More Civilians, Militias and Miquelets or XVII c. guerrilla mountain skirmishers. Part II

Hello guys,

following the first part: 

https://spanishleadpainting.blogspot.com/2025/12/coming-back-to-siege-of-gerona-1684.html

I have painted six new miniatures for this 17th century civilians and militia reinforcements for my 30 Years War project but also my late XVII c. projects like 1672, and siege of Gerona 1684.

For this, I used three miniatures from Bloody Miniatures, which I absolutely love. These are the first ones I’ve painted from a couple of dozen I own, and I’m very happy with the result. The idea is to use them as armed civilians or musketeers for the Thirty Years War.

I also converted an artilleryman from North Star 1672 to represent a night watchman, adding a plastic lantern or oil lamp.

Another miniature is a second friar (I painted another in December) from Perry Miniatures, originally from their Carlist Wars range and armed with a blunderbuss. However, it works perfectly well as a 17th-century friar.

Finally, this is a miguelete/miquelet, wearing the typical Catalan cap, the barretina. On his feet he wears alpargatas, traditional Spanish peasant footwear that has been used for centuries. The miniature was originally a guerrilla fighter from Perry Miniatures’ Napoleonic range, but I removed the anachronistic elements and replaced the sabre-armed hand with a metal, Northstar 1672 17th century musket. I also added a plastic Thirty Years War powder flask from a Warlord Games set.

For painting I used Foundry paints triads (Dark African flesh, Buff, Rawhide, Spearshaft, Forest Green) and Vallejo Model Color.  For  matt varnish I use Ultra matt from Greenstuff world which I recommend.

I also painted a small trench made of resin

I will add more of these, because I want a full second Miquelet unit using these Perry Guerrillas converted, as well as Bloody Miniatures.

Again all the unit so far.

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 !

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

Tercio Creativo miniatures showcase and review : French "30 Years War" fantasy miniatures.

 Hello guys,

A quick update on my XVII c. warbands.  This time I painted a couple of excellent "Tercio Creativo" sculpts, from his "Gallic usurpers" faction, aka French, with a slight fantasy look, but historical enough for me. My only complain is their scale, 32mm heroic scale, so a little bit bigger than my other miniatures from other manufacturers like Anno Domini 1666 (28mm small), Bloody Miniatures (28mm standard) or Bicorne (28mm mid to big).

The first one is a cuirassier with a curious helmet but historical as I could see in military museum of Paris, Les Invalides, some examples of these kind of helmets are in my previous post.

This cuirassier is over armoured, by mid XVII no cuirassier would be dressed with that amount of metal plates, but the miniature is nice, and his weapon is quite interesting, an Axe-pistol:

The painting was quite simple, just a dark metal colour, washed, drybrushed and with some simple edge highlight, it was fast, I did not want to spend hours with that dark armour, and I matt varnished it. The cloak is foundry blue, I am quite happy with its result as it looks smoothly painted and clean.

The other miniature is a conversion of a Tercio Creativo guard with French halberd. I cut his head, which was also a cuirassier head with a sunrise expression , and glued a metal head with a XVII c. cabasset in French or Dutch style , nicely done by Reiver Castings miniatures (Thanks to Rob Anderson who kindly donated a bunch of these).

I like the  Fleur de Lis on his chest cuirass that identify him as French. I painted his trousers in the same blue tone of the dismounted cuirassier's cloak, in order to give some cohesion to the warband.

With these two miniatures, I have a total of 3 Tercio Creativo French, and I plan to build a modified Mordheim warband or just play Donnybrook or Encamisada.

The third mini was painted a year ago or so, and is the leader of my French enfant perdús, from my Siege of Girona 1684.

I will add more miniatures from this brand, like a flag bearer, a sniper, a duelist... And from other brands maybe some common troops  maybe from Bloody Miniatures and Anno Domini 1666. The only problem with Anno Domini 1666 is that its miniatures are more realistically proportioned, and are more slim and less bulky, but otherwise fantastic sculpts like its King's Musketeers and Cardinal's Guard! 

Here you can see some unpainted examples

from left to right: Tercio Creativo, Bloody Miniaturd, Bloody Miniatures and Anno Domini 1666.

All these are Tercio Creativo miniatures, some of them very useful for XVIIc games.

conversion on the right

Battalion gun for Tercio Morados Viejos

 Hello friends,

I hope your summer is going great! After a week off, I came back home and finished an ad hoc base for a Tercio I painted some years ago... a battalion gun or "mansfelete" light gun of Tercio "Old Purples" or "Morados Viejos" for my Spanish army of 1670-90'.

I used an old Phoenix miniatures Spanish Musketeer, cut off his hands, musket etc, and replaced with GW plastic hands of artillery crew of the Empire great cannon! my Warhammer Empire bits box is extremely useful for all kind of medieval, renaissance or baroque miniature conversions.

The other artillery crew is a brand new Reiver Castings miniature from their nice Franco Dutch War range.

The battalion gun itself is a 15mm Napoleonic carriage with a 28mm gun from Blood & Plunder miniatures.

Both miniatures were painted with Foundry Paints and Vallejo, specially Royal Purple paint! 

And now the full unit:

Cheers!