New Project: The Khotyn Campaign - 1621

A New Year and a new hobby project; this time it is the Khotyn campaign of 1621 that pits the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the mighty Ottoman Empire. To celebrate this new project I have a book to giveaway, read on for more information.

Book Giveaway

The book, ‘The Khotyn Campaign of 1621’ by Michał Paradowski and published by Helion, is part of the inspiration for the new project.  Michał was kind enough to offer me a copy of his latest book as a giveaway.  To win this free copy of the fabulous book all you need to do is comment on this blog post, or one of its social media announcements, before midnight GMT on 2nd February 2024.  I will then pick a winner at random from across the various channels. (Sorry - you’ll need to be in the UK to win the book as posting it internationally is too tricky.) Good luck! 

Battle of Chocim, 1621 by Józef Brandt.

Note. The place name ‘Khotyn’ can appear differently in various local languages (e.g. Polish: Chocim, Romanian: Hotin, Ukrainian: Хоти́н ). It is most easily pronounced in English as ‘Hot-in’.

A Mini Book Review 

I highly recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in the conflicts of Eastern Europe in this period.  The book provides the historical background to the campaign (including the campaign in the previous year in which the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth suffered a disastrous defeat), as well as describing the army commanders and all of the armies involved.  There is then a detailed account of the campaign itself accompanied by useful maps and lots of information on the orders of battle.  The book is illustrated throughout including many period pictures, as well as some beautiful colour pieces by Sergey Shamenkov that were commissioned for the book. There are a number of fascinating appendices and the whole work is thoroughly served with excellent foot notes.  

As well as its qualities as a reference work the book is very readable as a narrative account and I devoured it in 3 or 4 sittings.  The chapter on the campaign between 2nd September and 9th October 1621 was a definite page turner with the day-by-day action unfolding in an increasingly bloody and desperate affair. For a wargamer looking at this conflict, or period, the book is ideal. It not only provides lots of the details we all crave about armies and battles, but also illuminates the historical background and context for our games.

I very much look forward to Michał's future work with my only regret being that I can't build armies and terrain as fast as he can research and write books! If you're not lucky enough to win the free giveaway copy then you can of course buy a copy from the Helion website here. 

Defending the Polish Banner at Khotyn by Juliusz Kossak.

Brief Campaign Background

"The battle was terrible and perilous, for our men were in amongst the enemy, and the dead bodies heaped upon another like bridges"

From issue 171 of Nieuwe Tijdinghen published in Antwerp, November 1621

Khotyn 1621 is perhaps not very well known despite being a major and bloody encounter between two of the major powers in the region. For a proper description then you should read the book.  There is also an interesting video available on YouTube from the SandRhoman History channel here. 

Here is my two minute, summary background.

The campaign was due to an escalation of border tensions between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire, and followed the disastrous defeat of a Polish army in 1620.  Emboldened by this victory, the new Ottoman sultan Osman II, who was still a teenager, mobilised an enormous army ready for the next campaign season in 1621. From the Ottoman capital, Istanbul, he joined the army in person and marched North in the hope of achieving a personal military victory to bolster his insecure political position.

Shocked by the 1620 defeat the Polish King, Sigismund III Vasa, received the support of the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm (parliament) to raise a new force from across the Commonwealth, and to recruit their Cossack allies.  The Lithuanian Grand Hetman Chodkiewicz marched the Commonwealth forces South to the border with Moldavia. Chodkiewicz then crossed the Dniester river in to Moldavia and picked a strong defensive position the southern bank, next to the castle and village of Khotyn. 

Osman advanced towards the Commonwealth forces, along with his Tartar allies, determined to quickly crush all opposition. At the beginning of September the Ottoman forces started to arrive at Khotyn and found the Commonwealth forces and allies behind prepared defences. There then followed a series of attacks by the Ottomans, with counter-attacks and sorties from the Commonwealth, that went on for over a month. By the start of October both sides were exhausted and a peace treaty was agreed. Although tactically a stalemate, the campaign was a strategic success for the Commonwealth who had regained their honour from the previous year's defeat, and managed to hold off the humbled Ottoman army. Osman was forced to head back to Istanbul with nothing to show for his costly campaign. 

