Blucher Napoleonic Swedish

 I wanted to add some more units to my Blucher collection but was struggling for inspiration. Flicking through various manufacturers web sites I came upon the Blue Moon Swedish in their Minor Nations section. 

The Swedes were an army I knew little about other than that they participated with little enthusiasm in the 1813/14 campaign under the recently appointed Crown Prince, the former Marshal Bernadotte. They also apparently fought the Russians in 1807, losing Finland in the process.

So something slightly different with unusual hats and suitable to support my Russians and Prussians rather than the many French allies I've painted lately. Blue Moon seem a bit variable but I thought I'd take a chance and order some.

The figures when they arrived were actually quite decent, especially the infantry. One problem I'd not anticipated was that there is remarkably little information available on Swedish Napoleonic uniforms and much of what there is tends to be very vague! 

As a result I splashed out £20 on an out-of-print copy of the venerable Osprey book 'Scandinavian Armies in the Napoleonic Wars':

I'd expected that this would have the usual Osprey tables of uniforms for each troop type for the Swedish and Danish/Norwegian armies but on looking at it all it had was some plates of mostly Danish troops and a number of black and white sketches of units where it didn't say which army they were from!

It was useful on filling in the background to the participation of the  Scandinavian armies in the Napoleonic wars so wasn't a total waste of time!

In the end I painted the figures based on a random web site I found on Google which had some pictures of various Swedish units. 

Swedish artillery and Dragoons:

Three brigades of Swedish (or possibly Finnish!) infantry:

I'm pleased with how these came out, especially the infantry unit in the yellow and blue uniform. For some reason I forgot you need two guns and crews for a Blucher battery and only painted one but I have enough figures for another so just need to paint it up. I might well add some more I think, perhaps some Guards and Light Infantry.

One last thing I read was that their participation in the Napoleonic wars was the last war the Swedes fought in which is quite an achievement when you think about it.