Wednesday, 22 April 2020

More scenery: 28mm plastic Barn


Hello again!


Here you have a very quick & easy project; Renedra's plastic Barn. 

This little piece of scenery is very easy to clean and build, and of course, to paint. I just primed it in Panzer grey, Ammo Mig spray can, after that, I airbrushed only two colours, blue-grey in the roof, for a slightly fantasy look (you know, blue shingles=medieval fantasy) and chocolate brown for all the wooden planks.

After that, I tried a new (for me) technique; to apply several citadel washes to modify the tone of some shingles and wooden planks all over the barn, painting with the ink here and there, to break the monotony, and make the model more interesting. 

next step was airbrushing gloss varnish all over the barn, and give the model some oil washes and oil fading as follows.

I painted several dots of white, yellow, browns tones in the roof, with Ammo Mig Oilbrushers, a very interesting tool for me, much better than using old oil tubes (they have a tendency to get stuck). And a general dark brown wash in the brown part of the barn, and then leave it to dry 48h. 

The funny and easy part wash the drybrushing step,  beige for the brown and light grey for the blue roof... It really gives life to the building, highlighting all the parts in a quick and effective way.

The final part was painting the metal details a giving them a black and an orange wash to give it the sensation of rust,  some green moss in the roof ( Just to give it some green touches) and Voilá, matt varnish and finished.

Actual painting time, a couple of hourse at most... It will not win a painting competition, but is nice enough for me, and it fulfills its role :)

I have not made a base for it, because I don't know yet if I will field the Barn alone or as part of a larger farm... so, for now, without base, If I made a large one, with it, I will show it here.

Cheers!












Wednesday, 15 April 2020

28mm Spanish Cavalry: Vaudèmont regiment

Hello guys,


This time I bring you a new cavalry unit for my late XVIIc. Spanish army: Regiment of Vaudémont.





In 1672 it appears as a regiment of German soldiers, led by Duke Charles IV of Lorraine, serving the King of Spain. It had 6 companies and 400 men.   This unit was also led by the Duke's son, Charles Henry , Prince of Vaudemont, so until 1698 there was in Flanders at least one cavalry regiment of Lorraine serving the Spanish Army of Flanders, fighting in all wars of the period, Franco Dutch War, War of the Reunions, and League of Augsburg War.


The miniatures are Front Rank  28mm miniatures, more suitable for League of Augsburg War than  1670' but I will use them for all conflicts between 1672-1697 anyway.

I painted them and use the flag  following this book, mentioned several times in this blog:
 BOERI, G. Carlo; MIRECKL, J. Luis; PALAU, José y HALL, Robert: The Spanish Armies on the war of the league of Augsburg, 1688-1697. Ed. Pike&Shot Society, 2011.

They were painted using Vallejo and Foundry paints, with some washes by Army Painter and Citadel. I stopped buying Citadel paints because the dry MUCH faster than any other manufacturer I have ever used... I am talking about the "new" pots of Games Workshop paints (I now, I am a nostalgic from the good old times of Games Workshop in the nineties).

After painting the riders and horses I applied matt varnish of AMMO Mig, by airbrush, I hope you like them!











and now some close ups, these Front Rank miniatures almost paint themselves, the sculpted details are very easy to paint,









Cheers





Friday, 10 April 2020

Pike & Shotte: battle report

Hello guys,

These days I am playing battles with my father using the rules "Pike & Shotte" from Warlord Games, I tested these rules some years ago and played a few games with them, with good results :)
I find them easy to learn, fast and flexible enough to be used both for Thirty Years War and late XVII c. conflicts like the Franco Dutch War and League of Augsburg War.

There are some fan made rules out there, and probably I will make my own army list for Spanish very soon. This time, we used these  https://psdb.home.blog/alphabet/   for French, and I modified slightly the Dutch one (Franco Dutch War) to represent my Spanish.

The first game we played was a fictional encounter  between two small armies: French and Spanish.





 French side view


Spanish view


general overview 



My father, who is a true patriot, refused to play the French side, so I played the French Army, and my father the  Spanish army.

The game is set during the first stages of the Franco Dutch War, When Spain joined the Dutch Republic in its desperate defense against French aggressors.  In 1673 The French Army in Rousillon was not very numerous, although it was well led by the talented  Duke of Schomberg. By 1674, The Spaniards, led by Duke of San German, attacked France from the South, in order to reduce the pressure of the Dutch front, and San German took the fortress of Bellegarde and routed the French in Battle of Maureillas/Morellás the same year.

