Light Horse 17th and 13th century

As you know I have been building some Plastic Cavalry from Gripping Beast and Fire Forge, it all ended in a joint build project both for my 17th century Polish War project and for my 13th Baltic Crusades project...

Fot me most of the eastern light horse look the same, yes ! I know that there was big differences between Tatars, Cossact, Lithuanians, Russians, Hungarinas etc, but for me as a Wargames I like generic troop tupes that can be used in different theatres and eras...

So when I built my 3 units of light horse I mixed all the 3 boxes of cavalry as well as I added some TYW parts, like muskets and pistols to one of the units to get them more in line with the 17th century, but as most of the Eastern light horses made use of bows for a very long time the remaining 2 units will also work for the 17th century as well as for the 13th century :)

Their first apperance will be in our Polish War 1626 club campaign using the Pikeman´s Lament Rules In the commonwelth Cossack cavalry was the term used to describe the medium and light cavalry used to support the husars. Originally they were undoubtedly Cossack units but the name was used to cover a wide range of cavalry from all parts of the Commonwealth.

In the middle of the 17th century the Cossack reference was replaced by Pancerni (meaning armoured) for the medium cavalry or plain light cavalry for the unarmoured cavalry. This was to avoid confusion with the Zaporozhian Cossacks during their rebellions from 1648.

Here are some pictures of my anachronistic Eastern Light Horse.

17th century unit with rifles and pistols as well as bows