Great Northern War "Sodermanland" Swedish Infantry Regiment

 This is the first completed Swedish Infantry Regiment for my Great Northern War project to roll off the production line. Information on the Swedish Army seems relatively sparse on the internet, so for those interested, here is the best potted history I could find

Swedish name: Södermanlands regemente, I10 

The regiment was first established in 1627 as the Södermanland Regiment. The regiment was linked to the Allotment System in December 5th 1682.The regiment's history goes back to the "fänikor" that was raised in the province of Södermanland in the 16th century.

After the War of Liberty of King Gustav Vasa, a permanent "fänika" was raised in the province of Södermanland. This "fänika" was later divided into two "fänikor", a north and a south Södermanland "fänika". At the end of the 1500's there were three "fänikor" in Södermanland; the Rekarne-, the Gripsholm- and the Nyköping "fänika".

In the 1614, King Gustav II Adolf formed a "landsregemente" - a Grand Regiment, from the Södermanland "fänikor" and from "fänikor" in the provinces of Närke and Värmland. In 1627 the Grand Regiment was split up into two independent regiments, The Södermanland Regiment and the Närke-Värmland Regiment.

As a result of the Constitution adopted in 1634 the Army was reorganized. The Södermanland regiment was then referred to as the "4th Regiment". The regiment was allotted with 1200 "rotar".Hence, the Regiment had 1200 soldiers organized into 8 companies

So now you know - for some reason, there is not a lot of information about campaigns or battles the regiment fought in but it seems they were probably present at Posen in 1704,Fraustadt in 1706, Helsingborg in 1710, Gadebusch in 1712 and the siege of Tonningen in 1713.

This is the image of the flag I found on line via Google and have used for my version of the regiment

All 18 figures, 6 each on a 60mm x 60mm base.

The right hand base contains the three grenadier figures although in the Swedish army of this era, the grenadiers were not grouped together in a single flank company, but were distributed throughout the 8 companies of the regiment

The left hand base contains an officer and five musketeers

Three images of the left hand base

Note a couple of the musketeers are wearing the heavy elk skin leather gauntlets that were common in the Swedish army

Three images of the right hand base, which in addition to the grenadiers includes an officer/NCO with half pike as well as a drummer

Nick at Ebor only actually supplied two grenadier heads per regiment, which I thought was just an oversight but after subsequently opening the other five packs, found was obviously intentional. I added a plastic grenadier head to one of the figures but will probably stick with just a couple in the remaining regiments,

Well that's it for tonight and I have not even assembled a second regiment for painting yet, so there may be a bit of a gap between posts. I am currently half way through the three mounted high command figures, so they may turn up completed over the weekend.