Swedish brigade

Today marks the 383rd anniversary of the battle of Lützen and the death of two of the great commanders of the Thirty Years' War: Gustav II Adolf and the Count of Pappenheim. I used this as an excuse to paint up some Swedish infantry.

The Swedish brigade in "marching order" with ensigns and commanders up front

The unit represents the Swedish Brigade - the only infantry unit at Lützen composed of only native Swedes (including Finns). The pikemen are in the traditional wedge formation with sleeves of shot on either side and a reserve of shot in the middle. I added two light artillery pieces to represent the brigade's regimental guns. The Swedish formation had the advantage of versatility and a larger amount of firepower than Imperial infantry formations had. However, the formation was somewhat complex, and required a fair amount of drill to work.

Contemporary woodcut of a Swedish brigade (subject to artistic licence)

A drawing from a tactical manual of the period (musketeers in blue) - this brigade has a fourth squadron in reserve

The unit in "battle order", with the command now safely behind the firing line

Brigade in "hedgehog" to repel cavalry

Swedish brigade facing off against an Imperial tercio

Wallenstein infantry regiment

This week I was inspired to continue my Thirty Years' War project by painting up an Imperial battalion. This unit represents the Wallenstein infantry regiment, approximately 1000 men strong, at the battle of Lützen 1632. Each of the 10mm models represents some 10-15 men.

I struggled somewhat with how to represent this formation, getting far too bogged down with minutiae concerning the "footprint" such a unit would actually make. That's part of the problem of doing too much research. However, I am quite pleased with the end result, which sacrifices some historical accuracy to achieve the right visual effect.

The miniatures are based on 30x20 mm stands, which allows me to reconfigure them in various formations and for different gaming systems. The bases are made of steel, so I'll use a magnetized movement tray if I ever get the chance to play a game. I chose to separate the officers, ensigns and drummers from the main body of the unit so that I could set the models in different tactical formations. Also, this reflects the look of contemporary woodcuts, as shown below.

Contemporary depiction of infantry arrayed in "German composite style"

The regimental colours are loosely represented on the clothing of the colonel and drummer

Unit manoeuvring towards the enemy

Unit preparing to engage the enemy

Unit arrayed in "hedgehog"

Thirty years (war)

Today is my thirtieth birthday. This seemed like the perfect excuse for me to present one of my (many) side projects: Thirty Year's War in 10mm.

The Thirty Year's War is a very interesting and complex conflict, which is part of the stuff I research professionally. As a bonus, it's a very rich topic for wargamers due to the numerous large battles and dynamic campaigns involved.

For over a year, I've been toying around with the idea of building two opposing forces for this conflict. Inspired by the work of Sigur on the Warlord Games forum, I decided to go with 10mm miniatures from Pendraken and Old Glory. These minis are lovely, being very detailed yet small and simple enough to paint so that I can easily create large and visually appealing formations.

Here is the first such formation, the Swedish Västgöta cavalry regiment:

The full regiment - 8 stands with each representing roughly 50 men

My long-term aim is to model the Swedish and Imperial armies that fought at Lützen in 1632. The scale I use is approximately 1 miniature = 15-20 men. Even with this scale and 10mm miniatures this is quite a large project, which is why I'm approaching this more as a nice side project which to engage in when I feel inspired to paint some TYW stuff. Right now it looks like you'll be seeing more of this in the near future :)

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