The campaign saw the death of the both protagonists' leaders. Chodkiewicz died during the campaign through illness, and Osman was deposed and murdered in the following year, his position now untenable amid competing factions within the court.

"Now a crown hangs above the sabre,

Now the sabre falls upon the crown,

Now the slaves rises to an empire,

And the erstwhile emperor becomes a slave."

From the poem Osman by Ivan Gundulić written, between 1622-1651.

The Death of Chodkiewicz by Franciszek Smuglewicz.

New Hobby Project - Khotyn 1621

So why have I picked this campaign to be the basis of my latest hobby project?  First of all it pivots neatly from my last project, Dirschau/Tczew 1627 (see the culmanation of this here), and will allow me to use the Polish-Lithuanian force that I have just built up.  This is a definite boon when you’re building both forces for a battle.  

Secondly, Khotyn sees the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth engaged with the huge Ottoman Empire. Since starting to explore the history of the 17th century Poles, I have also become fascinated with their great rivals to the South.  The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were exotic and different when I was looking at the Western armies in the Thirty Years War, and now the Ottomans take that fascination a step further.

Finally, the Khotyn campaign, with the main actions taking place between 2nd September and 9 October, is chock full of interesting aspects that will make this an engaging, long-term project.  

Ottoman Command 28mm - The Assault Group (left) and Warfare Miniatures (right).

Hobby Project Objectives

What I are my hopes and aims for the new project?  The main objective is to be able to able to recreate an action, or actions, from the Khotyn campaign on the table top. There are no time limits or expected force sizes, at the moment, although this may evolve overtime. 

After my early investigations here are the things that I am initially looking forward to exploring through the project:

• Four different armies: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with an allied Cossack force, and the Ottomans with an allied Tartar force. These feature lots of new types of troops to collect, paint, and work out how to use on the tabletop.
  
  
• A variety of types of engagement to represent on the tabletop, for example: attacks on fortifications, counter-attacks, sorties, open field engagements, and night attacks. 
  
  
• Interesting terrain options to populate the tabletop such as: a medieval castle, a fortified Orthodox Church, fieldworks, wagon forts, a major river (the Dniester) and bridges of boats.
  
  
• Regular followers of the blog may have realised that I like adding tabletop vignettes as colourful backgrounds to games.  Recreating the Ottoman camp will provide opportunities for some really interesting vignettes including: elephants and camels in the camp, the Sultan’s tents and guards, and a morale boosting Ottoman band (possibly partly mounted on the elephants!).  

Ottoman Command 28mm - The Assault Group (left) and Warfare Miniatures (right).

First New Figures

The first thing I’m tackling is to build an Ottoman force.  I’ll then be able to start playing some games against my existing Poles, and learning about how the different troop interactions work on the tabletop. 

Sprinkled through this post you will see the first Ottoman figures completed for the new project; two command bases. In previous projects I have omitted doing command bases and then found I have enough troops done for a game, but there are no generals to command them.  Hoping to avoid that particular pitfall this time! 

I have used figures from The Assault Group and Warfare Miniatures for the two bases.  Just painting these few figures has thrown up lots of questions that have required me to start researching what the Ottomans may have worn in this period and this is very useful as I start to plan for more Ottoman troops.

Ottoman Command 28mm - The Assault Group (left) and Warfare Miniatures (right).

Initial Hobby Plans

At this point of the project I’m doing more reading than buying or painting figures. I’m trying to get a sense of Ottoman uniform / dress for the period and the types of troops that are likely to have been at Khotyn.  I’ve started looking at the different Ottoman ranges available in 28mm and there are quite a few.  It feels like some of the ranges are a bit limited in the variety of troop types and/or poses.  I’ve also been looking at Middle Eastern ranges in general, from the Crusades through to Colonials to see if there are any suitable figures there.

