30 Years War: French cavalry squadron

Hello guys,

I have finished another unit for my French army of the 30 Years War, a cavalry unit this time.

The unit is "unkown" so I will use as generic French heavy cavalry or demi cuirassiers in the 30 Years War and Franco Spanish War, 1635-1659.

I use this flag just because I like the design. I downloaded and printed for free from this fantastic site:

https://www.tercios.fr/2020/05/26/guidons-de-cavalerie-francaise/

this flag, amongst others, are taken from the painting "The Capture of Privas" (May 28, 1629) (Château de Versailles).

The miniatures are an odd mixture of Perry ECW cuirassier command miniatures and Bicorne ECW cavalry in cuirass and helmets. The spare Bicorne troopers I bought painted a while ago, were repainted to match my painting style and give them a French look with the white shases.

 I know a couple of the helmets are very "English" but I used them anyway, who knows wether they were used in the continent, and very similar lobster pots and burgonets were definitively used by all sides during 30 Years War.

I painted them in Vallejo and Foundry paints and then ultra matt varnish in most areas but some of the metals. I am not quite happy about the result of the blackened armor of the leaders and flag bearer, but I will do some experiments in the future with NMM black armor with just edge highlighting.

I have to add at least another squadron to this small French army, but now is playable, with 2 cavalry squadrons, 3 infantry regiments and one more half painted, plus an artillery piece and command base.

I am looking forward to give this army its baptism of fire with Pike & Shotte Epic rules adapted to this scale.

I hope you like them!

Cheers

III century Romans: Legio II Parthica

 Hello guys,

After a looooooooooong stop, I painted another unit for my 3rd century Roman army.

Middle Imperial Romans are one of my favorite armies, they have a mixture of early and late antiquity features, chainmail (lorica hamata) and segmented armor (lorica segmentata),  spears and pilum,  gladius substituted by spathae... Old style Gallic helmets with newer designs like Niederbieber helmet, oval shields and rectangular shields/scutum. So very interesting and funny to convert!

It is also an era with lots of wars and even more enemies, being the most famous the Sassanians, Palmyrans, Goths (well, barbarians in general) and frecuently, Romans vs. Romans. 

It is an army that can play conflicts from Marcus Aurelius to Diocletian, roughly 100 years, If you are not a "button counter" of course. So lots of flexibility in my humble opinion.

Here is the first post about III century Roman miniatures in the blog:

https://spanishleadpainting.blogspot.com/2022/02/3rd-century-romans-project.html

Now my second unit fully painted and based: Legio Secunda Parthica:

                                   

Miniatures are a mixture of A & A miniatures with plastic Wargames Atlantic miniatures, which are very easy to paint and well sculpted. 

The most boring part was  hand painting all the shields, following the design of Legio II Parthica, at least in all the illustrations I have seen, you can see some in the previous post about 3rd century Romans here in the blog.

I added some 3d printed bits like some helmets , like the officer in the front rank, and a miniature in the back row.

I hope you like these little legionaries!

30 Years War French army : Catalan regiment 1640-52

Hi guys,

I played a very small game a couple of weeks ago using Pike & Shotte rules with just a couple of units per side.  I think I will switch to Pike & Shotte Epic rules, in order to have mixed units of pike and musket , and not a unit of pikemen and 2 units of musketeers like in the original Pike & Shotte. 

As I am expanding my 30 Years War armies, I need at least 4 infantry units and 2-3 units of cavalry per side (Spanish and French). For the battles taking place in Spain itself, I added this unit to give some flavour to my French army.

Some years ago, I bought an English Civil War regiment, painted by Peter Walker ( here is his blog : http://peterw3169.blogspot.com/ ).

I removed all the minis from their previous bases, and started rebasing them. This time I decided to make a regiment or tercio of rebel Catalans fighting for France against the Spanish, following the Catalan uprising in 1640.

The context of this unit is a small rebel Catalan "army"  inside the French army that operated several years with mixed results. It's name was the "Batalló". Its size and importance declined throughout the conflict, and the number of Catalans joining the loyal/royalist forces under the Habsburgs increased.

The Catalan revolt of 1640, also known as the reapers war, the war had its roots in the discomfort generated in Catalan society by the presence of the royal army (made mostly of mercenaries and troops from different nationalities from and outside the Hispanic Monarchy) during the Franco-Spanish War between the Kingdom of France and the Monarchy of Spain as part of the Thirty Years' War, as well the opposition of Catalan institutions to the centralised policies and new war taxes of Spanish prime minister Count-Duke of Olivares.

Catalan authorities maintained contacts with France, in order to establish an alliance between the Principality of Catalonia and this country. By the pact of Ceret, French promised to help the Principality. In this way, the States-General presided by Pau Claris proclaimed the Catalan Republic under the protection of the French monarchy, on 17 January 1641, which lasted a week until 21 January 1641, when they declared the French king Louis XIII count of Barcelona. Catalans would discover very soon that their new French masters were even more centralists than the Habsburgs.

The threat of the French enemy establishing a powerful base south of the Pyrenees caused an immediate reaction from the Habsburg monarchy. The Habsburg government sent a large army of 26,000 men under Pedro Fajardo to crush the Catalan Revolt. On its way to Barcelona, the Spanish army retook several cities, executing hundreds of prisoners, and a rebel army of the Catalan Republic was defeated in Martorell, near Barcelona, on 23 January. 

In response the Catalans reinforced their efforts and the Franco-Catalan armies obtained an important military victory over the Spanish army in the Battle of Montjuïc on26 January 1641...

A Franco-Catalan army under Philippe de La Mothe-Houdancourt moved south and gained several victories against the Spanish until 1644, When the tide turned and the Spanish and Catalan royalists started the reconquer of the Principality from 1644 onwards, gaining important victories at Lerida in 1644, 46 and 47 against Condé, and Barcelona in 1652 or Camprodon in 1658.

Coming back to the miniatures, I re used the ECW painted minis,  added a commander, with black sash, It seems they wore black sashes and or plumes.

The miniature is from  Avanpost, painted in Foundry paints.

I also painted a standard bearer by Steve Barber miniatures, with the flag of the Rebel Tercio of Barcelona.

I downloaded the flag from this fantastic blog about XVI and XVII c. warfare: http://alabarda-pica-ymosquete.blogspot.com/2023/01/banderas-del-ejercito-franco-catalan-en.html

Cheers!

Yet another classic 80' Chaos Warrrior

 Hello guys,

I painted this Chaos warrior of Nurgle in December, but with the Christmas holydays and a trip and other real life stuff, I did`nt manage to update the blog until now, late January 2024...

What to expect from this blog in the near future ?

Well, I am painting now some III c. Romans and I have played several games of Warhammer Quest, so some miniatures of fantasy will come here in the near future, some Sassanids too, and of course, my beloved XVII century stuff like 30 Years War and 1670-90' miniatures for sure.

Coming back to our Chaos warrior, It is a 1980' miniature by Citadel , of course.

I used Vallejo paints, Goblin Green with ivory in a lot of consecutive highlights in a "Foundry triad" style painting. 

As I don't play Chaos, this miniature, along the previous post's Chaos Warriors, is for Warhammer Quest games.

I hope you like this tiny update.