The Eighty Years War

Why do I start this project with an inbox review? Because there doesn’t exist one yet! I looked for a review of this box on the internet before buying it and couldn’t find one anywhere. So here it is: the worlds very first review of the War of Religion Infantry Regiment from Warlord Games:

One of the miniatures is an ensign who carries a flag. Warlord Games provided these seven flags:

• France: white flag with yellow fleurs de lis
• Burgundy cross (also: ragged cross, Saint Andrews cross): the flag of Spain. Also used by the Holy Roman Empire (= Germany). This is the flag I will use for my Spaniards.
• Flag of Malta with Saint Elena. Perfect if you want to replay the siege of Malta.
• House of Sforza: The dukes of Milan. I had never heard of them. ?
• Cross of Saint George: the English flag.
• The double headed Eagle of the Holy Roman Empire.
• The same eagle with a crown.

Let’s move on to the miniatures. There are 24 in the box:

• 12 pikemen
• 8 arquebusiers
• 1 officer
• 1 ensign
• 1 drummer
• 1 flutist

No bases? No, my box came without any bases. The box and the website say they are supposed to be in the box. Someone forgot, I suppose. Ah well, I was planning to put them all on different bases anyway. I’ll use round 25mm bases for this project.

Style and historical accuracy

The overall look of the miniatures captures the time period well (1570-1600). Some pikemen still remind of landsknechts, who were disappearing in that period but not entirely gone yet. The miniatures are nicely sculpted.

If we are very critical: I miss feathers. Soldiers used to put feathers on their hats or helmets in the colour of the army in which they served. In this set only the officer and the flutist have a feather on their headgear. Almost all miniatures wear a sash: only officers and non commissioned officers whore those. In this box only the officer and ensign (also an officer) should have a sash. Admittedly, these are details in wat is a very nice set of miniatures.

The pikes

At first I didn’t know how to put the pikes in the hands of the pikemen. Are you supposed to cut them in two? Then glue both halves to the hand? This won’t result in a straight pike. And there will be very little surface to glue the pike halfes to the hand.

No, that’s not how to do it. You drill a whole through the fist of the pikeman. I drilled a tiny whole first with my finest drill. This very fine whole then guides the bigger drill. This is the result:

Conclusion

This is a very nice set of miniatures. Recommend.

Continuing with the reviews, I also bought the armoured swordsmen from Warlord Games. They come in a blister with eight miniatures. Four different sculpts, two of each. Three of the sculpts come with a sperate sword arm. I’ve tried to attach the arm of one sulpt to another sculpt: that didn’t look good. You have to use the right sword arm with the right miniature. The shields come separately as well.

Style and historical accuracy

The miniatures look good and each sculpt wears slightly different armour and a different helmet. Just like the box with the War of Religion Infantry Regiment: still no feathers on the helmets! But no more sashes.

Don’t worry: in my next update there will finally be painted miniatures!

And here they are! My first soldiers of this project. Following the images in the Osprey books on the Dutch army during the eighty years war, I’ve painted the armour black, the clothes blue and the feather and slash of the captain orange. This will be my colour scheme for the Dutch for this project.

I’ve tried to paint the captain in “black and white armour”. This means most of the armour is blackened, but some parts aren’t, mostly on the edges. This is a more expensive type of armour. On this webpage you can find photo’s of black and white armour: http://www.ageofarmour.com/blackwhite.html

And here they are: my first Spanish soldiers! Yes, except for the ensign, they are the same miniatures as the Dutch ones painted differently. This will often happen in this project.

The colour scheme:

• Shiny metallic helmets and armour
• Red sashes and feathers
• Red and different browns for the clothes. Some black here and there too.

The time of year

The basing materials I ordered a while ago, have arrived. This lets me finish the bases for both the Spanish and the Dutch. The Spanish bases reflect spring: bright green grass, flowers, rim in bright green.

The Dutch bases reflect autumn: mixture of dark green and brown grass, fallen leaves, dark brown rim.

On a convention in Antwerp last year, I bought these two miniatures from Brother Vinni. Brother Vinni has a small range of historical miniatures from the 16^th century. He calls his Spaniards “Iberians”. The woman with the skulls on the base, is probably meant for fantasy games. The style of her clothes fits in well in the 16^th century though.

For some reason I wanted to give the man a blackened helmet. Either he bought a more expensive helmet then the other Spanish soldiers or he got it form a Dutch soldier he killed.

