French pétard: XVII c. siege party for "Gerona 1684"

 Hello again!

This time I have finished another late XVII c. unit, a French Petárd team with storming party of grenadiers and pikeman. This unit is intended for my project "The Siege of Gerona 1684", shown previously in this blog (just tag "Gerona 1684"), although as the pétard is in a separate base, I can use it for games set in 30 Years War or English Civil War  or Franco Dutch War... 

The soldiers are French, from "La Reine" regiment, present at the historical battle, I like their uniform, so finally I went for them instead of other famous regiments that assaulted the walls of Gerona after a heavy bombardment.

These guys are ready to join my previously painted armoured enfants perdús and grenadiers to storm the breach!

The miniatures are a mixture of Wargames Foundry and Dixon's Grand Alliance, both ranges are quite old, but still very nice with a lot of personality, I love both of them although  they are more in the small size compared to more recent North Star 1672 or Front Rank.

There are also minor conversions; the officer with partizan is Foundry Marlburian officer, I cut and trimmed his tricorn, and put him a broad brimmed had and plume instead, also a shoulder ribbon from Front Rank and a partizan by Bicorne miniatures.

The other conversion is a Dixon's grenadier throwing his grenade, he had originally a tricorn too, but it was cut and substituted by a informal tricorn or slouch hat.

Finally the paints are a mix of Foundry triads and Vallejo, I like to mix different shades of light grey to my units in order to break the monotony, this time I used Vallejo neutral grey for some and Citadel Rakarth Flesh+Ivory for the rest.

 I specially like the the tones of some Foundry triads like Buff Leather and Dark African Flesh, I use them a lot for creamy tones and dark browns. 

Some close ups:

And now the unit in its full glory in different angles, by the way, the small scenery piece of destroyed cannon is casted in resin by a Polish company whose name I can't remember... but is quite solid and easy to paint.

I hope you like it!

Flames of War: PaK 40 team

 Hello guys, 

I bring you just a quick update of last month's painting, a couple of German WWII anti tank guns, 7.5cm Pak 40,  in plastic, from Flames of War, these are from the old set "Open Fire".   I don't paint 15mm miniatures quite often, but these were fairly easy to paint, although they are not my best paintjob, as I prefer to paint vehicles.

I used an airbrush to paint the guns, using Ammo Mig paints and products to do the weathering, later  I used beach sand and static grass to make the bases.

I painted them in panzer grey, although at the end of 1942 it was about to be changed by the famous dark yellow used by the Germans from mid war until the end of the war... this limit a little bit the useage of this guns... but as my friend and me are not "button counters" I will probably field them in games set in later stages of the war.

This summer I played several games of Flames of War with a friend, mostly battles set in 1942-43 in the eastern front, so I needed heavy AT guns to counter the waves of Soviet  T-34's fielded by my friend... My panzers III and IV (short barrel) were not enough, so a couple of brand new (at least in 1942) Pak 40 will bolster my Wehrmacht forces during Fall Blau offensive.

I hope you like them!

Tercio of Dragoons Vanderpit/Valensart (Walloon)

 

Hi mates,

Now there is the turn of a unit I painted a while ago, but never featured here, Tercio of Valanzart I did not showed before because I misinterpreted the colors of the uniform, which should be all green, and I painted in green with blue facings because I thought that this unit later became "Dragones de Batavia", during War of Spanish Succession, and that is true... BUT during late XVII the uniform was different from the WSS so now I am thinking about repainting in green the blue parts.

The miniatures are Front Rank 28mm French dragoons from WSS but the Spaniards used in some Tercios the same cap for their Dragoons in Flanders, so I used those miniatures as I am a big fan of Front Rank miniatures.  I like to base my dragoons in individual bases and sabot bases because they usually  fought in a skirmish mode until the very end of the century.

On January 12, 1676, a Tercio of  dragoons were raised in the Netherlands by patent awarded to Niklaus Hartmann to participate in the war in Holland. The command passed the following year to Vandewin Vanderpit and in 1684 to Theodore de Valanzart, with whom the unit participated in the  League of Augsburg War.

The flag was taken from the book "Spanish Armies of the League of Augsburg War".

This Tercio fought a lot of battles during the late XVII c:

Franco-Dutch War :

Bouchain 1676

Battle of Mount Cassel and Charleroi 1677

1678 Battle of Mons

War of the Reunions:

Luxemburg 1684

War of the League of Augsburg:

 1689 Walcourt Defense

1690 Battle of Fleurus

1692 Battle of Steenkerke

1693 Battle of Neerwinden

1694 Taking of Huy

1695 Recovery of Namur

I hope you like this little thread.

Cheers