From Mike W: 28mm 17th Century Cossacks in Polish service (60 Points)

The workbench has a few items that are coming up for completion but first I offer you a small group of 6 x 28mm 17th Century Cossacks for my Siege of Vienna collection.

Nearly forgot the 'before' picture again! Undercoated and with horses given their base coat...

The Zaporozhian Cossacks have an interesting history but in the 17th Century they were nominally subjects of the Polish/Lithuanian Commonwealth, as such they fought alongside the more famous Polish Hussars.

Finished Cossacks

When armoured they were known as Pancerni, but there were also large numbers of these classic 'light' Cossacks with just sword and lance, scouting and clearing the way for their heavier colleagues.

And a re-shuffled view of the completed unit

These figures will represent an additional squadron that I can add to two pre-existing squadrons I painted a couple of years ago, so the painting style has deliberately been adjusted to try and fit in with these existing Cossack units.

Showing detail of the chest braiding on some figures

The figures are plastic Gripping Beast Arab Cavalry, in this case based upon the Heavy Cavalry variety but I have opted not to add armour to these figures. The existing 12 figures were painted with predominantly light blue jackets and where possible with yellow braid on the chest.

View of two more of the little guys

My aim this time round was to add a little diversity in to the colour of the jackets and also include a couple of figures with out chest braid, but with a wrap around top instead.

Last view of new batch

So most of these are brown or green jackets and  only three have decorative chest braid! As with the others in the existing unit I have sourced a variety of spare heads, weapons etc from other kits - can you spot a GW goblin quiver and arrows? Scavenged from the spares box to help make up numbers. To be fair its hard to see, on the figure in front row, extreme left of eth top two photos. 

Believe me - it looks OK, better than it sounds!

Finally a snap of the new guys integrated into the existing Cossack units,
the aim is to have a total of 24 Cossack figures. Just in shot - top left - 
Armoured Turkish Cavalry and dismounted Polish Dragoons waiting on undercoats... 

Most of the figures have the same top knot hair style that was typical of the Cossacks and the wider Polish army at this time. 

I have another 6 to make up in the near future as well.

POINTS

6 x 28mm Mounted Figures @ 10Pts        60 Points

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Quite the posse of ponies there Mike! That massed Cossack units looks great!

Cap'n Wednesday