I started painting a handful of figures for the Västerbotten regiment several years ago. Apparently, I changed track to finish the Finnish units first, so I never came around to completing them. However, I had prepared and primed some Swedish figures. After moving house, I have realised how many primed figures I have lying around, and am now trying to work through them. Finished figures take up much less space after all; and its certainly better to finish what you start before moving on to the next project – we all know this, but we all also dont follow this simple rule.
After adding these 10 figures I only need five more and the battalion is done. That will be excellent, as the Västerbotten regiment figure in a number of important battles, including Oravais, Alavo and Ruona-Salmi.
The flag which you can see in the photo above is, unfortunately, not quite of the correct model. I learnt of this only some time after I painted it. I will therefore have to scrap it and re-do it. The correct flag for Västerbotten (in 1808) is an updated version of the 1686 pattern – which actually looks quite different from the original 1686 model (which I naively used as the basis for the flag above). For this flag we have particularly good evidence, as there is both a model drawing in the archives, as well as a preserved flag (in the Army museum in Stockholm) which matches it (images below).
Pancratist 