Thirty Years War – 2mm Imperial formations

Following on from my last post, I thought I’d set out how I’ve been getting on with painting the 2mm battalions, batteries and squadrons for the Thirty Years War.

Searching around on the internet, I found a number of very useful guides to painting 2mm figures. Quite a lot of these focused on dry-brushing or washing the figure blocks. I’ve tried something a little different, which is more of a selective “impression” of how the massed troop formations would have looked. 

Taking as my guide the paintings (of Pieter Snayers and Sebastian Vrancx, mentioned last time), I have tried to et he impression of a lot of troops, keeping the contrasts – between black shade and highlight – very pronounced.

I kept with a solid black undercoat for all of the figure blocks, touching up the undercoat where my frost/ snow groundwork had strayed onto the figures. It’s almost impossible to dry-brush the groundwork in this scale precisely, so I found some degree of going over the figures with a second, selective undercoat after the groundwork was painted in snow/frosty tones to be essential.

I added a few 2mm scaled flags to some of the pike blocks. This was mainly a bit of an experiment, and to just vary up the pike blocks a little. I cut the flags from the thin foil of a wine bottle – a reasonably decent Rioja, for that Spanish/Imperial feel, if you’re curious! 

After cutting the flags, I glued each of them with epoxy resin to the back of the pike blocks. Probably a little unrealistic, as I think the flags were often, for the Imperials, carried in the centre of the pike block, but they add a bit of depth and colour when painted. You don’t need much glue – just enough to fix the flag on. If you choose foil, you can bend the flag to fit or fold with tweezers later.

For painting I chose a neutral palette. I’ll post the paints in a “2mm Painting Table” in the Resources side-bar of this blog shortly, but generally what I was looking for was a contrasting set of grey, brown and deep red. I added the occasional lighter ochre for cavalry buff-coats, and some deeper dark grey occasionally for the odd pikeman. Again, I was trying to replicate the Snayers and Vrancx paintings, and trying to get a feel for the look of a massed army. I tried to paint a face on most of the figures with a tiny drop of medium flesh, and added a grey or brown hat (or hair) covering on the infantry. For the cavalry, I’ve added a dab of dark gunmetal for a helmet (the more authentic blackened armour I want to save for the Imperial cuirassier regiments).

The 2mm infantry blocks are a little fiddly to even see the heads on all the figures to paint the face and hat on, but look nice once done. By contrast, the cavalry are lovely (if tiny) figures. Painting the horses, and then the riders, was the way I tackled the dense blocks of Imperial pistoleers.

The last stage was to add the silver for the pike points, and then a fine brush to try and approximate some details for the Imperial standards, I struggled to do anything more than a Hapsburg crossed wood staves, stripes or an Imperial eagle on yellow. Any thought of an elaborate Virgin Mary of the Catholic League is going to be just impossible in this scale. Stick to 28mm for that kind of thing!

A thin coat of varnish on the top, and you’re done. Each block takes about 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how far one wants to detail the figures and their flags. One of the nice things about the scale is having a feel of assembling a force without trying too hard. Oh, and storage. Storage is pretty easy as well …

Next time, I’ll be tackling the Imperial cavalry, some cuirassier regiments and Croats. After that, I’ll be doing the artillery, the Swedes, and then some terrain for a re-fight of the battle of Lützen, 1632 in early June. 

Thanks very much to everyone who has comments or been intrigued so far! I hope you can join me as I blog the run up to the game; I’ll be blogging more on the rules and a mini-campaign as the big day approaches.

Easter Project 2016 - The Thirty Years War in 2mm

I’m not much of a philosopher. My “Seventeen Secrets of Happy Wargaming” and the “Book of Wargaming Mindfulness” are never likely to be best-sellers. But in my view, one of the secrets of a great wargame is where there is a really good interaction and blend of figure scale, history and rules. These are games when the ideas behind the rules, or the rule-writer’s purpose, is reinforced by the figure scale chosen.

Keep that rambling thought in mind, dear readers, while I tell you about a project I’ve wanted to work on for some time. I’ve always been very interested in the Thirty Years War between 1618-1648. It’s a turbulent, violent, battle-strewn period of European history with some memorable and dramatic commanders. Some of the key engagements are huge, iconic battles which rattle like a drum roll through the 17th Century – Lützen, Brietenfeld, Rocroi, Lutter am Bamberg, Jankau and Nordlingen. 

