Swedish Command Staff

After completing all units I wanted for my Swedish army, the last subject I had to tackle was the command bases. I'm going to need 7 command bases to field the entire army in a game of Black Powder, but because there are no dedicated models of Swedish generals in 1/72 that I'm aware of, I had to look for options elsewhere.

Turns out Italeri's French generals are a pretty good source of commanders for this project, since the uniforms of the Swedish generals could be pretty similar to those of the french, according to what little visual reference I could find on the web.

I used various models of Swedish cavalry and infantry to accompany the generals, and help set the scene of each command base.

The army general is going to be Bernadotte (naturally), and for him I used a model from the Waterloo officers set. I replaced his head with that from a Strelets kit, to give him a countenance that better reflects what the Crown Prince actually looked like.

With this, I have now officially finished my Swedish army. Every unit I planned on doing is done, and having actually completed an army in my napoleonic collection feels quite rewarding (!). 

I've been slow on my painting lately, and I'm afraid the trend will continue for a while. I've been having this annoying pain on my elbow, which the doctor recently diagnosed as "tennis elbow" - tendinitis caused by repetitive movement of hand and wrist (no kidding!). I guess painting a couple of hours every night does take a toll on you after all.

Among other things, I've been prescribed to stay away from my painting desk for a while, so my recently-started Prussians will be moving at a tortoise-slow pace in the near future (getting older sucks!).

Swedish Lifeguard Infantry

These are the Swedish Lifeguards, the last unit that remained to be painted in my Swedish army (I saved the best for last!). 

As with the rest of the models on Hat's Swedish Infantry set, these guys don't come with a standard bearer, but I figured one of their 3 poses was good conversion material, so, like I did with the grenadiers, I replaced the model's musket with a spare pole and gave him a handpainted flag. 

Attack Column:




March Column:

Swedish Guard Grenadiers

Here is my unit of Guard Grenadiers for the Swedish army, from the Hat Industries' Swedish Infantry set. As I have mentioned here before, this set is among the worst Hat has ever produced, in my opinion - the sculpts are unispiring at best, and some are just plain ugly. 

There are 3 poses of Guard Grenadiers in the set, of which 2 are good enough - the ones I used on my unit. The third pose is quite poor and ill-proportioned, but I needed one of those models to convert into a standard bearer, removing the musket he was carrying against his chest and replacing it with a spare pole from another kit. The flag was handpainted, bearing the initial of King Karl XIII (since I'll be using them mostly for my 1813 campaign games).

The Grenadiers in attack column:




March Column:

Swedish Line Infantry - Älvsborgs Regiment

These are the  Älvsborgs, my sixth unit of line infantry for the Swedish army. I also painted a screen of skirmishers for support, as can be seen below. 

(Ok, so now I'm really finished with Swedish line - I swear, this is the last one!)

Swedish Line Infantry - Västerbottens Regiment

Another unit of line infantry painted for the Swedish. This is my fifth battalion for this army, only another to go and I'll call their line infantry done (then there will be the guard and grenadiers left to do!).