The Sons of Taras Bulba!

 I have restored some of the classic Foundry Cossack Characters which I fell heir to last year. Originally in  my late friend Mike's collection these had been bumped around a bit and had some bashes and scrapes as well as a few missing lances. They were also based for a winter campaign. 

I gave the snowy bases a good dabbing in green poster paint and drybrushed that up a little then tidied up the figures and hoses where I could see bare metal poking through. Lastly I gave them a good coat of varnish since it's a fine sunny day up here. 

These will join my GNW Russians and Swedes as allies or enemies for either. 

But now I have no excuse to get some winged hussars! 🤦🏻‍♂️

You spend ages waiting on one bus....

A rather hectic day at work was improved by the arrival of not one but three parcels for me.

First off was a rather large and heavy box which contained a Spanish Town which I won on EBay, sold by Mike Siggins. Very nice and complimenting my existing Italeri church and houses.




Very useful for my next project but also for Spain and Italy and probably the south of France, Balkans and a few other places.




Next up came this book. I will leave you to work out how the two things tie together!

Also delivered by the postie was a small box. Hot off the casting machine (well still pretty warm since I ordered them only on Saturday!) these are the new dismounted Cossacks from Warfare. 

Although not quite as well fed than my GNW Russians they are a decent match for height and will be taking the field against them rather than along side them. I really like them although I will need a few packs to make sure I don't have too many guys waving their hats. They should make a nice match for my TAG mounted Cossacks too.

Lastly and delivered via email I received a set of rules to playtest from Jim Purky. More on these another time!

It's all go here.

My head is now spinning in the opposite direction....in a good way.🤪

Russian Artillery Crew, Grenadiers and Cossacks

It's been a busy month! However I have some goodies which have all arrived within a few days of each other. A sizeable portion of my Russian SYW army is now resident on my pairing desk. A unit of infantry should be completed today and a further unit lies waiting. My Grenadiers arrived - Wargames Foundry bought off eBay and my Cossacks eventually showed up from The Assault Group. Only a month late - Gregorian Calendar perhaps!. Finally a box arrived from the States with 4 unicorns and some Crew - my guns from Fife and Drum. (Thanks Jim!!)

A few different manufacturers there - but a bit of variety didn't hurt anyone did it? 

Let's see.... 

Fife and Drum Russian Artillery 

Lovely sculpting, clean castings and nice simple poses. I like these a lot. 

Compared to the Ingo Artillery -

They're smaller but better sculpted and the poses are similar for these chappies, but not the rest of the  Ingo crew who suffer from odd arm and hand positions - if caught them swinging the sponge and porte fire around like in an action that I'd give them a thick ear! 

I'm tempted just to use the F&D figs as I have some labourers who can lend a hand with the spare tool which come in the pack.

The guns are 12llb Unicorns - lovely solid castings and I like the open box of roundshot. Nice touch.

Next up the Grenadiers. 

I'd describe these as a little well fed and rounded, but plenty fierce character. Height ways they are pretty close to Ingo's Infantry. Sadly I wasn't a fan of the Ingo's Grenadier figures. Some of them are in coats and I wanted the unit in summer uniform and again the poses are a little limited.

Finally the Cossacks.

Nice figures, smallish perhaps but well posed and animated. The horses.....hmm. Not so pleased with these. I might hunt around and see what I can come up with from my spares box.  Overall though they are nice and will make an interesting bunch of baggage botherers for my games.   They'll be mounted on my round skirmish base as individual figures so I can use them