Cossack Opolchiene - Russian Mounted Militia for 1812

I need to add more cavalry to my army so when I purchased the Gun and Limber that I painted last week I also purchased this unit of mounted Opolchiene from Perry Miniatures. The set comes with lances for all, however, there are also several muckets/carbines in the pack so I decided to give a couple of them firearms instead of lances. These are militia after all, and uniformity is not a word I would usually associate with a unit of this type. 

I’ve already painted a couple of units of foot Opolchiene, but there were also a series of short-lived cavalry formations. These were formed in July 1812 as ‘Cossack’ (ie mounted) militia regiments. The Moscow militia had two regiments, but other regions were able to raise considerably more. All were disbanded in 1813-14 once the crisis of Napoleon's invasion had been defeated. 

I probably won’t have time for more cavalry before the Challenge ends, but I am giving careful consideration to adding a few units of Uhlans to my army to give it more mobility and lethality. Let's see if I have the energy (and the money) once the challenge ends!