Spanish Lead Painting: 28mm Storming party / "Enfants perdús" from a Spanish Tercio

Hello friends, this time I bring you a small unit that I have made with great enthusiasm, using half a dozen miniature manufacturers.

It intends to be an assault group of the Tercios of Flanders, during Franco-Dutch War. Specifically it belongs to the Tercio de Zuñiga, also called Tercio del Duque de Béjar or Departmental Tercio of Brabant. It was made up of native Spaniards, and was stationed in the Netherlands until the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, so it saw a lot of combat in the period 1672-1710 aprox.

the uniform was light gray or off white with blue facings, and we know that some of his flags had the emblem of the Duke of Béjar, although I have not included it in this small detachment.

Manuel Diego López de Zúñiga Sotomayor, Duke of Bejar, "Maestro de Campo" of his Tercio in the army of Flanders from 1681, he took part in the siege of Oudenaarde, where with his own hands he removed some burning bombs that had fallen into a powder magazine, thus demonstrating his great courage. The ensign of his Tercio carried the flag with the Duke of Béjar's coat of arms. He died fighting the Ottomans during the siege of Buda.

Regarding the miniatures, I wanted to represent a typical image of the sieges, both in the offensive and in defense. a Group of selected soldiers called Forlorn Hope by the English or Enfants Perdus by the French. I can use them as a musketeer wing. These "stormtroopers" made sorties out of the fortresses to sabotage enemy artillery, capture soldiers and officers, or kill engineers.

I have armed them with muskets, grenades, pistols and halberd of various brands, I should have used flintloques too, but I had none :(

Most of the miniatures depicted are from the defunct "Phoenix Miniatures" range, which were somewhat inferior in quality than the North Star 1672 range. From this brand there is a pikeman, converted into an ensign with a plastic pistol and a plastic Warlord Games wrapped flag, and 3 identical musketeers, but as I wanted a unique look, I leaved one musketeer as it was, but the other two, lost their heads and had Warhammer heads instead.

there are also 2 Warlord Games miniatures: a plastic musketeer and a metal kneeling Swede:

-The plastic one was a musketeer from the English Civil War infantry box, with lots of conversions... I turned himo into a grenadier using two plastic arms from former Wargames Factory WSS infantry, and I lengthened his coat by "sculpting" (I am a terrible sculptor) more fabric of the uniform right up his knees with green putty.

-As for the metal Swede, I cut his Dutch pot helmet and substituted it with a broad brimmed hat of the decapitated head of a Phoenix Miniatures musketeer.

Finally, the last miniature is the sergeant, an unrecognizable Monmouth Rebel by Front Rank miniatures... I cut off both arms and replaced them with two plastic arms from Warhammer imperial militia, one arm with a halberd and another one holding a pistol, I also scuplted some feathers on the hat and added Front Rank's metal shoulder ribbons too.

Also, in order to add more flavor to the unit, I wanted some scenery scattered on the bases: a cannon from Wargames Factory WSS, two 3D printed gabions, and a cut "Chevaux de Frisie" from Warfare Miniatures.

I hope you like the final result, It took me longer than expected to finish this unit because I am in the process of moving to a new house, so this has been the last unit painted in my old home.

Before changing the period or subject (who knows if it is the turn of Romans or Warhammer ...) I want to make a small vignette of French siege officers for this same period, or a Spanish ensign... We will see.

I hope you like the pics!