Marshal de Créquy : French Thirty Years War Command Base

Hello guys,

Today I would like to share a new command base for my French army of the Thirty Years' War, featuring Marshal Charles de Créquy and a dismounted French elite cavalryman, a guardsman.

Both miniatures are my own creations, using Meshy.ai, based on historical illustrations. For Marshal de Créquy, I used a contemporary engraving as my main reference, while the dismounted cavalryman was inspired by an illustration from Helion's book on the Battle of Rocroi.

The idea was to create a small command vignette representing one of the most important French commanders of the war in northern Italy.

A little history: Marshal de Créquy (1578–1638)

Charles de Blanchefort, Duke of Lesdiguières and Marshal of France, was an experienced French commander whose military career began during the reign of Henry IV. He served in several campaigns in Savoy and Piedmont, became Marshal of France in 1621 and inherited the title of Duke of Lesdiguières in 1626.

During the Franco-Spanish War, Créquy commanded French forces in northern Italy, operating alongside the army of Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy, against the Spanish troops defending the Duchy of Milan.

His most famous engagement was the Battle of Tornavento, fought on 22 June 1636, against the Spanish army commanded by the Marquis of Leganés. The battle was a particularly bloody and exhausting encounter, with both armies suffering heavy casualties. Although the French and Savoyards retained the battlefield, the fighting failed to produce a decisive strategic result.

Créquy continued campaigning against the Spanish in 1637,  defending Asti and fighting at Mombaldone.

His military career came to an abrupt end on 17 March 1638, when he was killed by a cannonball while reconnoitring the Spanish siege of Breme, in Lombardy, which eventually fell to the Spanish, as well as Vercelli, in Savoy. His death deprived the French army of one of its most experienced commanders on the Italian front.

For this miniature, I wanted to recreate the appearance of this veteran marshal as faithfully as possible, using his period portrait rather than a generic seventeenth-century officer.

                                                        Inspiration for the dismounted cavalryman.

I hope you like this latest addition to my French army!

Historical references:

- Luca Stefano Cristini & Giuseppe Pogliani, *La battaglia di Tornavento del 1636 e la guerra dei 30 anni in Italia*. Soldiershop Publishing, 2011.

- Memoriales y cartas del Conde Duque de Olivares, CEEH, for the Italian campaigns and Créquy's death at Breme.

- Helion & Company, The Battle of Rocroi, for the dismounted French cavalryman.

Régiment Lyonnais – Part IV: At Last, the Regiment is Complete!

Hi guys, 

At last, the Régiment de Lyonnais is complete!

It has taken me considerably longer than expected to finish this regiment. I first started working on it back in 2022, returned to it earlier this year, and now the last six musketeers have finally joined their comrades.

For this final base I only needed to paint three new figures, all of them from 1898 Miniatures. Together with three previously finished musketeers they form the last six-man base and, more importantly, bring the whole regiment to completion.

The Régiment de Lyonnais received its provincial title and the privilege of carrying the white colonel's flag on 15 September 1635. From then until the Peace of the Pyrenees it saw almost continuous active service, particularly against the armies of the Spanish Monarchy in Italy and Catalonia. These two fronts are common in my games :) 

Its first major campaigns took place in northern Italy. In 1636 Lyonnais fought at Valenza dek Po, Candia, Palestro and Sartirana, and particularly distinguished itself at Buffalora on 23 June, where it helped drive Spanish troops back across the Ticino. The following year it took part in the defence of Asti and the fighting at Mombaldone, while in 1638 it was employed in the relief operations around Breme and Vercelli.

The campaign of 1639 was particularly hard fought. Lyonnais fought against the forces of the Marquis of Leganés, helped relieve Casale and took part in the fighting on the road to Chieri. During the struggle for Turin the regiment suffered very heavy casualties, including the death of its mestre de camp, the Marquis d'Alincourt.

In 1641 the regiment was transferred to Catalonia, beginning another extremely active period of its history. It fought at Valls, Salou and Constantí, participated in the siege of Tarragona and the fighting around Tamarit and Almenar. In 1642 it captured Monzón and fought again at Valls, Tamarit and Lérida.

The Catalan campaigns nearly destroyed the regiment. During the 1644 operations around Lérida, Lyonnais suffered such severe losses that after the fighting only 25 officers and 439 soldiers remained under its colours. Nevertheless, the survivors continued fighting, and in 1645 the regiment took part in the siege of Roses.