 
It’s also a fascinating period of military transition, both tactically and strategically. We have fascinating tactical differences between the opposing forces – the different battle-drills of the Swedish, German and Dutch Schools; caracoling pistol-armed reiters against looser, more aggressive cavalry formations; the decline of deeper ranked Spanish Tercios against smaller, more manoeuvrable French and Swedish battalions. The commanders include some of the Great Captains of history: Tilly, Gustavus Adophus, Turenne, Wallenstein, the Cardinal Infante, Pappenheim, the Great Condé, often with characteristics which are dramatic, colourful, occasionally terrifying and often mercurial. 

And for those interested in how armies were raised and sustained, this is the age of the military enterpriser in all his guises - looter, mercenary, entrepreneur, proto-capitalist, and (infrequently) loyal subject.

It’s a fantastically rich, vivid period. Perfect for wargaming. Which leads back to my question – where to get started?

I’m enjoying 25/28mm wargaming at present – gaming when I can (sadly not often), and painting when possible (a bit more frequently than last year).  As some of you might know, I've been doing quite a bit of 28mm painting since New Year as part of Curt's Sixth Painting Challenge.  This has just finished (thanks again, Curt!) and while I want to keep painting my late seventeenth century armies, I really don’t want to start another period in 28mm.  The time it would take me collect armies for the Thirty Years War would mean that I’d risk losing interest before I finally have enough troops for a game.

I did think seriously about 10mm for a while. There are some amazing 10mm pike & shot armies out there, painted by hands far more skilful and patient than mine. Although I love the Pendraken figures for the period, my brushwork on 10mm figures seems to take me almost as long as painting 15mm figures does. And to have the kind of scale I’m looking for, I would have to do a great deal of painting in 10mm (which, being honest, I would prefer to spend on painting 25mm figures).

That leaves me with 6mm – or with 2mm. I am sure that 6mm would work well for what I have in mind, although there is one problem. I like to see pike-blocks with straight wire pikes. And my experiences with many 6mm pikemen is that their cast-on pikes can bend, sometimes looking a little spaghetti-like. It’s simple enough to drill out a dozen of the pikes and replace with wire, but try doing that with hundreds….? Not very appealing. So, I’m left with 2mm.

And the more I’ve thought about the 2mm-scale for the Thirty Years War, the more I’ve wondered if this actually might be a perfect scale for the period. Here’s some of the thoughts I had when deciding to give this most micro of scales a try for the period:

• I want to capture the “look” of a Thirty Years War battlefield. My target in this respect is the wonderful “battle paintings” of Sebastian Vrancx and his pupil, Pieter Snayers. In these painting, which were very much in vogue in the 1630s and 1640s, the battlefield is laid out before the viewer. Units are clearly seen, and their formations, but individual details are often sketched in. The impression is of the formations in the field, not of individual soldiers. This is definitely the image I want to create for a tabletop game.

• I also love the black and white prints of battles in books such as Theatrum Europaenum. These are works of art in themselves, depicting the actions fought, and stylising the combatants on the field.

• I want to be able to collect armies quickly. I’d like an alternative to spending 30 minutes or more on a single figure, and I would welcome the feel of painting a full unit at a time. The scale and affordability of 2mm armies make this aim a real possibility.

• I’d also like to see what I can do with the tiny 2mm blocks. Ian Kay and the great team at Irregular Miniatures have been producing these miniatures for decades, but I’ve not often seen them on the table at a wargames club. Is that because they’re too small? Or have they been overshadowed (literally, and metaphorically) by their larger (and equally lovely) 6mm cousins? I’d like to try and give the 2mm fellows a chance on my wargaming table to find out. 

• For a long time I’ve wanted to create a dedicated winter terrain landscape, complete with frosted snowy fields, frozen rivers, snow-bound towns, and silent winter woods. The painting below by Pieter Snayers is very much the scene I’d like to try and create. I’ve seen a few such tables around the shows, and I want to try and create one myself. 2mm terrain seems as good a place to start and do this on a grand scale. When I painted up a few test figures last year on verdant grassy bases, the details of the 2mm figures were a little lost. With a plain light grey, frosted, snow covered base for 2mm figures, I’m hoping the details of the 2mm figures might “pop” a little more (or at least as far as a 2mm unit can “pop”).

