2mm Swedes and Russians

 After having many Pike & Shot and Horse & Musket games of Dominion, I was inspired to expand my 2mm collection a bit. Although tbh when they are on the table the 'figures' are largely interchangeable as they are so small, it is nice to know you at last have some of the correct troops with the right flags, uniforms etc.

This was also my first order to Irregular since the 2mm/6mm business was hived off, and I was pleasantly surprised that the order was fulfilled quickly and with nothing missing. I've got plenty of figures with pikes, so I wanted to get some more of the line musket infantry types more suitable for the seventeenth century.

First up some smallish contingents of Swedes and Russians. I didn't get masses of them as I can always make the numbers up from other base types.

The casting were pretty decent, some of the them had the familiar Irregular heavy flash on the base underside but most were pretty clean. Perhaps 20% (?) of the strips had significant flash lines on the upperside too, so possibly just one duff mould section. They are easy enough to clean up on this scale, although you have to be careful not to accidentally file off the flags.

For 2mm I usually put them on their final bases before undercoating them, it makes them much easier to handle. I undercoated them matt black them misted them with white to raise the highlights.

First up eight bases of Swedish musket infantry. Each base has two of the three rank deep strips with flags. My 2mm Horse and Musket stuff is mainly painted up for the WSS, but as Sweden didn't take part, I did them for the 7YW. They have mid blue jackets and yellow trousers, and I added faces and hats, which really makes a difference. Doing the faces is a sort of mixture of dabbing and drybrushing, but it  is well worth the effort. If you do paint the faces though, you have to do the headgear as the flesh paint goes everywhere, but a simple black drybrush (carefully) does the trick. When I was younger with better eyesight I even painted the muskets, bayonets and hands, but that is beyond me now.

I did each base with one regimental flag (essentially white with the royal coat of arms in the middle and a tiny dot for the regimental distinction) and one national flag - the Swedish blue flag with a yellow cross. In a sign of ageing I really struggled with the flags and they were a right dogs dinner. In the end my micron lining pens and Posca paint pens came to the rescue, and I ended up doing the colour detail bits with the paint pens and edging them with micron liner pen.

Back when I started with 2mm I was able to hand paint union flags on the British infantry stands, but sadly no more.

It is a bit hard to see but I put the national colours on the rear base edge. It helps with troop identification and to keep them pointing the right way! Yellow was already taken for Imperial troops and Blue for Prussia so I did the Swedes half yellow and half blue.

They are flocked which I think looks much better than painted bases. Woodland Scenics Blended Turf which is quite fine. 

I also did four cavalry bases, two heavy and two light, each being a pair of the eight figure close order strips or six figure open order strips.

For the SYW Swedish heavy cavalry uniforms were pretty boring, just blue and yellow, but they had at least one Regiment of Hussars in black, so I did one of the light cavalry bases in black uniforms and the other light blue.

The horses are a range of shades of brown, light shades for the light cavalry, one unit of heavies even has a whole rank of black horses. Looking back at my old figures, I have even painted some white socks, noses etc on some of the horses so I might go back and redo that.

The cavalry guidons I just did in red and blue for the heavies and yellow and green for the lights. No idea if that is right, and I have a strong suspicion those colours were inspired by the horse colours in 'Totopoly'!

Ten bases of Russian infantry, more than the Swedes as there are a lot of Russians. Two of them are Guards. I had vague ideas about using some of these guys for Napoleonics, but no chance with these. Although they have green jackets, they also have bright red trousers, very un-Napoleonic! No real problem as I have tons of 6mm Napoleonics. I later found out that the red trousers were a short lived innovation of Catherine the Great which was rapidly reversed. Oh well, I can't be bothered to repaint them now.

Much the same process as the Swedes, but different colours this time. Quite a bright green on the jackets so they stand out. With their red trousers these guys could be ACW Zouaves! These troops are also three rank blocks.

I used the jacket green for the national colour on the bases (again, hard to see, sorry). The flags were a nightmare though, every single Regiment was different and there isn't even any consistency as to whether they have vertical or diagonal crosses. I went with a similar scheme to the Swedes with one regimental and one 'national' flag per base, which sort of repeat the contrast colours across them.

For these flags I just block painted the base colour and then dabbed on the contrasts with paint pens. The two Guards Regiments have the right flag colours, but the others are a bit of a random collection of colours which look nice together. I drew the Imperial eagle symbols with a micron pen, and en masse they don't look too bad. 

Similar to the Swedish cavalry, two bases  of heavies and two of lights. A lot of the heavies in this period seem to be cuirassiers in buff uniforms with breastplates, so I did them buff and dabbed on gunmetal for the breastplates. I need more cuirassiers for some of the Dominion scenarios, so these will do nicely.

Russian hussars in this period were very jazzy however, so I did a Regiment of 'yellows' (Hungarian I think) and one of 'reds' (Moldovan?). They do look pretty smart and pop more than the boring Swedes.

Like the Swedes the heavies got a higher proportion of dark brown and black horses with red and blue guidons, the lights had lighter browns and red and yellow guidons.

Pretty pleased with those although volume-wise they are about the same size as my Bavarian and Dutch 'armies' for the WSS. I do the bases in pairs as I still have in my head basing for Twilight of the Sun King. Two bases per brigade means you can do line formation, supported line, square and march column just by aligning the two bases differently, and having two strips per bases means each strip represents roughly a battalion or cavalry regiment.

I do have a slight hankering to do 'big base' 2mm with lots of strips on a base representing a large brigade or a division, but the smaller strips are so much more flexible, if a bit fiddly without a sabot base. I put magnetic strip on all of them so I can use my steel covered sabot bases.