Sunday, 28 February 2021

Great Northern War - Baby Steps

 As we are now officially back in a Level 3 Lockdown in Auckland for seven days, meaning people should stay in their own "bubble", only go out for exercise or food shopping and so on our planned multiplayer Carlist War game at Barry's today had to be abandoned. 

After cutting the grass etc, I had most of the day available to get some work done on the painting table, so have finally managed to get some work done on the plastic GNW cavalry. To get started, I decided just to paint a generic regiment, in blue coats, faced yellow, as most of the Swedes from this era seem to have been attired.

Its only the first squadron (I am basing them in squadrons of 3 on 60mm x 60mm bases, as that is what Nick has done with his Beneath the Lilly Banners armies) and I think they have come out quite nicely



Yesterday, before the imposition of the lockdown, I was able to pick these two books up from the local library, ordered in from elsewhere within Auckland via their online booking and request page.


The MAA title is pretty light on anything other than brief pen sketches of the various armies involved, plus some colour plates - useful stuff but not very in depth or detailed. It really feels like the Great Northern War could have justified two or three volumes - The Swedish Army, the Russian army, and the armies of the lesser states.

The rather weighty book about the Swedish King, Charles XII, is a rather different matter and may give me a bit TOO much information - but I am happy to give it a go!

27 comments:

  1. Nice Ross,

    looking forward to more units joining your army!

    cheers
    Matt

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    1. Thank you Matt, appreciTe you stopping by and commenting!

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  2. A nice start. You should pick up the Helion Century of the Soldier book for the Swedish army. They akso have one for the Russian army.

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    1. Thanks Neil, I might take up your suggestion re Helion.

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  3. First effort looks great, Keith! Looking forward to many more to come.

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    1. Thank you Jon. The next trio, with light blue facings, are three quarters done.

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  4. Great work on the GNW Cavalry.

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    1. Cheers Ray. The yellow facings really make them "pop"

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  5. Lovely looking Swedish cavalry!
    Best Iain

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    2. Thanks Iain... I was not too happy with them when they were up close being painted, but they do look quite nice once they are based...it definitely inspired me to get on with the next lot!

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  6. Those are a great start Keith and hope the lockdown doesn't last too long. On the radio a week or so ago an epidemiologist said that New Zealand and Australia should expect more of this sort of thing once they re-open their borders. I do hope they are wrong!

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    1. Cheers Steve. Unfortunately we rely on people doing the right thing and occasionally, it does not happen. Now of course we have people calling for punitive action against the 21 year old who was from a household with a known case but did not self isolate, went and had a test - then went to a gym! Very dumb but he is 21 so who knows what we would have been doing in a similar situation at that age....and if repressive government action prevented the spread of Covid, there would not be any in Russia or a host of other regimes. We could stop it getting here, by just closing the border 100% - but that's not really legal and there would be just as many people who have relatives overseas who would be against that as there are people in favour. Our second biggest industry after agriculture is overseas tourism, so we are taking a huge but very specifically targeted hit from keeping 99% of people out of our country...many tourism businesses are finished or on their last legs. But we are still way ahead of what most of the world is having to endure...

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  7. Very nice Keith, a very distinctively Swedish. Hopefully you will only have one case like us here in Queensland after our snap three-day lockdown six weeks ago. I was convinced it was going to kick on to a few more, but we were quite lucky.

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    1. Thanks Lawrence - the Swedes do look quite nice if I do say so myself ...well, other people have said it too, including you! Fingers crossed re the lock down - we have already had more than one or two cases linked to the latest scare and the issue with the guy that caused this to happened 0600 Sunday is he may have had it and bee wondering here, there and everywhere spreading it for about a week - so who knows? As of tomorrow, my employers will be testing our temperature upon arrival at work, and anyone with an elevated temp will be sent home and told to get a test etc....

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  8. Hey, at least if you’re on lockdown you can’t be going off into the countryside taking pictures to ambush me with later....
    I’m kidding of course. I really don’t mind the travel pics at all. And you should be proud to have such pretty landscaping about you. 😀

    Nice start to your project! It’ll be a good time for a little painting.

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    1. Thanks Stew...just you wait, I still have a few more travel pics to inflict on the unsuspecting!

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  9. Great start on the new project, Keith! Looking forward to seeing more.

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    1. Thanks Dean. You will have to wait a lot longer than Ihave to wait to see your projects progress. I am sure if you had twenty four cavalry to assemble and paint, they would be done in two or three days!

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  10. All huge historical wargame projects have to start somewhere 👍 looking good

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    1. Cheers Matt - like any other project in life! A 1000 mile journey begins with one step or whatever Chairman Mao said....

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  11. Nice start in your knew project Keith. Fingers crossed that your lockdown doesn’t last long and that you get the vaccine rolled out sufficiently widely, and quickly to open up the border again in good time.

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    1. Thanks - I am really looking forward to the Ebor infantry arriving as I have some of their figures in my WSS collection and they are really lovely figures! As to the lockdown - no new community cases today, so fingers crossed. The vaccine is being given to our border workers - immigration, customs, airport staff etc - as well as Managed Isolation and Quarantine staff. Because we do not really have Covid in our general population, we are a bit down the priority list for the suppliers and its likely to take the rest of 2020 to roll it out to the entire population, although there IS talk now of doing a "surge" of vaccinating in the area where some people have the virus, albeit mostly they are in isolation

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  12. Good start, Keith. I guess the lockdown gives some advantages for painting and reading as well:)

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    1. Thank you Dmitry...not really because I am still able to go to work, for which I am greatful!

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  13. They look great Keith, what make and scale are they?
    You are generous to call the Men At Arms book 'light on'. It's extremely disappointing. If you can, pick up copies of Höglund and Sallnäs' two-volumes The Great Northern War 1700 - 1721 - Volume 1 - Colours and Uniformes, published by Acadia Press.
    Failing that, this website is fantastic, and draws on much of their work:
    http://www.tacitus.nu/
    Regards, James

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    1. LOL James - I have probably been in Account Management too long - understating negatives and avoiding offending people is part of my role! The figures are ex Wargames Factory, now part of the Warlord Empire and 28mm hard plastic. Yes I have already found and utilised the Tacitus site - it is very helpful.

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