Khmelnytsky Cossack Uprising of 1648

I have been painting my Italian Wars project for the best part of two years. I still have a number of units that I am in the process of painting for the Battle of Bicocca, but I decided that I need to work on one of my other projects to keep me sane during the quarantine. The project that I chose was the Khmelnytsky Cossack Uprising of 1648 and in particular, the 1651 Battle of Berestechko.

In this post I will give an overview of the scope of the project and show some photos of some of the first units off the paint bench. The main protagonists of the Khmelnytsky Cossack Uprising were the Zaporozhian Cossacks, with their Tatar allies against the Polish forces.

The first units off my paint bench will represent the Tatars. I have chosen the figures as they are typical Steppe cavalry and will be able to be used in games to represent anything from 400 AD Huns, Tatars allying with the Ottoman Empire in the 16th Century, to Tatar in the Khmelnytsky Uprising. When representing early Tatar, I will eventually add some Tatar flags and when representing 17th Century Tatar, I will eventually add a few muskets.

So far I have painted 56 of these Steppe Cavalry figures. Here are a few photos of the growing horde.

The figures are Aventine Miniatures Steppe Cavalry. When I chose the figures I bought some samples from Footsore, Gripping Beast and Aventine. My personal preference was for the Aventine figures as they came with a lot of attachments to personalize the figures. However, the Aventine horses did not suit my personal tastes, so I decided to use horses from the Assault Group. Luckily Aventine sell the riders without horses and The Assault Group sell the horses without riders. The Aventine figures fit perfectly on the Assault Group horses.

My plan for the Battle of Berestechko is to have the following figures:

Polish:

1 Group of 8 winged Hussars

3 Groups of 8 Pancerni

10 Groups of 8 Noble Levy Cavalry (Pospolite Riszenie)

2 Groups of 16 Haiduk Infantry

Cossack/Tatars

12 Groups of 8 Mounted Tatars

5 Groups of 8 Mounted Cossacks

4 Groups of 24 Cossack Infantry.

For the Pancerni, Haiduks and cossacks I will be using figures from the Assault Group. For the Winged Hussars I will using Warlord figures. This leaves the large group of Polish levy noble cavalry which no-one makes in 28mm. For this figures I plan to use a mixed selection from the Assault Group ranges. I will use a combination of Cossacks, Hungarian light Hussars, Hungarian light horse and Ottoman Akinjis. The reason for the selection is that some of these nobles would have worn clothing similar to the cossacks, but their style was also influenced by the Hungarians and Ottomans of the period often with feathers in their hats. this mixture should allow me to represent the levy noble cavalry.

I will also need some wagons for both sides to make the defended positions.

Next up on the paint bench are 40 mounted cossacks.