Help Wanted & Current Projects

As regular readers will already have guessed, I am on something of a wargaming sabbatical.  I haven’t played a game since 06 March and my plan to play in July’s Stoke Challenge didn’t come to pass as the Field of Glory Renaissance (FOGR) competition was cancelled due to a lack of players.

The time since March hasn’t been wasted.  I have steadily increased my painting output and have even decided on my next mini-project: I’d like to create a 17th century Transylvanian allied contingent in 15 mm for the early part of the the Thirty Years War.

I’ve been doing a bit of research online and I’ve got  a very rough idea of what the various lancers and light horse will look like but I’m struggling to find suitable figures.  This is where you come in: any suggestions for figures and links to online resources would be really helpful.  What do you have?

Why a TYW Transylvanian ally?  Well it’s a result of circuitous (wargamers?) logic.

My third DBR army is a TYW Danish army.  My original plan was to create a generic army using mainly Donnington figures.  Then I would then create different sets of command base and generals to represent different TYW armies.  I’m not the only one to do this: TamsinP has also amassed a large TYW army using this approach.

Whilst still playing DBR I completed stage one with lots of core troops and a set of early Danish generals.  I never got to stage two.  This was mainly because I was sidetracked by my Renaissance Persian army but also because I was busy painting extra bases for all three of my Renaissance armies following the switch to FOGR.  I was amazed at how many extra troops I needed for even basic FOGR armies.

As I have written before I have a habit of buying extra units for my armies and putting them aside as mini-projects to complete when I feel like painting something different.  This almost brings me to the point. 

Since I’ve been on sabbatical I have completed a couple of these mini-projects and reached the point where, as far as my TYW army is concerned, I should move on to produce the command bases and generals for something other than the early Danish.

After perusal of the army lists I decided that I would design a early TYW German Protestant army.  As I began to look for flags it was pointed out on TMP that:

The thing is that FOGR, and most other rules, lump[s] together a large number of different armies [each] with their own unique identity under the label "Early German Protestant". What you realy have is:

• Bohemians & their close allies 1618-20
• 1st Army of Ernst von Mansfeld 1620-23
• Army of the Markgraf of Baden-Durlach 1621-22
• Army of Christian of Braunschweig 1621-23
• The Armies of the Elector of Saxony 1618-31
• The Army of the Elector of Brandenburg 1626-31
• 2nd Army of Ernst von Mansfeld. 1626
• Silesian army 1626-27

Of these the Saxon army looks the easiest to get flags for.  More about this in later post.

Anyway I noticed at the bottom of the list that Transylvanian allies were possible.  I was taken with this straightaway because these offer heavily armoured lancers (Gendarmes in FOGR) as well as cavalry and light horse armed with a wide variety of weapons including carbines and pistols.  All in all a really interesting contrast to the main TYW troops types.  They should also add some colour and be fun to paint.

And there we are: I am now looking for suitable figures for the Transylvanians and would appreciate your help.

Endnote; I'm aware of the Khurasan Miniatures range but I won't buy from them as, unlike all UK/EU businesses, they do not accept responsibility for lost or damaged parcels.