Spanish Swordsmen

These are plastic figures for the board game Anno Domini 1666. I don't really care much about the game itself, but the figures look good, so I bought some of the expansion sets. They are useful for small urban skirmishes, or I can run the four swordsmen (including a NOT Viggo Mortensen Alatriste) for The Pikeman's Lament as a four figure Aggressive Forlorn unit.

España and Friends

I know there were only three of these, but being such a compact and useful (cough cough) design, I thought I could just make a fourth. So here I present the Spanish España-class dreadnoughts in all their might.

Working on them was not really an issue, quite straightforward designs. Their fighting ability is, however, severely limited, so I thought that my Spaniard-esque Imagi-Nation should include the stronger dreadnoughts ordered and/or completed by the South American navies as well. 

Their other purpose is that the Quisobian naval expansion, being rather close to Friegland, can prompt the development of better dreadnought designs. You could see the Nassaus in the previous post, and sooner or later all other dreadnought classes of the Imperial German Navy should join them, beginning with the Helgoland-class, a.k.a. the actually not that useles hexapodal arrangement.

I have included the "realistic" mode in my naval rules when reading up on these ships and early RN dreadnought classes. Players should choose if "realistic" firing arcs include doing damage to the firing ship, like the Españas could have done, had they used their center turrets to shoot across the deck. (This means that a Nassau's or Helgoland's eight-gun broadside is still heavier than the España's six.)

Light cavalry

As soon as I could gather enough painted figures for two or three posts, all the rechargeable batteries in the household ran out. I could snap six photos of these, and after ditching half of them, I came up with this post here.

You can see a unit of Spanish hussars (Zvezda Prussians) on the director's left, and Hungarian Insurrectio (Italeri French hussars on Esci horses) on the right.

Spanish reinforcements

Not strictly related to the 1809 project, I received a box of HäT gunners as part of a trade deal, to be used as Spaniards. While at it, I found some of the venerable Italeri Prussian Cuirassiers - the best multi-purpose set in my opinion; and then some Zvezda Prussian hussars which were used in one game then set aside for good. 

I stripped the hussars of their previous Prussian garments, and sculpted tarletons on the Italeri horsemen - after some strenuous work I had a unit of mounted Cazadores and Infanta hussars.

An actual Post

The fruits of my labor: two units of guerrillas, two limbers and some Russian Opolcheniye. Totally fitting together.

I'm working hard on the French and Austrians, and find it amazing what shows up from the bottom of my plastic pile (for instance, a complete unit of Voltigeurs).

The might of Spain

As you can see I've been a busy bee and finished about a hundred Napoleonic Spaniards. Three units of regulars, two units of militia and the Voluntarios de Valencia (the rest are quite generic in appearance, they are rather the opposite). I've found some Zvezda and Italeri French officers hidden in the plastic pile, and as I've already got my hands full of French staff, they changed sides.

Spanish Dragoons ep.2

The Napoleonic Spanish project continues with two more units of horse. These guys in bicornes look really nice.

Italeri figures with minor GS converting work, and some of the guys in blue ride spare Zvezda horses.

Spanish Dragoons

These early Peninsular uniforms look really cool. Another one of my New Year's resolutions was to expand the Napoleonic collection this way.

These were converted from the Italeri Prussian Cuirassiers (lol, no cuirasses) with a minimal amount of GS involved.

I've used a brown wash and multiple layers of highlight on the yellows, I think the results are quite good.

Proxy Armies

This is a Thirty Years War Spanish army made of wooden sticks. Four large infantry formations, eight groups of cavalry, two commanders and four cannon. It can be expanded later, and also used as a mercenary force in any theatre. 

The 'figures' are closest to 6mm. Infantry units have 75 sticks on five stands while cavalry 20 on two. The 'shot' stands have 12 sticks on them, the large pike blocks 24 pikemen plus command, including the regimental standard. Doing the maths, this means 300 infantry and 160 cavalry.