From KristoferD: Dragooned Musketeers and a Distraction (68 points)

I hope 2026 is already turning out great for all of you! I've had a hectic few days since the last update but still managed to put something together thanks to a few days off from work. I even managed to squeeze in a game yesterday, but more about that later. First I present to you a medium unit of dragooned musketeers for By Fire and Sword by Wargamer Poland.

What's a dragooned musketeer, you say? Well, according to the By Fire and Sword Armies (I) book Sweden struggled to provide enough dragoons to the cavalry dominated fighting in Poland during the Deluge (or Charles X Gustavus's Polish war as it's called in Sweden). One solution was to provide horses to musketeers drawn from regiments of foot so they could keep up with the cavalry. Essentially dragoons in all but name. Given the fact that Sweden never really was a strong cavalry nation one can imagine the poor beasts they would have used as mounts. I assume any decent horses captured were sent to the actual cavalry, but that is admittedly idle speculation.

In any case, dragooned musketeers are potentially a very useful unit in By Fire and Sword. They have the aptly named special rule Proxy Dragoons that lets them move like cavalry during their first activation in a game. They also have rules for Salvo and Countermarch, the latter of which essentially allows them to fire by intro-/extroduction i.e. 17th century drill for moving forward or backwards while firing. This makes them a nice, flexible unit that can put out a lot of fire power, but one that you definitely don't want to have caught unprepared in the open by cavalry.

I painted most of the men in red coats (Army Painter Pure Red mixed with a little black) and blue trousers (AP Wolf Grey). It felt a bit weird to paint Swedes in red coats, but that was actually regulation for several regiments back then. It's only during the reforms by Charles XI that we get the bluecoat Swedish army that would remain well into the 19th century. Red coats and blue trousers will work for both the Älvsborg and Jönköping regiments during the Deluge. I have not researched when, where, or even whether they partook in the Polish campaigns though. Also, the banner is fictional. It looks like the chaps at Wargamer took the crossed bolts of the coat of arms of Dalarna and put it on a red field. I'm not bothered at all, given that a lot of the records from this era most certainly did not have us 21st century wargamers in mind. A certain level of artistic license is simply necessary. I guess it's technically possible that records pertaining to the dress and colours of the army of this era was lost when the Royal Palace in Stockholm burnt down in 1697, but it's very unlikely even those would have satisfied the modern button counter in any case.

I mentioned above that I managed to play a game yesterday, and that is where my experience of musketeers was refreshed quite brutally. Obviously, my Swedish force is not ready for action yet so I brought my Poles and was reminded why one should never attempt to charge prepared infantry frontally. To be honest I also tried the flank of another unit, but they had pikes and managed to reform into a defensive formation with predictable result. However, I didn't have a commander for the Polish (my old one is on the wrong base for a CinC these days). So I painted up a new one. The commander is Khurasan Miniatures' Sobieski himself with a supporting standard bearer by the same manufacturer. I mounted them on Wargamer horses.

The flag is another fictional one by Wargamer. The musician is also by Wargamer as is the bloke waving his musket about, the partisan commander I believe.

I struggled to get a good angle on these, mostly due to the big flag dominating the field of view.

Tallying up the points for this week we're at:
27 + 1 = 28 15mm foot @2 pts = 56 pts
3 15mm mounted @4 pts = 12 pts
For a total of 68 points.

I'm almost halfways to a playable Swedish force at the smaller Skirmish level now. But plenty more to do as we're aiming for next level (known as task force in BFaS) and some swappable options. I hope you found something interesting in the update and look forward to bringing you more.

Wow Kristofer, these do look awesome! Not only is the paintjob fantastic, the basing is top notch too! I can't wait to see how your finished Swedish force will look like, hope to see more from you next week!

Cheers Sander 

From SimonG: Some Heretics and a Hellion (45 points)

Wow, my third submission already and time is flying by (my target somehow appearing to move equally quickly in the opposite direction). Anyway this week I'm returning to my 15mm Cathar Crusade project with a stand of five mounted Cathar knights from Khurasan Miniatures.  

Obviously being supporters of the heretical Cathar's this contribution fulfils the requirements for the Sixth Circle of hell, the heretics. I will however require some transport to this location and have called upon the services of Malebranche to give us a lift!

Malebranche, or "Evil Claws" [1]

This is once again a Black Rose Wars Inferno supplement figure in appx. 28mm. He's a rather ancient Egyptian inspired devil and not a particularly well cast plastic figure with rather soft detail and some obvious mold lines that I should have removed. Anyway it was a good chance to experiment with a red wash on a corpse like skin to get the devil tone I wanted. I also enjoyed his colourful eyes and claws -- plus of course his bright necklace!

The knights are really neat sculpts and paint up very well. The principal on this stand is Isoard de Die d'Aix-Artaud [2]. 

I rather liked how his hand painted/sketched (0.03mm black pen) heraldry came out. Less so my attempt at a sillitoe tartan (the blue and white one) -- quite effective on the pleats at the skirt level but a bit of a mess above!

My favourite when doing knights is always the horses, giving each one a distinct character and look, and of course those deep brown doey eyes!

So that's all for this week I'm afraid -- my pace is sorely lacking, far from getting quicker I seem to be taking more time with each figure every year! I will struggle on however and strive to achieve my target.

For this week my contribution is only 45 points -- five mounted 15mm at 4 points each plus the 20pt sixth circle bonus, then another 5 for one 28mm devil that I used to get me to the sixth circle. I may have to skip a week dealing with some family issues but hope to be back soon with some more Jewish Wars Romans with some fearsome war machines!

