Some small terrain pieces for generic or XVII c. games

 Hello guys,

This will be the last post of 2022 ! I am painting a couple of galleons in different scales to see which scales fits my needs for the new games like Mad for War (Barry Hilton) or Black Seas (Warlord Games), also some Romans,  Foundry Marlburians...  But also I wanted to finish 3 small terrain pieces for my XVII games. 

The first one is a stone cross, by "Tercio Creativo", very simple terrain although quite nice, I painted it in several shades of earthy greys, washes and drybrushing. This kind of crosses were (and are) very common in Europe,  It is intended to be used in my XVII c. games in Spain, Flanders or Italy, also in WW2 Italy or France.

the other 2 are: a barricade made of wooden boxes, very simple and easy to paint with successive drybrushing stages in different tones, and a paper flag on top with Spain's coat of arms. 

And a destroyed cart with barrels and wicker basket, also quite simple.

Sorry but I don't remember the manufacturers of the last two pieces. All 3 are resin.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

28mm French command base, Marshall Bellefonds and lieutenant-général

 Hi guys,

This time I come back to my beloved Girona 1684 project. As you may notice, I really like painting small scenes and command bases, and it just so happens that my French forces needed a leader, and his leader was Bernardin Gigault, Marquis de Bellefonds (1630–1694), or just Marshall Bellefonds as will call him.

The miniature of him is a nice Reiver Castings miniature on horse, from his 1672 Franco Dutch range I think, he is labelled as Marshall Turenne. I painted him to resemble a little bit to the painting of the true Bellefonds portrait, with a light blue band and a red fabric in the background.

By the way, the full account of the battle of Girona 1684 is here on the blog :

https://spanishleadpainting.blogspot.com/2021/01/new-campaign-project-siege-of-gerona.html

Coming back to our Marshall, he commanded the French army in Catalonia in the campaingn of 1684,

he went on campaing that spring, with the objective of the town of Gerona, Girona in Catalan. some important actions were the crossing of the river  Ter, where he attacked several times before capturing it after the orderly withdrawal of the Spanish defenders to Girona Bellefonds finally seized Pont-Major at night at the cost of some 1,000 casualties against 150 Spanish, and he fortified it, and formally initiating the siege of Gerona.

With the arrival of artillery and reinforcements, Bellefonds' forces numbered between 16,000 and 17,000 troops. 

the full siege is in the link above...

After the siege, possibly the French marshal had lost since the beginning of the campaign about a third of his men, about 5,000. Many Germans from the French army deserted and Bellefonds had to confine all his people in Santa Eugenia to avoid escapes between May 26 and 30, hanging two German captains as an example to the others.

Bellefonds needed several days to bury their dead and take all their wounded to Figueras and Bàscara, where they had their hospitals, while the Spanish peasants and the troops dedicated themselves to the dispossession of the corpses. The marshal even commented that “if the King of Spain had this type of vassals in Flanders, so many towns would not be lost…”.

Bellefonds remained in the Ampurdán with 11,000 men and the possibility of an attack by the French navy on Barcelona caused panic in the city. On the other hand, after a short siege, Cadaqués, in the coast and with an insufficient garrison surrendered on June 26.  Spanish general Bournonville followed the French army at a prudential distance, and limited Spanish reinforcements arrived to Catalonia, from Valencia, Mallorca, Italian possessions and Andalucia.

Finally at this point, the truce came, and soon peace was signed, although war would start again in 1688 between the Grand Alliance and France...

The second miniature is a recent discovery! I just found out about this man a couple of weeks ago! and I just NEEDED a miniature of him!

lieutenant-général François de Calvo, this is an interesting character whose brief biography will be exposed in the following paragraphs. I used a miniature by Wargames Illustrated, Giants in Miniature range:  John Churchill 1st Duke of Marlborough. but... again I changed his identity and "converted" him into a Spanish/Catalan/French general! treason, yes...

Just painted a "French" moustache and added shoulder ribbons.

François de Calvo, Count of Calvo, baptized in Barcelona on July 28, 1625 and died in Deinze on May 29, 1690, was a French gentleman and soldier of Catalan origin in the 17th century.