I expect to order a few figures to start with, as samples, because it often makes a difference to see figures ‘in the flesh’.  It will also be useful to see how different manufacturers can be mixed together, especially in the same unit. 

While all of this is going on I have plenty of ECW/TYW figures in the existing ‘pile of potential’ so, I will not run out of things to paint, and some of these figures may be useable as the Foreign/German troops that were fighting for the Polish-Lithuanian army.  I might even be able to keep some of my previous projects going in parallel with this new project, although I’ve not been very good at juggling projects in the past. 

Ottoman Command 28mm - The Assault Group (left) and Warfare Miniatures (right).

Finally

Well done for getting through to the end of the post! I would be very interested to hear people’s thoughts on collecting 28mm Ottomans; which are your preferred figure ranges?  It would also be useful to hear about any books people recommend, especially uniform/dress guides.  

Don’t forget to comment to be in with a chance of winning a copy of the book!  

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Ottoman Command 28mm - The Assault Group (left) and Warfare Miniatures (right).

Until Next Time,

Andy @ The Friends of General Haig (FoGH)

The Guardsmen of the Amsterdam Kloveniersgilde (Part 1)

This post is about another new project I am starting for 2020.  This one is based back in the 17th Century.

The Nightwatch by Rembrandt van Rijn

I am sure this is a picture that most people are familiar with.  It is supposedly one of the most recognisable paintings in the world today.  Completed by Rembrandt van Rijn in 1642, it is now commonly called the ‘Nachtwacht’ or ‘Nightwatch’.  It depicts the Amsterdam Militia Company of District II, under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq.

As I am interested in 17th century military history, any contemporary pictures of soldiers and battles are great for providing a direct window back to the times, showing the dress and equipment in fabulous detail.  In the internet age many of these pictures are readily available to browse and study.  With the Nighwatch also being a very famous picture, it is one that I have often come across while searching for paintings on the web.  There is something about the picture that always attracts my attention.

Firstly, it is undoubtably a stunning picture.  The detail is incredible and the picture has that amazing Reuben ‘light’.  As well as the actual ‘look’ of the picture there is also the title, ‘Nightwatch’.  It provides an instant air of mystery for me; what and why are they watching, and who are they guarding against?  Then there is the way the characters are portrayed.  Many similar paintings from this period have the soldiers portrayed more like a slightly casual school photograph, with all of the subjects in static poses and probably looking out at the viewer.  In the Nightwatch, in contrast, there is a definite sense of movement; something is happening, but the different characters are each wrapped up in their own activity, or preparations.

I suspect that I am like many other wargamers and modellers in that an attractive military themed picture is one of the major ways in which I get drawn in to collecting and painting things. You see the picture and think “Oow - they’d look great in miniature on the tabletop, I’d like some!”.  So, how could I scratch this itch for the Nightwatch?

I could collect some general mid 17th century figures and paint them as Dutch militia. Mmm. No, that’s not going to do it. Ok, what if I tried to recreate each individual figure from the painting using available 28mm figures, and arranged them as in the picture?  Now that’s getting somewhere!

I mulled this idea for some time, in the background, while getting on with more tangible wargaming activity. Then I saw a flash mob video on YouTube (https://youtu.be/a6W2ZMpsxhg). It was made to advertise the restoration work being carried out on the painting. The final frames rekindled my desire to create the painting, but with miniatures.

With the start of a new year, and wanting some new projects to keep me going in 2020, I decided to start my Nightwatch project.  This project is all about recreating the figures from the painting in miniature, so the first task was a detailed review of available figures.  I know most about the 28mm ranges for this period, and I was pretty sure that this size of figures would give me the most choice.  There are a lot of figure ranges for this mid 17th century period in western Europe.  It includes the British Civil Wars and the Thirty Years War which results in a great selection of ranges from many manufacturers.  The tricky part was trying to identify wargames figures that match, relatively closely, the figures in the painting.  I didn’t expect to find exact matches, and so I was prepared for some minor conversion work; the odd head swap, adding some green stuff details, things like that. I also needed a nice version of the picture to look at.