• Like so many of you, part of the joy of the hobby comes from recreating historical tactics in miniature. Creating 2mm armies gives me the chance to test out Spanish tercios against Swedish brigades, allows me to add commanded musketeers into the line, and lets me deploy multiple lines of infantry and horse on each side (as at Lützen, Rocroi and many other battles). I’d like to focus on tactical contrasts, and far less on company formations. If I was to try building armies on this scale in 28mm, I’d never finish all the troop types, and even if I did the table would need to be huge and the game would last days. In 2mm, I can create a couple of armies, and test out the tactics on a table of manageable size.

• Finally, “always stand in the shoes of Giants”. It’s a great motto, and it works for wargaming as well as any other activity. In 2mm, there are already two great pioneers of the scale for all kinds of super-campaigns. If you don’t already know Kieran (from “Do You Have a Flag”) and Ed (from “Colonel Scipio’s Paladian Guard”), you should do. Ed and Kieran have staged many wonderful Super-Campaigns, one of which was set in the English Civil War. Ed has also been incredibly generous in providing me with a host of great information on 2mm campaigning, showing the way forward and inspiring me.

So, with these thoughts in mind, I’ve invested in some Irregular Miniature armies, some 2mm MDF bases and I’ve already started on basing and painting the Imperialists. Here’s the first results, with hopefully more to following over the Easter break. 

I’m hoping you’ll join me for a short series of blog posts about how I get on, from painting to terrain making, from rules development to the actual games themselves. 

And, if anyone has walked the dusty, or ice-bound, 2mm roads of Thirty Years War Germany themselves, be sure to let me know in the comments or by email. I’d love to hear your stories.

Roundwood Recommends Number 4: "Wargames Illustrated Paints"

I've been enjoying a consistent run with the paint brushes this January, trying to spend at least 15 minutes each day painting up some late 17th Century figures as part of my “new” (actually older and now resurrected) wargaming period. Lots of things have helped me achieve of a rare purple patch of painting consistency.

Remembering each evening to sit down and pick up a paintbrush when getting home from work has helped a lot. The more I’ve done, the more I’ve wanted to do – regular painting creating a bit of a momentum as I see the results very slowly building up over time.

Curt’s Painting Challenge has really helped, sharing the experience of winter painting with a great collection of other hobbyists, painters and wargamers throughout the world.

And also, I’ve been reading painting guides. I blogged about “Painting Wargames Figures”, a great little book from Javier Gomez, “El Mercenario” last Autumn, which I find really useful. This post, I’d like to recommend “Wargames Illustrated Paints”, a super little magazine supplement from the publisher of Wargames Illustrated, and available from North Star Miniatures and from some newsagents in the UK such as W.H. Smiths.

Written by the very talented Matt Parkes and Dave Taylor, “Wargames Illustrated Paints” takes the reader through a complete guide to painting wargames figures. At 74 pages, it’s a shorter publication than “Painting Wargames Figures”, but it covers everything you could really want from a painting guide. Preparation, undercoating, basic techniques, and face and skin painting are all covered before Matt and Dave move offer some very interesting sections dealing with more advanced techniques.

There is an exceptionally good, but quite advanced, section on painting different fabric textures. The section on painting faces is excellent, giving several different methods of painting skin textures and features such as scars, freckles and black eyes! There's a lovely section on painting wood, which I have never seen addressed before in such detail, or so well.  And there’s a great section on metallic, illustrated with the example of a plate armored nobleman, which includes a stunning black-plate decorated Tudor armour painting guide. Sections on horses (always useful) and bring end up the booklet, each of which gives some very useful advice.

“Wargames Illustrated Paints” is very well illustrated in colour throughout, with lots of photographs and sidebar sections setting out “how to” guides. I would have added more images to this blog post, but as the publication is only short I didn’t want to “give the game away” or infringe copyright. 

 
Therefore, I’d simply say that “Wargames Illustrated Paints” is an excellent booklet, full of sound advice for all wargames painters. I think that the booklet is more focused on the intermediate, improving, or experienced painter than the total beginner, with some of the techniques being quite advanced. However, for anyone having painted a couple of dozen figures and who wants to improve their brushmanship or brushwomanship, it should definitely have a place on your bookshelf.

One of the best things about the booklet is that it is also very reasonably priced – only £5.95 in the UK, and in my view worth every penny. I’ve been using it on a near-daily basis to try and refine my painting techniques, and I’ve really had fun try to recreate some of Matt and Dave’s effects. If you fancy doing the same, give “Wargames Illustrated Paints” a try, with my firm recommendation!

