Tercio de Zuñiga : Franco Dutch War & League of Augsburg War

 Hello guys,

Finally I managed to finish another unit for late XVIIc. wars, Tercio of the Duke of Bejar or Tercio of Zuñiga.

This unit , 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 and another one is well known, and depicted here with the unit. The flag was kindly made for me by Clarence Harrison, and he did a superb job, as you can expect from him.  Sometimes a similar flag design has been mistakenly attributed to Bavarian regiment Mercy, but August Kuhn failed when he assigned the flag to that Bavarian regiment (War of Spanish Succession).

Coming back to the miniatures, they are mostly a mixture of Northstar 1672 old and new ranges, with a lot of conversion work with plastic bits of Games Workshop (Empire), Warlord Games, Avanpost, and Front Rank. Also the flag bearer is from Warfare Miniatures, and the officer is a custom sculpted miniature.

This Tercio wore a natural wool grey uniform with red facings for years, but in the later part of the century changed its design and color for grey white and blue facings, as depicted here.

The Drummer wore a red coat with blue facings and white laces, with the Duchy of Bejar's blazon in the drum. 

I started this unit some years ago as an storming party, but I painted the rest of the miniatures and finished it as a full unit this january, the earlier post is in this blog with all the information here:

https://spanishleadpainting.blogspot.com/2020/12/28mm-storming-party-enfants-perdus-from.html

I hope you like it !

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

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!

3D printed 1/200 Spanish galley XVII c.

 Hello guys,

Here I am again with more galleys. This time a 3D printed galley from Henry Turner miniatures 1/600 galley, scaled down to 1/1200.  

I printed also some smaller fustas or galiots, just scaling it down even more the original file with Anycubic Workshop app for the future.

The model comes with its base, and lucky me, it was exactly the same size of my other galley's bases in metal, by Ark Royal miniatures.  The base was too thin to leave it as it comes, so I glued it to a piece of plastic of a similar thickness of my other metal bases.

I substituted the 3d printed resin mast with a metal wire, and attached the sail. I still prefer the metal models than the 3d printed models, but this are quite nice , detailed and cheap, although more modelling skills are required, the material is a little bit brittle and the process is messy and smelly.

I painted the model with the same paints and style (basecoat, wash, a couple of highlights) as the other metal galleys from Ark Royal miniatures. The flags are again from Minairons, excellen quality and historically accurate.

The rigging is simplest possible, made with broom bristles following this tutorial

http://leagueofaugsburg.blogspot.com/2021/07/much-requested-video-on-rigging-ships.html

·3D Printed galley next to metal galley from Ark Royal miniatures

I hope you like them!

Cheers

More Spanish war galleys 1/1200 for MAD FOR WAR

 Hi guys,

These days I`ve been painting more little XVII c. ships. I have added 2 more galleys  to my Spanish Mediterranean fleet, now I have 3 painted, and several more oared ships waiting in the painting queue, including a 3D printed galley as a test.

In just a week, I received a parcel from the UK with all the goodies from Ark Royal miniatures' ships, my order was: 5 medium and small galleons,  4 fustas (small galleys) and 2 lanternas/galeras capitanas or big galleys.  Barry Hilton also gifted me with a bergantin (very small galley) and a fireship. All very well detailed with no flash and clean sculpts 👍

all this plus their ratlines and masts with sails.

Coming back to my recently finished galleys, I tried to introduce subtle variations in colors, trying to keep as historically accurate as possible. Again I combined hand painted flags with paper flags from Minairons miniatures, I am pleased with the end result, given its small size. More soon!

The full "squadron" of galleys so far...

I hope you like them!