In 1646 Lyonnais was sent once again to Italy, this time taking part in the expedition to Tuscany. It fought at Orbetello and participated in the sieges of Piombino and Porto Longone on Elba, before spending the following years in garrison at Piombino.

After a brief return to France during the Fronde, Lyonnais was back with the Army of Italy in 1653. It fought at La Roquette that year, served at Pinerolo in 1654, took part in the relief of Bercello and the siege of Pavia in 1655, and fought at Valenza in 1656. The following year it participated in the unsuccessful siege of Alessandria.

Its last major operation of the Franco-Spanish War came in 1658 at the siege of Mortara, where the regiment lost its major, Monsieur de Monceau.

The Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659 finally brought more than two decades of campaigning against Spain to an end.

So this seems a particularly fitting point at which to finish my own Régiment de Lyonnais. From Buffalora and Turin to Tarragona, Lérida, Roses, Orbetello, Pavia and Mortara, the historical regiment had accumulated an extraordinary record of service by the time the war finally ended.

And, after four posts and rather more years than I originally intended, my  28mm Lyonnais is finished.

I used Fountry triads, and Vallejo paints, then Ultra matt varnish brushed on the miniatures.

I hope you like it!

Tercio Viejo de Holanda in Seneffe 1674

 Hello guys,

After this summer holydays I finished a full unit for my Spanish army of Flanders during the second half of XVII c. the Tercio Departamental de Holanda, also known as the Tercio Viejo de Holanda.

I wanted this unit mainly for the Franco-Dutch War, and particularly for Seneffe in 1674, one of the  bloody battles of the period. This tercio is particularly attractive for wargaming because its service during the 1670s can be followed through several of the major campaigns fought by the Army of Flanders.

For the figures I have used North Star's 1672 range, with a few conversions and two self-sculpted pikemen. They were painted using a mixture of Vallejo and Foundry paints, as usual.

 Tercio Viejo de Holanda

The Tercio Departamental de Holanda was one of the veteran Spanish infantry formations serving in the Low Countries. Bruno Mugnai lists it as EI-8, Departamental de Holanda or Viejo de Hollanda, in his book "Wars and Soldiers in the Early Reign of Louis XIV Volume 4" giving 1580 as the date of its origin. Much later, after all the wars and reorganisations of the seventeenth century, its lineage ended up in the Zamora Regiment in 1715.

As with many old Spanish units, its name changed over its long existence, and it was normally known by either the territory in which it served or the name of its commanding officer.

For the period that interests me most, Mugnai gives the following succession of commanders:

Juan Pacheco Osorio de Cerralvo – 1654

Pedro de Zavala y Laezeta – 1660

Luis Zúñiga y Carrillo – 1663

Juan Domingo Méndez de Haro y Sotomayor, Count of Monterrey – 1666

Diego Gómez de Espinosa – 1672

Rodrigo Tello – 1672

Ordóñez de Lara – 1677

Juan Caro – around 1679

Joseph de Moncada y Aragón – 1682

By the time of Franco Dutch War, the Army of Flanders was smaller from the army of the great Spanish victories of the previous century. Nevertheless, veteran Spanish tercios remained in service and continued to take part in some very hard fighting against Louis XIV's armies.

Tercio Viejo de Holanda was at Naarden in 1673, followed in 1674 by Seneffe and Oudenaarde. It subsequently appears at Bouchain in 1676, Cassel in 1677 and Ypres in 1678. It was still serving in Flanders afterwards and is recorded at Brussels in 1685.

So in miniature this is a very useful unit. I can field it in several different actions of the Franco-Dutch War rather than tying it to a single battle.

But the main reason I wanted to paint it was Seneffe.

The Spanish contribution from the Army of Flanders was substantial, although heavily weighted towards mounted troops. According to the figures quoted by Mugnai, the Army of Flanders contributed around 6,000 cavalry and 3,000 infantry to the allied army.

An Austrian print of the battle reproduced by Mugnai is particularly interesting. In the final phase of the fighting, the Hispanic troops can be seen deployed with infantry and cavalry alternating in the battle line. And among that infantry were men of the unit represented here.

Mugnai specifically states that companies of the Tercio Viejo de Holanda participated at Seneffe.

