POLISH HAIDUKS: OLD GLORY 28MM

 

New Addition : Old Glory Polish Haiduks with Command

 

Greetings, fellow shut ins!  Like many others, my hobbying has been slowed down in the last few months by various and sundry distractions and impositions from the "real world." Nevertheless, connecting with my hobby club-mates in weekly zoom gatherings has provided both motivation and inspiration.  In our case, there has been a renewed interest in Thirty Years War/17th Century topics, with an emphasis on Eastern Renaissance.  This, in turn, brought me to my lead pile to dig out these 28mm Polish Haiduks, which I've had stored away for something like a decade.    This project involved completing two units of 11, with 2 command: 24 figures in all. Given my slow painting pace, this took me just over three weeks to complete.   Given the popularity of the venerable Old Glory line, I was somewhat surprised that I could not track down an example of a painted set of these online somewhere.  So I hope that my project will prove helpful for anyone else embarking on these figures. As usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX in this study.

 

Red Haiduks

Yellow Haiduks

The new contingent consists of two elements of Haiduks, one with red distinctions and one with yellow. Each has ten musketeers and one "tenth man" file leader. Haiduks were organized in decimals (tens), and the tenth man was often dressed distinctively from his men. My tenth men are in reverse colors.  

 Command and Drummer

As per my norm, I have organized these  into a two unit "company": with the company command consisting of a commander figure and a drummer. 

 

An Unappreciated Figure Line?

These figures come from the Polish Commonwealth set of the Old Glory Eastern Renaissance line. These, along with their English Civil War set, are absolutely splendid figures, meticulously researched, well sculpted, and accurately detailed. As such, they do present a challenge (at least for me) in order to understand what it was that I was painting. For instance, what I initially took as braiding on some of the figures' sleeves (just above the elbow) was in fact the match cord wrapped around the upper arm.  Closer inspection of the hands holding the muskets showed that, in many of them, what I originally thought was a mold line was, instead, the match cord twined between the fingers.  The way that the kaftans and zupans are pinned under the belts on the figures is another detail that warranted research and attention.  

 

Generally speaking, this kind of detail is not usually found in an "old school" figure line. If you have any interest in the era, I highly recommend checking the Old Glory Late Medieval and Renaissance  and English Civil War lines (both of which will provide for Thirty Years War gaming as well). 

 

Excelsior!