The Nightwatch - artificially lightened to help see in to the shadows!

Luckily the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, which exhibits the painting, has a fabulous website, and includes a whole section on the painting, including the ability to download detailed versions of it for personal use (https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/rijksstudio/artists/rembrandt-van-rijn/objects#/SK-C-5,0).  This allowed me to get a really good, zoomed in, view of each figure in the painting, and I also discovered a lot of background information about the picture and the individuals portrayed in it. I printed out a copy of the picture so I could makes notes on it as I discovered figures that might fit as a representation.

Here is a list of manufacturers used for the miniature figures (so far!):

• Warlord Games - https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/pike-shotte
• The Assault Group (TAG) - https://theassaultgroup.co.uk/renaissance/
• Empress Miniatures - https://www.empressminiatures.com/english-civil-war-3-c.asp
• Avanpost Miniatures - https://www.mezzersminis.co.uk/avanpost-1
• 1898 Miniatures - https://www.1898miniaturas.com/shop/en/48-spanish-tercios-28mm-miniatures
• Colonel Bills - Depot Battalions - http://shop.colonelbills-store.co.uk/epages/4f27da57-42ee-48c0-9cb8-22c9dd921a68.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/4f27da57-42ee-48c0-9cb8-22c9dd921a68/Categories/86/44

(Many more were considered!)

I now had a list of 28mm figure ranges, and a copy of the picture.  There followed some hours of pouring over web catalogues of figures.  Not an unpleasant experience; what wargamer doesn’t like looking at figures!  There were a surprising number of things to consider.  Not only the pose of the figure, but all of the items of dress. Sashes over the wrong shoulder and riding boots were two examples of things that often scuppered a likely figure.  After a couple of evenings’ ‘work’ I ended up with a list of candidates, and then orders were placed.  I knew there would be a certain amount of ‘wastage’ (e.g. figures not used as they came in a pack with the required figure), but this wasn’t a problem as I’m sure these will get used in my ongoing Thirty Years War collection.

Reviewing the figures to see which would make the cut.

Once delivered I could start reviewing figures in detail.  Sometime things in real life aren’t quite as you’d expected, and a figure would turn out to be unsuitable after all, but some of the ‘wastage’ turned out to be suitable alternatives.  I have had to live with some compromises.  Getting figures leading with the same leg as in the picture has been tricky, and some poses in the painting are so unusual that no figure manufacturer would possibly make a figure in that pose.

Conversions started.

To finish this first part instalment for my Nightwatch project, here is a description of the first few figures that I have converted so far.

Captain Frans Banninck Cocq

Of course I had to start with the leader of the militia company, the Captain himself.  A position in the militia was highly sought after by the wealthy and influential merchants of Amsterdam in the 17th century. Therefore to be the Captain of your district’s company was a real achievement.  The Captain takes centre stage in the painting and he must have needed to contribute a significant amount to the 1600 guilders (a small fortune at the time) paid the Ruebens on completion of the picture.   Cocq must have liked the end result as he had a copy made to hang in his home. 

The figure is an Empress Miniatures officer. The right arm needed major surgery and the walking staff was scratch built from a piece of wire and a blob of green stuff. The left army was bent a bit. The frilly collar was added with more green stuff, and the riding boots were filed down to shoes. Shoe and breech adornments were added with more green stuff.  A fair approximation I hope.

Lieutenant Willem Van Ruytenburch, Lord of Vlaardingen and Vlaardingen-Ambacht

Lieutenant Willem Van Ruytenburch is definitely the most fancily dressed of the militia figures. When you look closely at his clothes you can see they are made of very expensive looking materials with lots of brocades and embroidery. He is also the most brightly dressed, and lit, so he really stands out.  This fits well with his ‘new money’, and ‘out to impress’ background.  (Too Fat Ladies fans will, no doubt, be tickled to find such a famous historical chatter named Lord of Vlaardingen!)

