Old Blue And Other Colours

[Friends of General Haig]

The Swedish infantry brigades in the Thirty Years War (TYW), with their elaborate ‘squadron’ formations, are for me an iconic part of the Swedish army in this period.  Representing these brigades on the table top provides an interesting challenge, and how they fought is also something interesting to explore in a wargame. 



I’ve just posted a blog entry that explores the early Swedish TYW brigades, and shows how I built my Old Blue brigade, and try to make it work under Pike and Shotte.  More discussion and picture here:
https://theviaregia.blogspot.com/2020/11/old-blue-and-other-colours.html



I’d be really interested to know how other people represent these brigades, and their experiences with them on the tabletop.

[Radar]

Some beautiful painting there. I particularly like the musketeer (middle picture) in the foreground with rest and motion. Looks the business. Great shade of blue too.

[Paul Richardson]

Very impressive. I really wish Warlord would bring out some more bespoke metal Swedish infantry to go with the 6 in your second photo. I can't see it happening any time soon, however. Their interest appears to be elsewhere. 

[FlyXwire]

Fantastic painting! 

The basing also works so well with your mat (great integration there).

[Friends of General Haig]

Some beautiful painting there. I particularly like the musketeer (middle picture) in the foreground with rest and motion. Looks the business. Great shade of blue too.

Thanks, Radar!  He’s one of the Warlord ‘Swedish Commanded Shot’ figures.  I think the Blue is Vallejo Prussian Blue, but there was a selection of blues used to give the impression of different issues of cloth.

Very impressive. I really wish Warlord would bring out some more bespoke metal Swedish infantry to go with the 6 in your second photo. I can't see it happening any time soon, however. Their interest appears to be elsewhere. 

Thanks, Paul! Agreed.  They have recently brought out some metal command figures so I hope they’ll continue to develop the range.

Fantastic painting! 
The basing also works so well with your mat (great integration there).

Thanks, FlyXwire!  I am a complete convert to textured matts.

[Radar]

Cheers FoGH. Vallejo Prussian blue a starting point to find shade or two lighter in order to get a similar effect with 15mm.

[OSHIROmodels]

Lovely 

A great mix of blues 

[Friends of General Haig]

Lovely 

A great mix of blues 

Thanks, Oshiro! Gotta love the blues! 

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Very pretty indeed. My kneejerk reaction would be "too uniform!", but then it's one of THE Swedish brigades, and after reading Laurence Spring's books my perception of uniforms or the lack thereof rather is a bit challenged. So it's cool. Yellow and Blue I also painted as being very yellow and rather blue.

AAaaaaanyway, the Swedish brigade is a super interesting topic, isn't it. I'm currently reading a book (War Games by Leo Murray); not much to do with the TYW on the whole, but there's a snippet in there in which a Colonel Werth recounts his experience of being at the receiving end of a Swedish charge during the TYW. It's pretty insane. He writes about the pikemen in the front, musketeers behind them and to their flanks, all advancing. When in pistol range the pikemen drop to the ground and the musketeers behind them fire a volley from three ranks. Immediately the pikemen hop up again and charge in.

It's very unlikely that such a thing actually happened this way, but a.) I found it interesting and b.) we just don't quite know what happened when the fighting started, right? I'm about to start reading more about the Swedish army again, and I'm very much looking forward to try out representations of the Swedish brigade on the table top.

[Friends of General Haig]

Thank you Battle Brush Sigur!

That is a very interesting account; thanks for the reference. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone firing black powder weapons like that over my head, but it would explain leading with the pike like that.

I wondered if it was a cavalry defence, but have also read somewhere that it was protect the shot behind from incoming fire while they advanced to salvo range.  No wonder being a pikeman was unpopular in GA’s army  .

All great ideas to play out on the table.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Indeed. As I said, the author of the book keeps mentioning that this is account is very, very hard to believe, but he uses it as an example for how the combination of speed, proximity and shock makes for a very good idea when attacking the enemy. Something like that.

Anyway - indeed an interesting topic. I'm not sure how easy it is to depict on the battlefield. A while ago I picked up the Forged in Blood rules by Ganesha Games, which is a TYW skirmish game. Maybe such a set of rules would help with that. Or just working out something based on Sharp Practice or Muskets&Tomahawks. I play larger battle games with 10mm figures which don't get further than "Swedish Brigades are allowed to switch between counting as pike-heavy or musket-heavy between game turns". Which isn't a bad way of handling it, but of course it's not as intricate as you'd probably want it to be.

The unique way Pike&Shotte handles ...well, pike and shot units as separate entities might actually help in this case. Very interested in hearing more about how you tackle the whole affair. Maybe there's a way of using Pike&Shotte on a slightly lower scale. That might work well for depicting how formations work together and all of that.