I think the word companies is important. I have not found evidence that allows me to claim that the complete tercio fought at Seneffe as a single tactical formation. What can safely be said is that companies belonging to it were present.

Now the flag...

A Spanish infantry flag captured during the battle is recorded in Les Triomphes de Louis XIV. It is an extremely simple design: a white field bearing a red Burgundian Cross. Mugnai notes that some scholars have suggested that such simple two-colour flags may have belonged to veteran infantry units. He then specifically mentions the presence of companies of the Viejo de Holanda at Seneffe.

Elsewhere he adds an important word of caution. Although simple flags have been associated with the old veteran tercios, the Seneffe example could also have been a colonel's colour. More importantly, there is no surviving evidence that allows it to be attributed to a particular tercio.

So it is tempting to associate this flag with the Viejo de Holanda, but can not be 100% sure.

The flag I eventually chose for the unit needs a little explanation.

I could have used the simple white flag with the red Burgundian Cross recorded at Seneffe. It would certainly have made sense visually, and its possible association with veteran infantry is very tempting.

Instead, I decided to use a more elaborate Spanish colour connected with another battle in which the Viejo de Holanda fought: Cassel, 11 April 1677.

The design I used is a reconstruction based on the description of Spanish colours captured by the French at Cassel. It has a white field with the traditional red Cross of Burgundy, accompanied in each of the four quarters by the crowned cipher of Charles II. I should make clear that I am not claiming this to be the documented flag of the Tercio Viejo de Holanda

What we do know is that Spanish flags of this type were recorded among the trophies of Cassel, and we also know independently that the Viejo de Holanda fought at Cassel in 1677 with another Tercio, so...that was enough for me.

For a miniature unit I wanted something historically plausible but also a little more colourful than the  austere Seneffe flag. The crowned ciphers of Charles II surrounding the Burgundian Cross immediately identify the unit visually with the Spanish Monarchy of this period.

Thank God we know the uniform :) for 1671, only three years before Seneffe, the information collected by Mugnai describes the private soldiers of the Viejo de Holanda as wearing a grey coat with red facings.By the 1680s this had evolved into a grey-white coat, again with red facings. Drummers wore blue coats with red facings.

For the figures I used North Star's 1672 range. I made several conversions to to add a little variety to the unit, and there are also two self-sculpted pikemen mixed in with the North Star figures. For instance, the officer and flag bearer are artillery men with head swaps/feathers, partizan, and shoulder ribbons added. Also a French pikemen was used, with another head and plastic arms with pike from Warlord Games ECW/TYW range.

The paints are a mixture of Vallejo and Foundry. This time, for the basic appearance I followed the documented 1671 description quite closely: grey coats and red facings, while allowing some variation in the shades of grey,  3 tones in the same unit. I prefer this slightly irregular appearance for the period rather than making every man look identical.

I hope you like this unit !

Playing wargames during summer holidays? Yes, "The Wars of Sun King 1648-1713" and custom counters

 Hello guys,

I'm spending a few weeks at the beach at the moment, which is great, but there is one problem: I can't bring all my miniatures, terrain and everything else with me. So I needed something a little more practical to get my wargaming fix and ended up buying "The Wars of the Sun King" a boardgame by Serious Historical Games, designed to play, with a single set of rules, the five conflicts led by France under the reign of Louis XIV and the great rebellion called “La fronde”.

 https://serioushistoricalgames.com/product/the-wars-of-louis-xiv-sun-king-1648-1713/

I've started with the War of Devolution scenario, mainly because it is one of the conflicts that interests me most from the period, and the easiest/fastest to play. I've played it several times now and I have to say I'm enjoying it quite a lot. The rules have, for me, just about the right level of complexity. There are enough decisions to make it interesting, but once you understand the basic mechanics the game moves quite quickly and doesn't become a headache.

Most of the time I've been playing solo, basically playing both sides against myself! It may sound a bit strange but it works perfectly well with this sort of game. I've also played it with another person and enjoyed it that way too.

Something I particularly liked is that, at least in the War of Devolution scenario, the result tends to be more or less what you would expect from the real campaign. Of course things can go differently (otherwise there wouldn't be much point in playing it), but France has the advantages you would expect and the general feeling of the conflict seems right. So far I'm quite happy with it.

The counters are nice too, although I have one small complaint. Some (in the case of Spanish at least) of them look to me a little too much like troops from the War of the Spanish Succession, rather than the earlier wars of Louis XIV. Nothing terrible, but once I noticed it I couldn't really unsee it.

