Ogniem i Mieczem - By Fire and Sword

To both BlackLegion and Kadrinazi, thank you for your offered help and the comments on the reenactor's uniforms. First, BlackLegion, I will take you up on your offer on possible help with certain uniform colors. The first skirmish forces I've ordered are Gosiewski Foray and the Muscovite Skirmish Sets so those are my primary starting points when looking for uniform colors. The uniform plate you just posted BlackLegion will obviously be a great help as I paint and expand my Muscovite forces. My next purchase for the Polish-Lithuanian forces will be a Polish Skirmish Set.

Gentlemen, going back to the reenactment units as a reference, while there may be a non-historical preference by some reenactment units to use a certain uniform color, should we dismiss them as a source altogether? Are there some units with posted pictures worth using as a reference? After all, the BFaS rules set has a large number of pictures from reenactment units depicted throughout the book. I appreciate the help from both of you in this matter. Have a great weekend.

Vince

Both Konrad and Rafal - 'fathers' of BFaS - are in reenactment groups (you can see them on photos both in main rulebook and in 'The Deluge') and they want to show how handsome they are

Suggested colours for Gosiewski’s Foray (that of course can be used to any Polish and Lithuanian troops)

1. Winged hussars – total mix of colours, as each hussar was buying his own clothes. Żupan coat: red, greens, yellow, blue . Trousers: same choice of colours as with coat (but you should have different coat and different trousers), with dark yellow replacing yellow. Shoes – yellow seems to be very popular but darker colours can be used as well.
Animal skins: tigers, cheetah, leopard.
Saddles and horse tack should be ornamented, can add mix of gold or silver to it. ‘Dywdyk’ (cloth under the saddle) in one colour, with some ornaments added with gold or silver treads.
Some pictures from 17th century:
http://www.historycy.org/index.php?act= ... st&id=5854
http://dariocaballeros.blogspot.co.uk/2 ... nting.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_hu ... szynem.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YGbE_USsZt0/U ... 10zdj3.JPG
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mFV7BFnEed8/T ... OLM+11.JPG
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mFV7BFnEed8/T ... OLM+26.JPG
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-x3dAqvj8cJY/S ... lka381.jpg

2. Cossack style cavalry – total mix of colours, as with hussars above. Some cheaper cloths, like brown and grey could be used as well. Less ornamented saddles and horse tack, with usual colours.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YPVo5GpzIHQ/T ... 11+037.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MYuqOihhLdI/T ... 11+049.jpg

3. Reiters
Buff coats: different shades of brown
Coats: green, grey, dark red
Shoes: different shades of brown, also black
Trousers: grey, red, dark blue, green
Hats: grey, dark brown, black
Saddles: grey, brown, even dark green
Horse tack: grey and brown

4. Dragoons – typical colours for this formation was blue and red but units (especially during the campaigns) were rarely equipped with uniformed colours, so mix of blue, red and grey seems to sounds ok. All belts: leather brown. Saddles and horse tack: as with reiters.

Thank you so much Kadrinazi for the painting recommendations/examples!!! This is the kind of information I was hoping for and I'm positive others will benefit from it, too. Both you and BlackLegion have been both very helpful and very kind in assisting me with this. I'm also glad these recommendations can be used on other Polish and Lithuanian figures. This has me excited about painting up my figures when they arrive.

On a side note, do you know if the movie, The Deluge has a version with English subtitles?

Yes, this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fsZAO1LLFY

Unfortunately not the remastered version in much better quality which is also on YouTube.

Hrothgar, thank you very much for sending me the link to the movie. I will agree, the digitally re-mastered one is so clear it really does look like a recently released movie but at least I can follow the movie now thanks to you. I really appreciate the help.

Well, whoever painted the Stockholm Roll in 1605 didn't agree with that sentiment:





http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/StockholmRoll.htm
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/397372367097193268/

But of course that was a wedding procession, not how they would appear on campaign. The same could be said for the wings though, historians are still arguing whether they were used in the field, not to mention the number, design and method of fastening. So far all BFAS hussars seem to be wearing forward-swept, double wings which some historians claim are more appropriate for the Siege of Vienna or even later. I'm basing my unit on the pics above, with a single, straight wing set in the saddle... just to be different, I guess.

As for the painting guide, great stuff. I'm sure there would be a marked for a full-color, English-language painting guide for this period, related to the Wargamer figures but not necessarily the game itself. Battlefront has released four such for FoW, even though there is no shortage of generic WWII modelling books. Clash of Arms also has one for WWII ships, which is a subject much more difficult to research. The only full-color book from this period I've seen is Kircholm - Klushino which I picked up for €1 at the defense museum in Oslo.

Weddings, coronations, funerals, etc. were of course special events, where wealthy nobles paid huge amount of money to make sure their private troops looks great. No suprise then, that hussars or even cossack style cavalry could look very 'uniformed' there, with strange stuff like stuffed eagles on shields or even worse
Wings are of course completely different matter. My own personnal theory, based on some brief (I'm not great fan of winged hussars) research of Polish sources, indicate that it was more likely for hussars to use wings against Muscovites and Turks (so it was also the battle whose clothes and equipment is more expensive) then against such 'peasant-like' armies like Swedes and Cossacks. Of course period of 1648-1667, when Commonwealth was waging non stop wars against almost everyone, meant that hussars probably didn't even bother with such expensive piece of equipment like wings. In situation when banners were often for long time figthing without their kopia-lances (that seems to be also very difficult to obtain), who would bother about wings?

Now that pretty much sums up every user on this forum, doesn't it? As such I feel a historical precedent here

Kadrinazi, you bring up some valid points about the uniforms and the lack of uniformity that might be more commonplace to the period than one might suspect. While a lot of historical gamers want to paint their figures as close to the artist's representation, in reality that is simply just one example and not always representative of the whole. Though it might be a little more difficult to 'model' in 15mm but painting up a Polish-Lithuanian force to look as if it has been on campaign might look interesting. A Winged Hussar Banner might not look so impressive with sections of feathers or entire 'wings' missing, armor dull and rusting, uniforms soiled from months in the field. Not impressive, but probably more realistic. It's also important that you pointed out that certain 'source material' needs to be viewed in context so as not to mislead the researcher into coming to a false conclusion.

Thank you again.