A visit to Bottnaryds church, Johan Printz, Kalmar Nyckel, New Sweden

Some time ago I visited Bottnaryds church here in Sweden, Småland.

Its located not so far away from my parents summerhouse but I have never visited it before. Besides being, a rather old church and interesting in itself, being restored to old splendor it housed a small exhibition of Johan Printz. 
He was amoungst other apoinments govenour of New Sweden  from 1643 until 1653.
The Swedish colony on the Delaware River in North America.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Bj%C3%B6rnsson_Printz  

And the miniature gamer in me got a little exited… Maybe a small Pike and Shot project in the future…

Thought I should share some pictures: 

The text is roughly translated to:
Shipmodel of "Kalmar Nyckel" built 1988 by Bengt Faleskog, Bottnaryd.

Kalmar Nyckel is the fist Swedish ship that arrived to America with the Swedes and Finns that started up the colony of New Sweden at the Deleware river 1638.

Viking

I bought the Rus infantry from Fireforge games knowing I would use them... http://www.fireforge-games.com/webstore/medieval-russian/russians-infantry-details

Seeing the latest trailer for the coming Russian movie Viking made me kitbash some of the Fireforge Russians with Gripping Beast Hirdmen. Enought to make a small unit in Lion/Dragon Rampant.

 

That combined with the whole eastern Norsemen, and their lack of attention in this more English orientation miniatures gaming world.
This is a whole new world to explore, sailing the rivers of Volga, crossing the Caspian sea and dragging the boats all the way to Byzantium, Persia and trading steel for those Ulfberht swords…   





For those who have missed it:

Granted the movie will probobly not be as good as I want it to be but still... Rus Vikings...


For those interersted in the plastic Rus box from Fireforge Games, here are some reviews:

http://antonswargame.blogspot.se/2016/09/fireforge-russian-foot.html

http://dalauppror.blogspot.se/2016/06/fireforge-plastic-russian-pre-casts.html

Vikinga här

Its time for some new army pictures, this time its my Vikinga collection.

Bare in mind here that the painting standard is somewhat mixed, I have changed how I paint some things since I first started and its with mixed feelings I can say that I have raised the standard of my miniatures since the first one painted. The raised painting standard makes the first one look like crap, but they are hopefully hidden away in the sheer volume of troops...

In Hail Caesar this would translate roughly to:

5x units of Hirdmen
1 small unit of veteran ex. Varangian Guards
5x units of Bondi
1 small unit of Bondi
1 small unit of Thrals with javelins
1 small unit of Bondi light infantry archers
1 small unit of Drengr skirmishers
1 small unit of Drengr skirmishers with slings
1 unit of Bondi with bows
1 small unit of Ulfhednar
some traders and some kids
4 Norse chieftains
some Pagan priest/ advisors and a Bard
some Einhärjar/Valkyria type of Shieldmaidens
1 small unit of Christian priests and some wounds markers.
1 small unit of Ryttare

One of the reasons I made this inventory is to get a picture of what I got. 
But also because that I have thought about rebasing my Norsemen into Michael "Dalauppror"s 1-2-3 baseing method. http://dalauppror.blogspot.se/2015/11/123-basing.html
Seeing this whole collection in one place makes me really rethink that idea... That could take ages...
But the miniatures sure could use some love by now, some missing shields, arms, weapons and heads, besides the extra layer of shading or highlight some of these badly needs so I really dont know... Rebaseing them could be a way of working my way trough the collection.


Ohh and the regular questing when it come to my army pictures... What am I missing ?
The army maybe could use some mounted types of scouts. A bigger command base, like 60 or 80mm multibased one with a chieftain and his bodyguard to really make him stand out.