[1] The back drop for our little devil is Sandow Birk's illustrated Inferno, very apposite with fires where I used to live in LA. It's a re-intepretation of Dante in modern slang with illustrations that tip the hat at Doré but set in a mash up of the major cities of California -- really worth a look if you have the chance.

[2] Isoard de Die d’Aix-Artaud (c.1190-1243), Lord of Montmaur. Isoard was the son of Guillaume I d’Aix-Artaud de Die (c.1165-1230), who also fought in the campaign, and Raynaude d’Aix. Their holdings were in the County of Diois in Provence. Isoard was present at the siege of the Château de Beaucaire, a siege remarkable for the fact that Simon de Montfort was both besieged and besieger (some of his troops were in the castle under siege while he in turn gave siege to the besiegers!)

TeemuL: Excellent knights, Simon. I'm not sure if tartan and other complex designs in 15mm would be anything else than a mess, but you have proved it otherwise. Your horses look great, as well as their eyes. I personally struggle with horses, trying to close my eyes when deciding they are done... I'll score your devil as a cavalry model, because he is rather big and has wings etc. And he is pretty, too, in his own devilish way.

From SimonG: Wrap Up, Or A Mixed Bag (In Many Ways!)

It's once again time for my wrap up post and the one time a year I have to struggle with taking a selfie without holding my stupid phone at arms length (which btw always gives terrible results). It's also rather a shock that the picture that comes back is one of my father (but that's another story!)

Who is that guy? And why does he smile so oddly?

The Final Array

Anyway this is now my fourth challenge and while not a terribly high scoring excursion it has allowed me to embark on two exciting new projects. The first is the expansion of my existing Jewish Revolt 28mm skirmish project into a full scale Impetus based large battles setup with figures from Victrix.

I though it would be nice to show the figures alongside some key references. In this case they are of course Josephus' "Jewish Wars" but also Jodi Magness' recent study of Masada and how this has echoed down the centures, and finally Martin Goodman "Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations".

My other and completely new project was another Impetus army but in this case in 15mm for the Albigensian Crusade. All figures are from Khurasan.

The references here are Jonathan Sumption's first publication "The Albigensian Crusade" plus "The Perfect Heresy" by Simon O'Shea and Sophie Thérese Amblers "The Song of Simon de Montfort" to show how the experience of Simon the elder influenced the younger.

Finally I am close to finishing up my 10mm 1980s Cold War project with figures from Timecast.

In this instance I've shown the figures alongside two rule sets for the period -- Sabre Squadron and Battlegroup Northag -- all I need now is some terrain and I am ready to go.

Finally I wanted to share my secret for detail work at all scales -- a really good set of magnifying visors -- and I can heartly recommend The Donegan Optical OptiVISOR - I use the 2.75X No 7

So with no more to say I will offer up invocations and thanks to the lord and lady of the challenge -- Curt and Sarah, to my scholarly minion Sylvain (I hope my errors in erudition didn't embarass you too much), and all the others in the Monday crew who seemed among the most valiant posters and commentors and a great group to work alongside.

I also wanted to say how much I appreciated the theme for this year’s challenge. Libraries are sorely under appreciated, especially here in the UK, and I wish I was still in Portland, OR which has a great program of building new libraries to serve all the local communities and where I was able to make a donation. 

My calendar is now marked for November 20th 2024 and I am already making plans for the next time -- see you all in nine months time!

From SimonG: Vague History and Dodgy Heraldry - 15mm Crusaders (45 points)

Continuing my 15mm Khurasan Miniatures Cathar Crusade project my submission this week is three Impetus bases for the Crusader side -- one of mounted knights and two of skirmisher crossbowmen.

One of the nice things with working at 15mm is that you still have the larger Impetus bases on which you can get a good number of figures, but the overal size of the bases is more manageable (in this case all on an 80mm frontage, with depth between 30 and 60mm)

The crossbow figures came without strings so despite already having cleaned up and undercoated them I decided at the last minute that I had to add them -- not too much work as the bows are small and quite easy to work with but a delay I could have done without. I painted the two units in rather generic livery, one of course with crusader crosses (the white is a base coat of Corax White, then a coat of Apothecary White Contrast, then layer white scar). 

With only four poses it takes some work to try and manage variation but I think these came out nicely.

The second unit in a simple green and red with crusader badges on the left chest.

My mounted unit was supposed to be Vicomte Bertrand, illegitimate son of Raymond VI of Toulouse and hence half brother of our Cathar hero Raymond VII -- unfortunately I discovered the problems of relying on the first internet source you come to for history -- as I've researched further (at least par Sumption) Vicomte Bertrand defended Toulouse in 1211 for his father and was ransomed by Simon de Montfort -- as many switched sides perhaps at some later point he allied with the Crusaders but for the moment I may have him on the wrong side (I could simply have swapped the base edging from Blue to Red to change him back to the defenders but then am left with the problem of the two obvious crusaders with him, doh!)

A bigger problem is with the heraldry as the Cathar cross on the flag should be gules and or not sable -- my bad as after printing this I forgot to overpaint and then took the figure reference from the flag -- oh the errors we make when rushing for the challenge!)

The heraldry on the other figures is all made up so luckily there cannot be too many errors there as long as I follow heraldric rules! Anyway, despite all these snafus I'm still pleased with the unit and with the dappled grey in particular -- hope you like them too!

No bonus points claimed this week so a simple 12x 15mm infantry and five mounted for another 44 points. See you again next week with some more legionaries!

Sylvain: You continue to impress me week after week with your amazing brush work at this small but mighty 15mm scale. I also like the ground work on your bases, it looks very realistic. The games you are preparing will certainly be spectacular. I will add 1 point for the banner to round up your points to 45. Nicely executed!