                                                  

Coming from a good Catalan family, he made the choice to enlist in the French army while the Reaper War was raging. After having spent time in the infantry, he joined the cavalry and became a captain in the cavalry regiment of Aguilar in 1647. He managed to raise a regiment and became mestre de camp in 1654.

A remarkable soldier, Calvo took part in all the campaigns of the reign of Louis XIV and distinguished himself particularly in Catalonia and Holland. He obtained the rank of brigadier of the king's armies in 1674. General esteemed by the king for his efficiency, he was finally made lieutenant-general of the armies in 1676 following his intrepid defense of Maastricht. He became a knight of the king's orders shortly before his death in 1688.

In 1684, the king's service led him to return to Catalonia. Having swum across the Ter, he harshly charged the Spanish lines beyond the Pont-Major and almost captured the Duke of Bournonville, their general; but the night forces him to be cautious and he prefers to withdraw. He besieged Girona alongside Marshal de Bellefonds but failed to take the city and retreated with heavy casualities.

League of Augsburg War

The war having started again in 1688, against the Spaniards and their allies, he served in the army of Flanders, under the orders of Marshal Humières. On December 31, 1688, the king made him a knight of his orders and sent him, on May 24, 1689, at the head of a corps of five thousand men, to defend the northern border of the kingdom which twenty thousand Spanish and Dutch soldiers threatened. He died the following year.

So this man was Spanish/Catalan who joined the French and reached the greatests honours in Louis XIV armies, a traitor for some a hero for others, but he deserves a place in our little game.

The last miniature is a standard bearer of "La Reine" regiment, present in the battle,  I used a fantastic Warfare Miniatures pikeman of the Maison du Roi range, painted using the colours of La Reine regiment and added a flag with Front Rank's French finials on top. The flag is free from the internet, I downloaded from a blog called https://nba-sywtemplates.blogspot.com/ and it is quite good, it is the colonel flag of La Reine regiment as previously said.

The gabions are 3d print and the base is just mdf with Spanish beach sand (it is always a pleasure to go to the beach and steal some sand ).

I also painted a command tent, from Baueda, bought several years ago and painted now for this occasion. I made a quick and dirty flag using Bellefonds' family coat of arms and attached to the top of the temp, but not glued, in order to remove when I want :)

I hope you like this little painting and history post !

28mm Church Warlord Games/Italeri

 Hello mates,

I recently bought a second hand Warlord Games Church. It is an Italeri 1/72 scale Church, sold by Warlord as a result of collaboration between Italeri and Warlord Games since the last few years.

I wanted this kit since I saw it for the first time, although is not as well detailed as resin kits from Tabletop World, it is a decent model and reasonably priced, and above all,  is perfect for  a Mediterranean Church for my WW2 Sicily project or my XVII c. battles in Spain , like my siege of Gerona 1684 project.

Its size also convinced me, because it is tall but not too big in its footprint (remember it is 1/72). I got my inspiration with smaller footprint buildings from Sidney Roundwood's blog.

By the way, I got it quite cheap and it also came already built in a second hand app in Spain, so the painting process began almost inmediately after receiving it at home!  With the church I also bought a couple of Italeri mediterranean houses, in 1/72 but perfect for 28mm , and they also came fully built although unpainted :)

I usually paint my scenery with airbrush and expensive paints and materials, but this time I wanted to try something different:

A quick'n dirty way to finish off the building in no time!

The church came built, so I primed it in grey.

1) first step was picking a wide brush and craft paints and basecoated in dark grey the stones and red the roof, although the shingles are not modelled as mediterranean shingles and look like slate plates, but anyway I wanted them red.

2) I then changed the brush and started painting individually some stone and bricks and shingles, randomly in different shades of grey or red.

3) After that, I washed the whole model in dark brown oil paint with White Spirit

4) 2 days later, I decided to paint different colors of oil dots in the the whole model, and then fading the dots with the wide brush moistened in white spirit, with vertical brush strokes.

5) 2 days later the fun began with the drybrushing stage, light grey and creamy color in all the stone parts, and light red on the roof.