And of course this meant I had to start messing around with the counters...

I've made my own versions of several of them, replacing the artwork with, mostly, illustrations by Bruno Mugnai, from several books I own. Bruno is my favourite illustrator for this period. They are obviously only for my own personal use. At the moment they're just digital counters, but when I get back home after the holidays I plan to print them on proper cardboard and use them with the game.

Cavalry for League of Augsburg War period.

Proper general for early wars, instead of the generic Spanish general in tricorn

The game uses "elite" units but very very few, and for instance, no Dutch elite or Spanish, so I fixed that with this counter of Guardia Chamberga in 1673.

1678 infantry counter

1665-70' infantry counter

Proper War of Devolution Spanish infantry counter

1672 infantry counter

 The game is French and, unsurprisingly, very French-centred. I don't really have a problem with that considering the subject of the game, although sometimes I think it goes a little too far and some of the other nations don't get quite the same attention. There are also a few omissions that I found a bit strange, especially when it comes to some troops and personalities from the other armies, but nothing serious, this is not a super complex game like others in the market.

So while redoing the counters I've added some of those missing units and commanders as well. Nothing particularly ambitious and I'm certainly not trying to redesign the game. I just wanted the other armies to have a little more personality and, where possible, look a bit closer to the troops that actually fought in these earlier campaigns.

Anyway, it has turned out to be a pretty good solution for wargaming while I'm away from home. I'm enjoying the game, the War of Devolution scenario has been a very good starting point , next scenario I want to play with, will be Franco Dutch War. 

I hope you like this little update with boardgames instead of miniature games!

Cheers

Spanish tercios flags of 30 Years War in Italy

 Hello guys,

This summer I am reading a fantastic book about Thirty Years War in northern Italy: 

"Milán a sangre y fuego" the campaigns of Marquis de Leganés in 1635-1640 in north Italy.

https://www.sndeditores.com/libro/milan-a-sangre-y-fuego_193675/

this is the abstract of the book, tanslated into English :

The military history of the Spanish Army that served in the Duchy of Milan remains one of the great overlooked chapters of Spanish history, perhaps overshadowed by the better-known Army of Flanders, though it was no less remarkable. The campaigns described in this volume brought both General the Marquis of Leganés and his army to prominence. Not only did they successfully defend the state entrusted to them, but they also seized large portions of enemy territory after defeating opposing forces in pitched battles and capturing their strongholds.

Confronted by France's long-standing hostility toward the House of Austria, the ambitions of Savoy, the enmity of Venice, the duplicitous intervention of the Pope and his nuncios, the wavering attitude of Genoa, and the betrayal of Parma, Leganés proved capable of meeting every challenge. He carried the war into the heart of enemy lands and, for four years, tied down substantial enemy forces that would have been of decisive importance had they been deployed in Flanders.

The Marquis's innovative strategy, combined with the excellent performance of the Army of Milan under his command, achieved remarkable victories against some of France's finest generals. Yet the jealousy of his rivals at court, the blatant double-dealing of the Princes of Savoy, and above all the inability of the Royal Treasury to sustain a prolonged war effort ultimately diminished the impact of this extraordinary of successes.

Turin was not the grave of the Marquis of Leganés's career. Despite the downfall of his patron, the Count-Duke of Olivares, he continued to render distinguished service to the Spanish Crown, earning a well-deserved place among the finest generals of the House of Austria."

While reading the book, I almost inmediately decided to wargame that theater of operations, as I have both, TYW French and Spanish armies painted in 28mm,  I want to paint a Savoyard unit and maybe some leaders...

With Meshy, I tried to replicate a 28mm miniature of Marquis de Leganés, I will print in resin when I come back home from vacation, I am really excited with this side project.

Also, thank God, we know at least 2 flags carried by some of the best Spanish units of that time; Tercio Viejo de la Mar de Nápoles, and Tercio de Lombardía, both present in most of the battles of that period in Northern Italy, like :   The relief of Valenza del Po, battle of Tornavento 1636,  the sieges of Vercelli, Breme, Torino... etc etc etc.

here are the flags I have made with Chatgpt + primary sources

                                            Flag of Tercio de Lombardía

                                            Flag of Tercio de la Mar de Nápoles

I hope you like this little summer update

Cheers