Using Pendraken For Great Northern War

So I decided on using 10mm figures to achieve my goals for a large Great Northern War project.  You can read my reasoning here.

The only company who can provide the range of figures, or at least get close in 10mm, is Pendraken.  Great company to deal with and a great forum BTW.

But there are problems getting everything I need, as their range is incomplete.

So I thought it might help anyone else wishing to explore the GNW in 10mm for me to explain the problems and solutions I came up with.

The GNW range is limited in scope and poses

PROBLEM 1
The Pendraken range really only has one pose for infantry (firing), one for pikemen (standing upright) and a three figure command group with a metal flag on the standard bearer (a pet hate of mine as I prefer a pole to add a paper flag).

It's the same for cavalry.  Basically one pose.

No photos to show you as all my Swedes are away with the figure painters (more on them in my next post).

It would not work for my basing, or the look I wanted, to have two ranks of firing figures, you know with the guys at the back killing those in front, or some weird staggered firing line.

So what I did was to use figures from the Marlburian range for the rear ranks of Swedes. They don't have turnbacks, so small issue, but other than that in this scale, they will do.  So I am using GNS1/2 for the front ranks and MAL 1/2/4 for the rear ranks (all pack codes on their website).

PROBLEM 2
The command figures are limited.  So again I am using the foot and horse commands from the Marlburian range for both sides.  These figures are nicer models and they have no metal standards.

They do present a couple of problems.  The first is they have the curly gentlemens wigs of the period, and I'm not convinced hardy Swedes and Russians on campaign arsed around with that nonsense.

Second, they have sashes.  That's fine for the Russians who seem to have worn them in gold, and national colours (red, white, blue stripes).  But the Swedish officers at Battalion level don't appear to have done.  but hey-ho, some will be left blue, some gold and some in red/yellow/white regimental colours.

PROBLEM 3
Grenadiers for both sides, foot and mounted are the biggest issue.

There is a foot grenadier pack in the Russian GNW range, but the pose is one single grenade throwing one.  Totally ridiculous for a battalion.

So I again turned to the Marlburian range.

For foot grenadiers for both Russians and Swedes, plus th Swedish guard grenadiers, I used the Malburian British grenadier pack (MAL 7) which seems to fit nicely.  Again, no turnbacks for the Swedes, but hey-ho, it will do.

For Russian horse grenadiers I stumbled upon a pack in the 7YW range (SYR30) which is exactly that, in a long coat with no turnbacks.  Perfect.

PROBLEM 4
There are very limited cavalry poses for both sides.  For the Russians this is easily solved by using the dragoons and cavalry from the Marlburian range.

In the GNW range there is a pack of mounted Russian dragoons in fur cap (karpus in Swedish, but can't remember the Russian name), so you can field both headgear types to give some variation between regiments.

But it's impossible to solve for the Swedes.  So I went with it, and all 10 regiments of Swedish horse and dragoons will be using the single pose GNW Swedish cavalry figure.

Both sides will use the Marlburian cavalry command so the flag poles and better models can be used.



PROBLEM5
There are no command packs in either the GNW or Marlburian ranges!  Massive issue!

However, thankfully just as I was thinking 10mm was crazy, Pendraken released two packs in their League of Augsberg range (LOA39/40) each containing 7 different commanders in tricorns!

Suddenly I was spoilt for choice.  They are beautiful figures, easily as good as 15mm for detail.  However they are BIG!  Nearly the same size as the smaller 15mm figures like Peter Pig.  But for seperate brigade/wing and army command stands, not really an issue.

Ready to go!

So there you go, that's how I solved and fudged, and of course accepted the limitations, to get damn close to a complete GNW 10mm solution.

Sorry it's a long post, but most of my reason for starting this blog is to help anyone wrestling with the same issues to maybe get some answers.  The more GNW gamers the better!