Our game is in 1674 in Rousillon where the 2 armies met in a prairie.

the order of battle is :

Spanish army:

 CiC Duke of San German

Infantry:
Tercio Amarillos Viejos
Tercio Morados Viejos
Tercio Catalan del Consell

Cavalry Squadrons of:
Trozo de Extremadura
Cuirassiers of Count of Lumiares

artillery:
1 medium gun


French Army:

CiC Duke of Schomberg

infantry:
Regiment de Foix
Regiment de La Sarre
Regiment Picardie

cavalry squadrons of:
Cuirassiers de Roi
Royal des Carabiniers

artillery:
1 medium gun




Both armies started from the edges of the table,  and tried to advance with infantry in the middle, and the cavalry in their flanks, while the artillery aimed the center of the enemy front...

But dice decided that most of my French army did not move in the first turn because of not passing the command test, So the Spanish made a sweep advance towards the middle of the table.



Luckly for me.. eeem for the French, my artillery scored a hit that disordered the Tercio of Amarillos Viejos, and my infantry was able to cover behind a small wall of a wheat field.

-   




thought my French infantry was safe behind that small wall , and the wheat field is considered difficult terrain, so If the Spanish wanted to cross it, they would advance at half pace, so the dice allowed me to fire some shots at the advencing enemy.




In the next turn, the Spanish had a lot of luck with the dice in the command phase, so the Trozo of Extremadura cavalry made 3 full movements of 9 inches in order to charge my French infantry regiment in the flank... and they succeded.







The cavalry charge against the flank was terrible, the French regiment was unble to hold its ground, the fire had disorder the unit and the pike company bonus of the regiment did not apply when charged on flanks, so after a brief combat, the unit was destroyed.

But the French had time to laund a cavarly charge on the flank of the Spanish cavalry while they were engaged with the ill fated French regiment La Sarre.


This time victory was for the French, in the melee phase, Cuirassiers du Roi inflicted heavy casualities to the Spanish cavalry, and retired a full move, While Regiment de Foix  shot the remant of Trozo de Extremadura until it dissintegrated by the concentrated musketry fire.


In the next turn, both armies rushed to close the gaps left by the destruction of the French infantry regiment and the Spanish cavalry squadron respectively


Meanwhile, on the left wing of the battle, Spanish and French cavalry charged and counter charged each other during a couple of turns, with the Spanish having the upper hand in the melee, 

And the battle was decided in the center, where 2 French regiments engaged 2 Spanish tercios:
The French had the advantage, as one of the tercios (the middle one) had 3 casualities and was disordered by artillery and musket fire, and the French unit in front of them where fresh and undamaged, 



                                                   

I ordered my 2 French regiments to advance and shoot at close range, after that charge the enemy in order to engage them in a melee with advantages.    Spanish responded with closing fire at the charging enemy, but as they were all disordered, they had penalties at shooting, so the charge was a complete success for the French, eventually both Spanish tercios would be destroyed in the next turn...


On the right flank, Tercio Amarillos Viejos and the Spanish artillery, shot heavily on my Cuirassiers du Roi, until the French, damaged and disordered, had to retire backwards...



the Cuirassiers were now far from danger, almost in their starting position...

As I said, in this turn, the battle ended, there were 3 unit destroyed: 2 Spanish and  1 French:
On the left front, The Spanish cuirassiers finally managed to destroy my Royal Carabiniers cavalry, next to the 2 cottages... but the Spanish tercios were destroyed too, the first one, on the left, Morados Viejos lost a melee round, and in its break test, they had to move backwards a full move, but they were in front of a house, so unable to move back, so... destroyed, and the other tercio, was shaken and disorderd when my French infantry charged them, in the left of the wheat field, so they were destroyed too. 

After loosing more than half of their infantry, the Spanish had to retire from battle, and look for the protection of a better defended area, where the next battle will be fought, I will post it here too!

I hope you like this little battle report, Cheers!!



Monday, 6 April 2020

Plastic scenery: Citadel Forest


Hello guys!

I have completed a very quick and easy piece of scenery, a forest ( well , 3 trees in a base) by Games Workshop, I bought it second hand, very cheap, and had it laying around several months until last week.






I cleaned all the parts and branches of the trees and sanded the mould lines, then primed in dark grey (Panzer grey by Ammo Mig), normally I would have painted the basecoat with airbrush, but in this particular case, I thought it would be fine If I used a wide a brush.


                                         primed

                                         basecoat

                                         drybrushed
                                         static grass


The process was very quick, just a base coat of arts store paints, the same I use to paint my scenery and terrain boards,  cheap paint,   dark brown or chocolate for the base, leaving the rocks in dark grey, and then the same on the trees, dark brown all over them.

the next step was drybrush all the kit, for the ground, ochre drybrush all over the base (avoiding the rocks) and finally a drybrush coat of beige. For the rocks 3 different shades of lighter greys until almost white for the edges of the rocks. And for the trees, I used Vallejo beige brown for the drybrush coat and a second coat of beige brown plus beige or white.

When the forest was painted, came the funny part, I substituted the plastic leaves of the trees (tedious to paint and unnatural) with Noch leaves in different shades, not expensive and very useful for this kind of work.   







the finished scenic piece:




Cheers!