First army shots for Tczew / Dirschau

 These armies are basically the MVP (minimum viable product) for the battle I want to refight. Since I'm not going to try to host this until summer, I've still got time for both practical additions (movement trays, casualty/disorder markers), and aesthetic ones (staff for commanders, some rebasing, pennants and cavalry flags), but the armies shown here could be used as-is for the battle if I wanted to.

Interesting to me is that the current lists put the Polish army at a slightly higher points value, despite a noticeably lower figure count. However, the terrain for the battle favors the Swedes substantially, so the Poles are probably still the underdogs as they were historically. More on army lists and the scenario later.

(technically the Polish-Lithuanians are missing one commander, and the Swedish one artillery piece, unfortunately I didn't make those calls until after the army shots)

many musketeers

 36 plastic musketeers here, all from Warlord Games, with a bunch of Warlord's metal helmets and a handful of their metal swinefeathers. The swinefeathers don't fit that naturally with the figures, I had to get creative (even greenstuffing a couple right hands) to use them in minis that aren't actively firing.

Swedish Commanders for Dirschau/Tczew

 According to a board game about Gustavus Adolphus, his subordinates at Dirschau were Graf von Thurn, Herman Wrangel, and Johan Baner. From left to right, I've got: a converted Perry ACW commander as Thurn, Warlord's Adolphus as himself, Warlord's Ake Tott as Wrangel, and Warlord's Gustav Horn as Baner.

Hussar Reinforcements

 Rounding out my recent cavalry work, I've completed 9 Wargames Foundry hussars to mix in with my Warlord hussars. The size matches well enough, even if the gear looks to be from different eras, although I think technically the Foundry lancers are more appropriate to the Dirschau period than the Warlord ones, which are more Relief of Vienna looking.

With these sorted, I'm actually pretty close to having everything I need ready for Dirschau/Tczew. I've got 5 more reiters to paint, then a handful of cannons and their crew, and 36 muskeeteers. Oh, and the Swedish commanders! All doable by March I think, although between Omicron and my fiancée's upcoming surgery I probably won't actually host the game until later in the year....

Cuirassiers

 Another new cavalry unit, 11 warlord games cuirassiers. No conversions, the only deviation is a single TAG horse mixed in. I couldn't decide on blackened, russeted or polished armor, so I did a few of each.

For Dirschau, the Swedes will have three units of Cuirassiers, but since I don't feel like buying any more, I'll mix in some medium-armored cavalry to make up the difference, with units looking something like this...

Finnish horse

 My Swedish list for Dirschau contains one unit of Finnish horse, of the sort that would go on to gain fame in the Thirty Years War as Hakkapeliitta / Hackapelit / Hackapelite / Hackapell / Haccapelit / Haccapelite. This unit has six TAG hackapells and two converted Warlord plastics. I painted them with a pretty restricted, earthy palette to really lean into the perception of them as backwoods ruffians, and also, all their horses are brown to represent the finnhorse breed, as opposed to how I normally have some black or grey mixed in for variety.

Big Batch of Buff-Coated Cavalry

 Hey all, it's been a slow several months, but I did recently speedpaint a whole slew of reiters. In previous batches of reiters, I have given them a variety of colored coats and sleeveless buffcoats, because one of the main attractions of this era for me is the irregularity and general lack of uniforms. However, my antipathy toward uniforms had resulted in me avoiding a look that was actually pretty standard, albeit as a result of armor preferences rather than deliberate color coordination.

These reiters are part of my plan to host a Tczew game in March 2022. More on that to follow, but another blog has a bunch of info on that which will be guiding my own plans...