30 Year War Spanish Tercio’s Arrive At Empress Miniatures.
April 10, 2020 by avernos
Empress Miniatures put a some nice figures, in fact they put out a lot of really excellent figures, but what some people may not know is they also act as distributors for smaller manufacturers or in some cases foreign ones. This is the case with a range that they have added to their website this week of Spanish Tercio's for the 30 year war.
The figures themselves come from a Spanish company called 1898 Miniaturas the dream come true of Rafael Gómez and Javier Gómez ‘El Mercenario’, two brothers with a decades-long link to the world of miniatures that want to show their personal vision of the hobby.
Who have been sculpting some beautiful miniatures for a while now mostly concentrating on forgotten periods of their nation's past, such as the Cuban War of Independence and the Spanish-American War. At the end of last year, they released these figures moving away from the 1800s and into 1600s.
While relatively small this range allows you to build Spanish Tercios who were roundly celebrated as being the best professional soldiers of the time. In fact their use of combined arms in the Tercio was copied across Europe though few could match them on the battlefield. A variety of poses are available for the pikemen and there are both arquebusiers and musketeers.
It is the little touches that they didn't have to make but did anyway that I love. If you are gaming in this period then they could easily be used to dress a camp for games or you could find uses as markers depending on the system you are playing.
They have also sculpted a set of dead and wounded which I am always a fan of. Marking casualties with dice is okay, but seeing figures representing them is more visually striking on the tabletop. Or if you're playing a game that uses multibases, and I would expect most people to do just that, then they can be added to your bases to break up the untouched regimentation of the unit.
It's great to see these figures at Empress, because I would never have known of them without it and they are a joy to behold and hopefully a lot more people will now be able to get their hands on these miniatures. If you're interested in the periods then the brothers website contains information, histories and uniforms for their sculpts. While it is in Spanish google translate does a very good job to help monolingual idiots like me out.
What do you make of these sterling miniatures?
"It's great to see these figures at Empress, because I would never have known of them without it and they are a joy to behold and hopefully a lot more people will now be able to get their hands on these miniatures."
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"It is the little touches that they didn't have to make but did anyway that I love. "
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They are lovely minis, the two Tercios supporting each other while injured is great.
1898 also do a really nice Spanish American War range as well which is a bit of a different setting but also Cracking and worth a look
https://www.1898miniaturas.com/shop/en/12-cuba-28mm-miniatures
yea I spent a productive 30 minutes scrolling through their site
You can see by the site that they have a deep interest in the history of the periods they represent. I took a peek into the Wargame section and you get In-depth articles about the Spanish American conflict, the operations undertaken and even a roster of who fought when, why and where. There is a lot of research and work that they have added that goes beyond selling lovely minis. I like that.
A Tercio in 28mm is going to be huge
depends on the game 240mm wide for Black Powder, but then pretty much every unit is 240mm wide
I can see that but Tercio is 3000 men in a single unit
But they weren’t fielded as such. It’s like roman legions weren’t fielded as one massive 5000 man block
Fair point
Nice looking figures.
As someone who got into all this miniatures based shenanigans via Warhammer and The Old World, I have and will probably always have a real soft spot for 16th/17th European style Armies and miniatures. And the Spanish Tercios were legendary in their time – I was always surprised that they never got an official Warhammer equivalent. These models are a great looking example of the Tercios and I could easily see them rocking up in a Kings of War army
This is really exciting. Rafa and Javi are both such wonderful people too. Javier runs a company that publishes military history books and magazines so it’s no surprise to see such attention to historical detail in their work.
Spent the last couple of days going through everything they have and it’s a great read and have really enjoyed it. These are the sort of people I want to buy from over and over.
I really like the smooth paintjobs. Minis are sick!