Thirty Years War

My Miniatures Armies

Below are a few pictures of my Thirty Years War miniatures armies. This project is just underway. I only have a few units for each side painted so far. I am modeling the Catholic League and the Protestant Union from the early war - before the Swedish got involved. Once I finish that (and that could take a while) I might work on a Gustavian Swedish army to fight the League army at Breitenfeld.

I am painting a large number of 10mm figures. One of the great things about this period is the spectacle of large blocks of pike and shot. I wouldn't want to do the period without using a large number of figures to model the mass units. I am using Old Glory ECW figures for the infantry. They come in strips of 5 figures on a base. For the protestants, which aimed for a basic ratio of about 2 shot per pike, I use one strip of 5 pike surrounded by a strip of shot on each side. I am trying to model one rank of figures per two ranks of troops. For a normal ten rank unit that means 5 ranks of 15 figures, or 75 figures total. Actaully I have some firing figures in the front rank and the command strip so it will be a few less. The Catholic League tercios are truly huge. They ranged from 16 - 24 (or more) ranks. I'm sticking with 8 ranks of figures, with more pike than shot. I may adjust these numbers a little as I go, since some units were not as big as others and had different troop ratios.

Also, you might notice that my tercios do not have the older "bastions" - groups of shot set out on each corner. My reading of the evidence is that this formation was not used in the Thirty Years War - except possibly at White Mountain - the first major battle of the war. If you want to hear more about how I reach that conclusion write to me. One of my favorite sources is the excellent books by William Guthrie - Battles of the Thirty Years War (1618-1635) and The Later Thirty Years War: From the Battle of Wittstock to the Treaty of Westphalia.

Enough of my rambling, here are the pictures. Click on the thumbnails for a bigger image...blah, blah...

Protestant Union Regiment
protestant1 protestant2 protestant2
Catholic League Tercio
catholic1 catholic2 catholic31
Protestant Union Cavalry
catholic1 catholic2 catholic31
Confrontation
fight1 fight2 fight3  

See also my Renaissance Galleys

 

© 2004, David Stokes
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