Late XVII c. Tercio de Barcelona

Hello guys,

This time I have reorganized my forces (my collection) and as I have received the new Spanish infantry from North Star 1672, I will paint my new Tercio as the Tercio of Madrid "Old Reds" or Colorados Viejos, and my existing painted Tercio in red coat and blue facings, has become the Tercio of Barcelona/ Tercio de la Ciutat de Barcelona.  The miniatures were painted some years ago, and are Front Rank miniatures, superb quality, and more suited to 1680-1700'.

Tercio of Barcelona was at first, uniformed in green coats and yellow facings, but that uniform did not last long, asi it changed its colours just after a few years later... I mean, Tercio of Barcelona was dressed in green & yellow just in the second half of Franco Dutch war, and by the 1680' they were in their "new" uniform of red and blue, so they fought in the successful defense of Gerona in 1684 dressed that way, and in all the League of Augsburg War battles like the defense of 1689-90,  garrisoning the fortresses, the defeat at battle of Le Ter/Torroella or Barcelona.

the first uniform

the second and last uniform, with the flag of the Tercio (right), with the coat of armas of Barcelona, in the left we can se the flag of Tercio de la Diputacion or Tercio de la Generalitat, with St George cross in the flag.

The flag I have used is from Adolfo Ramos flags, labelled as War of Spanish Succession, but this flag have been used earlier by the Tercio of Barcelona, so it is ok for me.

now some pictures of the finished unit!

Cheers!

Trozo de Extremadura: 28mm Late XVIIc Spanish cavalry

Hello mates,

Some months ago, I wanted to expand my late XVII c. Spanish army more quickly than normal, so, while I was painting more Fantasy stuff or other projects, I commissioned Artmaster Studio to paint some miniatures for me.  The decided unit was a cavalry "trozo".

A trozo is a cavalry regiment, In Spain cavalry was organized in trozos, and in Flanders and Milan, in tercios, so you can find tercios of cavalry and trozos of cavalry in the Spanish army, although you can find regiments too! German or mercenary cavalry kept their regimental organization.

The selected unit is Trozo of Extremadura, as you can see on next picture, there were two trozos, the old and the new one.

Mine is Extremadura viejo,  by the way, the image come from the wonderful book "The Spanish armies of the League of Augsburg War" by Boeri, Palau  and Mirecki, which has an smaller volume translated into Spanish, with some new illustrations...

The Trozo of Extremadura was raised in 1659,  in Badajoz area, his first commander was  in order to fight in Portugal, in their long independence war (1640-1668) there the unit took part in the conquest of Olivenza and later in the siege of Juromenha in 1662, but  next year suffered heavy loses in Ameixial. It continued to fight until 1668. The following year it was transferred to Catalonia, where it fought bravely during Franco Dutch War and League of Augsburg War, participating in the battle of the river Ter (1694), in the fights of the Coll de Fornich (1695), Riudarenas (1696), and in the action of San Celoni (1697). As a veteran unit, it fought the French with success. The Spanish cavalry of the second half of the century, was arguably better than their French counterparts, and the allies knew it, Spanish cavalry was an important part of the allied field army during Franco Dutch war, and later in the League of Augsburg war, although in inferior numbers. 

The importance of the cavalry for Spain, increased after the defeats at Rocroi (1643) and Lens (1648), where the poor performance of the cavalry in Spanish service (German, Lorraine, Alsatian, Flemish or Spanish), doomed the infantry, whose performance was excellent, so a lot of reorganization and care was put on the cavalry and dragoons from 1650 onwards.

The miniatures are from Front Rank, as you may notice, I love this range and half of my collection is Front Rank, lovely figures. And Toby, from Artmaster Studio did a great job on them. The miniatures were based by me, as well as the flag, which is partially hand painted, from a modified cavalry flag from the same book.

Cheers!

30 Years War: more French reinforcements & Spanish gun.

Hello guys,

I continue in a French mood, so the past week I decided to do some more modifications and touches on my miniatures in order to convert the following:

- a Swedish leather gun (double barrel) into a French saker

- English Civil War cavalry into French "Dauphin Gendarmes" regiment.

The first one is the leather gun, I bought it from Warlord games a few years ago, and painted it with a lot of blue tones, but now that my Swedish project has been abandoned, and turned it into French, I retired the double leather barrel of the gun, and substituted it with a spare resin gun from Warlord Games saker.

I have left the crew as they were painted, but now I see them and feel that all those blue tones are a bit unnatural for the nature of 30 Years War... I mean, too uniformed for the French in the 1630-50' and those tones are not very appropriate for artillery crew... so I may repaint a couple of things here and there with browns or greys... What do you think, they still look too Swedish?

The second unit is a French cavalry squadron, from the regiments "Dauphin Gendarmes" , I took the flag from this old blog, which has very useful information about wargaming TYW French:

http://mtsc-tyw-french.blogspot.com/2009/04/cavalry.html

The miniatures are not painted by me, I bought them from the talented Peter Walker, who has also an interesting blog, just look on the right column of the blogs I follow.

I rebased the miniatures, and repainted the sashes and scarfs in white, the colour of the French monarchy, and as I said, put a new French flag and now the unit seems a lot more French, imho. Of course I avoide English features like the Tri bar Helmets or Montero hats,  so now with their more European Lobster helmet and broad brimmed hat, the unit is very "TYW".

Apart from the previous French units, I mentioned a saker from Warlord Games, so I show you here, painted some years ago, as a Spanish gun.  Before painting it, I used "instant mould" with the gun in order to have spare resin copies for my artillery needs, and thanks to that, I was able to use one of those to convert the Swedish leather gun into a Saker or medium artillery.

I hope you like them.

28mm TYW French command base!

Hi guys, 

After a month of hobby break, I have come back!  Yes, August in Spain is terrible for painting... too many outdoor activities and holydays... 

I have read the book “The armies of Philip IV of Spain” by Helion, and it gave me strength to carry on with my TYW “foe” army, the French, and wanted to depict a French Field marshall, maybe La Ferté, Turenne, Rohan... a generic one.  As there are not specific French leaders, I used some TAG 28mm I had previously used as Swedish, (but from their German range, Pappenheim miniature, to be exact). 

The flag is from the internet, I just googled Louis XIII and Louis XIV standard, and printed it in 28mm size!  The painting as French nationality is a bit boring, white flag, white sashes, white shirts... so I leaved I sash in blue, just for colour variation. In TYW you can use several colours for enemies of the Habsburg ... almost everyone BUT red!

The painting was quite simple, in common 17c colours, with 3-5 highlights. The base is plastic Renedra (I know, I should paint a dark brown trim in the edge) and a metal Front Rank Gabion to add some flavour of the period... just 3 men and a couple of horses et Voilà!

In the near future I will convert a Swedish leather gun & crew into a French saker, and some ECW cavalry into French Chevauxlegers... we will see how this project turns out.