17th Century Polish - What's available?

[Cyrus the Great]

Anyone seen any of the previous Miniatures by these guys?

I have some of their Spanish Tercio miniatures. The detail is great, but I think a lot of them are overly complex as far as assembly i.e. separate arms, scabbards etc. for no apparent reason. I bought them to supplement a Warhammer Empire army, but they are smaller sizewise. I don't regret buying them and I'll put them to other uses.

[Paul Richardson]

The Spanish infantry figures also don't have bases. Their Dutch figures were made later, and they do have bases and the arms are cast on.  My biggest complaints about the Spanish are (i) the casting is poor - they came with loads of flash, some quite hard to get rid of and (ii) their poses are unimaginative - very samey.   

[FierceKitty]

An action shot from last Sunday; my wife, leading Muscovites, finds that three wins in a row do not guarantee victory in game four.

[Cyrus the Great]

An update given my comments above.The Spanish are real pigs to put together and some of the mold lines are quite heavy and getting rid of them will lead to some missing detail.

[Condottiere]

Had a look at the excellent MAA books on the Polish Armies 1569 - 1696 and was wondering hwat figures are available.
I found Warlord Games. Wargames Foundry and TAG all have some nice figures, pretty much covering all the forces. Anything I missed?
Thank you.

Maybe a little late, but here goes...

Are you looking to field a  mishmash of Poles or you looking for a specific period? For instance, Polish Hussars mid 1500s-~1600 looked different - wings, if present were attached to the saddle - than ones at the 1683 Siege of Vienna, assuming they wore their wings on their backs.

[M.P.]

Maybe a little late, but here goes...

Are you looking to field a  mishmash of Poles or you looking for a specific period? For instance, Polish Hussars mid 1500s-~1600 looked different - wings, if present were attached to the saddle - than ones at the 1683 Siege of Vienna, assuming they wore their wings on their backs.

The whole wings issue is quite controversial, from the most current research it seems that not all hussars wore them (or attached them to the saddle) but rather minority.

And the period differences do not boil down to them.

For that matter, whole equipment changed in the 1500-1683 drastically (from more-or-less lightly armoured lancers to those wearing plate armour [and sometimes not])

[Antonio J Carrasco]

The whole wings issue is quite controversial, from the most current research it seems that not all hussars wore them (or attached them to the saddle) but rather minority.

And the period differences does not boil down to them.

For that matter, whole equipment changed in the 1500-1683 drastically (from more-or-less lightly armoured lancers to those wearing plate armour [and sometimes not])

I have reached a compromise for my GNW Polish Hussars: I put wings only in the command group, while the rest of the unit goes without them.

[Condottiere]

The whole wings issue is quite controversial, from the most current research it seems that not all hussars wore them (or attached them to the saddle) but rather minority.

And the period differences do not boil down to them.

For that matter, whole equipment changed in the 1500-1683 drastically (from more-or-less lightly armoured lancers to those wearing plate armour [and sometimes not])

This is why I said "if present" and period differences do boil down to whether a wing or wings attached to a shield, saddle or the back. If present in Vienna 1683, they'd more than likely be worn on the back, but on the saddle in the Kraków Roll in 1605. If you could provide evidence for back mounted wings in 1605, I'd appreciate it.

Polish "shock" cavalry were always armored lancers, such as depicted in various types of Western plate armor in the 1514 Battle of Orsha and wouldn't don the distinctive Hungarian "anima" cuirasses until the equipment specifications of Stefan Batory in 1576, becoming "light cavalry" with hollow lances - doesn't matter if the number of lames decreased and the upper half resembled a breastplate.

[M.P.]

Polish "shock" cavalry were always armored lancers, such as depicted in various types of Western plate armor in the 1514 Battle of Orsha and wouldn't don the distinctive Hungarian "anima" cuirasses until the equipment specifications of Stefan Batory in 1576, becoming "light cavalry" with hollow lances - doesn't matter if the number of lames decreased and the upper half resembled a breastplate.

By "shock" cavalry do you mean gendarmes? If so their relation with the hussars is rather blurry, and it is hard to say that hussars evolved from such cavalry. The former gradually forgo to use full armour and horse barding to the point of being quite similar to hussars (except lances,swords instead of sabres), the main difference in the latter part of the XVIth century was the type of horse (lancer's horse (koń kopijniczy) for lancers, and lighter (koń strzelczy - dir. trans. - a horse for shooters) .

In case of anima I beg to differ, anima armour was not a hungarian invention, such armour was used in western europe as well, and in Bathory's instructions there is no mention of "anima" armour just "iron armour, helmet, iron gauntlets".

As for hussars getting lighter at one point- the most illustrous historian in this matter Marek Plewczyński says that the aformentioned Bathory's instructions indeed made this happen.

If you could provide evidence for back mounted wings in 1605, I'd appreciate it.

Precisely from 1605, I doubt that,but +/- 10 years no problem, In a week or so I post some contemporary engravings.