Curt's Painting Challenge - Themed Entry No.2 "The Artist Chance Card"

The second of Curt’s “Themed Rounds” in the Analogue Hobbies Sixth Painting Challenge is entitled “Epic Fail”. You may already have seen the wonderful entries HERE, on the Painting Challenge blog, and I am sure you will agree that the Challenge's participants have been incredibly inventive in what they’ve come up with.

I wanted to try and follow not only Curt’s theme of “Epic Fail”, but also make my second themed entry consistent with the first one I posted a couple of weeks ago. Here’s what I came up with … which is somewhat of a tribute to the vicissitudes of the Chance Card in wargaming.

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"Chance Card #20: One of your regiments is delayed arriving in the field owing to their commander's portrait being painted by the famous artist, Laarden van Rijn.”

I've always loved introducing "Chance Cards" into my wargames. I think this is some deep-rooted memory from avidly reading Donald Featherstone's "Wargames Campaigns" and "Solo Wargaming" when I was a teenager. I loved the way that Chance Cards can dislocate even the best laid plans. A few years ago, we fought a seventeenth century battle and I added a Chance Card to the deck which forced one side to have a unit delayed reaching the battlefield as a result of the commander having his portrait painted by the famous Flemish painter, Laarden Van Rijn (a lesser known brushman than his more illustrious Dutch cousin).

I liked that card. It wasn't game breaking. It was a bit of fun. And it was clearly an “epic fail” in keeping with Curt’s theme, albeit quite in character for the "professionalism" of some historic Flemish commanders of the seventeenth century.

So, for this themed round, I planned on bringing that Chance Card to life.

We have the local civic militia, delayed in the Grote Markt while Mijnheer van Rijn prepares to paint his masterpiece. The cobblestones match the basing of the first Themed Round, and yes - the chickens pecking around the base of the statue of the Satyr have spread to this entry as well, clucking around the soldiers as they pose dramatically for the paintbrush. 

As befits a local militia, the soldiers have every variety of arms and armour, from classical helmets to flintlocks, from matchlocks and the Twelve Apostles to Flemish steel rapiers. Some are dressed in sober grey, others less conservatively.  And one, in the front rank, is dressed in a frankly gaudy costume – perhaps an ambitious younger son of a Flemish nobleman, out to impress his fellow citizens.

As for the inspiration, well I am sure you might have guessed that it is Rembrandt van Rijn’s incredible painting of “The Nightwatch”, featuring Captain Banning Cocq’s militia company passing out of the Amsterdam city walls in the 1650s. 

My late seventeenth century figures are too late to match Rembrandt’s, but I tried to capture the essence of movement and chaos in Rembrandt's incredible masterpiece. A jumble of soldiers, armed with all types of weapons, some carrying out the mechanisms of foot, some obviously preening in their flashy bright buff or red jackets.

Nothing I could do with a paintbrush could ever remotely rival Rembrandt, so I didn’t try. I did think of creating a tiny photo-shop version of Rembrandt's "The Nightwatch" on Laarden van Rijn’s easel, but I decided the barely-started sketch he's drawn is more in keeping with the theme of “Epic Fail”!

As I wanted to try and recreate a mixture of colours, I also did a plan of which figures were wearing what. This was pretty simple to do, but helped me a lot to keep track of the 12 different figures as I painted them last week.

The cobblestones are made from brass etch, available from Scalelink. They’re a little pricey, but arrived very quickly by post and are a lovely representation of North European paving. You can see paving like this in any Flemish of Dutch town. The figures are Wargames Foundry and Dixons, and the wonderful chickens are from Warbases. Laarden van Rijn, a Wargames Foundry figure, started life as a sedan chair passenger, but only last week did I find a perfect use for him. 

 
The flag is hand painted, and I thought that the Pelican (slightly comical, avaricious, but quite vicious when roused) would be a perfect civic symbol for this imaginary Flemish town in the final Indian summer of the Spanish Netherlands in the 1680s.  I love the flags being produced by various companies (such as GMB and Flags of War) at the moment, and they certainly save time. However, they sometimes are (to my mind) a little on the small side for what I want flying alongside my foot regiments.

