Regular visitors will know that I am building a Zaporozhian Cossack army for use with the eastern theatre version of For King & Parliament.

I’ve painted up the ‘regular’ Registered Cossack element of the army, and the tabor wagon armed wagon train, so now it was time to start on the Moloitsy: the mass of pretty rubbish musket and spear armed infantry that made up the majority of any Cossack force.

As the figures I’m using (from the Wargames Company’s By Fire & Sword range) come in sotnias of twelve men, and I’m using bib bases of twenty-four men, I’ve decided to paint the troops in twelves: effectively two sotnias per base.

This does, of course, mean that I’m going to have to come up with ten colour schemes for my five units rather than just five, so it’s lucky the GW Contrast Paint range is quite large!

I’m loving the banners that come with these figures: there do seem to be loads of different designs. Again, not sure if I’ll be able to do all ten sotnias with a different banner, but there won’t be much duplication.

So that’s two down and three to go!