poltava.  Now I have finished the first one:

I recall that these redoubt are planned for Maurice as a "immobile unit" and hence are not intended to host a base. Rather they have an intrinsic garrison (which will be materialised by a couple of minis). In Maurice terms the Redoubt characteristics are:

Redoubts are immobile garrisons

-1 Disruption point. Broken at 2

-Fire 2 dices as Trained at 4 BW

-Fires in any direction at a single target

-Hard Cover as in a city against enemy fire

-Combat value of 4 unmodified in defense. 

-Cannot assault.

-Cannot be assaulted by cavalry.

-Broken if Attacker doubles. Any other results is no effect.

There are still four of them to be finished. (In my planned Maurice scenario the redoubts are scaled to 5.

Still fighting

After a long absence, a little "sign of life". I was busy minding other business and so I put brushes aside for a while.

In the few spare time I was able to carve out, I finished these two "Morale Markers" for Maurice, one for the Russian and the other for the Swedes:

As far as the Russian army is concerned, I had the time to finish Regiment Butirsky, one of the oldest regiments of the Army, being raised in Moscow in 1642 as an "Old Foreign Regiment". Its colonel till 1705 was Gordon, a Tsar close acquaintance. It was in the Azov campaign 1695-96, then at the Narva defeat. In the Baltic campaign then in Poland. Present at Poltava and in the unfortunate Truth campaign, 1711.

It was disbanded by Catherine the Great and merged into the Kuban Jager Corps, in total careless of the Army tradition.

Russian Infantry (I)

Another step in my Poltava project, the Russian Guards and some Grenadiers (once again they are mostly Strelets with some Zvedza).

First of all the Preobrashenski regiment represented here with four basis, one for battalion:

there were of course some variations in the uniform details, as ever with the russians. I opted for the red socks/gaiters version. The grenadier headgear is of the type introduced from 1709-10. At Poltava they had more probably a grenadier cap of this sort:

The Semeonovski regiment which I painted in this shade of blue:

A nice thing of the Russian is that one can paint different regiments in various shades of the same color (indeed this happened at company level, many times with different coat colors within the same regiment). In both cases the flag were scanned from the Hoglund book. The regimental commander, Prince Golytzin, was wounded at Narva. The regiment was on three battalions.

The DuBois grenadier regiment: according to Hoglund it was raised in 1708 from the grenadier coys of  7 regiments. 

Its full name was “General Enzberg’s Grenadier Regiment” but at Poltava was know with the name of its commander, De Bois or Du Bois. From 1712 it became the 4th Grenadier Regiment.

One of the various Strelets oddities is the so-called “Streltsi Bonus figure”. In many boxes there is a single Streltsi miniatures, the full list here. By collecting those I had I was able to muster also a Streltsi regiment. 

I choose the 12th Moscow regiment (Nechajev), an unit with a long battle history, from Saladen (1703) to Poltava (1709) were it seems that it garrisoned some of the redoubts.

A final view of the russian infantry painted thus far, the equivalent of 37 battalions: to complete the Poltava OoB I need at least 14 more battalions whose uniforms will be red, white, green, yellow and blue, just to add some more uniform variations.

Russian Cavalry "augmentation"

I completed the first eleven regiment of Russian cavalry put on two bases each: these were the cavalry units from the Holowczin OoB which I painted with only one 40x40 mm base for each regiment. I changed the Vladimirsky flag I did previously, which I incorrectly depicted with the 1712 model, with a 1700-1708 model taken from the Hoglund book and changed some details, like the Belozersky karpus. Let introduce them again (the spelling may be incorrect, who knows..):

Vladimirski: the flag is a 1700-1708 model of an unknown regiment; the regiment campaigned from 1701 and was at Holowczin (according to some sources), Lesnaja and Poltava.

Astrakanski: raised in 1701, campaigned in Pomerania in 1711-1713 after Poltava.

Tversky: the flag is correct. I added a dragoon in karpus to add variety. Raised in 1702, after Poltava in the Finnish campaign.

Riazansky. Raised in 1705, at Kalisz 1706, in the Pruth campaign 1711, disbanded 1715.

Sankt Peterburgski. Another regiment raised in 1701, all campaign till Pruth. Disbanded 1711.

Jarovslavski Grenadier: raised 1706. At the Perevolochna surrender: then in Pomerania and Holstein, 1714.

Troitsky Grenadier. Raised 1701, campaigned till 1718.

Belozersky (the standard is from an unknown regiment and was captured at Narva, 1700. Since I have no idea what would be the correct flag, I opted for this one which I like very much). Raised 1703, Holowczin and Poltava. Disbanded 1711, the personnel transferred to Sibirski.

Novgorodski. Raised 1701: some sources give karpus.

Pskovski: the flag is a generic Colonel one. After Poltava at Pruth, 1711.

Azovski: raised in Moscow 1706 from "conscript and disbanded units", not a promising start. At Holowczin, Poltava and Pruth.

The whole bunch:

Now, to complete the Russian cavalry for Poltava I need to paint at least 7 more regiments: I plan to use some Zvedza, together with the reliable Strelets miniatures.