6) then some static grass and matt varnish.

It was very simple and easy to do , and the result is satisfactory, although it is not an award winning piece of terrain, it does it job in the gaming table.

I hope you find it useful !

Mordheim: second Reiklander Champion

 

Hi guys,

I don't play Mordheim since a year or so, but I want to play a game soon with friends, so my band need to be reinnforced. In tha past few years I have painted a full Reiklander warband, but I managed to get all the classic metal miniatures so I will expand the bande with these new additions.

This one is a Reiklander champion,  a "tank" in the warband, the guy in heavy armour who delivers terrible blows with his double handed weapon!

The miniature is obviously from Citadel  Mordheim range, and was painted in a mixture of Vallejo and Foundry paints.  Buff leather and Scarlet triads are some of my favourite Foundry paints. Metals with Vallejo model air, and white with Vallejo greys and white. The flesh is Vallejo "Panzer Aces" flesh base highlighted with skin or Iraqi sand.  Then gloss varnish (Ammo Mig) in the metal parts and Ultra matt varnish (Green Stuff World) on the flesh and fabrics.

I hope you like it.

Bolt Action Fallschirmjager for Sicily and Mediterranean

 Hello guys,

I am still painting World War 2 stuff for my Sicily 1943 project,  this time, half a platoon of German Fallschirmjager, paratroopers for Bolt Action game, inspired by the new book of Bolt Action "Soft Underbelly"

The miniatures are Artizan Designs, from an out of production line of "Ramcke Brigade" paratroopers in North Africa, but I found them excellent for Sicily too, with their tropical uniforms, in summer shirts are so on.

I have painted six of them so far, deliberately changing the shades of yellow ochre on the different miniatures, in order to give more flavour to the unit.

the other 6 are just primed in brown, waiting in the painting queue ( I hope to paint them soon).

I already have a couple of Panzers of Hermann Goering division and another couple of Italian tanks in Sicily, some standard German infantry (in fieldgrey uniform) with mortar and HMG, but I wanted to add more "Mediterranean" feeling to the army with some Fallschirmjager in tropical uniform, and, in the future, Italian infantry too.

This is the Order of Battle of 1st Fallschirmjäger Division in Sicily:

 - Generalleutnant Richard Heidrich (commenced arriving by air on 12 July; the 1st Fallschirmjäger Regiment was held in reserve at Naples)

3rd Fallschirmjäger Regiment

3x battalions

13th Mortar Company

14th Anti-tank Company

4th Fallschirmjäger Regiment

3x battalions

13th Mortar Company

14th Anti-tank Company

1st Parachute Artillery Regiment

I Battalion (3x batteries 7.5 cm GebG 36)

II Battalion (3x batteries 7.5 cm GebG 36; with the 1st Fallschirmjäger Regiment at Naples)

1st Parachute Machine Gun Battalion

1st Parachute Panzerjäger Battalion (7.5 cm Pak 40 anti-tank guns)

1st Parachute Engineer Battalion

1st Parachute Signal Battalion

Division Services

Bolt Action US airborne for Sicily and Normandy (old miniatures)

 Hi guys,

I am still in WW2 mood,  painting some scenery for Sicily 1943 and a platoon of tropical Fallschirmjager for the same theatre. But in the meantime, I took from the box some old painted Bolt Action miniatures like this US Airborne force from Bolt Action, mostly bought back in the day when the game saw the light.

This weekend I took some pictures of my small US force so far. 

It comprises a platoon of US Airborne, a Sherman tank and a 76mm gun.  The first two units are Warlord's and the latter is Artizan.

I recently bought 2 more Shermans and another Airborne platoon, also support weapons like mortar and Bazookas, in order to have the army more playable.

These were painted a looooong time ago, maybe almost a decade or so, but never photographed.

The infantry is not painted up to my today's standard of painting, these were painted using Quickshade splash on technique and then slightly highlighted, but anyway, I will paint another batch at some point, and expand the army.

The army was thought for Normandy, but I will use it for Sicily, although the tank has the wrong painting scheme and is not the exact version of Sherman... but , you know, it's a game :D