Uniforms of the 30 years war?

[Parrot]

I recently found some old warlord games pike and shotte minis that I had forgotten about and would like to paint them for the 30 years war, but I am having difficulty finding uniform information.  I am really looking for swedish colors and their protestant allies, but I will need imperial colors for them to fight at some point.  Would they even have uniforms at that time?  Would it just be a mix of colors with no pattern to it?  If there weren't uniforms, how could you tell the armies apart?

[Ragnar]

Caveat: I am very new to this period as well.  Others may come along and point out that I have spouted bollocks.

Having said that, my understanding is that this wa a transitional period regarding uniforms.  European armies of the time were in general not uniformed but at some point the Swedes began to uniform some infantry regiments.  Famously, they created 'colour' regiments; yellow, green, blue...  There was a thread on here not so long ago with a very nice Swedish force painted like this.  Also Dalauppror posts here quite often and has been showing off TYW stuff lately.

Having said that, this was a period of many mercenaries being used, I would imagine that many units, even in Swedish armies would not be uniformed.

AFAIK Swedish cavalry were not uniformed like the infantry.

[tom_aargau]

There is good painting guide for free on the Vexillia website, here the link:

http://www.library.vexillia.com/uniforms/Uniforms30YW.pdf

Tom

[Burnin Coal]

Thanks for the link tom_aargau - that's all very helpful information

[Atheling]

There is good painting guide for free on the Vexillia website, here the link:

http://www.library.vexillia.com/uniforms/Uniforms30YW.pdf

Tom

Martin has put together an excellent resource here!

Darrell.