orders of battle for Beresteczko

[Thaddeus]

Having gotten my book this morning, I started correlating my research on the Cossack Rebellions with the rules, and it looks to actually match up fairly easily - I can make the Polish force entirely using the rules as written, and the Cossack force only requires a few minor tweaks from the Polish list.

According to wikipedia (cross-referenced with a machine-translation of Polish wikipedia), the armies are:

POLES: 12,255 pancerni cavalry; 2,589 hussars; 2,050 other cavalry (German-style "rajtars"); 500 arquebusiers; 960 Tatars; 1,550 Lithuanian cavalry; 2,790 Hungarian-style infantry; 8,900 German-style infantry, 2000 dragoons.

COSSACKS: 40,000 Cossacks (mostly on foot); 40,000-60,000 peasants; 30,000 Tatars

To keep things reasonable on the table-top, my goal is to collect both armies at 1:400 scale. With the necessary rounding to meet the minimum unit-size requirements (as well as combining similar units, i.e. Tatars/Lithuanians and reiters/aquebusiers), I end up with the following:

Polish-Lithuanian Rzeczpospolita
General: Jan II Kazimierz

Jeremi "Cossack's Fear" WIsniowiecki's Battalia (Left Wing)
5 squadrons Pancerni
1 squadron Lithuanian Tatars

Mikolai "Bearpaw" Potocki's Battalia (Center)
3 units German Musketeers
1 unit Hungarian Infantry
1 unit Dragoons
2 squadrons Winged Hussars
1 squadron Rajtars

Stanislaw "no nickname" Lanckorowski (Right Wing)
8 squadrons Levy Cavalry
2 units Levy Infantry

Cossack/Ukrainian Uprising
General: Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Filon Dzhalali's Battalia (Right Wing)
3 units of Cossack Infantry (counts as Hungarian Infantry, but may skirmish for free)
2 units Peasants (count as Levy Infantry)
1 squadron Cossack Cavalry

Ivan Bohun's Battalia (Center)
2 units Cossack Infantry (counts as Hungarian Infantry, but may skirmish for free)
1 unit Cossack Pike (counts as Scottish Pike from the Montrose list)
5 units Peasants (count as Levy Infantry)
2 squadron Cossack Cavalry

Matvii Hladky's Battalia (Left Wing)
3 units of Cossack Infantry (counts as Hungarian Infantry, but may skirmish for free)
2 units Peasants (count as Levy Infantry)
1 squadron Cossack Cavalry

Islam III Giray's Crimeans (further Left)
12 squadrons of Tatars (Mercenaries at -2 points per unit)

The only thing left is artillery. I can't find any hard numbers for ordnance in either army, so the best option is probably just to add Medium Guns to the Polish army, and Light Guns to the Cossack army, until the two armies are equal in points.

Any thoughts?

[SteveMorgan]

Very interesting stuff; nice to see the rules being adapted for Central and Eastern European stuff. Please keep us up to date on any games you have.
Cheers
Steve

[AK47]

Hi Thaddeus,

It all looks very interesting,may i ask what figures you intend to use to recreate the armies and what sort of numbers are going to be involved?

cheers,
Andy

[Thaddeus]

Good questions, Andy. Hope you've got some time on your hands...

For the Poles, my current plan is:
German-style musketeers, dragoons, reiters: Warlord Games ECW/TYW sets.
Haiduks: Wargames Factory Persian bodies, Perry Miniatures Zouaves arms and heads.
Pancerny: made some from Wargames Factory Celt Cavalry (armored bodies) with Wargames Factory WSS horses, will probably make the rest from a mix of Conquest Games Normans and Warlord Games pancerny
Hussars: probably Warlord Games.
Noble Levy Cavalry: a little bit of everything, including Perry ACW, Wargames Factory WSS and Celtics, maybe some Warlord ECW, probably metals from various manufacturers. All converted as necessary, of course.

For the Cossacks, I'm thinking:
Cossack Infantry: converted Perry Miniatures Zouaves, some The Assault Group metal Cossacks mixed in.
Cossack Cavalry: probably a mix of Assault Group metals and converted Perry ECW Cavalry.
Peasants: some Assault Group peasant laborers, some slightly converted Wargames Factory Persians and maybe some of their Anglo-Saxons, with weapons supplemented by the Warlord Games long weapon sprue.
Tatars: So far, using Wargames Factory Celt Cavalry (unarmored bodies) with Persian bows. will probably also mix in some unarmored Conquest Norman bodies, and maybe even a few metals from somewhere.

Numbers-wise, I'll be following the Pike & Shotte recommended minimums, so every squadron is six cavalry miniatures, every infantry unit is eight miniatures, except for the pikemen and peasants which will be twelve miniatures each. I calculated the totals, but can't find them and don't feel like re-doing the math at the moment. I think it breaks down to roughly 200 miniatures a side, which lets me refight this battle at 1:400 scale, and the other battles of the rebellion at 1:100 or even less.

I still haven't decided where commanders will be one model, or mini-vignettes of 3-4. Leaning towards the latter though, for the banner possibilities.

Feel free to peruse my blog, linked in my sig, to see my progress so far...

[2close2theflame]

thanks for doing the research and calculations! one of my near future side projects after skirmish size naps is a cossack wars type deal and your list helped make sense of how to tweak some stuff!

[Thaddeus]

Fair warning: my research on this topic is definitely on the shallow side. Google, Wikipedia, two Osprey books, a Gogol novella and a "Choosing your DBR army" text file comprise pretty much my whole bibliography for this project so far. Maybe someday I'll learn a Slavic language or two and really get stuck in, but for casual gaming and collecting I'm pretty happy with this.

Glad you like it though! Eventually I'll post a non-battle-specific army list for the Cossacks, and probably one for Russia as well...