I like making my own flags out of artist’s paper, and then gluing the two sides of the flag together (using Araldite expoy resin) and then folding the flag into shape before dry. A wash with PVA then seals the flag, making it robust enough for the wargames table and ready for undercoating and painting. The results are never as perfect as laser printing, but you do get the size of flag you want. And of course, if the flag is conjectural, or simply downright made up, you’re in a good place, rather than having to persuade the good people at GMB that “ ... there’s a flag I would really like, can you please help ..?” ! 

I scratch-built the easel and the pot of brushes which van Rijn is leaning for as he starts the painting. I didn't need to add much conversion work to the soldiers, but I did add a few greenstuff feathers and created the militia Captain’s ceremonial civic goblet (which came out more like a vase, if I’m honest!) from modelling putty.

 

I liked the idea of recurring themes and echoes running through the themed rounds.  Perhaps there'll be more chickens, discarded hats, pelicans and cobblestones in later submissions!  And who knows, perhaps that gaudily dressed nobleman's younger son might also re-appear ... 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

After a quiet 2015 on this blog, I’m hoping to offer you all a little bit more in 2016. No hugely ambitious plans (I’ve been there before!), but hopefully some more regular blogging.

After a long period of time wargaming the First World War (almost to the exclusion of other periods), one of the decisions I made in late Autumn last year was to move on to a different period for building up armies and terrain. I say “different” as the period is not really new to me – it’s more a case of returning to one of the periods of my wargaming roots, namely the late seventeenth century in Flanders, France and Germany.

With this in mind, I’ve had fun digging out units and figures over the past month or so, becoming reunited with some battalions I had forgotten about, and re-discovering a seventeenth century lead mountain which has not been added to since 2007!

Getting “back into” a wargaming period is also, I’ve found, a slightly strange experience.

I’ve found a couple of hundred unpainted figures, some old notebooks containing a half-finished campaign, lots of ideas written own and even a set of rules I had written and used just a couple of times.  A bit like walking into a house with the furniture covered in dust-sheets.  Everything is exactly where you left it – good memories, half-finished projects, jewels-in-the-crown, warts and all. 

Looking through what I have for the period is as if everything came to an abrupt stop in 2008, and was simply put away (which is pretty near the truth, as I moved onto other periods).

Picking up the reins again and taking stock of an old period is an interesting process. My main thoughts are - “how can I do it differently this time around”.  More to come on this in due course.

Alongside this transition (from an old period to a newer old period), there’s also the excitement of Curt’s Sixth Painting Challenge. Here’s my first entry, which Curt has entitled “The Satyr”, and is the for the "Nostalgia" themed-round. It looks back to the wonderful times of the 1980s and the “Talisman” board game, but you’ll perhaps also spot just a few hints of the seventeenth century creeping in …

The Analogue Hobbies Sixth Painting Challenge

For the past three years, this time of year has always been a little frantic. Christmas shopping? Last minute work panic?  Getting Roundwood Towers ready for the arrival of the In-Laws, friends and family guests? Yes, all of those, but also the start of Curt’s Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. 

And this year is no exception, with the Sixth Painting Challenge beginning yesterday at 6am in the UK, and already producing some very fine submissions.

 
I’ve been enormously privileged to take part in the Challenge in 2013 and 2014, and I’ve signed up again this year.  It’s one of the hobby activities which I do which has a real sense of community. This year, there are 88 painters in the Challenge – and between us we cover the globe, and paint wargaming figures of every type, period, shape and size. It’s a truly international challenge, made even more wonderful by the fact that the real winner is the hobby, our gaming friends, and our beloved wargaming and painting community.

My Challenge last year was heart-felt but not very successful, as I really failed to get going as a result of all kinds of things (nothing serious, just family and work - no doubt a story so many of you can relate to).  This year, I’m a little bit nervous as a result, reducing my targeted points total to 500 points over three months – which for me is pretty challenging. But, with a fair breeze behind me, and some application of will, I feel I can make it.

I also love Curt's theme - of risk takers, daredevils and gamblers...

I’ll be painting for a new period, and a new army, completely different to anything on my blog so far - but actually a period which I know fairly well and which goes back to my wargaming youth.  Here's just a small hint, with hopefully a lot more to come:

I’m very excited. The figures are prepared and (mostly) undercoated. My Christmas holidays are almost here. And I have the company of some of the finest hobbyists one could ever meet for the Challenge.  

So here’s to the Sixth Painting Challenge.  The die is cast! Good luck everyone!