Welcome to the War in the North

Hello and thanks for looking in. This blog will follow my trials and tribulations in building 2 armies, Swedish and Russian, to re-fight battles in the Great Northern War 1700-1721.
I've been wanting to make a start on this project for years but with one thing and another life always seemed too busy for it. Even for painting and gaming in general. I now find myself with enough spare time (usually an couple of hours in the mornings), where I can finally pick up a brush and make a start.

I'll be basing the armies up to use Beneath the Lilly Banners rules set by Barry Hilton. Barry's website The League of Augsburg was probably the single biggest reason to get into this interesting and colourful period of military history in the first place. His painted units with their big flags and well modeled and painted dioramas were, and still are, real gamer's porn. If you've not had the pleasure I urge you to visit it and enjoy pics like this.

So the plan is to do roughly 50% bigger Russian forces than the Swedes have. I figure if I paint 2 Russian units up for every one Swedish, I should be able to get to a point where the armies will be finished at the same time. I dipped my toe in a couple of weeks ago with an artillery piece for both sides. Its a nice way to start as its only a few figures to complete the unit. I've not painted for about 2 years so it was nice to get back into it again. All the figures I will be using are my own design and available at Musketeer Miniatures

Russian Medium Gun

Swedish Medium Gun

I probably won't do anymore cannon for the Swedes as they didn't really make much use of them, preferring to get stuck in with the bayonet. The Russians however will have a couple more at some point. Next up, some Cavalry.