By Cannon and Musket

Throughout the last few weeks I have been  painting and preparing  some more Units for my Fire and sword armies:

After a devastating game using a Swedish Regimental Gun  (proxied during the game by some half-painted and scratch-built Russian piece) in a village defense scenario - in which the regimental gun devastated three units all on its own -  I decided that Artillery pieces would certainly see more action in the future and painted up all three bases I had got for christmas.

These are the By Fire and Sword (Wargamer.pl) originals.

 

During the same game, the Swedes had to hire some Russian Mercenary musketeers as they were unable to field enough bases on their own.  So, another base was made and as I was short on musketeers and didn´t want to order a whole batch just for another base, I sculpted two of my own.

I also made some swedish casualties - I had a lot of Russian casualties, but none of Swedish variety

 

Next in lin are another base of swedish reiters, two bases of Dragoons and Cossacks, all primed and waiting for paint.

 Then yesterday, I realized by browsing through the internet that I had no Forage Supplies marker - and as it was a rainy and depressing day, I started to build my own. This is the Work in Progress pic from today:

Eagle and Lion - A Fire and Sword Battle Report

 

In the Dark woods of the north, a duel between Lion and Eagle takes place as two scouting parties clash on their reconnaissance missions.  

A Muscovite Force led by the venerable Golova Rurik Borikov makes contact with a Swedish Detachment led by Malte Larsson. 

Borikov has deployed a Group of Servant Cossacks on his right flank facing Swedish Dragoons while placing his cavalry in the centre and on the left flank.  The Swedish Deployment mirrors the Muscovite troop placement as both sides seek to contest the broken ground with infantry while sending their cavalry along the clearings in the forest and onto the ploughed fields.

The Northern Lion - Sweden joins the fray

As usual when I start an Army, it doesn´t take long until I start a second faction to provide enough figures to play a game even if my gaming compagnions cannot field their own minis.

With my recent Fire and Sword adventure, I´ve decided to add a tiny Swedish Force - though I tried to cheat a little by making the Reiter units suitable both for Russian and Swedish Service.

This way, I only had to paint a few bases of Dragoons/Musketeers and a Command Unit. For a Start, the Reiter squadrons would be dual-use for my Muskovites as well as Swedish Service.

Here are the Dragoons: 

The Swedish Commander - I have to work some more on th Banner, it´s a freehand design and needs a bit more shading and highlighting. I´m going to rework it as some point once the Command Unit has earned some renown.

And finally, two Bases of Reiters.  I added some beards and painted the coats in colors that would be suitable for my Muskovite Force a well.  The Swedes will get some dedicated units later, right now flexibility and economy is important as I am trying to paint them to a nice standard.