I’ve used another Empress officer for this figure. The figure comes with separate arms so was straightforward to pose. The officer pack comes with separate partisans so I will add one of these after the figure is painted. Willem has a very large and ornate gorget which has been added with green stuff along with some slight modifications to his boots.

Jacob Jorisz, tambour (drummer)

Jacob Jorisz is the only figure to appear as a main character in the picture who didn’t have to contribute to the cost of the picture. It is assumed that the drummer was important to include even if not able to afford the cost.

There are lots of drummer figures available, but I wanted to try and get one with the left arm in the same position as in the painting.  I went for an Avanpost drummer figure which had the right pose, but not the right head gear.  I made a head swap with a Wargames Foundry Scots pikeman in my spares box, which had the right looking sort of ‘bonnet’ headgear.

Sergeant Reijnier Engelen

Reijnier Engelen was an older member of the militia, and therefore had probably earned his position as sergeant through long service.  He seems to have had a shady past with fines recorded for selling undersize cloth.  Perhaps the ‘Arthur Daley’ of the militia?

For Reijnier I have used an armoured pikeman from the new 1898 TYW range.  He had his head removed and replaced to give a more sideward glance, and he’ll have a halberd from the Empress ECW sergeant’s pack.

Jan van der Heede, musketeer

Jan van der Heede was a fairly successful grocer and therefore able to earn a position in the militia and afford to appear prominently in the painting.  He is shown tipping a charge of powder from his bandolier in to his musket as part of the loading procedure.  He looks very dapper in his red outfit, and such bright clothing was apparently expected of a bachelor in Amsterdam at this time.  Interestingly he was married soon after the painting was completed, so perhaps his appearance in the painting turned some eligible ladies’ heads! (As a side note, once married you were expected to dress in more sober, dark or black clothing.)

I had to search hard to find a loading musketeer figure in this exact position, also with his musket cast about on his left hand side.  Empress Miniatures once again provided an almost perfect figure, which just needed a frilly collar adding in Green Stuff, and a plastic Warlord feather adding to the hat.

Jan Claesen Leijdeckers, musketeer

Jan Claesen Leijdeckers, stands just behind the flashy Lieutenant, and is in the act of blowing clear the ‘pan’ on his musket after having fired. Jan’s appearance in the picture was posthumous; he died two years before the picture was completed, but as he had paid for his appearance in it, Rembrandt must have based the figure on another model to represent the deceased Jan.

Although I’ve not used Empress much in my wargaming units up to now, they seemed to come up trumps time and again in my Nightwatch figure search.   Jan is based on another Empress loading musketeer figure.  I have added a musket rest to the figure to match the painting, and swapped the soft hat for a helmet, both extras from the bits box.

Running Boy, Powder Monkey

Almost hidden in the shadows on the left of the painting is a figure of what looks to be a young boy, wearing a helmet, and running with a powder horn.  I haven’t found out much about this figure yet and I assume that Rembrandt was adding a little humorous flourish to fit in the foreground at this point.

I remembered that Warlord had a similar looking boy in their Pike and Shotte Clubmen Militia range.  I changed his posture slightly (the original is in the midst of throwing a stone) and added a green stuff powder horn to the figure.  Not an exact representation, but he’ll do.

Unknown Man, musketeer

My last figure for this post, standing behind the Captain, is unknown which, due to his old fashioned attire, has led to a belief that his represents the history of the militia, with oak leaves on his helmet, representing victory.

It was difficult to find a suitable figure for the unknown man.  He is in a very strange pose, and to me seems to be firing his musket left handed.  I went to TAGs late 16th century Spanish range to find a suitable figure with the high, puffed breeches, and a helmet.  The figure is firing the more normal, right handed way. so I will compromise on this unless I ever find something more suitable.  I will add a sprig of something after painting to represent the oak leaves.

The initial set of figures, roughly in their relative positions.

Next step will be to get some paint on these first few figures, and to start building the next set of the Nightwatch.  If you have any ideas for 28mm figures to represent the figures in the painting then I’d love to hear from you.  Also, I’m always interested in any information you have the painting itself.

Until next time!

Andy @ FOGH.