Thursday, 21 June 2018

Spanish army showcase (League of Augsburg War)


Hi again,

As you may know, I am very interested in the armies of the League of Augsburg war, following an advertisement that I saw in a magazine, then I discovered the forum and decided to start a project in this period.
Being Spanish, I wanted to investigate a little about the participation of my country in the war, the sources are scarce, and in Spain, few people have armies of this period, since it is less glorious for us than other moments of the 16th and 17th centuries.
My main project are the Spanish Tercios in the Catalonian front when France invaded it in 1689. Of the three armies that Spain deployed during the war (in Flanders,  Milan and the Iberian Peninsula, the army of Catalonia is the most colorful and mixes good quality units, with militia and the famous “migueletes”. Their uniforms also show unique features and characteristics different to other European armies like the front lapels of the justacorps or the “Chambergo” hat.

My initial army is not very big;  I have painted so far 4 Infantry tercios, 1 militia unit, 1 Migueletes skirmishers, 2 artillery guns, 1 cavalry unit and a tercio of dragoons.
My intention is adding two more cavalry regiments, and 2 or 3 more infantry.

here you can see the section of Milan cavalry regiment, and infantry the Tercio of Seville “the old purple”, Tercio of Madrid  “old Reds”, Tercio of Córdoba “old greens”, Tercio of Toledo or “old blues”, besides dragoons (tercio viejo de dragones) and skirmishers migueletes and a regiment of local militia.
Some of these units already have a post for their own, and some will have it later on.

A couple of officers


 Spanish gun


Tercio de Córdoba and Tercio de Madrid in the background

Tercio de Sevilla and Tercio de Toledo in the background


Tercio viejo de dragones

Militia and Miquelets

Trozo de Milán

Tercio de Toledo


I have painted more units but for Flanders, like Dragones de Valanzart or some converged grenadiers, and another gun (plastic, Wargames Factory , now Warlord Games). I will so those in future posts.

10 comments:

  1. A beautiful army. I really like the colours, particularly the Tercio de Córdoba with the muted greens and the wood on the cannon. Excelente !

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  2. Fantastic! Do you know what Terico units were in the west indies 1670-1680? Any help would be greatly appreciated

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    1. Hello, thanks for the comment, well, as far as I know, there were no permanent tercios in America during XVII excepting a Tercio in Chile, fighting the Mapuches. In the Caribbean there were local militias, sometimes reinforced with peninsular Spaniards, but I think Tercios like those in Flanders or Italy or Iberian Peninsula were NOT in the West Indies in that dates. In XVIII century yes, there were several regiments there, which performed very well in several campaigns. For 1670-1680, you can field militia and companies of proffesional soldiers, maybe uniformed but sadly we don´t know...

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  3. Thank you very much Jose. I see some units were "Armada" did these serve on ships like marines?

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    1. Hello Brian, yes, the tercios de la armada, served on ships, they are literally marines. Even today, the Spanish Marines are named "tercios" de la armada.

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