Revisiting my TYW collection

Les grands embrasements naissent de petites étincelles. (Infernos always starts from a small spark)

Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, Cardinal de Richelieu, Testaments politiques

The astute reader might have notice a lack of new painting recently on this blog; I've been plagued by a provincial healthcare reorganisation (work) and a water leak (home) which have drained most of my time. The water leak in turn became a complete bathroom renovation, with all the lovely activities it entails (who in their right mind doesn't love to go ceramic shopping?!). The living room, where my painting desk is located, also has suffered and will soon have a new ceiling and new painted walls. The desk has disappeared for the moment and all paints and brushes put in boxes. And all of this knowing we will probably move in a matter of months. Good times...

Anyways, this create lack of painting time, as well as lack of painting space. And I know you wargamer lot are a fickle bunch who will quickly forget about my blog if I don't regularly feed your insatiable appetite for miniature porn. Y'all make me sick! ;-)

So yeah, a good moment as any to revisit my Thirty Years' War Imperialists army, painted 5 years ago (man time flies by!). It was build not really as a gaming project, but rather as a display project, based on the Lützen battle. I just really love the era and the look of the regiments. And those flags! I have the figures needed for their Swedish adversaries. One day...

Anyways I recently photographed the army for a project, and I figured this might be of interest to some of you. First because the pictures are much better than my old ones and second because I'm sure many of you never visited my old site. And third, that porn addiction I talked about earlier...

So let's start today with the first Thirty Year War regiments I painted, possibly still today my favourite, the Comargo Regiment.

The Comargo regiment was a Catholic League veteran regiments. Raised in 1619, it performed admirably well at Lützen, largely responsible for the destruction of the crack Old Blue brigade of the Swedish army.

As far as uniforms are concerned, I had no information on this regiment, other than the fact it seems it was once issued blue coats, long before Lützen. Since they are my only Catholic league infantry unit, I went with a pale blue coat; pale blue being the colour of Bavaria, main patron of the Catholic League. I of course mixed other colours in there to get a semi-uniformed look. However, I restricted my palette to a few shades of browns (often the same brown tone but lighter or darker) and greys in order to get a imho better look. The socks and sashes are mostly red, a favourite of the Bavarians and Imperialists it seems. And I used my love of bright colours on the bows, a joy to paint. Yes, I'm aware many gamers picture the period more dark and less bright, but I stayed true to myself and my style of painting.

The unit is made-up entirely of figures from the TYW and ECW Foundry range, except from one injured figure from Warlord games. Purists will probably tell me there are some historical innacuracies (later ECW dress being slightly different from continental fashions of the 1630s), but it's well within the acceptable for me. 

Oberst Theodor Comargo and his drummer Hans Boehm 

The flags are from a unknown catholic league regiment, as far as I could tell there is no info on Comargo's colours at Lützen, so I just went with flags I liked. 

Hope you liked the trip down memory lane, another foot regiment coming next week!