I am very pleased to see that I am close to finishing the Finnish army. I am roughly following the order of battle in my previous post. The main difference is that I have made the somewhat weak 1st brigade part of the 2nd, and this way I will have only three Finnish brigades instead of 4. This will be enough to represent the battles I need, and I felt that it would be smart to not paint more units than I will ever actually field on the table! Some units can be used to “double”, i e to represent several different historical battalions depending on the scenario, which enables me to economize on the painting and modelling somewhat. 13 battalions of this size and scale (16 including the Swedish units that I also have) will take up a lot of space on the table.
I recently painted up a second Savolax battalion. After some hesitation, I decided to do two 24-man units, just like with the other infantry regiments. The Savolax regiment was really divided into half-battalions. Doing 12-man units, however, seemed weird and would not look good on the games table. So instead of doing 3 or 4 small units I opted for 2 larger ones. In the future, I might possible do an additional command base, in order to field three 18-man units. However, I am not sure I will ever feel the need to do that, and in game terms, having two larger units to represent three smaller one, the most common ocurrence in the scenarios in question, will probably be a good solution.
I now have only a handful of Nyland jägers left that need some highlighting. After that I need 10 björnborgers, which have to be converted from Foundry figures with overcoats – this is the tricky and time-consuming part. When that is done, I have my three grey-uniformed brigades (13 battalions and artillery). There will be a whole lot of basing to do, and I need to paint a few more flags to finish everything off. What to do with the cavalry is also a question to be considered. Maybe a few more Nyland dragoons are called for, but that is about it.
Let’s then hope that 2025 is the year when this gang gets to see the gaming table in earnest!
Pancratist 