28mm Lakhmid Arab cavalry (Sassanid allies) PART II END

 Hello guys!

Finally , since 2020, I managed to finish my Lakhmid cavalry for my Sassanid army.

Here you have the first post with the history and conversion process:

https://spanishleadpainting.blogspot.com/2020/05/28mm-conversions-lakhmid-arab-cavalry.html

The miniatures are a mixture of Gripping beast plastic Arab heavy cavalry,  Armorum & Aquila Sassanids horse archers in armor. I painted them mostly in Vallejo and Foundry paints in triads.

I started the painting process in early March, but an eyes operation prevented me to finish the unit until May!  I tried to use earthy and warm tones, like the illustration above, I also painted a couple of horse saddle with leopard skin like the noble warrior of the illustration.

The shields are A&A with Little big men studios decals from their Sassanid range.

The plastic horses are nice and pleasant to paint, also the plastic rider, which , in my opinion, is a good miniature compared with other plastic kits from Gripping Beast.

The unit is based for Impetus or Basic Impetus, like the rest of my late antiquity armies.

I hope you like them!

Cheers

XVII c Civilians: Knight of Calatrava

 Hello guys,

I am (slowly) painting some XVII civilians for different games set in 30 Years War, Lace Wars... And I started with a miniature from Anno Domini 1666, he is a Caballero de la Orden de Calatrava or Knight of Calatrava... This order was one of the four Spanish military orders and the first military order founded in Castile, in 1164 to fight against the Moors

After the fall of Granada in 1492,  the military spirit had long disappeared. The orders had, in fact, fallen into a state of utter inactivity.  The last attempt to employ the knights of the three orders for a military purpose was that of Philip IV, in quelling the rebellion of the Catalans (1640–50), but the orders restricted their efforts to the complete equipment of one regiment, which has since been known in the Spanish army as "The Regiment of the Orders".

This knight from small Spanish nobility can be a wealthy man who lead his men into battle, or a duellist or just a civilian who defend his town during a siege.

The painting was veeeeery easy , almost entirely black , I tried to emulate some new techniques of drybrushing with big soft brush, and then some speedpainting of edge highlights in grey, nothing too fancy, just a quick and easy miniature for the warband.

Flames of War: Panzer II "whitewashed"

 Hello guys!

It has been a long time since I last updated this blog... I had some health (eyes) issues, and thank God, everything is fine now, and I was able to finish some  painting projects I had unfinished, like a 1/35 model diorama (not gaming stuff) and some ancients in 28mm , as well as some Flames of War miniatures like these here.

This time I painted 3 Zvezda plastic 1/100 or 15mm Panzer IIs for my Stalingrad project.

The detail of these little tanks is decent and good enough for gaming purposes, and they are quite light and small.  I really enjoyed painting them in winter camouflage, with the white wash over the panzer grey paint.  

By late 1942 (and almost 1943) Panzer II were clearly outdated and outgunned by enemy tanks, but they were still useful as rear guard actions or airfield protection.  As I am buillding a small airfield , inspired in  Gumrak airport in Stalingrad, or something similar, with a 1/100 Junkers 52 in the airstrip... I wanted to have some Panzer II as the defense force against Soviet hordes in my games.

I used  Ammo Mig Chipping fluid over the panzergrey paint, and the white paint over this fluid... then just brushed on some water, and the white paint began to tear off or "chip".

Then I applied the usual weathering on the tanks as follows...

Gloss varnish, decals, more gloss varnish to protect all the previous work... filters, oil dots fading,  pin washes, chipping, dust & mud, and matt varnish!

I hope you like these small tanks!

ALL the units for the Siege of Girona 1684: so far and future!

 Hi guys!

While I am finishing a unit for my 30 Years War French army, I wanted to show to you the units I have made (and the ones I have thought) for my campaign in and around Gerona/Girona in 1684. 

Apart from generic armies for late XVII c. for both sides, I wanted to paint specifically produced units or leaders for the campaign

So here is the preliminary list :

Spanish:

-Hero: Alexander Bournonville, Viceroy of Catalonia and chief of all the Spanish forces.

no miniature selected... yet.

-Hero: Carlos de Sucre, Governor of Gerona

-Hero: General de Artilleria Juan Domingo Pignatelli, commander of the garrison of the city.

-Unit: Tercio de Gerona 

Work in progress...

-Unit: Militia and gun

-Unit: "Paisanos" or civilian mob

NOT PAINTED YET

-Unit: Migueletes

-Unit: night fighters:

NOT  PAINTED YET

-Unit: company of priests:

NOT  PAINTED YET

-Powder cart... if hit, Kaboom!

French:

-Hero: Field Marshall Bellefonds, commander of the army of Rousillon

-Hero: Captain Jacques Sauvage (fictional), leader of enfants perdús

-Hero: French commander of siege artillery

-Unit: Petard Assault team

-Unit: Enfants Perdús, armored and grenadiers

-Unit: Regiment Konigsmarck (ex Furstemberg, elite German infantry in French service)

NOT  PAINTED YET

-Unit: converged grenadiers

-Ammunition storage: 

Work in progress

-Several other foot and horse regiments I already have painted in the past.

Generic:

-Siege workers

NOT  PAINTED YET

-siege position

-Terrain (generic)

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