Getting organised... Finally

I've had a small collection of 40mm models for the later 30 Years War for some time but I could never quite decide what to od with them.  The problems were all of my own making. 

I used my own Romanoff miniatures casting together with some Sash and Saber and Drabant pieces  but was never consistent in what I actually built or painted. There were bits of all sorts. Bavarian French Scots Danes and the odd Spaniard, as well as models that were really ECW. Also I could not make my mind up about basing. The earlier models were on 25mm square for foot , the newer on 25mm round for use with sabots. Rules had not been thoght about except for a vague idea to use a variant of Young and Lawford's Charge! from the 1960s as an antidote to the  points based faff and organisational twaddle that is Pikemans Lament. A variant on Forlorn Hope was also a possibility but I wanted to game smaller actions  rather than full dress battles and I was daft enough to think PL would do the deed.  Well I got that wrong so the project went to the back of the shelf for a while even though I liked painting the models and completed to odd few here and there as the mood took me.

40mm Thirty Years War French.  Castings are from my own Romanoff Miniatures range all painted- slowly- by me. Flags are hand painted paper.

 I will probably still have to repaint a few Officers Sashes but finally I begin to have some actual units. What I actually fancy are the early campaigns of Marshall Turenne against the Spanish and Bavarians  and possibly the War of the Fronde in the early 1650s.  Lots of scope for small actions around sieges  and suchlike.  Also quite a few of the troops are pretty interchangeable.

 As for rules well - still a bit of a problem but nothing that can't be solved. Using Featherstone ECW rules as basis  but adding some command rules  might serve but I will need to test the theory as is using a Charge variant . What I don't want is the same old same old just because it is popular - indeed rather the opposite.

Close up of the pikes and colours in the centre. 

So here are pictures of a reinforced rebased and revamped Regiment Champagne chosen because my wife and I like Champagne and always have a bottle or three about the place. Next regiment for the French will be Picardy - with  some of the Queens Cavalry on the go as well. 

 The first officer for Picardy. He is a Sash and Saber figure converted by adding the half Pike the Sword and his hat from Romanoff parts.