On this photo you see the swordsman from Brother Vinni beside a miniature from Warlord Games. Brother Vinni’s miniature is taller. The miniatures from Warlord Games are exactly 28 mm from the ground to the eyes. The ones from Brother Vinny are closer to 32mm. Ah well, in the real world people don’t all have the exact same height either and they are very nice models. The difference in size is less evident after painting them, then when unpainted.

The box Wars of Religion infantry from Warlord Games came with twelve pikeman: ten armoured and two unarmoured. I have no idea why Warlord Games decided to put two unarmoured ones in there, but here they are along with the drummer:

And I have painted all my 16^th century miniatures! Now I’ve got to wait until my new miniatures reach my mailbox. ?

Finally! New miniatures begin to reach my mailbox! I had nothing to paint for weeks. ☹

This is a set of four miniatures Warlord Games released last year named “Knights Hospitaller” (also know als the Knights of Malta and the Knights of Saint John). They were designed to replay the Siege of Malta. I will add them to my Spanish and Dutch forces.

Each miniature is armoured and armed differently:

• Pike
• Harquebus
• Twohanded sword
• Sword and shield.

The last one wears a tabard with a cross on the front and back. Not sure what to do with this one yet. It’s the wrong cross for the Spaniards (the Burgundy cross has diagonal lines). The Dutch didn’t use crosses as their symbol.

This blister comes without bases.

Painted miniatures! Al last! The first cavalry unit in this project and the first cavalry I’ve painted in… ten years? Must be about that long ago when I was painting my Bretonians.

This is another release from Warlord Games from last year. Warlord Games calls them “Gendarmes”. The flag is from Flags of War.

New infantry for the Dutch. The arquebusier with a feather on his helmet and the armoured soldier with twohanded sword are from the Hospitaler set I reviewed earlier.

The flag is from  Flags of War. They have a large range of Dutch flags for the Eighty Years War. These flags are bigger and a little to big for these miniatures, but I’ve put one on anyway.

More pikemen. Together with those I painted earlier, they are another complete unit. The one with the blue and white stripes looked draws so much attention, I made him another ensign. The flag is once again from Flags of War. I’ve got a lot of Dutch flags from them. ?

Two pikemen are from Warlord Games Armoured Pikemen box. They are 17^th century pikemen, but fit in well with the late 16^th century ones, I think. I will mix in more of these among my Spanish pikemen.

I’ve got to miss my ussual camera for the moment, so the photo doesn’t look great.

It’s been a month since my last update: I must have been working on a cavalry unit.

Walloon mercenaries are often mentioned in the literature as part of the Spanish army in the Eighty Years War. They are always described and depicted in paintings as dressed in red. Some of the Walloon mercenaries were light cavalry. I gave them black helmets to look a little different from the Spanish troops.

The cavalry miniatures have a large 40mm round base, which gives more space to decorate the bases. I added tree stumps from Kromlech, some lichen and off course the flowers I’ve already used on my other Spanish miniatures.

The miniatures are mounted arquebusiers from Warlord Games. One of their releases from last year. The flag is once again from Flags of War.

The captain in command of my Spanish force is a miniature from Zenit Miniatures. The hospital knight came as part of a group of miniatures I bought. It doesn’t fit in this war, but since I had the miniature I painted it and added it to the Spanish force.

There are three different sculpts of the cuirassiers. A fourth sculpt for the musician.

The right arms off all the miniatures comes separately, allowing you to arm them defiantly.

• 6 swords
• 6 pistols
• 2 war hammers
• 1 pistol held by the barrel as a club.
• 1 lance / flagpole

For completeness: 4 clusters of feathers (I may be missing one)

The leaflet contains:

• a short description of cuirassiers
• the statistics of the unit for use in Pike and Shotte from Warlord Games
• flags from the Thirty Years War and English Civil War.

Historical accuracy

These miniatures look like a good representation of cuirassiers to me. Warlord Games sees them as seventeenth century cavalry. While this is correct, cuirassiers looking like this, appeared much sooner. The served in the Dutch army of the Eighty Years War as early as the 1570’s. This type of cavalry must have served in the Spanish army of the Low Countries as well.

At last the Dutch receive cavalry! Warlord Games lets you arm them with swords, pistols or hammers. I’ve used a combination of all these since cuirassiers made use of all three these weapons.

I painted them in black armour as was customary. They were sometimes called “Schwarze Reiter” in German, meaning “Black Riders”.

Flags of War doesn’t have any Dutch cavalry flags, so I took one of their infantry flags and cut it to the right size and shape for a cavalry flag.